Lords Sitting of 22 February 1966

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

70 M.P.H. SPEED LIMIT EXPERIMENT
2.35 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the detailed arrangements for collecting information about, and analysing the results of, the 70 m.p.h. speed limit experiment, and whether they will give an assurance that no decisions will be made to extend the period of the 70 m.p.h. speed limit experiment or to introduce other similar experiments until a report justifying the results of the present experiment has been published and laid before Parliament.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF POWER (LORD LINDGREN): My Lords, I have written to the noble Lord, giving him details of the arrangements for assessing the results of the present experiment. In brief, there will be a preliminary assessment by the Road Research Laboratory in March, and additional information will be supplied at the same time by the police. The views of representative bodies will also be sought, including the motoring organisations, which have agreed to give us information based on their patrols' assessment of driver behaviour. A full Road Research Laboratory report will be published later in the summer. My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport and I will announce the results of the preliminary assessment of the 70 m.p.h. speed limit at the earliest practicable date, and, in doing so, we will set out the main factors leading to the decision taken. As I indicated to noble Lords on February 16, this may
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be to prolong the experiment, change it or drop it altogether, depending upon the evidence available. I can assure noble Lords that there is no question of introducing any general speed limit, other than on an experimental basis, until all the relevant factors, including adequate statistical results, have been completely assembled and published.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, am I to take it from the noble Lord's Answer that he is not prepared to give the assurance for which the second part of my Question asks?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I could, if the noble Lord can tell me when the General Election is to be.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that that is not an answer to my Question in any shape or form? Could he please address himself to the second half of my Question?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, if Parliament is sitting when this experiment finishes, a statement will be made in Parliament. If Parliament is not sitting, the Statement will be made other than in Parliament and will be justified in Parliament afterwards.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I, your Lordships' House and the public will take it that the noble Lord cannot give the assurance for which I have asked? May I ask him, by way of another supplementary, whether he feels that the provisional arrangement he mentioned that the report would be ready by mid-March will be sufficient for his right honourable friend and him to make further decisions about experiments?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, if it is not, then no decision will be made and the experiment might be carried on. Referring to the noble Lord's previous statement, I do not think that I could have been more explicit than I have been. If Parliament is sitting when the experiment comes to an end, a statement will be made in Parliament. If Parliament is not sitting, then Government has to go on. The noble Lord will know that under two Acts, of 1960 and 1962, for which his Government were responsible, the Minister for the time being has the right to extend the experiment and it

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can be for a longer or shorter period than the four months of the original experiment.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in a report from the Automobile Association, referred to in the Daily Telegraph of January 17, the Director of the Road Research Laboratory is quoted as saying that he did not think that a proper conclusion could be reached at that time? Therefore, would the noble Lord—since he will not give me any form of assurance—say whether he feels that a decision even to extend the experiment could legitimately be taken in that inconclusive state of affairs?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, with the greatest respect, I do not see how I can say anything more definite than I have already said.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that a notice warning motorists not to exceed 70 m.p.h. has been erected at the Maidenhead end of the M.4 motorway? Would it not be more logical to place it at the beginning or somewhere along the course of the motorway instead of at the end?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lord, it is all according to which way you come to it.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, if my noble friend would allow me to say so, whichever way he is going that advice is shown to the motorist as he emerges from the M.4 motorway.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I shall have to study his very indeterminate answer and perhaps return to this matter again?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I am most grateful because the noble Lord is going to study it. If he does, I am certain that he will then appreciate that many of his questions were pushing at an open door.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that it would be in the public interest to have a further trial period of four months without speed limits, so that by police observation and statistics a more accurate comparison might be made?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, that may be so. It all depends on the evidence that is available. After all, the results will be assessed on the basis of evidence which the Road Research Laboratory and the police will submit to my right honourable friend by the middle of March on an experiment of only about six weeks or two months.

RHODESIA: PAYMENT OF TANZANIAN SERVICE PENSIONS
2.43 p.m.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action is being taken in the case of 30 former members of Her Majesty's Oversea Civil Service now resident in Rhodesia whose pensions payable for service in Tanzania have not been paid by that Government since October, 1965.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND FOR THE COLONIES (LORD BESWICK):My Lords, arrangements have been made to pay loan advances to these pensioners from United Kingdom funds.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for that reply, stating that the British Government have now resumed responsibility for the payment of pensions in Rhodesia where the Tanzanian Government is in default. At the same time, would it not have been better if the British Government had not stopped the payment of pensions originally, a fact to which we drew attention in our debates in December, because we then feared that it would be followed by independent Governments as in this case it appears to have been followed?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I think I ought to make it clear that the Tanzanian Government is not in default. It has been paying the pensions, although they have been paid into a blocked account. Moreover, it is not true that the change in the method of payment here started with the Rhodesian difficulty the change began before that time.
LORD OAKSHOTT: My Lords, can the noble Lord say something about the responsibilities of Her Majesty's Government for the payment of pensions of all the civil servants of the defunct Central Africa Federation, about which there have been difficulties in the last few days?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords I shall be glad to answer any Question which the noble Lord may care to put down on the Order Paper.

GHANAIAN TAX ON OVERSEA CIVIL SERVICE PENSIONS
2.43 p.m.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that by a recent increase in income tax imposed by the Government of Ghana, former members of Her Majesty's Oversea Civil Service who served in that country have suffered an arbitrary deduction for tax purposes of their January, 1966, pensions, and that this has been carried out without prior notification, or assessment of the pensions of individual officers so affected, causing financial worry and a general feeling of insecurity over the whole question of pensions to former loyal servants of the Crown.]
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are aware that some Ghana pensioners are being required to pay higher amounts of tax without receiving assessments from the Ghana Government. There are no direct diplomatic relations with Ghana, but the representative of the protecting Power in Ghana has been asked to make representations to the Ghana authorities about the non-receipt of tax assessments by Ghana pensioners. The latest information is that the assessments will be sent without further delay.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, would he not agree that the position is most unsatisfactory? With the January pension payments pensioners received a notice from the Ghana Commonwealth
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Bank with a notification saying that their pensions had been subjected to tax deductions, and that their only course for rectification was to approach the Ghana income tax authorities. Would Her Majesty's Government not agree that it is altogether too much for individual pensioners to take up these questions with the Ghana income tax authorities, when experience has shown that they do not acknowledge the communications they receive, or give any replies to the letters which are sent to them?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I think it would be wrong for Her Majesty's Government to accept any responsibility in this matter. The responsibility for the levying of taxation is that of the Government of Ghana. But as the noble Lord probably knows, a delegation of representatives of the Oversea Service Pensioners Association has discussed this matter with the Ministry of Overseas Development, and I think that what can be done is being done.

THE DEFENCE REVIEW
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I make a short Business statement? At a suitable moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Shackleton will be making a Statement on the Defence Review.
The House will also be aware that the Order Paper to-day is particularly heavy, and I wonder whether noble Lords would bear that in mind. The House will adjourn during pleasure between 7.30 and 8.30 p.m., and it is hoped to adjourn for the conclusion of Business at 10 p.m. Dinner will be available.

ABORTION BILL [H.L.]
2.47 p.m.
Order of the Day for receiving the Report of Amendments read.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report he now received. This is a Report from the Committee stage, and I had hoped that this would be a straightforward Report stage in the usual way. But your Lordships will remember that I gave an undertaking that the Bill would be looked at again after the Committee stage, in conjunction with Parliamentary draftsmen, so that

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many of the difficulties of drafting could be remedied. Unfortunately, this has involved a good deal of redrafting, and the Bill in form, although not in actual content, is rather different from the Bill, with the Amendments, which emerged from the Committee stage.
It has been represented to me that although the Amendments which I put down were available to noble Lords on Friday morning, that did not give adequate time for Amendments to be moved to the revised wording. There is, of course, some force in that. There is also the point that some of the Amendments which have been put down are no longer applicable to the revised wording, if that wording proves acceptable. I therefore feel that it would be fair to the House to deal with as many Amendments as possible, and perhaps come to a decision on them, particularly those which do not affect the form of the Bill. In some cases, they are merely a repetition of what has been debated before, but under new names, while others are purely drafting. As to the rest, while one may make a comment about them, I will not move the Amendments in my name, and I hope that other noble Lords will take the same course, so far as their Amendments are no longer applicable to the revised wording. Then at the end of the proceedings I propose to move that the Bill be recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.
I hope that this course will commend itself to your Lordships. It will involve a saving of time to-day, but it will mean that further time will have to be given to the Bill later. I would only say to my noble friend and to his corresponding number on the other side, that if we proceed in this way, the Bill will have been fully threshed out by the time we have passed the Committee stage again, and we could then move quickly towards a Report stage and Third Reading.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Silkin.)
2.50 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I have listened with interest to what the noble Lord has said. Of course, if this Motion is carried we shall be starting a Report stage to-day. I took special care to see that I got the noble Lord's Amend-
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ments as soon as possible. I received them on Saturday morning, and I was able to draft Amendments and send them back so that they reached this House on Monday. Those were Amendments to the noble Lord's Amendments, and I do not think it is ever easy or satisfactory to deal with Amendments to Amendments.
I cannot entirely agree with the noble Lord that the changes be proposes are just matters of drafting. For instance, he has left out the provision requiring the consent of the woman and, indeed, there is an Amendment down in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, to provide for that in somewhat different wording. But it is the case that some of the Amendments tabled before the noble Lord's Amendments were tabled, would, as I understand it, fall. So far as I am concerned, I think the course which the noble Lord recommends is a convenient one. I gather that our discussion would then proceed almost immediately to a discussion of Amendment No. 5, which is in the name of the noble Baroness, and Amendment No. 6, on which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and I are for once in agreement. Therefore, I would assume that on Amendment No. 6 there need be no debate. I should also like the opportunity of moving Amendment No. 2, just to bring a point to the attention of the noble Lord and of the House, in the hope that the noble Lord could deal with the matter by the Re-committal stage and to give him the opportunity of tabling the necessary Amendment for that. Of course, this is a matter entirely for the House, but I must say that I should have thought we could deal with this matter more conveniently if we took the course the noble Lord has suggested.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I must confess that I find this procedure rather odd; and it is not the first time that I have found the procedure of your Lordships' House a little odd. Some of us have come here at great personal difficulty in order to move Amendments to which we attach great importance, and we now learn, without any notice whatever, that these Amendments are to be postponed to next Monday, which for us may or may not be a convenient day on which to move them. I personally feel very strongly, not only

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about Amendment No. 5, which I understand it is proposed to take to-day, but equally about Amendments Nos. 9, 10 and 11, which stand in the name of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne. I should have thought that, in view of the fact that the House has been convened in order to discuss these Amendments to-day, it would be right and proper that they should be discussed to-day and not postponed to a day of which we have had no notice.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, what I have to say is not in contravention of the proposed course because, as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, knows, I wish well to this Bill in some form or another. What has happened is something which has long been a grievance which affects every Member of your Lordships' House who does not sit on a Front Bench. This Bill came before your Lordships and was read a second time in one form; your Lordships discussed it in Committee in quite a different form, and now we are to have a Report stage on the form as amended in Committee. But in the interval the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has had the advantage of the assistance of Parliamentary draftsmen, and he is to move that the Bill be re-committed and that your Lordships consider it in Committee in the new form. As the noble Lord, Lady Wootton of Abinger, has so clearly said, I submit that that procedure is very unfair to your Lordships, although I know that your Lordships are capable of dealing efficiently with it, notwithstanding the disadvantages.
However, the point I wish to make is this. The Back Benchers in your Lordships' House have never been able to have the assistance of Parliamentary draftsmen in drawing up measures which they wished to submit to your Lordships for approval. The Back Benchers in your Lordships' House are conscious of a deeply felt grievance which they would like to put right by legislation; and the best way to do it is to consider what form that legislation should take. We have always asked whether we could have the services of Parliamentary draftsmen, and we have always been refused. I must say, in favour of the Government, that for the last year or two they have been much more helpful in this matter. I should like the Government to con-
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sider this, because it would make your Lordships' House much more efficient. It would prevent useless debates on matters which could not be dealt with, and it would assist a great many matters which ought properly to be dealt with.
What I should like to suggest is that some form of assistance to your Lordships from a Parliamentary draftsman should be provided. The ordinary Parliamentary draftsmen are much too busy, but if there were an Officer of your Lordships' House skilled in Parliamentary drafting who could be at the service of those Back Benchers, then I think it would greatly contribute to the efficiency of your Lordships, and would be a great boon to Back Benchers, and something they have always desired. I hope that the Government will consider this suggestion. Had the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, had the advantage of such assistance in the first place in relation to this Bill, this curious form of procedure would not have been necessary. We should have had a Bill which was properly drafted and we could have dealt with it on that basis. As it is, it was only last Friday that the Parliamentary draftsmen exercised their talent on it and entirely reorganised the Bill. I hope the Government will be sympathetic to this suggestion and come to our assistance.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, perhaps I ought to say one word on the last point, which the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, mentioned to me just before we came into the House. I think it would be quite impossible for any Government to promise to give unconditional assistance to any Back Bencher or non-Governmental Member who wished to bring forward an Amendment. I think that would be quite outside the bounds of possibility. I think that all the Government of the day can do is to be as liberal as possible, which I am glad to think this Government are being in the assistance they provide. But, as the noble Lord is aware, the work of the Parliamentary draftsmen is about as complex a job as any in the country. They are in short supply, and it would be quite impossible to express general sympathy with the noble Lord's proposition, although it will be considered.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I did not suggest that the normal staff of Parliamentary draftsmen should be engaged in this way. I suggested that it should be an extra Parliamentary draftsman on the staff of the House, who would rapidly acquire the necessary skill.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: That may well be so, but this gentleman would have to be at least as expert as the ordinary Parliamentary draftsman if he were to do the job.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am in sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, on the problems of procedure. I came here in order to take part in this debate—I wish I were more free to take a part in your Lordships' proceedings. In this case, some of us were prepared to discuss some aspects of the Bill, and some others. We could do the best we can to-day, and get as far as we can, and let the future look after itself.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, may I suggest a solution? I had tabled Amendments, which do not appear on the Marshalled List because I withdrew them on hearing that the whole of this Bill, apart from these particular provisions, would be re-committed. There is one Amendment I have tabled which I think would take precedence over the noble Lady's Amendment although it was to the same effect as her Amendment to Clause 2—namely, Amendment No. 9. It is a distinct and separate issue and it is bound to arise some time, and if it suits the noble Lady's convenience I would suggest that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, would agree that we should take that to-day, immediately after Amendment No. 6, and re-commit the rest.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I do not think there is any difference in principle about this. It is largely a matter of drafting. I am advised that it is the normal practice in the medical profession for doctors to carry out operations after obtaining the consent of the patient, and that there is no need to provide for it specifically in legislation. Members of the medical profession will be able to confirm that or otherwise. If that is so, then that is the reason why no reference is made to getting the written consent of the patient or guardian, but that is all there is between us. There is no inten-
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tion that doctors should take it upon themselves to carry out abortions without the consent of the patient. It is only a matter of wording.
As to the rest, I am sorry that my noble friend is inconvenienced, but I have been pushed around from all sides. I was quite ready to go on with the Report stage to-day in the normal way, but I have had strong representations made to me that it would be unfair and that noble Lords were being deprived of the opportunity of moving Amendments to the revised draft, and I think that is right. If, on the other hand, your Lordships would prefer to go right ahead, I am willing to do so.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, may I put this to the noble Lord? I think his late tabling of Amendments, which I have no doubt he could not help, has created a difficulty. Amendments have been tabled to those Amendments which do not appear on the Marshalled List, but that does not apply to Amendments 5, 6 and 9. Why should we not deal with those Amendments and with Nos. 10 and 11 if we have time, because they are connected with Amendment No. 9, and leave the Amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for consideration next Monday?
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I should be perfectly well satisfied if we could take to-day Amendments 5, 6, 9, 10 and 11. I do not think my noble friend can really say that the Amendments dealing with the consent of a woman to abortion are matters of drafting. They involve very grave matters of principle. Abortion is not like any other surgical operation, and I do not think that those Amendments can be pushed to one side.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, perhaps I may rise to make one comment about this. We are faced with a Marshalled List and it is the practice of the House that all Amendments are called. Therefore, if we were to proceed on the basis that I believe the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has suggested and to which the noble Lady has agreed, we should have to use (shall I say?) some restraint in this matter in that we should take up only those Amendments that we have agreed to do. If I may say so, as Chief Whip I am in some slight difficulty. As the House will be aware, we have

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considerable business in front of us, and if we are to have a protracted discussion to-day and then to have the Bill recommitted next Monday, and then have to go through another long procedure in order to discuss points, other important business is bound to be delayed or to be dealt with at an hour which is unfair, not only to the interests of those who have to take part but to the subject involved. Bearing in mind that all these Amendments would have to be called, I would hope that your Lordships could come to a decision now which the House would accept and would then respond only when those particular Amendments were called.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I would support that. The noble Lady mentioned Nos. 5, 6, 9, 10 and 11. I think Nos. 9, 10 and 11 could be discussed together. I did say that I should like to say a word or two on Amendment No. 2.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount has referred to Amendment No. 6, on which he was glad to find that we were in agreement, but in fact that Amendment is only a paving Amendment to No. 7, as he will realise, and it would be unfair to discuss No. 6 by itself, without also discussing No. 7. Amendment No. 7 gives rise to the important principle in the Bill of an abortion on a girl under sixteen. The point then is whether or not we want to discuss this to-day. I am perfectly willing to do so, but it would be quite wrong merely to delete paragraph (d) without putting in what I have proposed in substitution for it. I would suggest that we should leave that for another day.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, if the noble Lord takes that view I do not mind leaving Amendment No. 6 over until another day, but before he can move Amendment No. 7 he has to carry Amendment No. 6. I am sorry he seems to resent the fact that, for once, our names appear on the same Amendment, but the fact is that if we have got rid of paragraph(d)we shall be making some progress in the direction that he wants. I should be content to deal with that to-day, but it is entirely up to him; if he does not want it, I do not mind.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Clause 1:
Medical termination of pregnancy
1. Subject to the provisions of this Act it shall be lawful for a registered medical practitioner to terminate a pregnancy:
Provided that two registered medical practitioners, being either the pregnant woman's regular doctor and a registered medical practitioner employed in a hospital under the National Health Service or two registered medical practitioners so employed, certify in writing that in their opinion the termination of the pregnancy is necessary on the ground that—

(a) the continuance of the pregnancy would involve serious risk to the life or grave injury to the health whether physical or mental of the pregnant woman whether before at or after the birth of the child; Or

(b) the child if born would be likely to suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to deprive it of any prospect of reasonable enjoyment of life; or

(c) the pregnant woman is or will be physically or mentally inadequate to be the mother of a child or of another child as the case may be; or

(d) the pregnant woman is a defective o became pregnant when under the age of sixteen or as the result of intercourse which was an offence under section 128 of the Mental Health Act 1959 or section 97 of the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1960 (relating to sexual intercourse with patients).

3.8 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE VISCOUNT DILHORNE moved, after the first "shall" to insert "only". The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, I said that I wanted to say a word on this particular Amendment. I think it is the general desire of the House that a Statute should clearly lay down in what circumstances and on what grounds a pregnancy may lawfully be terminated, and that this Statute should replace the Common Law as it is now understood since Bourne's case.As the Bill stands, and as it would stand if all the Amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, were accepted, it would be lawful to terminate a pregnancy either under the Common Law as it now is or under this Bill if it becomes an Act.
I am sure that most of those who supported this Bill on Second Reading felt that if it were passed abortions would be legal only if the provisions of the Bill were complied with. If that be so, then there should be some provision in the Bill annulling the Common Law provisions, so that if the Bill is enacted, what is done lawfully can be done only

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under the terms of the Bill, whereas unless there is such provision it can be done either under the Common Law, under the Bourne'case decision, or under the Bill. I would ask the noble Lord to consider that point and I think he will find it necessary to table some provision to make that clear. Effect would have been given to it by the insertion of the word "only" as proposed by this Amendment, but, in fact, that Amendment would fall if Amendment No. 1 was discussed. I move this Amendment only to draw attention to this point.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 5 after (" shall ") insert (" only ").—(Viscount Dilhorne.)
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount is not pursuing this Amendment. I am quite willing to consider it and to seek advice on it, but I should like to understand whether he is laying clown a doctrine, that where there is Case Law which is subsequently translated into Statute, all the Case Law falls to the ground and cannot thereafter be relied upon. Is that the point he is trying to make?
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I am sorry if, by trying to deal with it very briefly, I have not made myself clear. I thought, and certainly it was my desire, to see Common Law replaced by statutory provisions in the clearest terms. I say "replaced". That means that what you will have to look at for the law is the Act of Parliament, not cases decided before the Act of Parliament came into existence. I think it would be confusing, to say the least, if after this Bill was enacted you could look at the statutory provisions and say, "It is lawful under the Statute, but over and above that I can act independently of the Statute, without following the procedure laid down by the Statute, without reporting the matter to the chief medical officer, under the decisions of the Common Law in Bourne'case and subsequent cases."
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount has made his intentions perfectly clear, and I am grateful to him for raising it now with the object of considering it again on recommittal; because this is an extremely im-
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portant matter. This word "only", if inserted in the Bill, will be a change of major significance. I would submit for your Lordships' consideration one or two possible consequences. If we are to have provisions such as the noble and learned Viscount has suggested, there will be other consequential Amendments which I am sure will be necessary. For example, if the noble and learned Viscount will just read the clause with his phrase, he will see that it will read:
" Subject to the provisions of this Act it shall only be lawful for a registered medical practitioner to terminate a pregnancy …"
if the conditions set out in the Bill are satisfied. In other words, it would be this Bill and nothing else—not the Common Law. It would appear in that case that it would exclude a doctor inducing childbirth. These are the kind of matters that should be considered. Artificially induced childbirth is, of course, termination of pregnancy. Another possibility arises in regard to Amendment No. 1. It has not been moved, but next Monday we shall be considering a different form of words beginning the Bill. Circumstances may arise where it may be necessary, in order to save a life, to waive not only the place of the operation but the need for a concurring opinion. There is another Amendment on the Order Paper, which we are not taking to-day but which might be ruled out by the word "only" unless we had yet another Amendment.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I might save a little time by saying I was not proposing to argue this Amendment to-day. I put the word "only", as I thought conveniently, for raising this very important point. All I am seeking to secure is that there is consideration of what I think is a very important question, namely, that you do not have abortions lawfully performed under the Common Law and also lawfully performed under the Statute intended to replace the Common Law. How it is achieved is perhaps a matter we can discuss on Monday. I was not seeking to argue it or to say that this Amendment was the best for the purpose.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount. I did understand that. The position is that in the view of the Government it is advisable to make it clear

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to-day that when you make a thing exclusive there are all sorts of considerations which then arise which might have to be covered, and we have not yet had time to consider all the possibilities from the medical point of view. For example, there are some 2,800 therapeutic abortions in hospitals. Many of them might not be covered by the Bill if we had the word "only" in it. I would say, therefore, that before accepting this position we should have to be certain that all circumstances in which abortion could properly be performed had been covered. I hope that all these considerations will be borne in mind before next Monday when we come to this matter again.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.14 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER moved to leave out paragraph (c). The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I very much regret that for urgent personal reasons I was not able to be present in your Lordships' House at the earlier stages of this Bill, and I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I take this opportunity of making abundantly clear that I am not opposed in any sense to the intention of this Bill. Indeed, I should greatly welcome the Bill; no one would welcome more than I a Bill which did something effective to get rid of the back-street abortion. I would assure my noble friend that I am entirely with him in his intention on this. What I do criticise is the fact that I think this Bill has gone very much beyond this and into fields into which we are not justified in entering.
The particular provision to which I now take exception is paragraph (c), which provides that an abortion may be performed if
" the pregnant woman is or will be physically or mentally inadequate to be the mother of a child or of another child …"
This is a very profound decision for anybody to make about anybody else: that that other person is not, or will not be in nine months' time, physically or mentally fit to be the mother of a child. I doubt very much whether many of your Lordships would like to make that decision in an individual capacity; and if we are not prepared to make
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it in an individual capacity we should think more than once about making it in our collective capacity. At the Committee stage my noble friend Lord Silkin quoted a number of possible examples in which he felt that that decision might well be rightly made. But in making a provision of this kind we have to think not only of when the decision will be rightly made but, equally, when it might be wrongly made.
Let me put to your Lordships what I think is a by no means unlikely case. Suppose there is a husband who is selfish—and there are selfish husbands—who does not wish to be bothered with children, who does not wish to have the expense of providing for children. And suppose that, when he finds that his wife has become pregnant, he sees the family doctor and tells him that his wife is extremely neurotic, is not fit to be a mother, and gives a certain amount of information which perhaps would support that view. This paragraph lays upon the doctor an extraordinary burden of responsibility in assessing the validity of that information. Unless he is intimately acquainted with the family, and unless the second doctor who is called in is equally intimately connected with the family—which is very improbable—neither of them will be in a position to assess that information. The doctor may feel that there are great tensions in the marriage, and that the fact of the pregnancy is going to aggravate those tensions, and that, in the interests of the marriage, it might be better to terminate the pregnancy. And the woman herself may give her consent (although my noble friend intends later, I think, to move an Amendment removing the explicit requirement of consent) merely because she feels that this is the only way to make peace in the home.
That is not an improbable situation. It is perhaps a situation which we have all known in our personal experience. I do not think that it is a responsibility which ought to be put on the doctor, or that the doctor is able in certain cases to discharge it with full knowledge of all the circumstances. My noble friend quoted in Committee a large number of cases in which he felt that this principle would be properly applied. Some of them he may probably be anxious to reconsider. I think that when he referred to shoplifters he was perhaps carried a

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little too far by his own eloquence. But among the cases quoted was that of a woman who is married to a drunken and ne'er-do-well husband. Can you imagine its being actually laid down that a woman who is married to a drunken and ne'er-do-well husband is physically and mentally inadequate to be a mother? It might be reasonable to write into this Bill a provision that her husband is physically and mentally inadequate to be a father; but no such suggestion has been made.
LORD SILKIN: I did not write this into the Bill. There is nothing in the Bill about that at all.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: This is one of the examples which my noble friend quoted, and it is one of the situations which he contemplated. If what my noble friend said in Committee is to be carried out in fact, a woman who is in that position may find that she is marked as being physically and mentally inadequate to be a mother.
There were also a number of references to slum conditions, to women who have a number of childen in slum conditions, and to what we call problem families. We know that it is distressing that many children are born into physical and environmental conditions which are deeply regrettable. But I should have thought that we were tackling this problem from entirely the wrong end, and that particularly my noble friends on these Benches were doing so. What we are concerned about is the removal of slum conditions rather than the removal of the birth of children. After all, it is something which my noble friends on these Benches have stood for for a good many years. It is also true that many children who are born into what are, physically and environmentally, unsatisfactory conditions—let us admit it—are greatly loved. I have known many problem families which show much greater warmth and affection than others who were entirely respectable and in which all the beds were made by mid-day—a test which is sometimes applied, I think, in determining the standard of a family.
I believe that we can learn something from experience in another field, that of adoptions. In that field we are much stricter—perhaps illogically, perhaps rightly—about parents who may adopt a child
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than about parents who may beget a child. But we can learn something from experience of adoptions. I have taken part in a large number of adoptions. I recall one or two cases in which, I must say, I and my colleagues took what one can only regard as a big risk; and the risk has paid off. I recall one case in which a couple who had a long criminal record, including a record for criminal abortion, for keeping a brothel and for keeping a child in a brothel, wished to adopt a child. Rather surprisingly, having review the whole circumstances, the court made the adoption order. I have kept in touch with that case. The child is now grown up and the adoption has been an absolutely "corking" success. The child has turned out admirably. The parents have abandoned all their criminal ways and are living extremely useful and respectable lives, largely owing to the child's influence.
You may say, that in a case like this the child did not share the biological inheritance of the parents. Actually, I think the child probably did, because I think it was a relative—but we let that pass. But in many of the cases which my noble friend Lord Silkin quoted, no biological inheritance would have been shared. So far as I know, shoplifting is not biologically inherited.
LORD SILKIN: It could be.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF AB1NGER: My noble friend says that it could be. To me, this is a new and revealing line about the limits of biology. I think that this is a serious matter. It affects profoundly the liberty of the individual, and a vital liberty of the individual.
What this provision, as it stands, really proposes to do is to say that people of whom we do not approve are not to propagate, and to lay upon the medical profession the responsibility of deciding of whom we do approve and of whom we do not approve. I do not think that this is a responsibility that many of the most distinguished members of the medical profession wish to carry. In that opinion I am reinforced by the name of the noble Lord, Lord Brain, in support of this Amendment; and I think and hope that I may claim also the support of the noble Lord, Lord Amulree. This is not a responsibility that they wish to carry. It is not a responsibility that they ought to

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carry, because in this responsibility much more than medical issues are involved. Moral and social issues are involved. It is not for us, and it is not for the doctors, in the present state of knowledge—perhaps not in any state of knowledge—to say who is to have the right to propagate children and who has not. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 20, leave out paragraph (c).—(Baroness Wootton of Abinger.)
3.28 p.m.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I wish to support the noble Baroness in the deletion of this paragraph. Let me first refer to the place of this paragraph in the Bill as a whole. During the Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, went so far as to say that this is about the most important clause in the Bill—in fact, the only thing which makes much difference. I think that that judgment should be challenged. What, then, is the rest of the Bill for? What, then, has been the point of the many hours spent, carefully, on all the other provisions of the Bill? Quite obviously, the Bill has considerable value. Parts of it have much value to my own views on this matter, quite apart from this provision which some of us believe to be most undesirable.
I note that the Bill on this subject that has been introduced into another place lacks this provision; yet it is evidently thought worthwhile by its promotors. My own belief is that the paragraph we are discussing is so bad that, if it is allowed to remain, it will vitiate the Bill. I was sorry that I had to be absent during the greater part of the debate on the Committee stage; but when, while addressing an audience in another part of the country, I was asked for my views on this subject, I said that I greatly deprecated this paragraph as it seemed to me to admit abortion for almost anything. I subsequently asked myself if those words had been an exaggeration. But then I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Cones-ford, who always uses words with great care, went further than my "almost anything" by using the phrase "absolutely anything ". Are phrases like that really exaggerations or not?
I noted very carefully the various forms of inadequacy in the mother that were
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mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and it is important to remember that the catalogue was not necessarily an exhaustive one. These were specimens of the inadequacy about which he was pleading—the woman in prison, the woman who is a persistent offender, the woman who is a shoplifter, the alcoholic, the drug-taker, the woman who has to go out to work in hard circumstances; and illnesses which, while they do not effect the pregnancy itself, will nevertheless make her less able to bear the burdens of motherhood.
It is important to analyse this variety of grounds and see the variety of principle behind them. The varieties of priciple are these: the woman physically strong but in sad moral circumstances; the woman with certain defects of character; the woman who is very unhealthy; the woman with hard physical circumstances in her life, and the woman with various illnesses. This big variety of categories will provide the case for abortion. While I think it would be an exaggeration to say that the categories amount to "almost anything ", or "absolutely anything ", it seems inevitable that for the forming of a judgment on the rightness of the abortion in any of these cases an almost unlimited range of considerations will come into view. What sort of judgment is the doctor to be asked to make?—not only a medical judgment coming under paragraph (a ), but judgments about the woman's moral state, about her social relationships, about her economic position, and about her future moral and spiritual capacity, which is a matter concerning which human powers of prophecy are very limited indeed. It seems inevitable that there is going to be arbitrariness if the doctor or a group of doctors form a judgment on this whole range of human circumstances.
What about the child and what about the mother? Society must do its utmost to help both in all the sorts of circumstances to which the noble Lord referred. But one recalls children born of pretty unhappy circumstances. Society has cared for them, and they have turned out to be happy and useful, and it seems impossible to say that the fœtus ought originally to have been destroyed. As for the mother, I feel the utmost sympathy with the mother in many of the circumstances described; and I am sure

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we can all understand that human sympathy is equally divided on both sides of the discussion about this Clause. We have all had to help people at different times in heartbreaking circumstances, and I think that the sympathies of all of us have had a very great deal of experience. Because I feel that sympathy, I was very glad to hear it stated by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, with his great medical competence—and one gets this from other medical evidence, too—that the hard cases of danger to life and health mentioned by the noble Lord would sufficiently come within Clause 1(a). That is very reassuring indeed.
I will say a word more about sympathy. I believe that a true sympathy with human nature includes a certain reverence for its capacity to overcome troubles with the aid of society and with the spiritual help that God can give. I think it would be undesirable to legislate in disregard of these lovely factors about human nature. I had brought with me one or two stories from my own personal experience about mothers quite well known to me, who would certainly have been ruled out as inadequate—and yet the final issue was good and glorious. But the illustrations given by the noble Baroness were to my mind so good and so convincing, that I have no wish to add to them at all.
I want this Bill to pass. My fear is that the inclusion of this paragraph will make the Bill a Bill that will not deserve to pass. I have little doubt that in the Committee stage a number of noble Lords voted for this paragraph, and against the Amendment to delete it, in the belief that it was somehow progressive: that it was a sign of being progressive to support this particular part of the legislation. I do not believe that this paragraph is the way of progress at all. I believe the way of progress is along the line of that limited legislative provision concerning abortion on which the distinctions are carefully drawn in the document known to some of your Lordships, which I believe it to be a very valuable document, called Abortion—An Ethical Discussion.I think the way of progress lies along a limited legislation on that path, and in doing far more for the helping of homes and mothers to avoid the troubles coming, and, when they do come, to show what human nature can do with the aid
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of the spiritual resources available and with all the help that society can give.
3.47 p.m.
LORD SOPER: My Lords, I hope that I may follow with a sense of due seriousness and responsibility of what has already been said. If I take and endeavour to support the contrary view, it is not because of any sense that this is either a trivial matter, or indeed a matter upon which the advocacy of various reasons for which this particular provision should not operate is sufficient to justify a negation of this clause. In listening to my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger it seemed to me that she spent a great deal of her time saying that in certain circumstances, as I entirely agree, it would be highly improper to regard this clause as operative. This does not necessarily deal with those particular issues which might make the clause operative, and in my judgment would do so—questions of acute alcoholism, questions of chronic sickness aggravated by numerous pregnancies.
It seems to me that this has to be faced in the first instance as a matter of principle, because the whole conception of abortion is rooted in principle, or rather it is rooted in what has been assumed to be principle, the Christian principle; that it is inherently sinful because the semen is the vital fluid and the woman, traditionally, is merely the receptacle of this vitality, and because of the sacrosanct nature of the fœtus. This argument reminds me of the schoolboy's report which read, "This boy's writing has now so vastly improved that we can at last see how very bad his work is". The more critically this particular and traditional principle is examined, the more insupportable it becomes in the light of what we are pleased to call modern scientific knowledge.
I think it would be honest and right for us who are churchmen to admit that we have got ourselves into a mess. Having disposed of one series of arguments, we have not yet taken sufficient trouble to arrive at a better system of arguments. The disarray in the Church Assembly, which would be paralleled, I am quite sure, in the Methodist Conference if we were to be exposed to the same kind of argument, suggests that we have not sufficiently thought out what is the position which must take the place of

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that traditional attitude which is now insupportable and must necessarily be rejected.
It seems to me that here is a breach in the traditional principle. When once you admit that for any reason at all an abortion is justifiable, then the matter no longer becomes an absolute question. It is circumstantial and speculative, and for various reasons we have to ask ourselves what are the conditions in which abortions are justifiable, because in some conditions they are. I believe there is good cause for believing that such reasons as are found in this clause are justifiable. As the noble Lord, Lord Reay, said very cogently the last time this matter was discussed in your Lordships' House, it is of vital importance precisely because it underlies about 80 per cent. of the abortions which are desired. Secondly, it is of vital importance, as The Times records this morning, because it at least investigates the possibility of voluntary social eugenics. If this is so, then it ought to be recognised for what it is—a very large increase in the area for which abortions are possible, and a test of the adequacy of our own principles with which we seek to face this problem.
Once the door has been opened; once there is a "justifiable reason" for abortion; once abortion is regarded as the continuation of an intervention which starts with contraception; once it be agreed that one cannot say at what precise stage the soul enters the body—in fact, I would not believe that the soul ever enters the body; I believe that the soul and the body are alternative ways of looking at the same reality, but, whatever the speculative philosophy in this matter may be—that for certain reasons it is justifiable to terminate a pregnancy, then I want most strenuously to advocate that here, if anywhere in the whole realm of social eugenics and the whole concept of our responsibility for using the implements of our wisdom and the instruments which have been put into our hands, I believe by God, we have a responsibility which we cannot discharge.
If there are verbal difficulties in this particular clause, let us deal with them. But you do not repudiate a debt by finding a fault in the drawing of the IOU. You do not repudiate a debt that you owe because it happens that the date is wrongly stated or the amount is wrongly
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calculated. We have a responsibility which is thrust upon us. A man who falls off a roof cannot halfway down decide what he is thereupon going to do. Better still, if you put your hand to a plough it seems to me that you cannot at an arbitrary moment refuse to finish the furrow.
There are many occasions, and with great eloquence the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, exposed them and ridiculed them as properly she had so to do, when it would be highly improper to terminate a pregnancy on the grounds that the husband would like it, or that the woman would fear the results of that pregnancy. But as a practising parson I know of many others where, awaiting the arrival of that blessed age when circumstances and general social conditions and medical supervision will give added opportunities of a full life to all, we dare not, it seems to me, withdraw from this battle at this stage. Whatever new desired and desirable amendments ought to be made to the framing of this provision, I believe it is integral to the worthwhileness of the Bill and I most earnestly support it.

THE DEFENCE REVIEW
3.45 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE FOR THE ROYAL AIR FORCE (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to intervene to repeat a statement which is being made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence in another place on the Defence Review, details of which are set out in Part I of the Statement on Defence Estimates 1966/67,which has been available for an hour in the Printed Paper Office. The Statement is as follows:
" The House will recall that, on taking office 16 months ago, Her Majesty's Government set itself to halt the runaway growth in Britain's Defence expenditure by planning to limit the size of the Defence budget in 1969/70 to that of 1964/65—or£2,000 million at constant prices. As we stated in last year's Defence White Paper, we assumed responsibility for forces which were seriously overstretched and in certain respects dangerously under-equipped. It has been

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an equally important objective of the Defence Review to bring our commitments into balance with the manpower and equipment we could afford to have.
" We have already done better than the financial target of £2,000 million in the Estimates for 1966–67, since they represent only £1,972 million at 1964 prices. Part I of the White Paper indicates how we plan, not only to stay within the same financial target in three years' time, but also to undertake a major programme of re-equipment, and to reduce the over-stretch from which our forces still suffer. In order to ensure the achievement of these objectives we have had to make a new assessment of the part which our armed forces should play in supporting our foreign policy in the 1970s, and of what rôle Britain should play in world affairs. It has been essentially an exercise in political and military realism.
" The results may be summarised as follows. Broadly speaking, in cutting the previous Government's planned expenditure by 16 per cent. or£400 million, we have achieved three-quarters of our saving by getting better value for money and only one-quarter by reductions in our military capability. In order to reduce over-stretch we plan to cut our tasks overseas and then to keep a larger proportion of our forces in a home station and fewer abroad, and to rely more on reinforcement by air in an emergency. This has meant certain changes in our current political commitments overseas.
" We plan to reduce substantially the deployment of our forces in the Mediterranean; from 1968 we shall give up the Aden base and confine our presence in the Middle East to the Persian Gulf; in the Far East we shall cut the level of our forces once confrontation is over; and, within a few years, we shall maintain no forces permanently deployed in the Caribbean or Southern Africa. We shall be able to keep our forces in Germany at the present size only if the foreign exchange costs are met. We have made it clear that, in future, Britain will not accept commitments overseas which might require her to undertake major operations of war without the co-operation of allies; nor shall we attempt to main-
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tain defence facilities in any independent country against its wishes.
" Against this background we have taken certain major decisions on the equipment of our forces. The Canberra strike/reconnaissance aircraft must be replaced by 1970. The Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft, which is the core of our long-term operational and industrial aircraft programmes, will not be available until the mid-1970s. We have therefore decided that the only way of bridging the gap is to buy the smallest possible number of F.111As from the United States, and to supplement these aircraft with the V-bombers which will be released from their current strategic role when the Polaris submarine force is fully operational. The foreign exchange cost of the F.111A purchase will be met by sales of British equipment to the United States and third countries.
" We shall keep our existing carrier force as long as possible into the 1970s, but we shall not order a new carrier. In the light of the military tasks we envisage, and of the operational return we can expect from its cost of £1,400 million over the next 10 years, we do not believe that we should be justified in keeping a carrier force indefinitely. A new carrier could not become operational until 1973, when the rest of our carriers would be in the last phase of their active life. By the mid-1970s we should be able to reprovide the necessary elements of the carriers' capability more cheaply by other means.
" I believe that the majority of the House recognise that it has become essential to stop the automatic rise in British Defence expenditure. As a result of its Defence Review, Her Majesty's Government have found a way of doing so without defaulting on Britain's commitments to her allies and partners in the Commonwealth, and without abandoning her influence either inside or outsidé Europe. Those who believe we have failed to bring our commitments and resources into proper balance must have the courage to say whether in their view the Government should spend more on defence, and where they will get the money, or cut Britain's commitments further and, if so, where."
3.51 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, your Lordships will be obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for repeating this Statement. It is a very grave Statement which, in my view, will call into question, and does call into question, the whole of Britain's position throughout the world. My Lords, we on this side will ask for an early debate in which we can discuss these matters, and I will confine myself this afternoon to saying only three things.
First, those of us who sit on this side of the House think it quite wrong to tackle the admittedly costly and difficult problems of Defence by setting a financial target without regard to commitments. It may be politically popular, but it is thoroughly irresponsible. Secondly, so far as I can judge, the Government have cut no commitments of any consequence; and, consequently, the artificial financial ceiling will make it impossible to honour those commitments. If it be said that Aden is a cut in commitment, I would point out that it is not: it is a cut in the means of honouring our commitments. May I ask the noble Lord why it is necessary to say now, firmly, that we shall have no base in Aden in 1968? Is there anything more likely to cause political unrest in the intervening years than to announce in advance the creation of a military vacuum?
Lastly, my Lords, I view almost with despair the announcement of the decision not to order an aircraft carrier. This, in my view—and I speak with four years' experience as First Lord of the Admiralty—is the end of the Royal Navy as a force capable of global operation. How can it so operate when deprived of all its air reconnaissance and of all but a trivial part of its offensive armament? In the light of this decision, I do not believe that, for morale and other factors, the Fleet Air Arm can continue for more than a very short time.
My Lords, the Government seem determined to deprive themselves and, what is perhaps even more important, their successors of the flexibility and mobility of the Royal Navy and its comparative lack of dependence on foreign bases. I believe they are disastrously and wholly wrong, and we shall do everything in our power to reverse this decision.
LORD REA: My Lords, from these Benches I should like also to thank the noble Lord for his Statement. I think this position to-day shows the very clear division between the three Parties, for the smallest of which I speak. We, as the Liberal Party, would admire Her Majesty's Government for having taken the steps which they have taken, to some extent. We have said for a long time that our commitments are far too big and that the money available is far too small. We should therefore like to cut the money and the commitments, and we hope that Her Majesty's Government will see their way to doing this. Like the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, I should not like to prolong this intimate debate. I think we must all have great personal sympathy for him, whom we all admire, as the last First Lord of the Admiralty, in taking the particular line which he has. But, my Lords, we are not the nation that we were. The world is changing; we cannot act in such a wide sense; nor shall we ever have the money again to act as widely as we should like.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington: we cannot debate this matter now. Clearly, in his careful statement, he has indicated the views of the Opposition in criticism of this Defence Review. I would appeal to your Lordships to read it very carefully. This Review is the result—and this is a definite fact—of the most intensive series of studies that has been put into effect in this country. I do not agree with the noble Lord when he says that we have not brought our commitments into line with our financial target. We could discuss this point at great length, but I hope when the time comes he will tell us how else he would have organised it.
The noble Lord asked me why it was necessary to make an announcement about Aden now. This is one of the most delicate political judgments that any Government can make; but it seems to me fundamental that, if we are to disengage from a certain area of the world, we should not mislead the people whom we hope, afterwards, will achieve an established and settled way of government. It seems to me that it is a matter

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both of honesty and of prudence that they should be told.
On the question of the carrier, I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington—who, of course, was not the last First Lord; the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, was the last First Lord—feels very strongly, and in the circumstances I think it would be perfectly right to depart from the usual rule of not referring to the advice that is given by the Chiefs of Staff and to indicate that many of the Naval Board were not in favour of, and, indeed, were strongly opposed to, cutting the carriers. It seems to me quite right, in honesty to them and to the understanding of their position in the Service, that this should be said. I do not propose to pursue this point further than saying that their views did not prevail, and that in the very intensive series of studies the conclusion was arrived at that, unless we had a large force of carriers—and let me make it clear to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. and to the House that no new carrier has been ordered in the last 20 years—and unless we were to see a prolongation of the carrier force, followed by CVA 01 and followed by several other carriers, we were arriving at the least cost-effective solution to the problems. My Lords, we shall no doubt have an opportunity to discuss this, but I think the noble Lord. Lord Carrington, will find that not all those who sit on his Benches agree with him on this matter.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I do not want to continue this discussion, but the noble Lord very fairly said that many of the Naval Staff did not agree with this decision not to continue with the carriers. I think, in all fairness, he ought to say whether there were any who agreed with that decision.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I think I have really gone as far as I can. Let me just say, "the members of the Navy Board ". The noble Lord, in fairness, must not press me. I have tried to be fair by indicating that the members of the Navy Board were opposed to this decision.
LORD CARRINGTON: You said "many".
LORD SHACKLETON: I think I said "many of the Naval Staff", but I am
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sorry; I will say "the members of the Navy Board". I hope the noble Lord will not press me on this matter, because, if so, I shall have to indicate that there are others, in all the Services, who fully agree with this decision.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I do not, of course, want to press the noble Lord (I am not at all sure he should have said what he did, and I know he was trying to be helpful) but the implication of what he said—that many of the Navy Staff do not agree with this—was that some of them did, and I think that is very unlikely.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, could I also thank the noble Lord for repeating this Statement? It struck me as having a much higher political content than Statements of this sort, to which we are accustomed, normally do; and, indeed, to sound in certain respects more like an electioneering pamphlet than a considered Statement of Defence policy. Secondly, I should like to say that I take issue with the reference to the runaway costs of Defence under the last Administration. This bears very little relation to reality, and, here again, I feel it is another myth which Labour Party propagandists are anxious to foster at the present time.
Having said that, could I ask three questions of the noble Lord? I noted what he had said about the reduction in the deployment of our forces in the Mediterranean. Can he assure the House that, nevertheless, the Government will be able in the future fully to honour their obligations toward the CENTO Powers? Secondly, on the F111 buy, there was reference to the foreign exchange costs of the buy. Can he tell us what the foreign exchange costs will, in fact, amount to? Can he also, in that connection, assure the House that there is, in fact, a definite agreement with the French Government now to go ahead with the development of the variable geometry aircraft?—otherwise there may be serious disquiet in France about this particular decision. Thirdly, in echoing what the last First Lord but one has said about the disastrous decision regarding the carriers, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Government really mean to say that the fully modernised "Eagle" and the fully modernised "Ark Royal" would not

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have been effective operationally within the latter half of the next decade?
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, would the noble Lord perhaps agree that, given our existing resources, the real choice before Britain as revealed in this Review—which, I confess, like other noble Lords, I have had no more than a moment to glance at—is whether to become an effective European or an increasingly ineffective world Power? And, in the second place, would the noble Lord agree that there is no inherent reason—there is none so far as I can see—why we alone among the medium-sized Powers should voluntarily assume any individual world peace-keeping mission?
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord just two questions? He referred to the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft in his Statement, and he went on to say that both operationally and industrially this aircraft is the core of our long-term—I repeat, long-term—aircraft programme. In the White Paper it is said that this aircraft will come into service in the mid-1970s. Does he not think that possibly greater stress could have been placed on Anglo-French co-operation on an intermediate or immediate-term aircraft programme? Because as one goes through the White Paper one reads about the long-term implications of the Defence Review on the aircraft side and of co-operation with France, which is so important. But does the noble Lord not agree that greater stress could have been placed on intermediate or short-term objectives; and, for instance, would he not then think that greater attention could have been paid to the advantages of the Spey-Mirage which was available as from 1969, for otherwise we should become excessively dependent on American advanced technology?
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, as my noble friend has been asked so many questions from the other side, may I ask him one or two more? First, is he not aware that all the patriots in this House are not on the other side? Secondly, is he not aware that if we were to lay down an aircraft carrier now it would probably take seven to ten years to build, and that by that time the progress in the building of killer submarines
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would be such that they could blow it out of the sea in ten minutes? Thirdly, is he not aware that the Party on the opposite side have left this country gravely undefended during the last thirteen years? And, fourthly, if it is so urgent that we should have an aircraft carrier built now, why was it not laid down in the last thirteen years?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, before we get too far into the next General Election, I wonder whether the noble Lord could possibly answer my question.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I think that perhaps this is turning into a debate, and if the noble Lord would reply, as he is only too anxious to do, I would hope that that would be an end of it for the moment.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am only too happy to reply. I was trying to save the time of the House by allowing noble Lords to ask their questions, which was a practice followed regularly when noble Lords on the other side sat on this side of the House. May I thank the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, for his extremely helpful questions, the answers to which, I think, are apparent to all noble Lords on this side and, I suspect, to some noble Lords on the other side. On the subject raised by the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, I should be willing to debate the merits of the Spey-Mirage 4 and the F 111; but I do not think there is time. I would only say, with absolute certainty, that it was the combined view of all those who studied this matter, that in fact the F 111 best meets our needs and best fits into the time-scale of the Anglo-French aircraft. I may say that I have no reason to suppose that the French Government do not fully understand our position; indeed, it has been explained, and I have not heard any criticism.
I should have acknowledged the helpful remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Rea. I have been stimulated to say that the policy of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, certainly appeals to some people in the House and in the country, but it does not, in my view, represent the views of the other two political Parties; nor do I reckon that it represents the views wholly of his own Party. It seems to me that we are confronted with

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a series of difficult choices. We have attempted to arrive at the best answer which will enable us to fulfil our obligations—and they are very important obligations—in keeping the peace of the world. It is all very well to assume that we can just opt out; but I think we have a duty, and that it is in our own interests to contribute to maintaining the peace in areas of the world other than Europe.
The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, was anxious to have an answer to his questions. It rather surprised me when he talked about elections and about the terms of the Statement—he is trying hard to be a good Conservative and I noticed this coming out in his opening remarks. I can only say that if the last Government considered that the views on runaway costs are different from those they believed, their realities were a dream world. This Government will be in a position to honour their obligations in the Mediterranean within the limits of our power; in fact, I would hope that we shall be in a better position to do so, because of the better and more efficient organisation of our defence forces.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, may I, while still attempting to be a good Conservative, as the noble Lord so politely suggested, ask the noble Lord what he really meant by that answer? Does he mean that we shall be able, after our withdrawal or reduction of forces in the Mediterranean, fully to discharge our obligations towards the CENTO alliance or not?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, this would trigger off a large debate. I am doubtful whether, in any event, with the forces that we had been left with by the previous Government, we were fully able to discharge them. It is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to honour our obligations to the best of our ability, and the steps we are taking to economise in regard to the Mediterranean do not reduce our capability of fulfilling our obligations to CENTO; or, indeed, of fulfilling other obligations. I am afraid that I cannot tell the noble Lord what the total figures are in relation to the F.111 buy. We have given a great deal more information in this Defence White Paper than has ever been previously given, both as regards number and unit costs, but I am afraid I am not in a
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position to give him an answer. I have already referred to the French Government and their co-operation in regard to the development not only of the variable geometric aircraft but also of the Jaguar. These, it is clear to anyone who reads the White Paper, play a major part in our future aircraft planning, and the French Government are well aware of our intention in this matter. We are in close touch with them, and from all the reports I have had they have a perfectly satisfactory understanding of our position.
I should like to debate the question of carriers, but there is a certain difficulty in that older emotions are liable to take effect. I find myself, not only as Minister of the Air Force, but also as a former member of the Air Force—and I have never concealed my personal attitude on this subject—in a certain difficulty in making the case against carriers to-day. There may be noble Lords who may wish to pursue this further. I can only say that this subject was most exhaustively considered. A decision has been taken and the Government believe it to be the best decision in terms of getting best value for money for this country, but I deprecate the statement of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that this is the end of the Royal Navy. It is not. The Royal Navy has a great future and I am sure that it will flourish in future.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I did not say that this was the end of the Royal Navy. I said that without the Fleet Air Arm the Royal Navy would he incapable playing a global rôle, and I believe that to be right.

ABORTION BILL [H.L.]
4.12 p.m.
Report stage resumed.
LORD BRAIN: My Lords, there is little I need add to what has been said already by the noble Baroness in moving this Amendment and by the most reverend Primate in supporting it, but I think I should say something about what I believe to be the views of many doctors, of probably the majority of doctors. If the state of a pregnant woman is such that another child would be a serious physical or mental strain, carrying with it the risk of a deterioration in her

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physical and mental health, this contingency is already covered, I am sure, by paragraph (a). If some lesser effect on health than this is contemplated, in my view, it would be extremely hard to assess.
Doctors already take extremely seriously their responsibilities when it comes to a decision about recommending and carrying out abortion. As it is, the existing requirements are often a source of considerable anxiety to them. In my view, it would be an impossible task and an intolerable burden on doctors, if they were asked to decide what is meant by physical or mental inadequacy. On the other hand, if physical and mental inadequacy are not to be based purely on medical considerations, but are also to depend, as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, implied in what he said in the Committee stage debate, upon social considerations, then these issues ought not to be left to doctors—or, at any rate, not to doctors alone. I believe this to be the view of the large majority of doctors. I have here the views of the British Medical Association, which I think have already been sent to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. They say:
" Quite apart from difficulties of definition, we do not think that termination is justifiable on grounds of physical or mental inadequacy to be a mother."
I have done my best to ascertain the views of private gynæcologists and psychologists and they have all come to the same view. They are, in fact, opposed to the paragraph to which this Amendment is proposed. Therefore, I support the Amendment.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, this Amendment is identical with one moved on Committee stage, which your Lordships passed by a large majority. It is concerned with the mother who will survive childbirth but who may be mentally inadequate, the centre of a problem family, or who may be suffering from some disability. I observed that the most reverend Primate did not mention any specific conditions. May I remind your Lordships that these would include women who are crippled, blind, epileptic, arthritic, diabetic or suffering from some chronic condition. I do not agree with noble Lords who have said that the medical profession would regard paragraph(a)as covering these conditions. May I remind the House that since
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we last discussed this problem there has been a case, which was given prominence in the newspapers, of a woman who had two abnormal children and went to get an abortion, but was refused, and who subsequently was delivered of a stillborn child and died?
I suggest to my noble colleague who has just spoken that he has been rather sweeping. We find that doctors, like lawyers and laymen, approach this matter in entirely different ways. My noble friend Lord Amulree belongs to the University College Hospital, one of whose doctors, Professor Nixon, a wonderful man, probably known to many of your Lordships, died last week. Professor Nixon was a man with a big heart, who would have interpreted the first part of this Bill in a way all of us who believe in what I am now saying would appreciate. Doctors are different. Some have big hearts and some have desiccated little hearts. Some are moved by their consciences and some would say, "Let us think of this poor devil of a woman, who has this chronic complaint and has to live under these appalling conditions, and give her some relief". We cannot put all doctors in one category. But we have to legislate for the whole country and for the surgeon in a little town who perhaps fears that everybody is watching him or that the church may think of him very unfavourably if he interpreted the first part of the Bill in the way I should like him to do. What we are asking for is that every surgeon should have the freedom to do as his heart, as well as his intelligence, demands.
To my noble friend who spoke about the woman who sought an abortion because she was married to man who did not want another baby, I would say that the maternal instinct is so strong that few women would allow their husbands to force them to do that. We really must not be guided by the assumption that, if this paragraph were included in the Bill, some women would he persuaded not to have babies though they were healthy, had enough money and had good homes. In these circumstances, a woman would defy her husband. Again, a woman will have to go to a surgeon with some gynecological experience in a hospital. There is no question of her going to a general practitioner who would feel himself under pressure. We altered this on

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the first stage, so that a woman would go to the best people in the country.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? The Bill provides that two medical practitioners have this power, either the woman's regular doctor or a practitioner employed in a hospital. So, she may go to her own doctor.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I am sorry, but we have amended it. The Amendment in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, was the first one on the Marshalled List, and I supported it. My noble friend is reading from the wrong Bill.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: With respect to the noble Baroness, perhaps I can help. The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, supported me in moving into the Bill the Amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, read. There are Amendments down for discussion next Monday to define more precisely, as the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, wanted, the kind of medical practitioner to give the certificate.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I think that I may indulge in a little intelligent anticipation. The Committee agreed with the noble and learned Viscount when he put the case that the doctor who should be chosen should be one from a hospital (it can be, in the first place, the woman's own doctor), but that she should also be advised by a surgeon with gynæcological experience. I am pleased to say that the Amendment uses the words that I used. That will be the position. When she goes to the hospital these doctors will be under no pressure to do something which they do not want to do. She will have the best possible advice.
I ask your Lordships to think of the woman with a chronic condition who, on becoming pregnant, feels that she is incapable of coping with another child, because the burden will be too great. We want, therefore, all the surgeons in the country to be free to help this woman. I feel, having listened to the most reverend Primate, and before him, on the Committee stage, to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter, that the
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question before us to-day, so far as the Church is concerned, is whether precedence should be given to the wishes of this mother, with her fully developed personality, and with the responsibilities of her children, her husband and her home, or to the survival of a few weeks' old fœtus. I have not been favoured with Divine guidance. I can speak in this debate only as a mother, and as one with 40 years' experience of medical practice, during which time I have met very many of these women: I cannot enter into the arena of theological disputation. But I think it should be drawn to the notice of those who might be influenced at this stage by the fact that the name of the most reverend Primate appears on this Amendment that I do not think he has received a mandate to speak for the whole Church, or for the mothers of the country.
I would remind your Lordships that the National Opinion Poll that was taken on the subject revealed that 73 per cent. of the population would like a change in the abortion laws. I would remind your Lordships that women's organisations, one after the other, have pressed for this relief in their lives. On the subject of the Church's approach, we must realise this. In The Times of February 17—only last Thursday—under the heading, "Church Assembly Confusion Over Abortion Report", the Church correspondent wrote this—and I think it should be on the Record:
" Attempts by the Church Assembly yesterday to clarify the attitude of the Church of England towards abortion, and at the same time provide a lead to the legislature now considering amendments in the law, did little towards this end. The debate became so confused that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Ramsey, rescued it from—as he said—running into chaos, by rescinding what had been decided and starting again…Confusion arose when five amendments and an amendment to one of them were introduced. The report itself…argues that abortion should be allowed if the health or wellbeing of the mother is endangered.
" The Rev. D. Stevens, Lichfield, wanted the Assembly to add the words: ' Reaffirms that the vital principle involved is the sanctity of human life ', and the Bishop of Leicester, Dr. Williams, chairman of the board, wanted ' Christian compassion' as well as the sanctity of human life."
THE LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lady, I think there are two points which might be made.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Perhaps I might finish the quotation first. The report goes on:
" Dr. Williams said …' The Church has erred in the past and can still err '. He went on: 'We erred over the burning of heretics, and the burning of witches. No doubt many of the arguments heard in this debate were heard then. We had to eat our words, and I think that Rome is showing signs that it may have to eat its words over contraception. Even the Pope has made one exception to the question of abortion, and I think that doctors who have spoken have made it plain that they make exceptions.'
" Finally, the Assembly decided that they welcomed the report because ' it stresses the principle of the sanctity of life for mother and foetus and urges the church to preserve and demonstrate a balance between compassion for the mother and proper responsibility for the life of the unborn child.' "
My Lords, I am asking this House to-day to show that Christian compassion for which the Church asked last Thursday for the mother, for which the more liberal members of the Church ask, rather than be committed to dogma. If it is a question of balance, then give first consideration to the needs of a full-grown woman with her children and home responsibilities.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN: My Lords, I intervened in the speech of the noble Baroness only because she said she wished this to go down as a record of the proceedings of the Church Assembly. I read the report the following morning, and noted two things. There was a confusion, but, rather like the introductory business of this House, it was a procedural confusion and not a confusion concerning the issue of debate. Secondly, the noble Baroness quoted from my brother the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, again from The Times. The Times significantly omitted the first part of his speech, which said that, along with the exercise of Christian compassion, there was also the other principle, with which I am sure the noble Lady would agree: that Christian man had to recognise that modern knowledge gave to man a greater responsibility concerning the processes both of living and dying than hitherto had been exercised, and that such processes must be exercised responsibly, though humbly. He then went on to talk about Christian compassion. The report suggested that all that the right reverend Prelate said was to speak about compassion, without first
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having made the Church Assembly think about the more important principle.
4.28 p.m.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, The Times in a leading article to-day said that this Bill ought to be withdrawn because so much confusion has been aroused. I think that a number of things have emerged quite clearly from our debate. There is complete unanimity, in which the Bench of Bishops join, that abortion in certain circumstances should be legalised. There is almost universal agreement that it is desirable that legislation should lay down that abortion is justifiable in order to preserve the life or health of the mother. There is a fair degree of agreement, also, that abortion is justified where there is a great likelihood of a severely abnormal child being born.
The paragraph we are discussing at the moment, however, goes rather further than that. I think that the issue which is now before the House is this: are the only circumstances in which abortion is justified those which relate to the health, physical or mental, of the mother, and the probable abnormality of the child? That, as I understand it—although I do not find the ethical discussion of abortion by the Church Assembly entirely easy to follow—is as far as the Bench of Bishops is prepared to go.
I hope that the House as a whole will be prepared to say that there are other circumstances in which an abortion is justifiable: the birth of a child into a family which is very vicious, which is habitually criminal, where there is illhealth—which, I should have thought, did not fall within paragraph (a) that we have been discussing—and where a family is so numerous that almost any addition to the family will be greatly to the disadvantage of the existing members of the family, as well as to the newborn child. In many circumstances of this kind, which we can all imagine but which it is extremely difficult to define in a single word, or even in a great many words, I should think that abortion is also justifiable. I should have thought that it was wrong for us to stop at this particular point of physical or mental illness.
It has been argued, notably by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, and also by

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the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, that most of the cases—that is what Lord Dilhorne said—to which I have drawn attention, and with which he himself said he had great sympathy, would be included in paragraph(a). As the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said in the Committee stage debate, in order to include these cases for which we all have compassion it means straining the words of paragraph (a). The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, went so far as to say that it was dishonest to interpret that paragraph in that way. I certainly think it is wrong to legislate with narrow words, intending those words to be widely interpreted by those responsible.
There is another point. Those who will have to interpret the words are doctors. It is not for them to have any extensive knowledge of the law, and if they feel, in looking at the words and reading them as a layman would, that they are narrow words, they will not be disposed to interpret them more widely, because they will be fearful of the consequences—the danger of criminal proceedings and, what is perhaps worse, serious charges of unprofessional conduct. Therefore, if it is the case that noble Lords in this House—and I refer particularly to my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne, who expressed his sympathy in these cases—wish these hard cases to be included, then, surely, it is right and wise for us to include a paragraph which deals with them explicitly.
It is not easy, in discussing an Amendment of this kind, to see what the Bill is ultimately going to be. I will not take up your Lordships' time by referring to the special problem of mental deficiency, because that should come up under a subsequent Amendment, but it may well be that if your Lordships accept paragraph (c), with its wider ambit, it may not be necessary for us to press so strongly the special provision for mental deficiency, which we shall certainly have to press if paragraph (c) is dropped.
There is another extremely important matter closely connected with this, and I hope no one will say that it is not a reasonable and proper argument to put forward. One of the main purposes of codifying and, as I hope, extending the law legalising abortion, is in order to make it unnecessary for so many women
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to have recourse to the illegal abortionist in the back streets. A very large number of the cases who feel that they are driven to those illegal abortionists are those who cannot really come under paragraph (a) or paragraph (b), but who would come under paragraph (c). For that important sociological reason I urge your Lordships to take a broad and generous view of this measure, and to resist the Amendment which will narrow its ambit.
4.35 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I should like to reply straight away to the noble Lord, Lord Molson, because I think his speech requires an immediate answer. It is all very well to say that the words of paragraph(a)are narrow and restrictive, and then to say that we must go further from there without regard to the words which it is proposed to leave out and which are now contained in paragraph(c). I wonder whether my noble friend recognises that not only does paragraph (a) go in some respects beyond the existing law, but how widely that paragraph is interpreted at the present time by the medical profession. When he posed the question: Are the only circumstances those of the health of the mother or the child?—again, the answer to that question depends to a great extent on what are the circumstances the medical profession can take into account in considering the health of the mother or the child. This Bill makes it clear. I do not think my noble friend observed that regard can be had to the health of the mother or the child before, at, or after birth. In the hard cases which he mentioned, where there would be a disadvantage to the existing family—a case which was dealt with, I think, at some length by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter on Second Reading—surely the doctors would be entitled to have regard to the effect on the mother if the family's economic circumstances were such as to subject her to an intolerable strain, mental or physical.
The fallacy in my noble friend's argument is to suppose that every other kind of case which he, for one, would like to see included, is covered by paragraph (c). We are not being asked to decide whether paragraphs (a) and (b) go far enough, but to decide whether paragraph (c) should be included. The terms of paragraph (c) are

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not nearly as wide as my noble friend would think. They are narrow, but difficult of interpretation, because all that doctors have to look at in relation to paragraph (c) is the question of the physical or mental adequacy of the woman. I would say to my noble friend that if you are considering the physical or mental adequacy of the woman to be a mother, you are not considering the size of her family, or the effect on the other members of the family. I hope the House will not be misled by that sort of observation.
My noble friend went on to suggest that the wording of paragraph (a) would be strained. I do not think it is strained, and I should like to give some information to your Lordships which I have received since the Committee stage. The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, referred to the National Opinion Polls. I agree, as I think we all do, about the desirability of having a Bill on the Statute Book. But it is another thing to say that a National Opinion Poll is in favour of this particular provision. I do not believe that for a moment.
If I may, I should now like to express my pleasure that the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, has tabled to-day the Amendment which I moved in Committee, and I express my gratitude to her for moving it in such an eloquent and persuasive fashion. I think she put the real point of this extremely well: Are we really to say that people of whom we do not approve should not be allowed to propogate? I know there are those whose hold a sincere belief that any woman should have the right to have her pregnancy terminated if she so desires. I am not sure, but I think this is the view of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and of the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, particularly in view of what she said to-day. But, my Lords, if that is their view it would be easy to draw a Bill to give effect to it, and then we could have a direct vote on it; but I suspect that such a Bill would stand little chance of passing.
I think it is the case that this Bill, with paragraph (c), will produce the effect, and is intended to produce the effect, as nearly as possible, as if a specific and clear right had been given to the woman to have her pregnancy
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terminated at her request at any time. Might I remind your Lordships of the original terms of paragraph (c). They read as follows:
" The health of the patient or the social conditions in which she is living (including the social conditions of her existing children) make her unsuitable to assume the legal and moral responsibility for caring for a child or another child."
On that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said—and I quote from Hansard:
" This proposal is not included in the declared aims of the Abortion Law Reform Association, and I venture to think that it will not command the same sympathy as some of the other proposals. It is aimed against a very real social problem: the situation, for example, of the harassed mother who already has a family of children and simply cannot cope with another; and it is stimulated by concern not only for the mother but also for the unborn child."
That seems to me almost to summarise the speech of my noble friend. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, continued:
" But many, I think, will feel that the proposed ground is too imprecise. It is not primarily a medical ground, and it is arguable that it should not be left to doctors to decide. Social conditions ', would presumably cover the case of a woman with five or six children living in two rooms. It may be undesirable to bring another child into the world in such conditions; but it is surely arguable that rehousing, not abortion, is the answer."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 270 (No. 11), col. 1168: 30/11 /65.]
My Lords, I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said, and it seems to me that the words he then uttered are equally applicable to this particular provision in the light of the interpretation sought to be put upon it by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, and the noble Lord, Lord Molson. In Committee I suggested that these words meant that if a pregnant woman went to a doctor and said, "I do not want this child", the doctor would be entitled to say that she would not be an adequate mother to the unwanted child. What would have to be looked at is not her health, or that of her child, not her social conditions but just her personal physical or mental adequacy; and of that the medical profession is to judge.
When the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, replied to me in Committee he did not deny this. He did not deal with it at all, and if I am right about this it means

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that this provision provides for abortion, not directly but indirectly, if the woman can find two doctors who will say this, at the request of the pregnant woman. Instead of dealing with this point the noble Lord, as we know, gave a long list of the kind of cases he intended to be covered by this provision. The noble Lady referred to the first one again to-day, epileptics. Is it really the case that a woman who has suffered, most unfortunately, from epilepsy is an inadequate mother? Surely there are many adequate mothers who have children at the present time and also have the misfortune to suffer to some degree with epilepsy.
Women in prison, persistent offenders, shoplifters, women married to drunkards and ne'er-do-wells, women who go out to work—those were some of the cases mentioned. They are not really covered by this provision at all, because this provision relates only to a woman's mental or physical inadequacy, not to her social condition. So it would seem from what the noble Lord said that he has tried, by the use of another form of words, to cover the same ground as that covered by his original paragraph (c) which was so severely and rightly criticised by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham.
Listening to these discussions I wonder whether it is sufficiently realised how far the present law goes, and how dangerous this operation is, even if it is performed in hospitals under the best of conditions. From the debates we have had on this Bill the impression might well have arisen that the operation is one of the simplest character, with very little risk attached. My Lords, after the Committee stage I received a letter from a distinguished surgeon whom I have never met but who is head of the gynecological department of a big hospital. He wrote—and I should like to quote to your Lordships his words:
"The termination of pregnancy is a dangerous operation with mortality in the best conditions. No safe technique has yet been devised and no responsible doctor would countenance the death of a woman from abortion unless her pregnancy constituted a real risk to her life, health or family security."
Now, my Lords, I put this question to Her Majesty's Government. Have not a number of deaths occurred in the last year following upon the termination of
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pregnancies, lawfully terminated in hospitals in proper circumstances?
I asked the surgeon who wrote to me whether he could give me any further information, of his own knowledge; and he did. He has written to tell me that in the last five years there were 59 terminations of pregnancy at his hospital, lawfully performed under the existing law. Thirty were done for psychiatric reasons; in 23 cases there were medical reasons—disease; in 6 cases there were obstetric reasons—risks associated with childbirth or pregnancy. In two of those six cases it was done because of German measles infection early in pregnancy, which made the birth of an abnormal child likely. All those cases were dealt with under the existing law.
Now, what of the consequences? The consequences were as follows: two women very nearly died; two women had very severe infections from the operation. Of the 59 women 44 had some fever after the operation, and 14 of them had temperatures above 100°F. Eight needed treatment by antibiotics and three required blood transfusion. One of those who nearly died had a severe infection. So that there were six cases in which the consequences were serious—the two near-deaths, the serious infection and blood transfusion cases. That amounts to this, in the records of one particular hospital: that in nearly 10 per cent. of the cases following upon a lawful abortion properly performed there were serious consequences to the patient.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords. could the noble and learned Viscount make it clear whether at this particular hospital he is dealing with what we usually call therapeutic abortions, or all abortions, including unavoidable ones?
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I was giving the entire figures for the abortions performed at this hospital. I gave the reasons, psychiatric, obstetric and medical. I think those figures cause one to think very seriously indeed. I do not know (I am no doctor) whether they apply generally over the whole of the country. But it means that we ought to think long and hard before extending the right to termination to grounds other than those of health, as is proposed by this paragraph (c). It may be difficult, but doctors are the people who are

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surely best qualified to weigh the risks to the health of the woman or of the child if the pregnancy is allowed to go on against the risks involved in the operation. But what will happen if this Amendment is not carried? They will not have to consider the health of the woman or the child at the present time; they will have to assess the adequacy of the woman as a mother when no health considerations are involved, and they will have to try to balance that against the risks of the operation. It seems to me that if we do not pass this Amendment cutting out paragraph (c) we shall be placing the medical profession in a very unenviable position.
Many people appear to be under the impression, as I say, that this is a minor operation involving little risk, but if doctors, knowing the risk, refuse to terminate the pregnancy of a woman who wants that done and who has satisfied them of her inadequacy as a mother, that woman will have a grievance against society and against the medical profession. And judging from the pamphlet I have recently received from the Abortion Law Reform Society it would seem that their real complaint is not so much that the present law is inadequate—because of all the cases they set out in that pamphlet the vast majority were cases where there had been termination under the existing law—but that doctors, knowing the risks involved, are reluctant, and I would say rightly reluctant, to perform these operations. I do not want to repeat the arguments I advanced last time or review the arguments which have been so ably put forward on both sides, but I hope for the reasons that have been put forward we shall soon—as I think myself most of the arguments have been fully covered—proceed to a Division upon this matter and reject paragraph (c).
4.54 p.m.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, reluctant as I am to detain the House at this stage, I feel nevertheless it would be quite wrong to be silent and not voice some of the very serious doubts and misgivings which I have about paragraph (c). I should like to put to the House the doubts that must run through the minds of a great many general practitioners if this particular paragraph is retained in the Bill. I feel, in common with many
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other noble Lords who have already spoken, that from the general practitioner's point of view the shorter, the simpler form of Bill that we pass into law the easier it will be for the doctor to carry out the intention of the promoters of this Bill. What I cannot quite accept from my noble friend Lady Summerskill is the absolute degree of finality with which she expects the general practitioner to approach this problem. Unfortunately, general practitioners are not represented in this House. That is something which the House, I hope, in the future might seek to remedy. Even if we had here three or four general practitioners in active practice, the chances are we should find that they themselves would disagree almost violently about some of the provisions of this Bill, and notably about this paragraph (c). I cannot for a moment accept the degree of finality of judgment that my noble friend Lady Summerskill put forward to the House.
Every doctor knows that during the course of normal pregnancy in the early months a mother may approach her coming confinement with a great deal of misgiving and anxiety which may later on become pathological. But equally it is true—and I would ask my noble friend, Lady Summerskill, to deny this if she can—that during the course of the pregnancy, especially after the fifth or sixth month, the whole outlook of the mother tends to undergo a change, and over and over again an expectant mother will go to the doctor and say quite frankly, "I am feeling better now than I have ever felt at any time before in my life". And equally the doctor, who may form a decisive judgment during the third or fourth month of the pregnancy, if he retains an open mind and allows the pregnancy to go on, will often have to admit to himself, "I was wise not to terminate this pregnancy ". I just put forward these considerations which the House must take into account before it seeks to add to the difficulties with which a general practitioner would be faced.
Over and over again, although it is many years now since I was last in general practice, I have had a mother come to me and say, "I was very glad later on that I decided to have this child ". In instances where a husband has been a confirmed alcoholic, the mother has said,

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" Well, at least I have the child by me to look after. My husband has deserted me, my home has been broken up. At least I have this child to care for and look after during my life ", and she is so thankful that the child has been spared to her. According to some of the grounds for abortion which have been put before the House, chronic alcoholism might be considered as a sufficient ground for terminating pregnancy.
We have even had the question of kleptomania brought up. I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, had the wisdom to withdraw that word. Imagine a doctor faced with a doubt: "Here is an expectant mother coming to ask me to perform an abortion. I personally cannot see any ground for performing it. All I need do is to tell this mother, ' Just go round the corner and indulge in a little bout of kleptomania. Do it so that it is seen, and this might be sufficient ground for committing the abortion '." Surely this is a case of reform run riot. I am very glad that my noble friend, Lord Silkin, asked that this word be forgotten.
LORD SILKIN: No, I did not.
LORD SEGAL: Well, at least he did not persist in putting that forward as ground for justifying committing abortion. I have a great deal of misgivings about this paragraph (c). I have thought it over for a long time, and I am still open to be convinced by my noble friend, Lord Silkin, when he comes to reply. But I cannot accept any finality of judgment, either of the doctor or of the expectant mother, during those anxious first few weeks when she comes to discover that she has become pregnant.
Something else which has struck me over and over again is the errors of judgment to which the general practitioner is liable. My noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger spoke about the difficulties of adoption. I remember vividly cases where a mother, twenty years after her child was adopted, has been on the verge of a severe nervous breakdown, torn by the agony of a child that she allowed to be adopted twenty years before. So there is no finality about this Bill; there is no finality about the doctor's judgment; there is no finality about the judgment of an expectant mother in the early weeks of pregnancy.
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One of the things that impressed me, perhaps more than any other, in my own experience in general practice was the extraordinary capacity of the average child to rise above conditions of adversity. During the previous stages of the debate on this Bill there has been mention of various distinguished men who were brought up in difficult circumstances, or born of doubtful parentage. I cannot help feeling that two recent Prime Ministers in the history of this country, one of Welsh origin, the other of Scottish origin, were brought up under conditions of extreme adversity. One may say, "Yes, but why inflict these conditions upon them? Why not give them, as most children are entitled to have, a decent start in their lives?" Perhaps they, too, would have been glad of these things; but I am sure they would have been the first to admit that if they had been brought up under ideal conditions, surrounded by a proper parental home, the possibility is that neither of them would have ended up by becoming Prime Minister. So we have to accept the circumstances of life. We have to accept the fallibility of human judgment. We have to approach this Bill, not with an air of absolute conviction, of dogmatism, that we know what is best. Let us rather approach it from a human point of view, from the point of view of sympathy and profound understanding.
My noble friend Lady Summerskill quoted, as an argument in favour of the retention of paragraph (c), the tragic instance of an inquest which was held quite recently. But surely this, to my mind, is an argument amply covered by paragraph(a). If for just a moment I may detain the House, that case referred to a sergeant who said that his wife had already given birth to three subnormal children and had difficulty with the birth of one of them, and in August, 1965, she was found to be pregnant. After examination at two hospitals it was suggested that the pregnancy should be ended. She was admitted to a hospital where an Army psychiatrist did not agree that the pregnancy should be terminated. Something obviously went wrong. If she had accepted the advice of one or two of the previous consultants and had the pregnancy terminated without being referred to the psychiatrist for advice, her life would have been saved. Later she developed toxæmia and, on admittance

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to a hospital, the child was found to be dead. A sterilisation operation was carried out with her consent. After making a good recovery from the operation she collapsed and died.
The risks of this operation have already been pointed out by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne. Her case did not require the retention of paragraph(c). That she collapsed and died after the quite straightforward sterilisation operation is presumably due to the fact that she was suffering from toxemia, which has always been recognised in the majority of cases as ample medical grounds for termination of pregnancy.
I am afraid that I have already detained the House too long. But I have spoken now because I am all in favour of the shortest and the simplest possible drafting of this Bill. Heaven knows! a general practitioner is already beset by so many doubts and difficulties in everyday practice. Why should we inflict on him extra doubts and extra advice, as it is proposed to do by lengthening the clauses of this Bill? I should almost be willing to retain only paragraph (a), extending it by saying
" the continuance of pregnancy would involve serious risk to the life or grave injury to the health whether physical or mental of the pregnant woman or of the child "
and leave it at that, so that the doctors can use their own judgment and allow for a possible change of view on the part of the woman if the pregnancy were allowed to develop.
I think we are making a mistake in some of the other Amendments to this Bill, where we say that the registered medical practitioner may take into account such circumstances; where we are trying to presume to give advice to a general practitioner, not as to what he should not do, but requiring him to take into account certain circumstances. Is this not going a little beyond the point of our confidence in the good sense and wisdom of our general practitioners? I conclude by again saying that I have had a great deal of doubt about the retention of paragraph(c). On balance, I am still in favour of supporting my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger and other noble Lords who have spoken in favour of having it deleted. But I am still open to be convinced by my noble friend Lord Silkin when he rises to reply.
5.8 p.m.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I feel in harmony with the noble Lord, Lord Molson. I am in favour of the retention of paragraph (c). Unlike so many of my noble friends, I am not a doctor, and so cannot speak from that partisan attitude. Unlike some of my noble friends, I am not even a woman, and so cannot speak from their specific point of view. I noticed that my noble friend Lord Segal—and this was one of the many "red herrings" that has been drawn across the discussion of this problem—mentioned certain Prime Ministers who perhaps spent their early years under difficult circumstances. But neither of those Prime Ministers come within the category mentioned in paragraph (c) which we are discussing to-day. So please let us keep our minds directed upon paragraph (c) and the various qualifications which are enumerated there.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Segal that there are many cases where a woman, in the early period of her pregnancy, feels that she does not want a baby—she says, "I have been caught", and that is something horrible from her point of view. However, later, as the baby begins to move, she begins to feel a certain maternal affection and she is glad that she went on with the pregnancy. I concede all that. But another of the "red herrings" that was drawn across our path was that drawn by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, who told us of 59 cases of abortion which took place in a hospital. There were two who nearly died. But they did not die. There were two who were severely affected. But they did not die. There were several who had high temperatures. But they did not die. There were three cases of blood transfusions being given. But the women concerned did not die. Nearly 10 per cent. of the cases had serious consequences, as the noble and learned Viscount told us. But the women did not die. Surely all those 59 examples about which the noble and learned Viscount told us were arguments for not permitting the extension and expansion of this back-street abortion business, and for allowing the operation to take place in hospitals where the women would receive up-to-date medical attention and their death would thus be prevented.

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This is a very delicate question and, as a mere man, who is only a 50 per cent. partner in this, I feel rather hesitant, but there are a few things that should be said. One of the right reverend Prelates said in the course of his remarks that the Press had misrepresented a statement made by one of his right reverend brethren. I have been engaged in the production of newspapers in this country for over forty years, and I know that people who make speeches and issue documents sometimes incorporate in them all sorts of equivocations and qualifications. But I know that the normal journalist on a national daily newspaper is capable of pushing aside all those qualifications and getting down to the "guts" of the impression which the person wanted to create. So whether or not the right reverend Prelate wants to blame the Press for alleged misrepresentation of a statement, I say that the impression which it was desired to create was the one the Press took notice of.
We have heard many technicalities in this debate. I think it is time we heard about the human considerations. We have heard the voice of the doctors—some on one side, some on the other, some against abortions, some in favour of taking money in regard to operating for abortions. We have heard the voice of the clerics, perhaps in some way muted, on the lines, "We are prepared to go so far, but not to go all the way ". But the voice of the ordinary person, the ordinary husband, the ordinary wife, has also to be heard. We have in recent weeks heard the voice of the Church pronouncing in favour of sodomy. That may be correct; it may be not. Personally I find myself differing—
THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord to say that I cannot believe that anybody would speak in praise of sodomy.
LORD LEATHERLAND: Sodomy has been pronounced upon by the Church as a sin, but it has been pronounced by the Church as something which, within the law of the land, may take place between adult persons in private. I am not going to equivocate upon this. I am saying that that is in favour of sodomy. Therefore, I do not find myself compelled to have regard to the voice of the Church when I make up my mind on the moral aspects of this issue. I do not feel that
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pregnancy is an act of God. I think that pregnancy is the result of an operation in which two human beings are concerned.
Now we come to the gist of the whole matter. I feel that the woman has a right to say what shall happen within her own body and with her own body. If she says she does not want to have a child, I think her voice must be regarded. I would not say that that is the final voice. In the case of married couples, the voice of the husband should also be heard. I am very regretful of the fact that the voice of the husband has never been heard in any of our debates on this Bill up to the present.
VISCOUNT BARRINGTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question on this? I always listen with interest to what he says. Would he apply what he says to a case that took place in India, the case of Suttee, where there was no question of a third party—because I should regard the foetus as a third party —and where only two persons were concerned, the wife and the husband? It was made illegal in India after a good deal of thought. We did try to keep it legal by having a magistrate's opinion that it was in order.
LORD LEATHERLAND: I am quite sure that if I were the Prime Minister of India, or an Indian Prince, I should be able to legislate satisfactorily for the needs of that country. But I am discussing the state of affairs in the United Kingdom, and that is the matter to which I wish to direct my observations. I say that the woman should determine what happens to her own body and within her own body. If she happens to be a married woman, the voice of her husband should be clearly heard. I think that their views should prevail.
Let us come back to the actual provisions of paragraph (c) of the Bill. We have skated rather outside that in our discussions from all sides of the House. What does paragraph (c) say. It refers to the pregnant woman being
" physically or mentally inadequate to be the mother of a child ".
We are men of the world; we have had experience of life. We know that there are physical conditions which would make it extremely dangerous for a respectably married woman to proceed with a further

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pregnancy. There are questions of albuminuria, toxemia and conditions like it, apart from physical malformations.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, has the noble Lord overlooked the fact that those are covered by paragraph (a)?
LORD LEATHERLAND: The noble Lord has not overlooked anything. He is discussing paragraph (c) at the moment. That is the matter to which your Lordships should direct your attention. Paragraph (c) says "physically or mentally inadequate". As to the word "physically", I suggest there are certain circumstances in which it would be really dangerous for a wife to proceed with her pregnancy. If a doctor corroborates that point of view, it is desirable that the pregnancy should be terminated.
Paragraph(c)goes on to say "mentally inadequate" as a reason for terminating a pregnancy. I have been a member of a county council for twenty years; I have known examples of mentally inadequate women, mentally subnormal women, and it would be cruel, it would be against all that we believe is right in life, for those people to be able to reproduce their kind. I think paragraph (c) properly covers that kind of woman as making her eligible for termination of pregnancy.
Paragraph (c) also deals with the case of girls under sixteen. Which of your Lordships is going to hold up his hand and say, "That girl of sixteen must go on and have her baby "? I am not concerned with questions of morality—
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: Would the noble Lord pay attention to the fact that there is no reference in paragraph (c) to girls under 16?
LORD LEATHERLAND: Paragraph (c), according to the typewritten version of the Bill which is before me, says
" or of another child as the case may be";
or that
" the pregnant woman is a defective or became pregnant when under the age of sixteen ".
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: Perhaps the noble Lord would look at the Bill as amended in Committee, which is the Bill before the House.
LORD LEATHERLAND: The spirit of the debate is that girls under sixteen should be allowed to go on and have their babies, and I say that they should not. That is the difference between my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger and myself. There is the danger that two "quack" doctors— and I hope this example will not offend my noble friend, Lady Summerskill— could get together and say, "We will run an abortion racket". I think that situation has already been coped with by the provision that one of the doctors shall be a hospital doctor under the National Health Service.
From all these points of view, I feel that I should be a hypocrite if I said to a woman, "You are ill. You are suffering from toxæmia. You are suffering from some malformation which would make it very dangerous indeed for you to have this further baby. Nevertheless, I say, with all my virtue, that you must go on and have it." Because paragraph (c) deals with such questions, I am wholeheartedly in support of it.
NOBLE LORDS: Divide. Divide!
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I shall detain the House only a very few moments. I think the point was so admirably put by the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, in proposing this Amendment, and on the whole it has been so well argued, that I wish only to supplement two points. The most reverend Primate quoted me as making a very similar statement to one which he had made in the country, and I think that there is no difficulty in justifying what we both said. I would remind the noble Lord who has just sat down that we are not considering now whether anything additional to what is contained in paragraphs(a) or (b) is or is not required; we are considering the merits of what is contained in paragraph (c). The reason why I said that the paragraph might mean anything is quite simple. If a woman goes to a doctor and says, "I want an abortion", the doctor could bona fide hold that that in itself showed that she was mentally inadequate within the meaning of paragraph (c). That is why I said, and why I think the most reverend Primate was quite right in saying, that this paragraph could be taken as meaning almost anything, and it is to my mind an impossible provision with which to amend the criminal law.

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The only other point I wish to mention is the argument, which puzzled me, of the noble Lord, Lord Soper. He was interested in the philosophy behind all this—as, if I may say so, am I. He thought there was something very artificial in holding that the fœtus could be said to have, in an important and moral way, a life and soul. But I wonder at what point he thinks that a soul does come into existence? I was wondering, when he was attacking the philosophy that underlay the view of the most reverend Primate, for example, and some of the other speakers, what his own philosophy was.
If the paragraph that we are now considering is right, why is the exposure of infants at birth not equally right? Indeed, if the pregnancy is very far advanced, so that the operation permitted under this Bill would be dangerous to the mother, might not the exposure of the infant be infinitely preferable? I bring this matter into consideration only in order to show the noble Lord, Lord Soper, that some who may have a philosophy on this subject are not, perhaps, people who have thought out the matter less than he has, and may not differ from him in humanity. Because I think that, for the reasons given by those who oppose it, this paragraph is impossibly wide and dangerous, I shall support its deletion.
NOBLE LORDS: Divide, divide!
5.25 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I know that the House wants to divide, but I am sure you will feel it is right that I, as the author of the original provision, should have the opportunity of saying a word in its favour. Of course we have had a very good debate this afternoon, as we had on the occasion of the Committee stage a fortnight ago. On that occasion we had two hours of debate on this particular provision, we had sixteen speeches, and we eventually had a Division in which the clause as it stood was carried by 75 votes to 51—a very large vote which I should have thought represented the opinions of this House. On that occasion we did not have the benefit of contributions from the most reverend Primate or from my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger. They had other business to attend to, and of course that is quite understandable. But we have
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heard them to-day, and they have taken advantage of the opportunity to reopen the whole matter on Report.
I want to say, quite frankly, to my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger that she produced no single new argument in favour of deleting this provision. Everything that she said had already been said—nobody can say it as well as she—in the course of the debate on Committee. Nor, with great respect to the other speakers, have they said anything new. We have had all this already, and it is going to be very difficult for me to say anything new in support of paragraph (c) as it stands. But I should like to ask noble Lords who have doubts about this, whether they would not agree that there is such a thing as inadequacy in a mother.
We can have differences of opinon as to what constitutes inadequacy. I mentioned kleptomania, and what I had in mind was the kind of home where theft was the practice and where people went to prison (I used the words "in and out of prison ") and I thought of a child being brought up under those conditions. That might well be an example of inadequacy of the mother as a result of mental defect. But I gave other examples, and nobody has referred to those. I mentioned the case of a mother who has deliberately ill-treated her children or neglected them. Nobody thought it right to mention that example of mine. Would your Lordships think that a mother who had been convicted of ill-treating her children would make an adequate mother? You may say, "Of course not, but even that should not be a ground for abortion." I could understand the most reverend Primate saying that—that is the view which the Church takes—but I cannot understand ordinary people taking the view that a mother should be regarded as adequate when she already has children whom she has deliberately ill-treated or neglected.
I would ask noble Lords, who have already accepted the principle of abortion, to accept this as one of the grounds on which abortion should take place. I do not know whether it is sufficiently realised—it certainly was not in the course of the debate—that no abortion can possibly take place unless the mother wishes it, unless she applies for it. There

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cannot be an abortion without her consent. My noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger made some play on the fact that we were deleting a provision about written consent. I am sure she does not believe that nonsense. Of course, no abortion will be carried out unless the patient wants it and asks for it.
The form in which the consent is given is not really material—that is a point which we can debate later. But it will be on the initiative of the mother herself, and there will be two doctors who will have to form a judgment as to whether, by reason of her mental or physical defects, she will be adequate as a mother. It is a difficult judgment to make—I admit that—but doctors are accustomed to making difficult judgments, not only on mental or physical questions but generally. One is constantly going to one's doctor and seeking advice on questions where the factors of one's physical or mental condition are subsidiary. Doctors are able to form a judgment as to whether a mother is likely to be adequate or not. Very often, they know the conditions of the mother. Where they do not, it is always possible for them to refuse: they are under no obligation. If the case is not made out, and they are not satisfied, they are under no obligation to agree to an abortion. If the first doctor the mother sees agrees to it, there has still to be a second opinion, that of a gynæcologist. It is only where the mother wants an abortion and both doctors are satisfied that the conditions apply that an abortion will take place.
There is, of course, the further possibility, especially now that it is proposed that the abortion should take place, in a hospital or a clinic, of getting the opinion of a social worker in difficult conditions. The woman may have made out a plausible or prima facie case, but the doctor may not be satisfied and he might very well say, "I am not quite satisfied; I should like to get the opinion of a social worker". It is only after he has done that that he need agree that the abortion should take place.
So the real question for the House this afternoon, as it was in Committee, is whether, having accepted the principle of abortion—and abortion not only on the ground of the health of the mother but also on the ground that there is a likelihood of the child being born
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deformed—we should extend it so that we provide for the case where a mother it to give birth to a child which she is wholly incapable, for one reason or another, or being able to rear. I hope that the House will reaffirm the decision we arrived at a fortnight ago, and will allow this paragraph to remain in the Bill.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I know that the House is anxious to divide, but I hope that I may reply, very shortly, to this debate. I think the essence of the matter has been put most eloquently by the most reverend Primate and by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne: that is, that the genuine cases in which an abortion is legitimate, or should be legitimate, are covered by paragraph (a). I think it is significant that most of the argument against this Amendment has really not dealt with the Amendment at all. My noble friend Lady Summerskill argued on the basis that Amendments which are not yet before your Lordships' House were already carried; my noble friend Lord Leatherland argued from a version of the Bill which is not before your Lordships' House; and the bulk of the argument of those who have opposed the Amendment has not dealt with the specific terms of the Amendment. It has dealt with the general case of women in circumstances of distress being allowed to have an abortion. Compassion has been invoked—a compassion which, I must assure my noble friend Lady Summerskill, I share with her and, indeed, is the reason for my support of a Bill that would deal with those genuine cases.
But there is one crucial point that I think has not been given due weight. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, said that the initiative lay with the woman. There is nothing whatever in this Bill that gives the initiative to the woman. There is nothing whatever in paragraph (c) that gives the initiative to the woman—and this is a very important point. It may well be that the initiative will not be with the woman, and that all the woman has to do is to sign a paper which possibly she does not fully understand. I must remind your Lordships that if a woman is beguiled by a salesman into purchasing a refrigerator which she does not want, she has three days in which

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she can revoke that consent. If a woman wants her child to be adopted, she must sign her consent before a magistrate and she has power to revoke it right up to the moment of the court hearing. But at present this Bill says simply that she gives her consent in writing, with no other safeguards whatever; and there are no indications that the initiative is necessarily with her.
I can very well see that a woman may go to her doctor and say, "If I have a child I shall be a nervous and physical wreck", but this is provided for in paragraph (a).
LORD SILKIN: It is not.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: If she is convinced that she will be a nervous and physical wreck, it is, because paragraph (a) provides for an abortion in cases where there is grave injury to her health, and to be a nervous and physical wreck is indeed to suffer grave injury to health. But I cannot see that a woman is going to take the initiative and go to her doctor and say, "I am unfit to be a mother; I shall be an inadequate mother." For this reason I think that this paragraph opens the door to other people's decisions about the capacity of particular women to be mothers.
The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, said that some doctors had "desiccated little hearts." That is not a statement I would ever have dared to make about her distinguished profession: still less would I dare to say that any of them have desiccated little heads. But I would say, my Lords, that if we are going to ask the medical profession, in their present state of knowledge, to make these amateur exercises in pseudo-eugenics, we are really asking them not to have desiccated little heads but enormously swollen heads. I think this is a very dangerous provision. It is a dangerous provision to say that two men—who, after all, are only human, even if they are doctors—should have the right to say whether a woman is or is not fit to be the mother of her child. I think it is dangerous because it is the thin edge of a wedge that might lead us a great deal further than we think.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!Reply,
reply!
5.38 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 5) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 81; Not-Contents, 51.

CONTENTS

Alport, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Milvertin, L.

Amherst, E.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Ampthill, L.

Exeter, L. Bp. [Teller.]

Morris of Borth-y-Gest, L.

Amulree, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mowbray and stourton, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Forster of Harraby, L.

Newton, L.

Atholl, D.

Fortescue, E.

Norwich, L. Bp

Attlee, E.

Furness, V.

Ogmore, L.

Auckland, L.

Goschen, V.

Parker of Waddington, L.

Audley, Bs.

Grenfell, L.

Perth, E.

Barrington, V.

Gridley, L.

Rennell, L.

Bowles, L.

Harlech, L.

Rockley, L. St.

Brain, L.

Hawke, L.

St. Just, L.

Brock, L.

Henderson, L.

Saltoun, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Sandford, L.

Canterbury, L. Abp.

Iddesleigh, E.

Segal, L.

Chesham, L.

Ilford, L.

Selkirk, E.

Colville of Culross, V.

Inglewood, L.

Shephered, L.

Conesford, L.

King-Hall, L.

Simonds, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Lilford, L.

Somers, L.

Daventry, V.

Lincoln, L. Bp.

Strange of Knokin, Bs.

Derwent, L.

London, L. Bp.

Swanborough, Bs.

Devonshire, D.

Longford, E.

Thurlow, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Lothian, M.

Waverly, V.

Drumalbyn, L.

Luke, L.

Winchester, L. Bp.

Dudley, L.

Margadale, L.

Wootton of Abinger, Bs. [Teller.]

Dundee, E.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Ebbisham, L.

Mersey, V.

Ypres, E.

Eccles, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Mottistone, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Gifford, L.

Moynihan, L.

Albemarle, E.

Greenway, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Archibald, L.

Henley, L.

Raglan, L.

Arwyn, L.

Hertford, M.

Rusholme, L.

Blyton, L.

Hilton of Upton, L.

St. Davids, V.

Burton of Coventry, Bs.

Kirkwood, L.

Shackleton, L.

Byers, L.

Latham, L.

Silkin, L.

Campbell of Eskan, L.

Leatherland, L. [Teller.]

Soper, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

Listowel, E.

Stocks, Bs.

Chorley, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Citrine, L.

MacAndrew, L.

Strange, L.

Colwyn, L.

Mitchison, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Effingham, E.

Molson, L.

Taylor, L.

Falkland, V.

Monsell, V.

Wellington, D.

Ferrier, L.

Monson, L.

Willis, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Morrison, L.

Winterbottom, L. [Teller.]

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
5.48 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, as the House knows, we still have a lot of Business before us, and we have had a long debate. I believe the next Amendment raises another matter of principle and I wonder whether it would be the wish of the House—I believe my noble friend Lord Silkin is agreeable—that we should complete the Report Stage now and then proceed with what Amendments the House wishes to put down on the recommittal on Monday. If that be the case, I wonder whether my noble friend Lord Silkin could express his views in agreement.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I am perfectly willing not to move the remainder of the Amendments and to ask that the Bill be recommitted.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, so far as I am concerned, that course is perfectly satisfactory. I do not know whether the noble Lady will take the same view; but I can assure her that if she does, as we are again on the same side on Monday, if she cannot be here—and I hope she will be—I will do my utmost
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to put the case as persuasively and eloquently as she has put the case to-day.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, that is very acceptable. I understand that we have to call all the Amendments in order that the Report stage be completed properly. I hope that nobody will respond to the calling of the Amendments.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
Moved, That the Bill be now re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House.—(Lord Silkin.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and Bill re-committed accordingly.

CONSOLIDATED FUND BILL
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Shepherd.)
On Question, Bill read 2ª: Committee negatived.

PROTECTION OF CONSUMERS (TRADE DESCRIPTIONS) BILL [H.L.]
5.54 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Champion.)
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AILWYN in the Chair.]
Clause 4:
Trade descriptions used in advertisements
4.—(1) The following provisions of this section shall have effect with respect to a trade description used in an advertisement in relation to any class of goods.
(2) The trade description shall be taken as referring to all goods of the class, whether or not in existence at the time the advertisement is published—

(a)for the purpose of determining whether an offence has been committed under paragraph (a) of section 1(1) of this Act; and

(b)where the goods are supplied or offered to be supplied by a person publishing or displaying the advertisement, also for the purpose of determining whether an offence has been committed under paragraph (b) of the said section 1(1).

(3) In determining for the purposes of this section whether any goods are of a class to which an advertisement relates regard shall be had not only to the form and content of the advertisement but to the time, place, manner and frequency of its publication and all other matters making it likely or unlikely that a person to whom the goods are supplied would associate the advertisement with the goods.
LORD AIREDALE LORD AIREDALE moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "any class of".
The noble Lord said: Clause 4, which deals with trade descriptions used in advertisements, uses the expression "any class of goods ". I cannot help feeling that this expression may give rise to difficulties. How does one define a class of goods, or to what class particular goods belong? Take, for instance, lemonade. Does lemonade belong to the class of goods known as beverages? I suppose it does. If so, that puts it in the same class as tea. But does one expect tea and lemonade to be within the same class of goods? I do not know. I should have thought that if we could get rid of the expression "a class of goods" without doing mortal injury to the Bill, we should be doing a good service.
I must not anticipate what is going to be said later, but I observe that the very next Amendment seeks to remove the expression "any class" and insert, "any brand or specific description" of goods. At the moment I cannot see that that is very much better. When we consider branded goods, there is a well-known brand "St. Michael ". There are "St. Michael" shirts and "St. Michael ginger biscuits and "St. Michael "all sorts of things. I should think that if we adopted this alternative to "any class" we might then have an enormously wide-ranging variety of goods under one heading. My Amendment, taken in conjunction with Nos. 18 and 23, seeks to remove the necessity for talking about a "class of goods" at all without, in my submission, doing any damage to the Bill. I hope that this will be acceptable to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 23, leave out (" any class of ").—(Lord Airedale.)
LORD CAWLEY: I would support my noble friend Lord Airedale. I think that the word "class" is somewhat misleading because in Section 3 of the Trade Marks Act it is provided that
" A trade mark must be registered in respect of particular goods or classes of goods …"
Then, in the Trade Mark Rules, there is a schedule, laid down by the Registrar of Trade Marks, of the names of classes. For example, Class 8 is "Hand tools and instruments, cutlery, forks and spoons and side arms ". I am certain that that type of class is not intended in this Bill, and I believe that the word "class" will cause some confusion. What should replace it, I do not know.
I wish to raise one other matter. I inadvertently misled the Committee yesterday, when I said (col. 25):
" There is an alteration as between the Act of 1887 and 1953 and the present Bill. Under the 1953 Act the magistrates could award costs to the prosecution or the defence, regardless of the results of the case."
That was in Section 14 of the 1887 Act, but I am afraid that I did not notice that it had been repealed and is not in force at present.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES (LORD MITCHISON): May I thank the noble Lord, on behalf of the Committee, for

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correcting a minor matter which, indeed, but for his frankness, we may never have noticed. I am sure that he is right, though, and we are all grateful to him. On the Amendment, we have to consider the mischief this clause is aimed at—namely, that in the past we have had advertisements referring to classes of goods. For instance, if we take mineral waters, some misguided person may say that mineral waters are always better than beer and then proceed to sum up their commendatory words in a way which may contain a mis-statement. The difficulty has been to link up a general advertisement with particular cases and the clause tries to do just that. It is literally referring to a class of goods and using the broadest and simplest term to indicate that it is not a reference to specific goods but to a class of goods. It goes on to attach, as it were, in certain circumstances, that general statement in the advertisement to particular cases. That is the whole object of the clause.
If it were made to refer to goods in general, I am afraid that it would miss the point, and miss the mischief (I do not use that word in any vicious sense, of course) it is intended to cover. One can think of a number of cases, but, broadly speaking, it is intended to relate statements in advertisements about a class of goods to particular cases. For instance, if somebody comes in and says "I want the kind of tea which was recommended in a paper the other day", and the paper contained laudatory references to tea in general (tea merchants are a bit more shy about doing it than brewers, as a rule) and there was an irrelevant mis-statement in it, this would provide in subsection (3) the link between the two things. Subsection (3) says:
" In determining for the purposes of this section whether any goods are of a class to which an advertisement relates "—
and it then goes on to say what you have to look at for the purpose. Therefore, the whole object of the clause is this one particular mischief or difficulty, and the removal of "class" here is not just a simplification and shortening; it avoids the whole purpose of the clause. I hope that I have made myself clear.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I think this is a difficult question. I wonder whether he
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has covered the whole intended meaning of the clause, because, if he has, I fail to see what "class" means in subsection (2). That subsection says:
"The trade description shall be taken as re-referring to all goods of the class…".
Most advertisements do not refer to all goods of the class. They refer to a particular brand, one of the groups of goods under a particular brand in a class. Some, of course, advertise the product as a whole, whatever it may be— "Beer is best" or Drinka Pinta Milka Day "and that sort of thing. But, generally speaking, the class of goods is not the subject of most advertisements; it is a particular brand within the class. I thought that the words "class of goods" meant the particular brand with in the class. In other words, if somebody is advertising a particular brand of shirts, let us say, what this means is that all the shirts of that brand, or of that specification or designation, as the case may be, are treated as a class. In the particular case which the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, had in mind, it would be true that the "St. Michael" brand covered many different classes of goods. But the alternative or special designation was designed in our Amendment to get over that.
What I have difficulty in seeing, if the noble Lord's explanation is correct, is what possible meaning can be attached to the words in subsection (2):
" The trade description shall be taken as referring to all goods of the class …",
when obviously a trade description, if it is a false trade description, is a false trade description in relation to a particular brand within that class. There seem to be at least two separate meanings of the word "class" here. If the noble Lord will have another "shot" at it, I should be grateful, because it is perplexing.
LORD MITCHISON: By all means. Not all advertisements are specific. They do not always refer to "St. Michael" brand. But if I may take beer as an instance, let us suppose that the Brewers' Association put in a general advertisement that beer never contains arsenic—and I remember a reported case of a brewer who put too much arsenic in his beer. I think the evidence was that there was always a little, but that he put in too much. But the sort of thing that is

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intended to he covered can be illustrated in this way. If a man comes in, and says: "I want to have some beer, but I am very susceptible to arsenic, and I want to be sure that this beer has no arsenic in it"; and he goes on: "I saw an advertisement the other day saying that beer never has arsenic in it. Does that relate to this beer? ", that is the kind of thing it is intended to cover.
The word "class" is a very broad word. No doubt you could seek to apply it in narrower cases, but I am taking those to which it obviously applies. This is not an unreal difficulty; it has happened before. The difficulty has been to link the general advertisement to the particular sale. That is what this clause intends to do. When we come to subsection (2) (and I am as anxious as the noble Lord not to anticipate too much), he will see that it is taken as referring to "all goods of the class", but "for the purpose", which is in paragraph (a), and for a second purpose, in certain circumstances, which is in paragraph b). It is only for those purposes that subsection (2) must be brought in. I hope that I have made it clear. The Amendment we have to consider now is to take out the words "any class", and to do that would miss the point completely. In saying that, I do not intend to be discourteous to the noble Lord, and perhaps I should say that it would miss the point we intended to deal with.
LORD HAWKE: This is an extremely difficult matter to understand. I do not want to embarrass the noble Lord while his divisional reserves do not seem to be in their usual place, but who is commiting an offence? Is it the person who says, "Beer is best", or is it the person who sells the brand that does not conform to the general advertisement? If the particular advertiser is to be made responsible for any advertisement conducted by somebody else, it seems rather difficult.
LORD MITCHISON: I do not think it is as difficult as all that. The only person who can commit an offence under the first six clauses of this Bill is the person who applies a false trade description to goods, or supplies or offers to supply any goods to which a false trade description is applied. If you take the instance that I gave just now (I have no doubt that I could even improve on it), obviously the
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man who sells the beer in such circumstances—and those are stated here—has to connect it with the trade advertisement, "There is no arsenic in beer", as describing it falsely, because he is saying, by reference to the advertisement, that it contains no arsenic, when in fact it does contain arsenic.
This trouble, I repeat, is not just an ingenious difficulty invented by a perverse Government; it is one that has occurred time and time again in the enforcement of the Merchandise Marks Act. There will not be, I should have thought, an enormous number of cases under this provision, but it is intended to link up the general advertisement of a class of goods to a particular sale in circumstances which are described in subsections (2) and (3).
LORD HAWKE: Am I right in thinking that if a big egg producer advertised on television, "Eggs, two days old only", and a single producer then put an advertisement in the Press to say, "As advertised on television", and his eggs were five days old, he would be committing an offence under this clause?
LORD MITCHISON: I am not sure whether one would need this clause for that case. But supposing somebody said, "No hen's egg is ever sold if it is more than two days old ", that would be a bit of a whopper! If you could link up a particular sale to that in the way described in Clauses 2 and 3, then obviously there would in common sense have been a misdescription, a misstatement. The difficulty has been to link them; that is to say, to know in what circumstances you should be entitled to rely in prosecuting on some general advertisement of a class of goods.
LORD CAWLEY: I am not quite certain whether eggs are a class of goods. This worries me a little, because as I pointed out, in the other Statute, "class of goods" has been a mixed hag, and I am not certain that you will achieve your object.
LORD MITCHISON: I hope the noble Lord will not press me too far on this matter. I should have thought they were, but we need not argue it now.
LORD SOMERS: I wonder whether I could ask the noble Lord if there are not

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some goods which it is rather difficult to define as to whether they come into the class or not. For instance, no doubt the noble Lord is familiar with the statement, "There is no substitute for wool." There are many fabrics which contain wool, but which are not 100 per cent wool. Do they come into that class or not?
LORD MITCHISON: I should have thought that the class there was wool in general. It is not for me to say whether they are wool or whether the are not, and this is the kind of case where you might have to have recourse to descriptions, standards, and questions of that kind. But, broadly speaking, the object of this is simply—this is rather a limited object, but one which has caused difficulty—to link up particular cases with a general statement. I can think of cases where you could link it up with, "There is no substitute for wool", but perhaps that is such a general path, if I may so put it, that it might be a little difficult to avoid.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: Am I to understand from the noble Lord that an individual manufacturer or producer of goods is responsible under this clause for the advertising of an organisation such as the Egg Marketing Board or the Newspaper Society, according to which particular trade we are considering, even if he is not a member of this employers' organisation, and may thoroughly disapprove of their line of advertising? Because it seems to me to be going too far if these manufacturers or producers would be caught under this clause.
LORD MITCHISON: It is a very interesting question, but I am not sure that it arises on this rather more limited clause. All one is trying to do here is to state the circumstances in which a trade description used in an advertisement in relation to a class of goods shall apply to instances of that class, if I may so put it.
LORD AIREDALE: I think we have had a very interesting discussion. I was not alone in not understanding, until the Minister explained, what was the mischief which this clause is designed to prevent. Now that the Minister has explained it, it may well be that the clause as it stands is better than it would be as amended by
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me, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.15 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "any class" and insert "any brand or specific designation". The noble Lord said: With this Amendment I think the direction of attack, if I may put it in that way, changes somewhat. The rubric is:
" Trade descriptions used in advertisements ".
That is extremely wide. As the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, said on the last Amendment, he had not understood what was in the Government's mind on this, and he did not think that many other people had either. I have discussed this clause with a great many people, and I can assure the noble Lord that no one has interpreted it in the very narrow way in which the noble Lord has done. I think he will probably understand how it was, in those circumstances, that my Amendment came to be put down, which would immensely widen the scope of the clause. It would take in the trade description made in regard to any brand of goods, any special designation of goods, and a special designation, of course, would include a particular type of goods under a brand name, where the name is used for several types, or it would take a special designation of goods in general, whatever it might be—brown ale or something of that sort. You can make the class narrow or you can make it wide. I am not quite certain that I agree entirely with my noble friend here that the clause was intended to be related to the Trade Marks Act, though whether it is desirable that it should be is another matter. I am sure the noble Lord will argue that at greater length.
Surely, it cannot be the case that, where you have as wide a rubric as this, and the whole of Clause 2, dealing with paragraphs (a) to (i), and several headings within those of various trade descriptions, it is to be concerned merely with the class of goods and nothing else; not with the trade description in relation to the class which the clause says. The noble Lord has been arguing as if it were a trade description of the class of goods. I do not believe that that is so. I do not see how it can possibly be interpreted in that way. He has given one narrow interpretation of it, but is not the problem this?

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So far as advertisements are concerned, what has happened, as I understand it, is that there has been difficulty in the conception of applying the trade description to particular goods, because it has been possible for the advertiser, or, rather, the supplier, to say, "the goods advertised are not the goods that are sold in this particular transaction."
It has been difficult to relate the advertisement to the goods. It has been difficult to say that the trade description applied in the advertisement is applied to the goods. As I understand it, that is got over in subsection (3). But I thought the purpose of Clause 4 was to ensure that the trade description applied to all the goods of the class, or brand or special designation, irrespective of the fact that the goods being sold over the counter were not in existence at the time when the advertisement was made. This has been one of the arguments in the past, regarding the application of trade descriptions in advertisements and where it has fallen short and has proved impossible to link the advertisement with the actual goods sold in the shop. I thought this was the purpose of this clause, and that is why I put down "brand or specific designation of the goods ".
I do not for one moment say that that is the best alternative one could possibly find. I dare say that other noble Lords could put down a better Amendment. But it is something different from "the class of goods ", because it brings it to a much narrower range, without releasing the cover over the wider range. This is what I thought the clause was intended to do, and I thought that the word "class" was used, not only in relation to a generic name of goods, taking that as the class, or possibly to the class as defined in the Trade Marks Act, but in regard to a class of goods in a different sense.
Again, I have had recourse to the dictionary on this because I was not at all clear what was meant. I found one definition to be "division according to quality"; another was "a number of individuals having a common name", and "like in any respect". That, of course, is not the same as "class" according to the interpretation given by the noble Lord. What I thought was only a drafting Amendment has now become a substan-
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tive Amendment, because of the narrow interpretation which the noble Lord has placed on "class".
LORD MITCHISON: May I ask which Amendment we are discussing, because the last I heard was an application to withdraw No. 16 and I do not think that that was ever put.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: Amendment No. 16 was withdrawn and No. 17 has been called.
LORD MITCHISON: I see; I am sorry.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I hope that I have not to start all over again for the benefit of the noble Lord. I quite understand his difficulty, but the point I am trying to make is that in view of the narrow interpretation that he has given of the word "class" the Amendment, which I thought was merely a drafting Amendment, has become a substantive Amendment because this will greatly widen the scope. It will not only be the question of the misrepresenting of a class—which I take it means the description of flannelette as flannel, or something like that—but will relate to any of the trade descriptions in subsection (2) in relation to the particular goods advertised.
When a man advertises his goods he advertises all the goods in that class, if one can put it in that way. That is to say, to take the example we had before (though I do not think it happens in fact), if "St. Michael" brand shirts were advertised as such, then the advertisement would relate to the brand and the particular designation; in this case it would be the special designation of shirts supplied by the suppliers who own the "St. Michael" brand. This was what I thought the clause was intended to do, and that is why I thought the word "class" was not apposite. But if the interpretation of "class" is as narrow as the noble Lord has said it is, then I think we are on a point of substance, since, as I say, the words I have put down will greatly widen the application of the clause. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 23, leave out (" any class") and insert (" any brand or specific designation").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: I wonder if I may make one comment.

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Obviously, this is rather difficult. I thought that Lord Drumalbyn's Amendment was one which was going to narrow the operation of this clause, and I think I can prove that it would in fact narrow it, if I understood him aright, he thinks that it would widen the application of this clause. I understood from the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, that the Bill, in using the words "any class of ", was using them in a wide sense. In my view the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, would be of a more restricting kind than he perhaps imagines.
LORD DRUMALBYN: May I interrupt the noble Lady for a moment I wonder whether, when she thought of this before, she was not thinking of it in terms of a class in a much wider sense than the noble Lord opposite has indicated it was expected to be taken? I think that is the difficulty.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: Perhaps I am misinterpreting the noble Lord. I thought he was saying that the word "class" was an umbrella word which covered a great many things. If Lord Drumalbyn's view is right, then I have not understood what he has said. Perhaps I may put my point and then, when the noble Lord replies, he can say which of us is giving the right interpretation. My feeling is that if we put in the words "any brand or specific designation" it would mean that an advertisement would not be an offence unless it could be clearly linked to a particular brand of goods or to goods which are fairly clearly defined. I will give two examples of what I mean. If a secondhand motor car dealer made a general claim, such as "All our vehicles have reconditioned engines", he would not be caught because he would be selling a number of different makes of cars, Land-rovers, lorries and motor bicycles, and the words "All our vehicles have reconditioned engines" would not come under "brand or specific designation". That is not something he would be using.
Again, if one were to put a notice in the window of a general dealer saying "2s. in the £ off all goods" that would not be caught because the claim does not refer to any particular brand or named article—
LORD DRUMALBYN: Or class.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD:—which it would need to do if this Amendment were passed, and my interpretation of Lord Drumalbyn's Amendment is that it would narrow the clause, because in fact people who make a general advertisement could not be caught unless they mentioned a brand or specific designation. Therefore I think it would seriously weaken the application of the Bill to advertisements if we put in something of the nature of these words. However, I think we are interpreting the Minister's speech in two different ways. I look upon the Minister's speech as saying, "This is an all-embracing clause" and the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, thinks otherwise. I do not know which is right, but I want it to be as wide as possible in order that people shall not escape by producing advertisements which can be used in a different sense.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: May I just reply to the noble Lady? The way she has taken it is the interpretation taken by my noble friend. Does the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, want me to reply?
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes, I should be grateful if the noble Lady would reply.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I am not quite used to this confused procedure, but no doubt I shall get used to it in time. I think the important point is that we are searching for a word. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, feels that the word "class" is probably not going to give us the correct definition.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Would the noble Lady forgive me? I do not think we are yet clear what it is that the Government want to achieve by this clause. As I understood the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, he was limiting this only to classes of goods and not to specific things, which would exclude specific brands and designations, which are certainly not a class of goods.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: The point is that if we look at subsection (3) the class of goods is determined very much by the terms of the advertisement. This is the important point. One cannot look at one subsection without the other. The example which I have, which is similar to that given by the noble Lady and

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which may provide the answer, is that if John Smith advertises "My handbags are pure leather" then all John Smith's handbags must be leather, But it does not mean that Tom Jones's handbags have to be leather. In other words, the advertisement in this particular context is the determining factor of the class of goods in the words of the advertisement. Am I further confusing the point, or clarifying it? We hope the Committee will accept this, because we take it that this is—or at any rate was—in the nature of a probing Amendment. I hope your Lordships will accept that subsection (3) will clarify the point.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I should like to study more closely what the noble Lady has said. I am very grateful for her explanation. I hope that it will clarify the matter. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.31 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (2), after "not" to insert "all the goods were ". The noble Lord said: This Amendment may be barking right up the wrong tree; I am not sure. It was put down according to the interpretation that I had placed on the clause, and it may therefore be right out, but I do not think it is. I was not sure even as I put it down that it was quite right; I think it should have been "or any of the goods were ". I am prepared to move a manuscript Amendment if it makes it clearer.
There is a second point, which is a very minor one, and that is that on the most pedantic interpretation the words "whether or not in existence" ought to relate to "class" and not "goods". The major point was really to make it plain that we were dealing with the case where some of the goods were not in existence at all at the time that the advertisement was made, but the person who had read the advertisement came to get goods which were not in existence at the time the advertisement was made. It was intended to cover that. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 25, after (" not ") insert (" all the goods were ").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD MITCHISON: I think that when one considers the meaning of "class", it is fairly clear what we have here. It is
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" The trade description shall be taken as referring to all goods of the class…"
and if it refers to all goods of the class, it refers to any goods of the class, too; it must. If it is taken to refer to all, it must be taken to include any. When it says
" whether or not in existence at the time the advertisement is published ",
I think, as a matter of sense and construction, having decided what "class" means, that cannot refer to" class." The "class" is the class in the advertisement, as my noble friend said just now. It is a very broad phrase. But it is the goods which are in existence, and the kind of case we have in mind is the preliminary advertisement of a class of goods some of which come to be manufactured afterwards.
They were then linked up with the advertisement by the circumstances of the sale. But you might object in a somewhat critical spirit that the description could not have referred to that particular thing because that particular thing was not in existence at the time of the publication of the advertisment. I hope the noble Lord will feel that the language is reasonably clear. I am bound to say it did not cause me too much difficulty, but that is probably because I received guidance on the wording. I thought "class" was a nice broad word and its application must depend on the terms of the advertisement. I hope the noble Lord will feel it is reasonably clear and would not be elucidated any further by the addition he suggests.
LORD HAWKE: I am a little puzzled by the impact of the words "whether or not in existence ". I understand what is intended, but I am wondering if it might not do a bit more. Suppose someone put an advertisement in a Saturday column of the Daily Telegraph, for goods, some of which he had in stock while some were on order. If that advertisement lapsed or was withdrawn and two months later somebody came to buy from him, and he had in stock the nearest thing he had been able to get to the terms of the original specification and yet it was not the same as was originally advertised, would that clause not bite on that particular person, who in all innocence was supplying two months later the best he could get, perhaps having forgotten that he had advertised at all?
LORD MITCHISON: What we are trying to do is to protect the consumer. Let us say that there is advertisement of some sort relating to a class of goods and the class of goods, goods in stock or immediately after manufacture, are disposed of. Then two months later, there having been no fresh advertisment, something rather like that comes on sale. What the noble Lord is saying is that it it not really right to relate that to the original advertisement. I think my answer is that one has got to look at subsection (3); you have got to look among other things to
" all other matters making it likely or unlikely that a person to whom the goods are supplied would associate the advertisement with the goods ".
If you said to the buyer, "Do you read the Daily Telegraph?", and he replied "No, I cannot stand the paper; I always read the Sun", it would be that much more unlikely he had ever seen the Daily Telegraph advertisement. It might be that he might say, "I saw something of this kind advertised a couple months ago, and I meant to come at the time but I have been busy ". In that case I think it is right he should be protected by the provision of the clause because the advertisement had been made. It would be quite easy for the seller to say that related to another lot of goods, not this one. But unless he did so, I think the buyer would be entitled to protection. He would probably say, "That was the last consignment; nothing to do with this lot," and then everybody would be all right, and nobody would have committed any offence.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.39 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE: This is a drafting Amendment which I put forward with some trepidation. I always put forward any drafting Amendment with some trepidation. This is an Amendment to subsection (2), which is divided into paragraphs (a) and (b). Paragraphs (a) and (b) contain eleven words which are common to both of them. Those words are
"for the purpose of determining whether an offence has been committed ".
I should have thought it was good draftsmanship to state first the words which are common to the two paragraphs and then
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to divide off to paragraph (a) and paragraph (b). I should have thought that was very much clearer than having a paragraph (a) and a paragraph (b) both of which contain the expression I have referred to. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 26, leave out from (" published ") to end of line 34 and insert (" for the purpose of determining whether an offence has been committed

(a) under paragraph (a) of section 1(1) of this Act; and

(b) where the goods are supplied or offered to be supplied by a person publishing or displaying the advertisement, under paragraph (b) of the said section 1(1).").—(Lord Airedale.)

6.40 p.m.
LORD MITCHISON: This is a tempting drafting Amendment, but it does not do quite the same thing as does the original text. The original text applies for the purpose of determining an offence under paragraph (a) of Clause 1(1) in general. That is the general purpose. If one looks back at paragraph (a) one finds it covers those who apply a false trade description to any goods. It applies in all cases. When one comes to paragraph(b)of Clause 4(2) one gets to the other cases where the goods are supplied (I summarise) in connection with advertisements,
" also for the purpose of determining whether an offence has been committed under paragraph(b)".
—of Clause 1(1). I think the noble Lord sees the point. The original text is rather wider than his Amendment.
LORD AIREDALE: I should not like to spend time on a purely drafting Amendment. I think the Minister has got something here, and I am pleased to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.42 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI LORD STRABOLGI moved, in subsection (3), after "advertisement" (where that word occurs a second time) to insert "and other advertisements in relation to such goods." The noble Lord said: Arising out of the discussion that we had on the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, in respect of "class", it appears from what my noble friend Lord Mitchison said that Clause 4(3) is of immense importance, because it is through this subsection that we are going

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to determine the meaning of the words "class of goods". My Amendment seeks to add the words
" and other advertisements in relation to such goods."
I am rather surprised that when the whole case is going to be based on advertisements this is put into the singular, although I admit that there will also be taken into consideration the time, place, manner and frequency of its publication. I agree that that is possible with an advertisement with the same selling slant which is repeated in different forms in different media, either in the Press or "on the air ". But I suggest that it would be well worth adding other advertisements as well which may be selling the same goods in a different way, and which should be taken into account. In fact, I think that the whole campaign should be taken into account—every facet of it—when deciding whether the goods which are advertised have a false description or not; otherwise it would be possible to base a prosecution on a quite small advertisement, perhaps in a trade paper into which it has been inserted for quite a different purpose, not being meant to be seen at all by the general consumer but by the stockist. It would be possible to base a prosecution upon that without taking into account other advertisements of the same kind which are put out for the purpose of selling to the consumer. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 38, after (" advertisement ") insert (" and other advertisements in relation to such goods ").—(Lord Strabolgi.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: I should like to support this Amendment. I think it is a point that is relevant to that which was raised, I think, by my noble friend Lord Hawke. It is a fact, of course, that circumstances in commerical affairs change quickly and it may well be that another advertisement has been published which entirely supersedes the series, or supersedes the state of affairs so far as the consumer is concerned. Therefore it would seem entirely right and proper that there should be considered not only the particular advertisement, together with the time, which may have been some time ago, and the frequency of publication, but also whether there have been any further advertise
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ments which say something different, which change the offer, possibly withdraw the offer and so on. I think the noble Lord opposite has made this point quite clearly, and I would support it.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: In replying to this Amendment, I hope that both noble Lords will accept that the same observations apply to this Amendment and to Amendment No. 27. Since both noble Lords are concerned, I think that in a way they have answered the point—certainly the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has. Line 39 says:
" and all other matters making it likely or unlikely that a person to whom the goods are supplied would associate the advertisement with the goods ".
We feel that this covers the point which has been made. Before an advertisement is held to relate to any particular goods, naturally regard would have to be taken of any other advertisement which was relevant. These words in fact cover that situation.
LORD STRABOLGI: With respect to the noble Baroness, I really cannot agree with her. I quite understand what she means. I know it is clear in her mind, and her explanation has now made it clear in mine. But we are legislating for a great many years, and whether it will be clear to the courts or even to members of the public who are bringing cases, or appeals, or are defending cases, I do not know. I should have thought that this was a perfectly harmless and rather helpful Amendment. I cannot see what objection there is to adding this wording. The noble Baroness could keep the Government's wording in as well. The term "all other matters" merely makes it all the more embracing. I suggest to the noble Baroness that it may well be worth the Government's while to have another look at this matter, to try to make the provision as wide as possible. If the noble Baroness would give me the undertaking that perhaps on Report stage she will let the House know what is the Government's considered view, I should be prepared to withdraw the Amendment.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: I should like to ask the noble Baroness whether she would be willing to look at this matter again. I have listened carefully, and I cannot understand—I quite accept that it may be me and not the

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noble Baroness—these words cannot be included. If the noble Baroness does not feel able to look at it again, I wonder whether she would spell out simply, for me anyway, the reasons of the Government for feeling that these words should not be included?
LORD DRUMALBYN: May I say another word about this? I think it is perhaps a more important Amendment than the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, thinks. Of course the point is included in the words in the Bill as it stands; but this is a question really of priorities. My own view is that this is a matter which is at least as important as the time, place, manner and frequency of publication, and probably more important, particularly in relation to the words that follow. The words that follow mention
" other matters making it likely or unlikely that a person to whom the goods are supplied would associate the advertisement with the goods."
It is extremely important that this particular matter should be placed in the forefront of those points which could reasonably be expected to make a person associate the advertisement which is superseded with the goods. It is most important that a supplier should not be deemed to have committed an offence when he has completely changed the copy of his advertisement, has changed the offer, the price, and so on, and when this has been completely superseded by a new advertisement. This is as important as any other consideration. It ought to be put in, and I hope that the noble Lord will not turn it down out of hand but will consider it further before the next stage.
LORD HAWKE: We are not only legislating for the poor, innocent consumer. We have also to deal with the sea-lawyers and the smart-Alecks who may bring before the Weights and Measures people complaints based on the slight dubiety of the wording of the Bill and use this as a form of blackmail. We want to make certain that they cannot do that.
LORD MITCHISON: If on consideration, noble Lords want us to look at this point, we will, but I cannot hold out much hope in the matter. It seems to me to be perfectly clear from the language of the subsection:
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" In determining…whether any goods are of a class to which an advertisement relates regard shall be had not only to the form and content of the advertisement …"—
that is the first thing to look at, and then the subsection goes on to mention the other things. We are being asked to include not only "the form and content of the advertisement ", but also "and other advertisements in relation to such goods ". It must depend on the circumstances, whether there are any other advertisements, and so on. In some places the matter would be clear; in others it would not be clear. The right way to bring in a question of this sort—which is only one of many questions—is to see whether it is
" likely or unlikely that a person would associate the advertisement with the goods."
Those general words clearly cover this point I should find the subsection much more obscure if it said that not only had one to look at "the form and content of the advertisement" but at "other advertisements in relation to such goods" and to a number of other things, including all the circumstances of the case. It would be a much more difficult clause to construe if those words were included, and it would not add one whit to the subsection.
LORD DRUMALBYN: It is quite plain from what the noble Lord has said that the words themselves will not do. But the purpose of the Amendment, and what we are asking him to look at, is that other subsequent advertisements by the same advertiser should also be taken into account.
LORD MITCHISON: I suggest that one must consider the circumstances of the case. If they are relevant, by all means consider them; but one does not want to enjoin people to consider a whole lot of other advertisements which may have nothing whatever to do with the matter. Surely the right way to bring in this kind of consideration is to say
" all other matters making it likely or unlikely that a person…would associate the advertisement with the goods ".
That really is the point. If one is enjoined to bring in other advertisements in relation to such goods, they may have nothing whatever to do with it. They may be advertisements which the buyer never sees. They may be advertisements

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which are years old. The Amendment seeks to put in the forefront of the picture something which may or may not deserve to be put there The way to discover whether it deserves to be put there is to see whether the person to whom the goods are supplied would be likely to associate the advertisement in question with the goods.
I speak with some confidence about this. While I appreciate what the noble Lord has in mind, I am quite sure that this point is already covered and that the inclusion of these words would make the matter far more difficult. I hope that in the light of what I have said, the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, will withdraw the Amendment. I assure him that the inclusion of the words of his Amendment would do nothing but obscure the issue. In some cases it would be obliging the courts to look at matters which might have nothing to do with the question which they were deciding. I do not really know what further consideration one could give to a point of construction, but if it will make my noble friend any happier I will say that will look at it to see whether I might be wrong. I remember the injunction given by Cromwell to his soldiers on one occasion, that in circumstances which it would be un-Parliamentary to quote they should examine whether they might not be mistaken. I will gladly do that much. I rather hope my noble friend will withdraw it.
LORD STRABOLGI: I do not know whether my noble friend is going to try to redraft this subsection or not. He says he is going to look at it, but he cannot give any promise or undertaking except to look at it and think about it. I do not know whether there is any hope of getting this subsection amended in a clear manner by Report stage.
LORD MITCHISON: Let me make it perfectly clear. I will invite my noble friend to withdraw the Amendment. I am saying to him that if he or any other noble Lord wants me to look at it again, I will gladly try to find whether I am wrong. This happens to be a case where I feel confident that I am dead right. Therefore I cannot hold out any hope. In these drafting matters, one sometimes feels that there may be a point in them, and sometimes one feels the other way. Frankly,
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I do not think there is anything in this whatever, except the possibility of causing a certain amount of confusion. Having said that, I have offered—and I offer again, if the noble Lord tells me he wants me to do so—to try to find if I was mistaken in some way.
LORD DRUMALBYN: May I assist the noble Lord opposite and the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison? Could I suggest to Lord Strabolgi that he and I discuss the wording of this Amendment and put the matter down again at the next stage'? That will give the noble Lord an opportunity to reconsider it.
LORD STRABOLGI: In view of what my noble friend has said, and having regard to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL THE DUKE OF ATHOLL moved, in subsection (3), after "manner" to insert "style". The noble Duke said: It is with a certain amount of trepidation, after all the discussion which we have had on this subsection, that I rise to move this Amendment. The word "style", which I should like to see inserted in line 38, is obviously covered by
" all other matters making it likely or unlikely that a person to whom the goods are supplied would associate the advertisement with the goods."
I feel that if we include in the more specific considerations the time, place, manner and frequency of the advertisement, we also ought to take into account the style of the advertisement. Advertisements vary considerably in style, usually according to the quality of the goods they are selling.
Thus if you are selling something which costs £100, you tend to have an advertisement which most people would regard as of a rather better style and less flashy, than if you are selling something which costs Is. Therefore, I should have thought that one of the considerations which ought to be enumerated was the style. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, may say that "manner" already includes style, but I can assure him that to me manner and style are quite different. However, if he does say that, I am quite prepared to accept his word for it.
LORD MITCHISON: What I am going to say is that "form and content" cover it.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 38, after (" manner ") insert (" style ").—(The Duke of Atholl.)
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I am sorry to disappoint the noble Duke, but I am replying this time. We are trying to divide policy and law, in order to avoid wasting the time of the Committee. I take it that in this connection the noble Duke means literary style, as otherwise the word "manner" would cover this point. I see exactly what he means when he describes the advertisements—I believe this comes in the law of defamation, also—but we feel, as we have said before, that "and all other matters making it likely or unlikely" would in fact cover the point that he is making. I hope he will appreciate that.
LORD AIREDALE: May I just ask out of curiosity why the "not only but also" form of construction is used here, when the subsection says
" not only to the form and content…but to the time place, manner and frequency "?
Why not string them all together and say
" regard shall be had to the form, content, time, place, manner and frequency "?
Why "not only but also "?
LORD MITCHISON: If I may answer, I think the reason is that, obviously, you must look at the form and content of the advertisement. You might stop there, if it were not for this indication of other points which you would also have to consider. Therefore, you take the obvious thing and say, "Now judge, but do not stop at that point. Go on and look at the others, too ".
LORD HAWKE: May I suggest that this is a wonderful chance for the noble Baroness to hit her first four by accepting this Amendment, because it cannot do the slightest harm to the Bill and it can certainly emphasise a slight difference of opinion. Unfortunately, we do not have the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, here to argue about nuances of the English language, but let us take the comic advertisements for, say, Guinness. Somebody
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might go, with his tongue in his cheek, to a seriously minded inspector of weights and measures, and say, "It is not really true that I can carry an iron girder after a glass of this beverage". That would certainly be covered by the style of the advertisement, which would be regarded as comic, and it might be covered to some extent by "other matters making it likely or unlikely". But "style" would do no harm, so why should the noble Baroness not get a good mark by accepting something?
LORD MITCHISON: I am awfully sorry to interject. I was told by someone well versed in these matters that, if you put unnecessary words into an Act of Parliament, they tend to fester, and think I that really is the short way of putting it. I think it is quite clear that this point is covered. As the noble Duke himself said, it does not make any difference, but if you take to accepting things because they do not make any difference, you are rather apt to find that their insertion makes rather more difference than you supposed. Any discrepancy between my noble friend and myself arises from the fact that "style" has various meanings. Advertisements can be snappy or weighty, and I can think of other descriptions, too. I think this is all covered in the clause as it is, and if one goes on adding, one runs a risk with every unnecessary word that is put in.
LORD AUCKLAND: Whether or not "style" is the right word, I think there is substance in this Amendment. I am reminded, for example, of an advertisement for lager beer where one sees a beautiful blonde on the poster, with no relevancy at all to what is advertised. I may be barking up the wrong tree here, but I assume that this Amendment really refers to that kind of advertisement. Whether or not "relevancy" would be a better word I do not know, but I think that "style" is quite relevant to the example which I have quoted. I hope that the Government will at least consider this Amendment before the next stage of the Bill.
LORD MITCHISON: I feel inclined to say that one is always ready to consider anything. I think that is a very proper way in which to approach a Bill. But I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, as

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distinct from the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, that this point is already covered. I do not know about barking up the wrong tree at the blonde, but I should have said that the lady was a "matter making it likely or unlikely that a person to whom the goods are supplied would associate the advertisement with the goods", and if she was not that she would not matter.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I think we have had an interesting discussion on this Amendment. I quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, that we want to have as few words as possible in this Bill. It is already quite long enough, and I should not wish to press this Amendment. But I want to warn the noble Lord that at the Report stage I shall probably move to delete "time, place, manner and frequency ", as those words would also appear to be covered by "all other matters". I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.7 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD moved to add to the clause:
" ( )—(a) Where it is proved that any statement or advertisement is false in so far that it induces a person to accept an offer for goods, services or facilities, which but for such false statement or advertisement the offer would not otherwise have been accepted, such false statement or advertisements shall be deemed to be a false trade description for the purposes of the Act.
(b) In determining whether or not a statement or advertisement is false for the purposes of this subsection, a court shall have regard not only to the express words contained in the statement or advertisement but also to false indications arising from ambiguity, omission or inference."
The noble Baroness said: I rise to move this Amendment—and I speak here on behalf of my Consumer Council—because I think it is known to the noble Lord opposite that we are not entirely satisfied with Clause 4 as it stands, and I am suggesting adding another clause. The reason for doing this is that, unless a description in an advertisement can be brought within one of the heads in Clause 2, it is not a trade description for the purposes of the Bill, as however false it may be its application to goods does not constitute an offence.
My noble friend Lord Peddie has already discussed this shortcoming during the Second Reading of the Bill, and although I am very glad that we have in the course of our discussions extended the ambit of Clause 2, it would still not catch the effect of false advertising, whether that is brought about by ambiguity, omission or inference, unless it is clearly linked to one or other of the heads in Clause 2. This is really a philosophical difference, because we believe that the criterion of falseness should be judged by its effect on the buyer. This is the method adopted in many foreign countries, and indeed in America an advertisement must reach a very high standard of accuracy, for advertisements there must not mislead even the most ignorant or least suspicious buyer. This may be setting a rather high standard. None the less, the principle of judging a false statement by its effect on the buyer is, I believe, the only realistic one.
In the Second Reading debate, my noble friend Lord Peddie gave two examples of this formula which have already been adopted in British law. I refer to the Labelling of Food Order 1963, Section 8, and the Bread and Flour Regulations 1963, Section 23. This is, I think, the right course, for whatever the length of the list of heads under Clause 2, it can never be truly comprehensive and will not catch the subtle inferences and significant omissions in advertisements which are so common in modern advertising practice, particularly on the television screen. What we want to be quite sure about is that a misrepresentation by omission is also caught under this Bill, and this new paragraph which we are proposing, brings an advertisement which gives a false impression by an omission into the same position as those covered by the existing categories in Clause 4, which we have been discussing. It adds one more group to those already in the clause. I hope very much that the Government will be able to see their way clear to accept this Amendment, if not as I have drafted it then in a way that puts into Clause 4 a subsection which will catch those advertisers who achieve results in ways which are not now designated in Clause 4. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 41, at end insert the said subsection.—(Baroness Elliot of Harwood.)
LORD PEDDIE: I hope the Committee will support this Amendment. I think that, in the first place, we should recognise the basic purpose of this Bill, which is to penalise the person who is trying, by misrepresentation of his products, to mislead a buyer. It is quite true that the Bill lays down a series of characteristics by which one will be able to judge misrepresentation, but I think it has been indicated quite clearly that the characteristics, physical or otherwise, do not include all the means by which it is possible for a customer to be misled. Indeed, as the noble Baroness has indicated, I quoted on Second Reading instances in which legislation already in existence recognises the fact that people can be misled by omission or by inference; and, in indicating that on the last occasion, I actually quoted a case where it was possible, in a television advertisement, for a white-coated person to represent himself as a doctor, and by that means, of course, obviously, to create the impression that the product advertised was backed by the medical profession.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: If my noble friend—
LORD PEDDIE: The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, intervened at that point, quite rightly, and pointed out that no longer were such advertisements in existence. I accepted that correction; but, at the same time, I would remind the Committee that, whilst doctors are not represented in such a way, as recently as about two or three weeks ago there was an advertisement for a very well known medical product in which a person in a white coat was demonstrating the effects of a particular commodity. It is true that he was not a doctor, but the white coat itself is a symbol of the medical profession—and one could go on.
LORD HAWKE: May I correct the noble Lord there? I happen to be a director of a company which hires out many tens of thousands of white coats, and remarkably few of them are worn by doctors.
LORD PEDDIE: But I am quite certain that the persons to whom the noble Lord refers are not handling and demonstrating these particular pills. You can use white coats for all sorts of purposes,
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which clearly indicates that a white coat can be used for a purpose other than the one with which you are concerned; but in this particular one it was used to demonstrate a medical product. The mere fact that the noble Lord has intervened and has indicated that a white coat can be used for another purpose strengthens my point, because when it is associated with a medical product, as here, it has an entirely different meaning.
In consequence of that, we are suggesting in this Amendment, which is quite a reasonable one—there is nothing new about it; it merely recognises the fact that a list of physical characteristics cannot itself include all forms of misrepresentation; no more than that—that, where it is possible to prove that a person has, by omission or by inference, in any way caused a person to be wrongly influenced to purchase a commodity, then he should be penalised—and that, after all, is the sole purpose of the Bill. The sole purpose of the Bill is to penalise individuals who indulge in misrepresentation to sell their goods. It is contended through this Amendment that this misrepresentation can be effected by means other than those classified in the list of physical characteristics, and I therefore hope that the Committee will support the Amendment moved by the noble Lady.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: I should like to make a comment here. I find myself in some difficulty, and I should like to tell the Committee why. I am a member of the Independent Television Authority, and, whether we call it the Addison Rule or not, we obviously do not in either House take part in debates connected with the work of a board or authority of which we are a member. I do not of course, propose to do so, but what has really brought me to my feet is the noble Lady opposite. I may have remembered her words incorrectly, but I think the gist of what she implied was this: that the type of advertisement of which she was complaining here was to be found—I do not know if she used the word "particularly", but, anyway, was to be found—among television advertisements.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: I did not use the word "particularly"; I merely added television advertisements

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to other advertisements. I am not pressing television as opposed to any other medium.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: I know, but unfortunately that is what has brought me to my feet. Before I became a member of the Independent Television Authority, and when I was in another place and was pursuing the question of advertisements—in that case it happened to be dental advertisements—I said then, and I still say now, that I think the type of advertisement on our television screens is. if I may use the word, better (which is always a bad word to use) than the type of advertisement used in other media; and I thought then that this was because the control exercised by the Independent Television Authority, as a result of what is laid upon it by Parliament, was very much better. That, as I say, was long before I came to this House.
I was about to rise and correct the noble Lord, Lord Peddie, who saw me out of the corner of his eye and made it very evident that he did not require any correction, because I knew what the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, had said during the previous debate. But I want to raise this point. I have sympathy, even if she does not think it, with what the noble Lady is after, but I am very concerned over these words "ambiguity, omission or inference ". I think this is almost impossible to decide. We can obviously decide whether or not an advertisement is factually correct. That is something we can ascertain; and, if the noble Lady would not think I was being unfair—I am sure she will not—I should like to remind her that, of the considerable list of advertisements (I think some 36 in number) about which her Council complained to the Independent Television Authority some little time ago, one had some substance and the others were found not to have. I think that, in that respect—and it is difficult for other Members of the Committee, who, unlike the noble Lady and myself, do not know in detail what we are talking about—
LORD CHAMPION: Hear, hear!
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: I am trying to be clear, and I think I am being as clear as anything, after what went on before—I mean earlier this after
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noon, not during the remarks of the previous speaker. But what is very difficult, it seems to me, is to decide what somebody thinks as a result of what he has seen. This is a matter of opinion, and that creates a difficulty. Is it the noble Lady's opinion or mine if we each see an advertisement and arrive at different conclusions? And for whom are the courts to find in this particular respect? I also feel that the noble Lady is on a very sticky wicket when she gets on to the question of omission. The essence of good advertising is to be able to use a succinct phrase which exactly puts the point. This you cannot do without omitting something. You cannot have an essay; it would then cease to be an advertisement. These are the only remarks I wish to make. I have sympathy with this; but I do not think it practicable because I think a court cannot decide between different opinions. But I was drawn to my feet by the fact that I believe that the control of advertising on television is better than that on other media—and I do not think I am alone in that opinion.
LORD STRABOLGI: I should like to support everything that my noble friend Lady Burton of Coventry has said, and also to suggest to the critics of television commercials that they might try to see how difficult it would be to get the whole information into some fifteen seconds, or less.
LORD PEDDIE: The trend of the debate is tending to go along in the wrong direction. We are not expressing any criticism of television as such. It may be—I think it is—that the measure of control over television advertising is better than, say, that of the newspapers. I concede that. All that has been stated in this Amendment is that it is possible to mislead a potential buyer in a manner that does not come within the list of characteristics. There is no doubt about that. That is all that is being stated. If we want a precedent for what is now being suggested—and I appreciate the difficulty mentioned by my noble friend—I would refer to the precedent which I quoted on a previous occasion, and which is to be found in the Labelling of Food Order 1953, and again in the Bread and Flour Regulations 1963. I quote:
" It is an offence for any person to publish an advertisement which indicates or is calculated to indicate by words device or description

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either directly or by ambiguity, omission or inference that a food is an aid to slimming."
So there is a precedent in that legislation. The only point now is, if the true purpose of the Bill is to protect the consumer against any misrepresentation, what is the difficulty about accepting this Amendment, which would tighten it a little more?
7.25 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I should like, first of all, to assure both the noble Lady and the noble Lord that certainly the purpose of the Bill is as he has outlined. But, having said that, I would emphasise that if the range of matters which can be treated as trade descriptions were to be extended in this way, it would include a number of highly subjective elements. We have very carefully constructed the "misdescription" parts of the Bill to make them workable and not to expose the courts to the difficulty—or even, as we have already heard, the impossibility—of reaching decisions on the basis of these subjective factors. In Clause 2 we have provided a virtually all—embracing list of objective matters as to which false statements might be made and which could be relatively easily assessed for the purpose of determining whether or not a false trade description had been used.
The noble Lord, Lord Peddie, referred to other legislation; but I think he would agree that particular matters connected with health were dealt with in that legislation. They could not be taken as a pattern for a general Bill of this kind, which ranges over goods and advertisements of every possible kind. I should like particularly to quote the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, who I think has some marvellous quotes, which I use on frequent occasions. I believe he said yesterday that it is undesirable to extend the scope of criminal law to an undefined extent. This is the thinking behind the Government's request to the noble Lady to withdraw her Amendment.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: I rise to thank the noble Lady for her answer, which I am afraid I do not find very satisfactory. It is a curious thing that this question of omission, false interpretation or ambiguity or inference does in fact exist in the legislation of a number of other countries. It exists, I understand, in West Germany, France, America and in Spain. Their advertising laws all
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employ this principle which I am advocating. They have done this successfully; and I cannot see why, as it is one of the necessary protections for the public, our Government should not discover that it could also be put into this Bill. I do not want to argue with the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, about the Independent Television Authority and advertising that is complained of. The figures she gave I do not think were correct. I do not carry them in my head, but I will write to her on this matter from my office. We have had a lot of discussion with them and, as the noble Lady knows, the Independent Television Authority advertising is governed by a code, and that code is the important thing. But this does not really apply to the discussion here to-day.
However, I still feel that this is something that this Bill lacks. I shall not press this Amendment to a Division at this moment. I shall withdraw it, but I shall put something down at Report stage. I hope very much that in the meantime the Board of Trade and the Ministers concerned will be able to look again at this matter. It may be that I have not the right phraseology. It may be that something better could be put in; but if it can be done in other countries, I do not see why it cannot it done in this country. I think it is of some importance. I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment now, but reserve the right to put something down on Report.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Before my noble friend withdraws her Amendment, I wonder whether when she considers what to put down at the Report stage, she will have regard to the framework of this Bill, because we must get a Bill which is workable within this framework. She has quoted the experience of other countries where the framework of the law is different; it may be that we may have to meet the kind of point she has in mind by a different method.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: While accepting what the noble Lady has to say, I would ask that she should look at Clause 2, because I feel there is a statement there,
" an indication direct or indirect by whatever means given "
which might go a long way to cover ambiguity, omission or inference.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[The Sitting was suspended at twenty-eight minutes past seven o'clock, and resumed at half past eight.]
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall be agreed to?
LORD AIREDALE: Before we leave Clause 4, there is one matter I should like to mention, which was put into my mind by something said earlier by the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl. Clause 4 deals with trade descriptions used in advertisements relating to any class of goods, and it operates, according to subsection (2)
" for the purpose of determining whether an offence has been committed ".
What worries me is this. Suppose an organisation whose job is the marketing of milk find they have more milk than they can sell in liquid form and decide to sell the milk in the form of milk chocolate. They have a campaign to, "Eat more milk chocolate—every half-pound contains a pint of milk!" If that statement is false, no doubt that organisation would deserve to be prosecuted.
However, suppose a shopper goes into a shop and buys half a pound of some brand of milk chocolate, which is analysed and found not to contain so much as a pint of milk, I think it would be monstrous if the shopkeeper or his supplier or the manufacturer of the chocolate were to be prosecuted for something amounting to a misdescription under an advertisement published by an organisation which had nothing whatever to do with them. I am not quite satisfied that under the Bill as it stands that shopkeeper or supplier or manufacturer may not be prosecuted. This is not a matter I can expect a reply to from the Minister this evening, but it might be worth looking at before the next stage of the Bill.
LORD DRUMALBYN: May I make one comment here? If this clause deals only with trade descriptions in relation to a class of goods, may I respectfully submit to the noble Lord that the rubric is misleading? If it had not been so, I would not have fallen into the error which I apparently did in my interpretation of this clause. I wonder whether we could not have a more restricted rubric to make clear what the clause is really dealing with.
LORD MITCHISON: I hesitate to take responsibility for rubrics. If we make them too long, they often appear to be misleading. I think that this is a good general description, but I will gladly look at the rubric to see whether we can think of some words that will cover it a little better.
On the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, clearly the people who issued the advertisement would have done nothing wrong, because they would not have sold any goods or supplied or offered to supply any goods, or applied a trade description to them. No doubt they are out of the wood. The only circumstances in which anyone else may be liable would be those in which one could charge that the person who was buying associated the advertisement with the goods. I think that one could get out of this on the common sense of the courts or on the de minimis rule. If one could prove that the half pound did not contain a pint but eleven ounces of milk, nobody would be likely to prosecute. But if there was a gross error, I am inclined to think that the person who sold the goods ought to be liable, because he had in one way or another represented to the buyer that these were goods which contained a quantity of milk that was much larger than the actual quantity of milk in them. That is what we do not want people to do, whether by reference to advertisements or in any other way.
There is no injustice here that I can see, and it does not really turn on this clause. It turns, I should have thought, on the matters one has to take into account as regards the trade description in Clause 2, particularly in this case, perhaps, of composition, or possibly method of manufacture. I think that if a trader effects a sale on the footing that there is a given quantity of milk, then, subject to de minimis, he ought to be liable; and the whole tenor of this Bill is, like the food and drugs legislation, to make people liable for letting the consumer in on a point of this sort, irrespective of intention. I think one has to do it that way—I see the difficulties, of course—otherwise one becomes involved in subjective considerations which are not, I think, appropriate to this form of legislation, or indeed, so far as one can avoid them, to criminal matters at all.
Clause 4 agreed to.
8.38 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, after Clause 4, to insert the following new clause:
Definition of False Trade Description
" . The expression ' false trade description ' means a trade description which is likely to be taken as true but is false in a material respect as regards the goods to which it is applied, that is to say, in a respect of such substance that it is capable of inducing a purchase."
The noble Lord said: I hope I shall not be out of order if I start by saying that, while in discussion we are bound to quote illustrations that come to mind, I hope it will not be thought that in doing so we are referring (as they say at the beginning of novels) to any living persons.
I can explain this Amendment quite simply. The reason why we have put it down is that when we come to Clause 5 we are dealing with statements deemed to be "false trade descriptions ". That seems to me to be a new kind of beast, the "false trade description". In view of the way in which it is treated in Clause 5 we thought that the term ought to be defined. What we have done here is to attempt to reproduce the Molony recommendation in words as close to Molony's own words as possible, with one addition which I shall explain. It would have been possible to define a false trade description in Clause 1, but that we have not done: what we have done is to say what we mean by "false". A definition could, I think, come in here, or after Clause 5, or in the Interpretation Clause. But I think this is the right place to put it, in view of the fact that you then read on to Clause 5. In any case, from the point of view of debating Clause 5, I think it is a good idea to get clear in our minds what we mean by a false trade description, even if the Government are unable to accept this Amendment at the present time.
The basic offence is in applying a false trade description. We have been discussing trade descriptions in Clause 2, and we have been discussing applying them in Clauses 3 and 4. Now we come to this false trade description. The first leg of this clause deals with the point of whether or not the description is likely to be taken as true. This is something I mentioned at an earlier stage. It seems to me that unless the thing is likely to be
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taken as true, it is not deceptive; it does not deceive anybody, and it does no harm. Therefore, this seems to be a good leg to start on.
Then it goes on to introduce once again the words "in a material respect", and to define their meaning in the terms which Molony himself used as indicating what he, at any rate, thought was meant; that is to say, is "capable of inducing a purchase" of the goods to which the description is applied. This is really the crux of the matter. I think it covers the point which my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood was raising earlier; that, to do any harm, this false description must be capable of inducing a purchase. I thought this was a good place to put it in, and I thought it was a good idea to define what we meant by a "false trade description ". I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 4 insert the said new clause—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: I should like to support this clause. It has for me only one disadvantage, which is that I was not in favour, and still am not in favour, of the phrase "in a material respect ". As that is now in the Bill, I have to swallow that one, but I think it is a good idea that we should have something in the Bill which makes the point I made when moving my Amendment: that in some respects people are being induced to make a purchase which might or might not be what they think it is—in other words, that there might be a false emphasis which would be wrong and which would induce someone to make a purchase when he did not know what he was purchasing. I think it is an advantage to have a description of this kind, and I would support the noble Lord.
LORD STRABOLGI: I should like to support this Amendment, to which I have added my name. As the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said, we have construed the word "false" in Clause 1, and without going over the arguments which were accepted by the Committee yesterday, I think the noble Lord is perfectly right in asking for this Amendment to be included. The effect would be that this construction would be put on "a false trade description" only if, as the noble Lady has said, it is of such substance that it is capable of inducing a purchase. It would

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not be operative if it is false due to overenthusiastic belief in a product by a manufacturer or his advertiser. It is probably quite a good thing for people to feel enthusiastic about their goods, although sometimes they may stray from the strict frontiers of accuracy. In other words, the clause would only be operative if it were of such a nature that it would induce a purchase.
LORD AIREDALE: I should like this Amendment to have all-Party support, but I must say that I wonder whether the expression "capable of inducing a purchase" has any limitation at all. I should not have thought that it was incapable of inducing a purchase if you took a 1s. 6d. packet of detergent and stuck a 3d. bit on the packet with a bit of adhesive tape, and sold the packet for 1s. 9d. So I wonder whether there is anything under the sun which can be said not to be capable of inducing a purchase. With that reservation I support the Amendment.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will be glad to have this news. Your Lordships will appreciate that he made some drastic alterations to his earlier Amendment. As it is clearly linked with a decision taken in Committee yesterday, we can assure the noble Lord that we will give due consideration to this point between now and the Report stage. I hope the noble Lord will accept this assurance and withdraw the Amendment.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I most willingly accept it. I have no pretensions about being able to draft expertly, and I am most grateful for the undertaking the noble Lady has given. I willingly withdraw the Amendment.
LORD MITCHISON: Before the Amendment is withdrawn, I think I should point out that at some stage we shall have to consider the effect of the Amendment that was added the other day. When we read the two things together we come to some rather curious results, because according to the Amendment passed the other day the word "false "shall be construed as meaning" false in a material respect "as regards the goods to which it is applied. We now have added the expression
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"'false trade description ' means a trade description which is false in a material respect as regards the goods to which it is applied".
That is exactly what was passed the other day, and the only addition to it is the words
" that is to say, in a respect of such substance that it is capable of inducing a purchase ".
I rather thought I heard the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, commenting on an Amendment which was moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, before the adjournment and pointing out, quite rightly, that this kind of consideration introduced subjective conditions which were possibly rather unworkable. I make that comment, not with a view to saying that we will not consider it, but in order to warn the noble Lord that the two things must be considered together and that, so considered, that is the only addition which they make.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am not quite certain whether the noble Lord has got the original version of this Amendment, but there is the other side of it which adds the words "likely to be taken as true". I fully take the noble Lord's point and I was aware of this. If I may say so, it was one of the reasons why I moved this Amendment fairly quickly and I got the answer that I expected from the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips.
LORD MITCHISON: I did not want the noble Lord to be unduly disappointed.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5:
Misleading indications treated as false trade descriptions
5.—(1) A trade description which, though not false, is misleading, that is to say, calculated to be taken for such an indication of any of the matters specified in section 2 of this Act as would be false, shall be deemed to be a false trade description.
(2) Anything which, though not a trade description, is calculated to be taken for an indication of any of those matters and, as such an indication, would he false, shall be deemed to be a false trade description.
(3) A false indication, or anything calculated to be taken as an indication which would be false, that any goods comply with a standard specified or recognised by any person or implied by the approval of any person shall be deemed to be a false trade description, notwithstanding that there is no such person or no standard so specified, recognised or implied.
8.47 p.m.
LORD CAWLEY LORD CAWLEY moved, in subsection (1), to leave out all words from "misleading" to "shall". The noble Lord said: I quite understand what subsection (1) is meant to achieve, but it is rather mysterious because it starts with the words "A trade description ". Clause 2 states:
" A trade description is an indicationa…of any of the following matters with respect to any goods or parts of goods, that is to say "—
and then there is a series of different criteria. That is therefore an indication, but subsection (1) here says:
" A trade description "—
that is an indication—
" which though not false, is misleading, that is to say calculated to be taken for such an indication of any of the matters specified in Section 2 of this Act as would be false …"—
therefore it is an indication which is calculated to be taken as an indication—
" shall be deemed to be a false trade description."
My Amendment is to delete all the surplus, as I consider it, in the middle, and to return to the form:
" A trade description, which, though not false, is misleading, shall be deemed to be a false trade description."
In the 1953 Act the word "misleading" was introduced by saying simply:
" after the word ' false' in the 1887 Act shall be added the words ' or misleading '."
I think the words in the middle of this subsection simply make matters more complicated. It is rather like the old riddle, "When is a door not a door?" and the answer is "When it is ajar ". I really cannot see the point of these words in the middle. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 43, leave out from (" misleading ") to (" shall ") in line 45.—(Lord Cawley.)
LORD MITCHISON: I think that if we leave out the words it is proposed to omit we shall get an entirely different meaning. The words are limiting words, and what is intended is
" A trade description which, though not false, is misleading "—
then follow the words to be left out—
" shall be deemed to be a false trade description ".
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It is not intended to say that a trade description which, though not false, is misleading shall be deemed to be a false trade description, because that would mean it might be misleading in any respect and therefore be a false trade description, and it would enlarge very considerably the possibilities of what can be treated as a false trade description, though in fact it is a misleading trade description.
The effect of the words which it is proposed to leave out is to limit this, because what they say is that it is to be
"calculated to be taken for such an indication of any of the matters specified in section 2 of this Act as would be false ",
and that is the whole point of the subsection. Clause 2 of the Bill lists the matters which must be misstated in order to constitute a false trade description, but of course without impinging on any matters of that kind you might have something which though not false was misleading in some other respect, and it would then have to be deemed to be a false trade description. That is enlarging very considerably what it intended by the subsection as regards the misleading false description. It would let in all kinds of things which would not be covered in the case of a simple false trade description but would be admitted by this clause as regards a misleading description and therefore be deemed to be a false trade description. It is really a drafting point.
I suggest to the noble Lord that to omit these limiting words opens the door far wider than I fancy he or I would intend, and I hope therefore that the Amendment is not going to be pressed. If I may give an instance, the quality of goods is not included in Clause 2. If this clause were to be amended, a misleading indication of quality would in fact be caught though the false description of quality would not be, and that I think can hardly be anybody's intention. I hope, therefore, that the Amendment will not be pressed. I think it has been put forward under a slight misunderstanding of what we had in mind in the clause.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am not quite certain of this. Trade descriptions are carefully and fully defined in Clause 2. So you have to start from the point, as

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this clause does, that it must be a trade description within the meaning of Clause 2.
LORD MITCHISON: That is right.
LORD DRUMALBYN: So that limits the grounds very much indeed. First of all, it must be a trade description and therefore we are limited to what are trade descriptions. That is point number one. Then the clause goes on, "though not false, is misleading ". I pointed out in my Second Reading speech that it was quite possible to have a trade description which was perfectly true but nevertheless misleading. I instanced the case of jewels in watches; one can advertise a fifteen-jewel watch to give the impression it is of very much better quality and workmanship than it really is. Some of these jewels—which are very cheap I understand; they are industrially produced—may play no effective part in the movement of the watch at all. It is a true description; the watch has got fifteen jewels; but it is misleading to the extent that it is intended to indicate that the watch is of very much better quality than it really is.
If you keep those words in, I am not certain that that would be covered. It might be said that in relation to performance, or something like that, it would be a false trade description, because it is making out that the performance is better than it really is. I am not sure. That is just an example that comes to mind. If you take out those words, I do not think it makes any difference. But certainly, if you take out the words there is no dubiety about it at all.
I am sure my noble friend does not want to press this Amendment, but one would like to have it thought of a little more. It may well be that the noble Lord is right and that to take out these words would extend the definition much further. I think it would extend it some distance, but it would always be within the compass of a trade description. At any rate, so long as it is within the compass of a trade description I should have thought it would not be objectionable to take out those words. I am sure my noble friend does not want to press this Amendment. I think we might leave it at that, and perhaps the noble Lord will be able to say a little more about it.
LORD MITCHISON: I do not want to persuade people too often to put down the same Amendment again on Report. I have little doubt in this case. The point is this: that we may have a trade description which refers to, or even may include, one of the items in Clause 2(1). But it may also be misleading in another respect. It will still be a trade description, because it includes something referring to these things. You may have a mixed trade description, if I may put it that way; and if you do not define that a little more accurately, then you may get people "had" for a misleading description when that misleading description does not really refer to one of the Clause 2 matters. Therefore I think it is for the protection of the public to put these words in.
I agree it is arguable that if you take them out it might not make much difference. I think I go as far as that. But, it is advisable not to extend criminal legislation too far; and it is clear to me, at any rate, that in some cases you might be "had" for a misleading description, deemed to be false, when you would not be "had" for a false one. It is a rather fine point, I agree. I do not think there are many things in it. But when you are dealing with this kind of matter—" misleading deemed to be false "—it is better to be on the safe side.
I would recommend your Lordships, with respect, to leave the words in. I hope that the noble Lord who moved the Amendment will feel that he can withdraw it. I can assure him that we shall look through all these debates, irrespective of any particular promise that has been made, to see whether there is, in the course of argument, not necessarily on an Amendment, some point which we ought to have covered. But this has been a difficult Bill to draw. I think it has been remarkably well done. Alterations are sometimes rather difficult. I hope I am not being too discouraging.
LORD AIREDALE: All this cross-reference between Clause 5(1) and Clause 2(1) is most confusing. It seems a long time ago now, but I moved an Amendment to take the gist of Clause 5(1) and put it into Clause 1(1), where I still submit it properly belongs. I imagine that, by now, the Government are beginning to regret that they did not accept that Amendment.
LORD MITCHISON LORD MITCHISON: I am afraid not.
LORD CAWLEY: It is quite obvious that the noble Lord and I construe this subsection differently. Although I shall not press this Amendment, I should like to read to the House the words of Lord Justice Goddard in the case of Statcher v. mence Smith when he said of the 1887 Act:
" It is a most difficult Act to construe and has given rise to many appeals. Those who are responsible might well consider whether new legislation should not be introduced to set up the law on this matter in clear language which lay justices and others concerned in its administration could understand."
The 1953 Act simply added, after "false", the words "or misleading", and things went along perfectly well. We did not require these extraordinary subsections such as subsections (1) and (2). I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I do not know whether it is necessary to move all the Amendments on this point as they come along. They are all consequential. I beg to move Amendment No. 32A.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 43, leave out (" calculated ") and insert (" likely ").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
BARONESS PHILLIPS: What the noble Lord has said is correct. The Government want to have the one word throughout the Bill and, as the noble Lord has said, the Amendment is consequential and can be accepted.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN: I beg to move Amendment 35A.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 5, leave out (" calculated ") and insert (" likely ").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Whether Clause 5, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD DRUMALBYN: Although the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, did not move his Amendment to leave out subsection (2), one would like to have a clearer idea as to its real scope. It says:
" Anything which, though not a trade description, is likely to be taken for an indication of any of those matters and, as such an indication, would be false, shall be deemed to be a false trade description."
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Any of those matters are, I presume, matters set out in Clause 2 of the Bill. As those matters all come within "trade description", I am not clear how it can be not a trade description. I am not clear what the scheme of this is, or what is intended by it. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could give some examples of this. The subsection has not been understood, and it would be an act of kindness if the noble Lord were to make this clear. Certainly the various trades would like to know what it really means.
LORD CAWLEY: I think I can help the noble Lord. This provision came first in the 1953 Act. The example I have always taken of this is that of a retailer selling knives who puts in his advertisement: "They make good knives in Sheffield—Buy Smith's knives!" "They make good knives in Sheffield" is not a trade description as such. It is obviously meant to indicate to the purchasers that Smith's knives are made in Sheffield, contrary to the fact.
LORD MITCHISON: There is really little that I can add. The noble Lord will remember that "those matters" here are not the matters specified in Clause 2 of this Bill, and in that form I think the subsection is tolerably clear. Perhaps, in view of the number of Amendments on the Marshalled List, I had better not say any more, as the more I say, the more questions I may be asked.
LORD DRUMALBYN: May I just express my gratitude to my noble friend for making this point? As I said, this is a matter which has given rise to a certain amount of difficulty, and I am grateful to him for his illustration.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6:
Offer to supply.
6. A person exposing goods for sale or having goods in his possession for sale shall be deemed to offer them for sale, and similarly with respect to any manner of supplying goods otherwise than by sale.
9.6 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: With this clause we seem to be venturing on new territory, and it seems to be very widely drawn. The purpose of my Amendment is to make clear that it has application only for the purposes of Clauses 1 to 6 of the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 11, at beginning insert (" For the purposes of sections 1 to 6 of this Act "). —(Lord Strabolgi.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: It might be convenient if we were to discuss Amendment No. 37 at the same time, which is simply to insert "For the purposes of this Act ". I am not sure whether the Amendment in my name would serve the purpose better than "For the purposes of sections 1 to 6 ". Those clauses create the offences and, after all, there are also the defences and the enforcement to consider. It is for that reason that my Amendment says "For the purposes of this Act ". I think the main point is that nobody wants this clause to alter the general law of contract. I thought that all that was intended was to deal with the situation under this particular Bill.
LORD MITCHISON: That is quite right: that is all that it is intended to do. I think the simplest way of dealing with the matter is to look at Clause 38, which is called "Interpretation" and says:
" The following provisions shall have effect, in addition to sections 2 to 6 of this Act, with respect to expressions used in this Act."
That quite clearly points out that Clauses 2 to 6 are, in fact, interpretation clauses. I agree that that is in a rather broad sense, but that is what they are.
Earlier in the discussion I tried to indicate that Clause 1 was intended to cover in the simplest possible terms the offences that would be chargeable under this part of the Bill, and really all that Clauses 2 to 6 do is to interpret that in the broadest sense. That is the effect of Clause 6. Even if Clause 38 were not there, a reasonable interpretation of Clause 6 as it is must mean that it relates to Clauses 1 to 5 and to nothing else. This cannot represent a general amendment about the sale of goods or anything of that sort. This Bill has different objects and, therefore, there must be the limited effect which the noble Lord very rightly mentioned at the end of his speech. I think the intention is clear, and it is absolutely clear when you look at Clause 38.
We should not want to put in "For the purposes of this Act "or" For the purposes of sections 1 to 6 of this Act", not because it is not perfectly true, but because it would have to be inserted in
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a number of other places, too, and there might be some very nice points as to where it should be inserted. I think it is better to take the five clauses (that is to say, Clauses 2 to 6) together, as they are, as interpretative clauses.
Clause 1 of course, is even clearer, because subsection (2) says:
" In this Act expressions used in this section shall be construed in accordance with sections 2 to 6 of this Act ".
It would be extraordinary if Clause 6 were dealing with something quite different and those words were inserted. I would suggest that in fact there is no doubt about it: these are interpretative sections, and this is one of them. It cannot be making an amendment of the general law; it is in truth "for the purposes of this Act," but it is inadvisable to insert the words in that form because you would have to spatter "Clauses 2 to 6" up and down the rest. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will feel that that explanation meets the point that is raised, not only by these two Amendments but by Amendment No. 39 also which, although we have not come to it, is really the same point.
LORD STRABOLGI: I thank my noble friend for his explanation, and beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved to leave out "or having goods in his possession for sale." The noble Lord said: I bee to move this Amendment. I am not certain that these words are applicable in all cases, and I think that to deem that they should be applicable in all cases may raise acute difficulties. It is perfectly clear that a person exposing goods for sale for the purposes of Clauses 1 to 5 should be deemed to be offering them for sale, but I can conceive of circumstances where merely having goods in one's possession would not be tantamount to offering them for sale, and I do not see why such a person should be deemed to be offering them for sale. For example, a man may have goods in his factory, having withdrawn them for the purpose of altering some false description, or something of that kind. So I am not sure that this wording would be appropriate in all cases. If the noble Lord can advise me on this, I shall be grateful. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 11, leave out from (" sale ") to (" shall ") in line 12.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY:I should be grateful if my noble friend could explain this a little further, because representations have been made to me as to the possibility of these words rendering a person liable to be penalised when it was not right that he should be. I noted that on Second Reading Lord Drumalbyn said that he felt that Clause 6 went too far—and he has said it again to-night. I agree with him. Obviously, a person offering goods for sale should be penalised if he has offended against this point; but it was put to me that a person might have goods in his possession for sale or in stock without actually exposing them to sale, and I wanted to ask my noble friend whether this is so.
The person who discussed this with me —because I myself have no particular knowledge of this point—said that he felt someone might have goods in stock when they had just arrived and before he had had any opportunity to inspect them in order to see that any trade description they might have was accurate. That was the first point. The second point raised with me was the point which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, mentioned: the position where a person had noticed that the trade description was false and had withdrawn the goods from the shop. The third point put to me was that when a shopkeeper was perhaps holding them for export in circumstances in which, once he had received a specific order for them, a Board of Trade order under Clause 32 would apply. I had not the knowledge to give an answer to these questions, but I should be grateful if my noble friend could do so.
LORD MITCHISON: I will do the best I can to help. I must confess that I asked a number of questions myself about this phrase. The phrase is:
" a person exposing goods for sale or having goods in his possession for sale "
That is what we have to consider. There are obvious cases to which, I am sure, we would all agree readily. A man in a small shop may get a case full of, say, gloves or cigarettes and there is a mis-description on them. He may have a quarter of the case in the shop window and the other three-quarters in a box at the back of the shop. One can draw no
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distinction between the two; we could all agree about that. Then there is this kind of case where a man has noticed that the first half-dozen, say, contain a mis-description on them, and he says to himself, "Well, there are a lot more of these behind. I had better be careful about this." He might say, "I will go and see if they have the same description on them as have the lot I have got out." Or he might say, "I had better withdraw the lot and put them in the back of the shop." He might be intending to sell them if he came to the conclusion that it was all right; but not otherwise. I should have thought, and I am so advised, that in that case he would not be having those goods for sale. The most that could be said of him was that he had them for what I might call a contingency sale; that is, if it proved to be all right. That, I think, is the key to the clause. They must be in his possession for sale—and they must be for sale without his looking at them again or putting conditions on them. They must be in the same sort of position, otherwise than geographically, as the goods in the window, if I may put it that way. I hope I have answered what my noble friend asked me.
I did not catch the point about Clause 32; but it looks to me to be a rather difficult one and I should like to look at it before I commit myself about it one way or another. I think that is the best one can do. If you start trying to give a definition you really make things worse rather than better. This is criminal legislation which one wants to be as clear as may be; but it remains the case that the prosecutor would have to show that the goods were in the accused's possession for sale. I think he would fail in the case the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, stated and I think he would fail, too, in the case my noble friend stated. I must repeat that we can only say what we are advised and what we intend. We cannot vouch for what the courts may do. This is the right interpretation so far as I can see. I hope that will satisfy the noble Lord.
LORD AIREDALE: With great respect, that explanation really will not do at all. Take the most honest shopkeeper in England and presume that he gets a stock of corkscrews, each of them in a packet saying, "Made in Hong Kong ". That is wrong. The shopkeeper

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finds out that it is wrong. He keeps the corkscrews in his warehouse at the back, and says to himself that he is going to sell them when he has had time to sort them out and throw all the boxes away. Then he puts the corkscrews in the window and sells them. But there will not be any trade description on them. To say that those corkscrews in that warehouse are not in the possession of the shopkeeper for sale really is mincing matters in the most extraordinary degree. Of course, he has the corkscrews for sale and that is what he always intended to do. The only question is about his throwing away the false description. I really think that we must divide on this.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: I take a different point of view from my noble friend Lord Cawley. If we left out the words, "having goods in his possession for sale," it would mean that it would not be an offence to have falsely labelled goods in stock until the moment of exposing them for sale. This would hamper the weights and measures authorities, because, taking the case of one-day carpet sales (about which, your Lordships will remember, the Molony Report had a whole section) the huckster keeps most of the carpets he is selling in the back regions. When confronted by an inspector, he will say that they are not exposed for sale, although they may have been fraudulently advertised in the local paper the day before. The inspector is put to the very difficult task of witnessing an actual sale and trying to prove that the article relates to the false advertisement. This was one of the problems which the Molony Report mentioned as having been raised by many people. I think that it would be a mistake to take out these words, and in spite of what my noble friends Lord Cawley and Lord Drumalbyn have said, I hope that the Minister will not abandon this phrase.
LORD CAWLEY: With the greatest respect to the noble Lady, I have not said anything on this Amendment.
9.23 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I concede that there is a slight difference in interpretation between my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison. As I understand my noble friend, she assumes, as does the noble Lord, Lord Airedale
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—and she may be right—that if a shopkeeper has goods on the premises the presumption is that he has them for sale. Certainly a retailer normally does not have goods there unless he has them for sale. But what we are getting at is where the onus of proof lies.
The noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, felt, no doubt correctly, that it would be for the prosecution to show that the retailer had the goods in his possession for sale. I wonder if the noble Lord would confirm that. It seems to me that the presumption would be that the shopkeeper had the goods for sale, and that, as the clause is drafted, it would be for him to prove that he had not got them for sale. This might be very difficult in many circumstances. I see my noble friend's point, but what I am anxious to do is to make certain that the man who had goods, not for sale but for some other purpose, was covered. He might have them but might not want to sell them at that time—perhaps because he wanted to sell off damaged goods before he sold the main consignment, or for some such reason. I am worried about this clause because there are no necessary limitations placed on it. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that in the ordinary way the onus of proof that the goods in a retail shop are not there for sale is very heavy. It was in order to alleviate this in appropriate cases that I put the Amendment down.
LORD MITCHISON: There is, of course, no doubt that the prosecution would have to prove that, if he had goods in his possession, he had them for sale. There is nothing in the Bill or in what I said about a shopkeeper with goods in the shop, or anything of that sort, or about the presumptions which might arise if he had them in the shop. The fact remains that in this, as in any other criminal procedure, the prosecution have to prove their case. Therefore it is the case—and there are many other instances of it—with regard to goods in the back of the shop, that if you want to prosecute by virtue of this clause you must show that the goods were in the shopkeeper's possession for the purpose of sale.
I am not sure that I agree with the noble Lord about the heaviness of the presumption. It must depend on the circumstances, and it is hard to generalise about it. But may I say this, in the

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hope of appeasing the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, and other noble Lords who are uneasy about the matter? The Act of 1887 has these words:
" or has in his possession for sale or any purpose of trade or manufacture …"
Those words have never caused any trouble.
LORD AIREDALE: But are there the following words, "shall be deemed to offer them for sale "?—because that is the trouble here. If the Government want to make it an offence for somebody to have in his possession for sale goods bearing a false trade description, then they should say so in Clause 1 of the Bill. But here we have the mischief of deeming something to be something else. This clause says that if he has the goods in his possession for sale he shall be deemed to offer them for sale. What is the honest shopkeeper to do when he discovers the false description on the packet? He says: "I must not offer these goods for sale, because I shall be committing an offence. I must keep them at the back of the warehouse where nobody will see them, othewise I shall be committing the offence of offering them for sale." This clause says that if he has them in his possession for sale he is deemed to offer them for sale. How is he to escape?
LORD MITCHISON: The answer is by not selling them. And it is the commonsense answer, too. As soon as he discovers that these goods contain a false trade description, and he hangs on to them, the shopkeeper is not necessarily committing an offence. He may have decided that he is not going to sell them until the description is taken off, and he may take it off in due course. This is really—I would not say the letter of the law—but it is pushing the language of the Statute much too far. It really is not sense. No court is going to accept that kind of case.
I assure the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, that we certainly intend that people who have goods in their possession for sale, if those goods have a false trade description, shall be liable; and the kind of case we intend to cover, and the obvious and common case, is the opened receptacle of some sort, half the contents of which is on the counter and the other half is in the back. Nobody would want us not to try to
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cover the part for which there was not room on the counter. We are not penalising anyone here for having too small or too large counters. What we are dealing with is the question of selling goods.
I see Lord Airedale's point; but it is a strictly verbal one. If he chooses to divide the Committee on it, I cannot prevent him; but he will be dividing it on the finest piece of hair-splitting that I have met for a long time. I hope the noble Lord will not think that I am being rude —I do not intend to be—but I would say this to him. We had an original clause, Clause 1, that defined the offence, and now we are on the interpretative sections of the Bill. The noble Lord dislikes the word "deemed". I rather dislike it, too, but I think it is the best and most convenient way of doing what we are trying to do here.
I have thought about it and one can have differences of opinion. At the end of the day, I look at this passage in the Bill and I say, "This is reasonably clear ".On the point we are on now, I think the difficulty is that you must catch the man who has a lot of stuff at the back of the shop and is going to sell it in a short time without any reservation, just as much as the man who has it on the counter to sell it. This is not a distinction to found a difference of guilt or innocence on between two cases. If you wish to do that, I do not see how you can do it, except by this sort of language.
Of course, it is easy to think of hard cases, and cases which are rather doubtful. It is very much the case with a lot of criminal legislation. I think I am entitled to look back at the language of the Act of 1887, and say that nobody has ever got into trouble about the penalties that are covered by that sort of case. I repeat the language again:
" Or has in his possession for sale or any purpose or trade or manufacture."
That is a far more difficult thing to apply than what is in this Bill, and it has not caused any trouble. I think one must occasionally be guided by what has happened in the past, and one must not omit cases which clearly ought to be covered simply because one finds it a little difficult to go into sufficient detail in the wording of the clause, provided that the meaning is clear to a court—and I believe this meaning would be clear.

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I cannot say any more than that, and if the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, or anybody else wants to divide the House, divide it they must.
LORD AIREDALE: I was not referring to the case where a shopkeeper has half the goods on the counter, and half in the warehouse at the back. I am referring to the case where he has the whole lot in the warehouse at the back, and is desperately anxious not to sell any of them while they bear this false trade description. The Minister's reply to that—and he has just made it again—is that his answer is not to sell the goods. That is not the answer, because he still commits the offence under paragraph (b) which not only says:
" Supplies goods bearing a false trade description ",
but also
" offers to supply goods bearing a false trade description ".
Clause 6 says that if he has goods in his warehouse at the back, though none in the shop, bearing a false trade description, he is deemed to offer them for sale.
LORD MITCHISON: No.
LORD AIREDALE: He is deemed to offer them for sale. That is an offence under paragraph (b). Whether we can get this right this evening, or at the next stage of the Bill, I do not mind, but we shall have to get it right.
LORD MITCHISON: If I may say so, I have so much respect for the noble Lord, Lord Airedale—I do not know whether it is permissible to add a bit of liking, too—that I should hope to try to make myself a little clearer. The operative words here are, "in his possession for sale ". That is the point. I quite agree that this involves drawing a line, and that it is therefore occasionally rather difficult to see what is on one side of it and what is on the other. But I think it is the right line to draw, and this is as near as you can get. It is not a question of where he has them, provided they are in his possession. It is a question of whether he has them for sale or not. That is the real test.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I think this Amendment has been given a full hearing, and we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, for having ex-
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plained it so much more fully. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, for having given the answers, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.35 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI LORD STRABOLGI moved, to add to the clause:
"Provided that the fact that any offer is deemed to have been made for the purpose of this section shall not of itself render such an offer capable of being accepted to form a contract "
The noble Lord said: In my view this Amendment is necessary, since the clause as at present drafted would change the accepted principles of the law of contract that shop displays are not offers capable of being accepted to form a contract. Perhaps I might read a short passage from Modern Advertising Law, which puts the matter very simply:
" From the legal point of view an advertisement is regarded, at any rate in the majority of cases, not as being a firm offer but simply as a statement of the terms on which the advertiser is prepared to do business, called technically a notice to treat. If goods are advertised for sale at a certain price, this does not mean that any person who informs the advertiser that he is willing to buy some of the goods at that price thereby acquires a contractual right to buy them. The advertisement is a mere announcement. It is the would-be purchaser who makes the offer which the advertiser may accept or reject as he wishes. This is so whether the advertisement is in a newspaper or a catalogue or attached to the goods in the window of a shop."
So I would submit that it does not really matter whether a shopkeeper has the goods in his possession for sale; under this clause as at present worded, he is deemed to offer them for sale, unless we add this Amendment to give him some protection, so that the mere fact of exposing goods for sale does not mean that he has got to sell them. They merely represent an offer to treat, and it has to be a two-way business between him and his purchaser. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 14 at end insert the said proviso —(Lord Strabolgi.)
LORD MITCHISON: This is the point with which we were dealing a few minutes ago. This is not a statement of the law about the sale of goods and, if I may respectfully say so, I agree entirely with what my noble friend read out on that subject. We are dealing here with

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an interpretative clause: it is interpreting the offence in Clause 1 of the Bill, and it is not doing anything else. It has nothing to do with contracts, and although I would quite agree that if the only thing in the Bill were this clause one would require some proviso of this sort, in the context here that is shown by Clause 2 and by the passage, to which I referred previously in Clause 38. I must say to my noble friend that when I looked at this I thought to myself, "What are we in for here?" Then I began to look a little further, and I came to the conclusion that the judge who had listened to, and agreed with, the argument we have just heard would then say, "But where do we find this clause?" And we should reply, "That is there for another purpose, and in another context, and in another Act ". I hope that my noble friend will accept that explanation.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am sure the noble Lord was right to raise this point again, because it is one of extraordinary importance and one that has been widely misunderstood. I am personally quite prepared to rest on the interpretation given by the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, which I am sure is that which is intended, and, speaking for myself, I would say that this is now quite satisfactory.
LORD STRABOLGI: I thank my noble friend for his explanation. Before withdrawing this Amendment, which of course I shall do, I should like to point out, with respect to the noble Lord, that while he has described many cases where the court would be on the side of the accused, because of the loopholes in the Bill, what we are trying to do with these Amendments is to ensure that prosecutions will be minimised, so that people do not even have to be taken to court; and that, even when they have got to court, they may be acquitted.
I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
Definition orders
7.—(1) Where it appears to the Board of Trade—
(a) that it would be in the interest of persons to whom any goods are supplied; or
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that any expressions used in relation to the goods should be understood as having definite meanings, the Board may by order assign such meanings either—
9.40 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (1)(a), to leave out "supplied" and insert "offered". The noble Lord said: Looking at this Bill, I take it that the phrase here used is, so to speak, longhand for "consumer", because no one can define "consumer"—" persons to whom any goods are supplied ". In the context of this clause it seems rather inapposite, because we are not concerned with the point at which the goods are supplied to people; we are concerned with the point at which they are offered. The whole purpose of a definition is to deal with the offering of goods so that people may know at the time they are offered that they are getting what they expect to get in accordance with the normal definitions. It seems to me that the word here, "supplied", is wrong. I see that this may be said to be a phrase to cover consumers or customers. I should have doubted in this context, or in the next clause, or the next, whether the phrase "persons to whom any goods are supplied" means very much. I suppose it just means customers. Why not just say "customers"? I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4. line 19, leave out (" supplied ") and insert (" offered ").—(Lord Drumulbyn.)
LORD MITCHISON: It is a choice between two words and I am not sure there is very much principle involved, but such as there is comes from the Short Title of the Bill, which is called The Protection of Consumers Bill. That is good electioneering advertisement, if I may say so. But when one comes to look at the Long Title, one finds it is rather wider. It is
"… by fresh provisions prohibiting mis-descriptions of goods, services, accommodation and facilities provided in the course of trade ".
There is no mention of consumers in the Long Title, and if one looks at the language of the Bill it could equally cover the case of a wholesaler supplying goods to a retailer, or some industrial user who perhaps ordered three tons of something or other every month for six months. The effective thing is really the supplying.

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I agree it also included offers to supply, but I think of the two words "supplying" really provides the meaning of the intention of the Bill rather better; and if one pushes it a little further one finds that we really want to protect the people to whom goods are supplied rather than people to whom they are offered and who then reject them. This is a clause giving the Board of Trade power in certain circumstances to issue a definition order. I think, therefore, it is appropriate in cases of actual supply rather than cases of offer.
One sees that in the industrial user instance, and one can think of a great many others where there would be supply without the kind of offer at which this Amendment is aimed. There might be something supplied, three tons of so-and-so, and nothing so far that would involve a trade description, and then the goods might arrive with a trade description on them which might be false. That would be where the act would relate to supplying, rather than offering. I quite agree that there will be cases where it would relate to offering. But I think that when the Board of Trade have got to act—and that is the point here; this is not a criminal clause or anything of that sort, but simply a consideration that the Board of Trade have to bear in mind—it is phrased
" in the interests of persons to whom any goods are supplied."
So I hope that the noble Lord, on what is perhaps rather a narrow point—
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I quite see it—will feel that the language in the Bill is sufficient for the purpose.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I do not want to press this matter. It seemed to me, and still seems to me, that the word "offered" would be more appropriate. But, as the noble Lord said, this is a matter for the Board of Trade to act on, and the only point on which I rather disagree with the noble Lord is that he was arguing as if the words were "any persons to whom any goods are supplied ". That is not what it says: it says "persons to whom ", and it is really a whole class. It means everybody qua customer; because goods are supplied to everybody. However, the Board of Trade is to look at this matter, as I understand it, in the interests of customers. It is not necessarily consumers in the ordinary sense, who might be manufacturers. It is in the interest of customers, and really at the point where the goods are being offered to them. However, I will not press this Amendment. I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): My Lords, I think that this would be a convenient moment to move that the House be resumed. I beg to move.
House resumed.
House adjourned at twelve minutes before ten o'clock.