Lords Sitting of 28 February 1966

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

THE F.111A AIRCRAFT
2.36 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: 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 is their estimate of the total cost to this country of the F.111A force over a ten-year period.]
THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE FOR THE ROYAL AIR FORCE (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, the estimated cost of the F.111A force over the next ten years is about £280 million.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, whilst thanking the noble Lord for giving us this figure, may I ask him whether this estimate includes all relevant items of expenditure, such as the in-flight refuelling element and that part of the cost of the air and land defences and the bases from which these aircraft will be operating which can be attributed to them?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, it does not include all the items mentioned by the noble Earl. This covers the provision of the aircraft and for the support for the aircraft in terms of capital payments and running costs. It does not cover the other items I think I am beginning to see what the noble Earl is getting at now.
2.38 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: 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 what will be the total dollar cost of the fifty F.111As to be ordered for the Royal Air Force, including the initial purchase price. spares, replacements
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and the United Kingdom contribution to United States research and development costs.]
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the total dollar cost of the F.111A programme, including all interest and capital payments, and running costs over the next ten years, is expected to be about £260 million.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving your Lordships this information. Would the noble Lord agree that, in the light of that Answer, paragraph 10 of the first part of the Defence White Paper could be extremely misleading?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, unfortunately I have not had an opportunity to look at paragraph 10.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, may I refresh the noble Lord's memory on his own White Paper and remind him that in paragraph 10 the unit cost of each aircraft is given as £2·1 million? That is the basic unit cost, which would amount to a total of £105 million, which of course is a very different figure from the one he has just given, of £260 million.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I do not think the noble Earl should be surprised that I am not able to put a paragraph number to each subject in the White Paper in which there are a large number of paragraphs. I really do not see why the noble Earl is worried. He is experienced enough to know that over a period there is a great difference between unit costs and total costs. I have given much more information than the previous Government ever gave on this sort of subject, and I should have thought he was the last person to accuse us of in any way misleading the House.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, may I ask whether the British stake in the F.111A will be limited to a communications fit, or can we hope that the percentage of British equipment will tend towards the percentage which has been satisfactorily reached for the Phantom? I believe there is a figure of 45 per cent. for British equipment in the Phantom.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the noble Lord really ought to put down a Question on the subject. This point

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does not arise from the Question now before us. In fact, the Phantom reaches that high figure because of the cost of the engine. I think there will be slightly more, or it may be of the same order, of British equipment as in the C.130. I would hazard a guess that it would be about 10 per cent.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, may I reassure the noble Lord? I was not in any way suggesting that he was misleading me; all I was suggesting was that the White Paper, without the additional information which he has been good enough to give me, could have misled the country.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I do not want to continue with this matter, but it is astonishing that the noble Earl and his friends when in Government gave Parliament very little information. There is infinitely more information in this White Paper, and we continue to pour information on to them when they ask for it, and then they grumble.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES (EXEMPTION) (MILK) ORDER 1966
2.42 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD RHODES): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion that appears in my name on the Order Paper. Your Lordships may recall that under Part V of Schedule 4 to the Weights and Measures Act 1963 milk shall be pre-packed only if it is made up in a quantity of one-third of a pint, half a pint or a multiple of half a pint, and if the container is marked with an indication of quantity by capacity measurement. The way in which the marking is to be carried out is laid down in the Weights and Measures (Marking) Regulations 1964, which are applicable to all the various kinds of goods which have to be marked under the Act. Regulation 4 will require that, on or after July 31, 1967, the quantity indications on containers must be in colour—in distinct and conspicuous contrast to a plain background—unless the containers bear no wording in colour contrast to the background.
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The dairymen and the bottle manufacturers have represented to us that on that date there will still be large numbers of half pint and pint milk bottles in existence which will fail to comply with these marking requirements, because they have colourless quantity markings but have, say, the name of the dairy in colour. As the law stands to-day these bottles would have to be scrapped and new ones provided. Many silk screens used for colour labelling would also need to be redesigned. We came to the conclusion that those points should be met. One possibility would have been to make special provision for milk bottles in the Marking Regulations originally. This, however, would have created an undesirable precedent for special exemptions from the Marking Regulations for goods of other particular kinds. Subject to certain transitional exemptions for all descriptions of food, these regulations apply uniformly to all descriptions of pre-packed goods required to bear indications of quantity, and we did not wish to depart from that.
The proposed Order therefore deals with the point in a different manner. It exempts pint and half-pint bottles of milk from the requirement in the Act that they must have a quantity marking. That requirement seems to us to be unnecessary when there will still be the requirement that pre-packed milk must be sold only in one of the specified quantities—namely, one-third pint, half a pint or multiples of half a pint and when any third of a pint bottles will still be required to bear quantity markings. This may sound rather complicated, which I suppose in a way it is; but this is a request from the dairymen and the glass bottle manufacturers who say that enormous waste would take place unless this was acceded to. We have agreed to do that, and I ask your Lordships to support it. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Weights and Measures (Exemption) (Milk) Order 1966 laid before the House on 26th January, 1966, be approved.—(Lord Rhodes.)
2.45 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I very much hope that the Government will not press this Order and that if they do the House will not accept it. The Special

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Orders Committee considered this Order and reported on February 16:
" That in the opinion of the Committee the Order cannot be passed by the House without special attention ",
because, they said:
" in their opinion the provisions of the Order raise an important question of policy and principle: namely the permanent exemption of half pint and one pint bottles of milk…from the marking provisions of the Weights and Measures Act 1963."
I always understood that in matters of this kind the function of delegated legislation was to fill in details which Parliament had not dealt with, Parliament having laid down general principles. But this is not what is happening this afternoon. This is an Order laid pursuant to the Weights and Measures Act 1963 which, your Lordships may well remember, occupied weeks of time in this House and in another place. That Act dealt in the greatest detail with milk and milk bottles and the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, for one, did not allow this part of the 1963 Bill to go through unexamined.
As the Minister has explained to us, the Act laid down quite specifically with regard to milk bottles:
" Milk shall be pre-packed …"—
that expression apparently escaped the scrutiny of the noble Lord, Lord Conesford—
" only if—

(a) it is made up in a quantity of one-third of a pint, half a pint or a multiple of half a pint; and

(b) the container is marked with an indication of quantity …"

Nothing could be clearer than that, and that was what Parliament decided, having given the closest scrutiny to the whole of this matter over days and weeks. The Minister now comes before your Lordships and seeks, in effect, to repeal that part of the provision of the 1963 Act; and the reason he advances is that representations have been made by the dairymen and the glass bottle industry; and, further, that by July, 1967, the Marking Regulations 1964 will have come into effect and there will still, according to the Minister, be bottles in existence which will not be complying with those Regulations. These milk bottles are only the ones which bear coloured markings, and they must surely
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represent a very small proportion of the total quantity of milk bottles in circulation.
Furthermore, by July, 1967, the glass bottle industry will have had four years notice of Parliament's requirement that milk bottles are to be made in a certain way with certain markings. So one would hope that ever since 1963 milk bottles have been manufactured which comply with the provisions of the Act and the provisions of the Marking Regulations, and presumably by July, 1967, we shall be dealing only with those milk bottles still in circulation which do not comply.
There is a precedent for this Order. The Minister did not quote it, but I would like to refer to it because it supports my case, though it does not support his. I refer to the Weights and Measures (Exemption) Order 1965, which dealt with a situation very similar to the milk bottle situation before us now. The position was that the 1963 Act had laid down that things like soap, which were to be sold pre-packed in wrappers, were to be marked with the quantities, but there were still in the shops old stocks of soap and other items pre-packed which did not comply with the provisions of the Act of two years previously. As a result, Parliament was asked for, and readily gave, permission for a year's exemption until next July, so that old stocks of pre-packed soap, and other goods, could be cleared before the provisions of the 1963 Act came into existence.
If your Lordships thought that by 1967, when these Marking Regulations come into force, there would still be, as the Minister assured us there would be, old milk bottles, presumably pre-1963 milk bottles, still in circulation, deserving of further reprieve, then I think that the proper thing to do nearer July, 1967, would be to grant a further reprieve to the old milk bottles. But by means of this Order, upon an afternoon when your Lordships have come here mainly to discuss other things, to make a Regulation which practically tears up a part of the 1963 Act which was passed after close scrutiny is, in my submission, quite wrong.
We understand that the custom is that normally we do not divide against ministerial Orders. But I would hope that there is a corresponding custom

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that Ministers do not seek, on that ground, to push delegated legislation through the House against the wishes of your Lordships, and particularly after the Special Orders Committee have switched on the red light, as they have in this case. I hope, therefore, there being absolutely no urgency about this matter—it can be dealt with at any time before July 1967—that the Minister will this afternoon decide to withdraw this Motion and will consider the matter further, with a view to coming back to the House with an Order which gives temporary exemption to old milk bottles and does not seek to repeal a detailed provision of an Act of Parliament.
2.53 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will not take this matter to be as trivial as it may seem on first looking at the Order Paper. This Weights and Measures Act was conceived largely to protect the consumer and, in the case of milk bottles, particularly the housewife, so that she should see exactly what amount of milk she was getting. We now come to the position where there are thousands, probably millions, of milk bottles which have not got this marking on them. It would be unfair and extravagant to ask that they should be taken hack or smashed, and we are suggesting that they should be allowed to continue their normal life until, in the hands of the milkman or the housewife, that comes to an end.
But this Regulation, which says that after a certain date newly manufactured milk bottles should have this indication on them, surely has weight. Why should the new ones which are going to be made be exempted from having the weight or contents on them, simply because there are a lot of old ones? The point is, let the old ones die out; let us, if necessary, have a little further legislation to give them a shorter span of life; but it would seem most improper that we should go back on the Weights and Measures Act, passed by both Houses of Parliament, by repealing a definite Regulation that the housewife should be protected at some time in the future, not too far ahead, by being able to see exactly what is in the milk bottle.
2.55 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I quite see that in a matter of this kind
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there is a question of Parliamentary propriety. It seems to me, though, that it is not just a question of ensuring that milk bottles that are already in existence should be exempted from the provisions of the 1963 Act, whether for a period, or forever, or for their life. It is also a question of making it clear, if this is to be the case, to the manufacturers of milk bottles that they are not going to be compelled to comply with what the Act lays down to come into force at, I think it is, July 1967. Quite plainly, if they are going to be compelled to do it it is necessary to tell them now; there is no use in putting it off. From the point of view of Parliamentary propriety, I suppose it would be possible to comply with the request of the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, that this Order should be withdrawn, so long as the House was prepared to say in its turn that it was prepared to accept this principle; but otherwise, it would be quite impossible. I think this is case where we should weigh Parliamentary propriety against common sense, and I think that in a case like this the main point is to make it clear to the manufacturers that they can get on and produce the bottles, and that the Order will be coming into force in July, 1967.
I am told that if they are told that now, there is going to be quite considerable difficulty. I sympathise with the Government in the difficulty they are in, but I think it would be going a little far to expect a special Act of Parliament in order to deal with this matter. I would say that this is ade minimis matter and I would hope that the House so agrees.
LORD REA: My Lords, we do not want a special Act; we want to stick to the Act that has already been passed.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I normally admire greatly the vigilance of the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, in these matters, but I have fetched the Act since he raised this matter, and what puzzles me about his point is that this Order purports to be made under Section 21(5), and, if it is validly made under that section of the Act, I find it a little difficult to know on what grounds he says it contravenes the Act. He will see that Section 21(5) reads—
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to intervene?

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I must not speak twice on a matter of this kind, but I think the noble Lord asked me a question. I did not seek to suggest that this Order contravened the provisions of the Act in the sense that this Order was ultra vires.What I sought to say was that this Order purports to contravene paragraph (3) of Part V of Schedule 4 to the Act, which is part of the Act, which says, in relation to the milk bottle and not generally, that the container must be marked with an indication of quantity. This is what Parliament decided, and this is what this Order seeks to repeal.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I evidently misunderstood him. I thought he was saying that this was a wholly improper use of the provision under which it purports to be made. But I must at once disclose to the House that I do not take any great interest in milk, and therefore cannot say what would be the proper method of exemption. The noble Lord also in his speech said that the expression "pre-packed" apparently escaped my vigilance when the measure was passing through this House. To the best of my recollection it did not. Curiously enough, "pre-packed" does not mean quite the same as "packed". It means packed before a certain event. "Pre-packed", the noble Lord will find, is in fact defined in the definition section, which is Section 58 of the Act. I will read him the splendid definition. It reads:
"'pre-packed ' means made up in advance ready for retail sale in or on a container…".
There is a lot more, but I would only point out to him that this expression is defined in the Act, and it was passed by Parliament, in spite, I think, of my calling attention to it. I did not particularly object to it, because, provided that pre-packed "means something different from" packed "and the definition section points out what it does mean, I do not find it objectionable.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I stand a confirmed milk drinker. It is not, however, on that account that I very much hope that Her Majesty's Government will see fit to take back this Order. To start with, whatever Lord Conesford may say—and legally, of course, he is perfectly correct—I feel that the Order contravenes the Act under which it is
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made; that is to say, it is completely contrary in feeling and intent from what Parliament had in mind when it passed the Weights and Measures Act. I, too, remember very well the long and detailed discussions on that measure. I regard this Order as tearing up completely a part of the Act and disregarding it.
I do not want to impose hardship on makers of bottles or on dairymen. I appreciate the fact that they have large quantities of bottles left on their hands which would have to be destroyed if it were not for this Order, or something like it. I would strongly recommend to your Lordships that, whilst the House makes it clear to Her Majesty's Government that this particular Order will just not do, we should on the other hand be prepared to agree to an Order which gave additional time to the bottle manufacturers and the dairymen to keep matters correct in relation to the Weights and Measures Act. It seems to me to be utterly and completely wrong that bottles should be manufactured at present without the mark which they ought to have on them when eventually they are sold to the public. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will reconsider this Order, will take it back and will bring us something better.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Rea, I do not consider this a trivial matter. It is very important. There is a matter of principle which was hammered out at the time the Act was placed on the Statute Book in 1963. If I remember correctly, during the debates in the House of Commons on the subject, particular reference was made to the difficulty of the labelling of milk containers. The arguments advanced were that if at that particular time exemption had been made for these easily definable milk quantity markings, then a whole range of commodities would have claimed something similar, and nothing would have been possible on lines which were hoped for by the Government of the day.
The noble Lord, Lord Airedale, referred to the comparison between milk containers and wrappings and containers for other sorts of commodities. The permissible quantities for milk are widely spaced in comparison with other sorts of food packings. The permissible quantities for some foods, for instance, are

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2 oz., 4 oz., 8 oz., 12 oz., 1 lb., 1½ lb. and multiples of 1 lb. Nobody could mistake a half pint for a pint. We say that it is not necessary to mark a half-pint and a pint so that they may be identified by persons buying milk. But we consider it important that, where there may be a chance of somebody taking a third of a pint as a half-pint, the third of a pint should be marked. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, put his finger on the whole question when he said that dairymen and the makers of milk bottles should know precisely where they are, so that they can get on with the job of continuing to make bottles, and so that the trade as a whole can do the same. An immense saving can be effected by this means. It is quite simple, there is no danger at all that
Resolved in the affirmative, and Motion agreed to accordingly.

ANGLO-IRISH AGREEMENT ON SOCIAL SECURITY
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I should like to make a short Business Statement. At a suitable moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble friend Lord Bowles, will be making a statement on the reciprocal agreement with the Irish Republic on social security. May I also announce that dinner will be available this evening.
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anybody could be mistaken on the matter, and I hope that the House will pass the Order.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, the Minister has now introduced something which he did not mention initially; namely, that nobody is going to be misled. Has he forgotten the thousands of people who visit this country every summer from countries where milk is dealt with in litres? Surely when those people see a pint of milk for the first time over here they would be pleased to see the quantity marked on the bottle.
3.7 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Motion shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 43; Not-Contents, 22.

CONTENTS

Auckland, L.

Harlech, L.

Segal, L.

Blyton, L.

Hawke, L.

Shackleton, L.

Bowles, L. [Teller.]

Henderson, L.

Shannon, E.

Burden, L.

Ilford, L.

Shepherd, L.

Champion, L.

Latham, L.

Silkin, L.

Conesford, L.

Leatherland, L.

Snow, L.

Devonshire, D.

Lindgren, L. [Teller.]

Stonham, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

MacAndrew, L.

Strang, L.

Dudley, L.

Milverton, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Monsell, V.

Summerskill, Bs.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Rhodes, L.

Swinton, E.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Sackville, L.

Uvedale of North End, L.

Foley, L.

St. Davids, V.

Winterbottom, L.

Forster of Harraby. L.

St. Helens, L.

Wise, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

NON-CONTENTS

Ailwyn, L.

Greenway, L.

Raglan, L.

Airedale, L. [Teller.]

Howard of Glossop, L.

Rea, L.

Amulree, L. [Teller.]

Iddesleigh, E.

Saltoun, L.

Barrington, V.

Ironside, L.

Sherfield, L.

Byers, L.

King-Hall, L.

Strange, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Strange of Knokin, Bs.

Faringdon, L.

Ogmore, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Fortescue, E.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES (SOLID FUEL) (CARRIAGE BY RAIL) ORDER 1966
3.15 p.m.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion appearing in my name on the Order Paper. This Motion is concerned with a draft Order—the draft of the Weights and Measures (Solid Fuel) (Carriage by Rail) Order 1966—to modify certain provisions of the Weights and Measures Act 1963 in their application to whole train-loads of fuel which is all to be carried by rail to one single

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industrial undertaking. Those provisions, in Part IV of Schedule 6 to the Act, require a rail waggon to be tare-weighed at the loading place before a seller may load it with solid fuel for despatch to a buyer, and require him to ticket it with particulars of its load as soon as he has completed the loading and knows who the consignee is to be.
The National Coal Board has drawn our attention to certain cases where those requirements do not seem necessary for the protection of the customer and are difficult or inconvenient to comply with. In some collieries, for instance, special loading arrangements have been, or are being, introduced; these enable pre-weighed fuel to he loaded from overhead storage by automatic weighers which weigh the fuel net and automatically print the particulars for a complete train on to one invoice. There are other cases where fuel is held at disused collieries or dumps where there is no weighing equipment; cases where the fuel is to be loaded from collieries where there is at present no weighing equipment; cases where weighing at the point of loading is unnecessary because the National Coal Board and the buyer have agreed that the weight of the fuel shall be determined at the waggon's destination; and cases where the same waggons are repeatedly loaded with fuel for the same buyer and where he would be prepared to accept tare-weighing at occasional intervals.
We have accordingly discussed this matter with other interested organisations and found general agreement that there is a case for relaxing the Act as this Order does in relation to whole train-loads of fuel which is all for one industrial user. For other consignments—including, for instance, all deliveries of fuel to coal merchants—the Act will continue to apply as it now stands. For waggons for trains of the kind I have described the draft Order modifies both the requirements to which I referred at the beginning of my speech. It does not modify the tare-weighing requirement except for fuel in heavy steel waggons capable of taking loads of up to 24 tons. Subject, however, to those two conditions—the single user to receive the whole train-load, and the use of a 24-ton steel waggon—there will be three cases where a waggon can be loaded without having first been tare-weighed at the
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loading place: first, the case where the waggon will be loaded by automatic weighing and loading equipment; second, the case where the buyer and the seller have agreed that the weight of the load will be ascertained at the end of the journey; and, third, when the buyer has agreed to accept tare-weighing at three-monthly intervals and the tare weight has been ascertained and durably marked on the waggon on a stated date up to three months earlier.
In the second place—and for this relaxation the waggons need not be the heavy steel ones—the waggons in those single-user trains will be relieved of the requirement in the Act that each one must be separately ticketed. Instead of ticketing each waggon, the seller must give the requisite particulars with respect to each waggon and its load—the place of loading, the weight and so forth—in one single document, which we are calling a "train bill". I bee to move.
Moved, That the Draft Weights and Measures (Solid Fuel) (Carriage by Rail) Order, 1966 laid before the House on 1st February, 1966, be approved.—(Lord Rhodes.)
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I am sorry to see that the Liberal Party appear to have departed en bloc now, when we are considering a further modification of the Weights and Measures Act. When we passed that preliminary Act, and then the final Act, after immense discussion in this House, those of us who studied it knew that there would be many cases in which, in practice, its provisions would be found silly and unworkable; and I am glad that, in this instance, the National Coal Board and the Electricity Board are being let off the full rigmarole as prescribed in the Act. I can only conclude that the Liberal Party are not here because the National Coal Board has no vote.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for his explanation of this complicated Order? I am sure that this is a sensible provision to make. I take it that the noble Lord is satisfied that the automatic weighing and loading equipments do succeed in loading all the coal that is weighed into the waggons, and not elsewhere. Certainly nobody could have any objection to weight at destination. In

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fact, I think that at the time the Act went through there were some who felt that coal ought to be weighed at destination. As to the third exemption, I think that this also is a sensible provision, to take care of a reasonable need for efficiency. I have no objection to this Order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

AIR CORPORATIONS BILL
House in Committee (according to Order).
House resumed: Bill reported without amendments: Report received.

POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK BILL
3.23 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TECHNOLOGY (LORD SNOW): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. When this Bill was brought before another place it was welcomed on all sides. This is a happy situation, and therefore I need not trouble your Lordships with a long explanation of its general principles. In fact, on these—and, indeed, on the whole business—I hope to be quite short. The Bill is designed to give effect to a proposal announced by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he reviewed the Government's saving services in his Budget speech last April: that the Post Office Savings Bank should introduce a new form of savings account to be known as an investment account. The Post Office Savings Bank is, in fact, the most widely used of all the small savings facilities provided by the State, and by increasing the scope of its service the Bill will make a valuable contribution to the achievement of the Government's economic objectives. We hope, indeed, that it will to an extent encourage saving.
People with small savings are now tending to be more selective in their choice of investments and to weigh more carefully the interest and facilities offered by the various alternatives. The Government have concluded that there is a strong case
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for supplementing the present service of the Bank by providing for deposits on longer notice than the present ones, which could therefore be invested to earn the depositors a better rate of interest. I use the word "supplementing" advisedly, because we are in no doubt that the present type of account should be continued side by side with the new accounts. The 2½per cent. interest rate on the present type of account is not an unreasonable rate on deposits which are repayable on demand or at very short notice—especially as the first £15 of a person's annual interest is free of income tax. Twenty-one thousand Post Offices serve as outlets for the use of savings bank accounts, and at any of these a depositor can deposit or withdraw his money with a minimum of formality. The fact that over 20 million people operate the present accounts and make about 100 million deposits and withdrawals a year is evidence of their continuing usefulness.
We propose to keep this present type of account and to introduce a separate series of accounts for the new kind of longer-term deposits. With a rather smaller range of withdrawal facilities and less activity in transactions, the Post Office expects to be able to administer these rather more cheaply. This, with the better income that should derive from the investments, will enable a higher rate of interest to be paid to the depositors. I should like to make it clear straight away that the Post Office is not seeking any unfair competitive advantage over the Trustee Savings Bank in the extended service it is now planning. The Post Office Savings Bank serves many areas which are not so conveniently served by Trustee Savings Bank branches, and its service covers wider hours of business; but the main concern now is that Post Office Savings Bank customers should wherever possible have access to a range of services as comprehensive as that available to Trustee Savings Bank customers. The Bill, then, is to authorise the Postmaster General to run an investment deposit service and to invest the deposits received in a wider range of securities than that permitted under the Post Office Savings Bank Act, 1954 for ordinary deposits.
I will now run through the clauses of the Bill. Clause 1 brings the new deposits within the scope of the 1954 Act, but excludes certain provisions, such as

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those relating to the 2½ per cent. interest rate and the investment arrangements applicable to ordinary deposits. Clause 3 provides for the creation of a new and quite separate account or fund through which the whole of the investment deposit business will be transacted. The balance of deposits over withdrawals and other payments will be invested to provide the income of this Fund, and the Fund will meet all the outgoings of the business, including all its costs. In other words, investment account business is to be strictly self-supporting and without any expectation of help from outside—subject only to a final Government guarantee provided by Clause 3(4). Unlike the Ordinary Account Fund, it will not be required to transfer any surplus at the end of the year to the Exchequer, but will retain this in the fund for the benefit of the investment account depositors.
The underlying principle on which the Post Office will conduct the whole of the investment deposit business will be to serve the interests of the depositors—and I want to emphasise this point. The objective will be to invest the deposits within the authorised range of securities so as to obtain the best possible income, consistent with maintaining the capital value of the Fund and a necessary margin of liquid funds to cover expected payments. The income earned will basically determine the rate of interest that can be paid to depositors. The better the rate of interest that can be paid, the more attractive the service will be—that, I think, is not one of the most original statements of all time—and the greater the benefit to the nation in extra savings. In other words, the interests of the depositors are to all intents and purposes the same as those of the Government.
Clause 4 of the Bill provides for a wider range of investments than the Government and Government-guaranteed securities authorised for ordinary deposits by Section 17 of the 1954 Act. It does this by giving the Treasury power to make Orders which will permit investment of the deposits in a selection of the investments within Part II of the First Schedule to the Trustee Investments Act 1961. This device will give the Treasury reasonable flexibility in prescribing an investment range for any future situation. The selection of investments will thus be prescribed
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by Statutory Instrument which will be laid in draft before both Houses of Parliament. I can say now that we intend to make an Order including local authority loans and securities within the permitted range. These, together with Government securities and securities of the nationalised industries and undertakings, will start the service with an adequate choice of investments offering good yields with adequate security of capital. Within this range it will be the responsibility of the Post Office, in agreement with the Treasury, to decide precisely how the investment portfolio should be composed. In this it will have the benefit of the experience and advice of the National Debt Office and will take any other financial advice which may be desirable in the interests of the business and the depositors.
The Post Office will provide information annually on its stewardship of this new service by a statement of accounts to be presented to both Houses of Parliament, under Clause 5. These will be prepared in accordance with the best commercial principles. They will, for example, include a statement of the investments and their cost and recent valuation so that the position of the Fund in relation to its liability to depositors may be readily seen. Like other Government accounts, the accounts will be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General whose report will be presented to Parliament with them.
Your Lordships will have appreciated from what I have already said that the rate of interest to depositors will be variable and will depend on the income earned and the expenses of the service. Clause 2 provides for the Postmaster General, with the consent of the Treasury, to determine the rate and to vary it. Any alteration of a rate will be suitably published and advertised. For obvious reasons, my right honourable friend the Postmaster General will try to avoid frequent alterations, so that a reasonably stable rate can be achieved over a period. The Postmaster General and the Treasury cannot yet fix the rate with which the service will begin, but we hope that this may be about 5 per cent. Investment account interest will be subject to tax, but tax will not be deducted at source.
Clause 2 also provides for certain conditions of investment deposits to be laid down by regulations. These will provide for the manner in which interest is to

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be calculated and added to capital and for the terms as to notice of withdrawal. The use of regulations will afford a useful measure of flexibility. Under the clause it would be possible (if this were considered desirable) to introduce a series of accounts for deposits on differing periods of notice at different rates of interest. The period of notice could never be less than one month.
Passing next to Clause 7, subsection (1) will enable regulations to be made fixing the minimum amount of deposits required to be held in an ordinary account before a person may pay money into an investment account. This will be fixed initially at £50. This is a condition to which the most careful consideration has been given. It has been suggested that it could constitute an unnecessary obstacle to the success of the new service. The Government do not see it that way. The Trustee Savings Banks are bound to a similar condition by statutory requirement, and we understand that many of these banks look upon it as a useful protection for the finances of their special investment departments. It would in fact amount to unfair competition with the trustee Savings Banks if the Post Office operated without such a condition. That unfair competition we are anxious to avoid. As a partner with the Trustee Savings Bank in the National Savings Movement, the Post Office Savings Bank is certainly not seeking such an advantage.
There are three other supplemental provisions in Clause 7 which call for comment. Clause 7(1) enables orders and regulations made under the principal Act (not this Bill) to make different provisions with respect to ordinary and investment deposits. Section 4 of the principal Act empowers the Treasury to make orders fixing annual and total limits on the deposits a person may make. No annual limit is proposed for investment deposits, but there will be a total limit of £5,000. Subsection (2) of Clause 7 and the Schedule to the Bill are somewhat complicated, but their purpose is merely to simplify procedure. They will enable the National Debt Commissioners to invest deposits in loans to local authorities under the powers conferred by Clause 4 without the need for formal mortgage deeds. It will be sufficient for the Commissioners and the local authorities con-
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cerned to enter into simple agreements to effect the loans. These provisions are in fact modelled on similar ones in the Public Works Loans Act 1965.
Thirdly, there are the provisions relating to tax in Clause 7(5). So far as ordinary deposit business is concerned, the Post Office is not liable for contributions in lieu of corporation tax on income or capital gains derived from the investment of these deposits. The Trustee Savings Banks also have exemption from corporation tax in respect of their ordinary deposit business. As regards their special investment deposits, however, the Trustee Savings Banks have a liability to pay corporation tax on income and capital gains arising from the relative investments but subject to a limited exemption and relief. This exemption extends to the amount of income and gains that Trustee Savings Banks apply in payment or credit of interest to the depositors; and they enjoy relief in respect of management expenses. The Post Office Savings Bank's new accounts are to have similar tax treatment to the Trustee Savings Banks' special investment accounts and so the investment account fund is to make contributions to the Exchequer in lieu of corporation tax calculated on a similar basis. Clause 7(5) makes the necessary technical provisions to achieve this.
I have spoken so far of the provisions in the Bill designed solely for investment deposits. Clauses 6 and 8 make certain provisions which apply to ordinary deposits also. In these clauses we aim to bring up to date parts of the principal Act which are now out of line with current Savings Bank practice and experience. For instance, the Act still assumes that all deposits are made over post office counters; but there are now many organised savings schemes in industry and H.M. Forces which account direct to Savings Bank Headquarters. And on occasion individual depositors post deposits to Savings Bank Headquarters for credit of their accounts. In such respects legislation has not kept pace with the development of the Bank. Clause 8 will put this right.
Again Section 3 of the 1954 Act makes somewhat rigid provisions for the Headquarters office to send acknowledgements of larger deposits. These provisions are relatively little used because, by virtue of

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regulations, the minimum amount acknowledged has been increased until it now stands at £250. We think that the time has now come to discontinue the acknowledgement of individual deposits. Indeed, the whole of the provisions in Section 3 about acknowledgements and deposit book entries have now outlived their usefulness, and Clause 6 substitutes power to make regulations covering all the matters now dealt with in the section. This is especially desirable at the present time. It will give the Post Office Savings Bank greater freedom to adapt its business arrangements now that the scope of its services is to be widened to include the investment deposits and it is approaching the introduction of computer working.
Clause 6 will also enable minimum amounts of deposits to be fixed by regulations. For investment deposits the Postmaster General proposes a minimum of £1 and he is considering an increase in the present minimum of ls. for ordinary deposits. This latter figure has remained unchanged over the whole of the Bank's history and is of course now quite out of line with current costs and money values.
Clause 9 extends the Bill to Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, so that investment deposit business can be transacted at all the post offices which give the present Savings Bank service.
If the Bill receives your Lordships' approval and is passed fairly soon the Postmaster General hopes to lay the necessary draft regulations quickly and to launch the service early in June. The new service will he administered from Glasgow. This is the first major task the Savings Bank will perform from its new location under the Government's dispersal plans. Preparations for this are going well. I am afraid that this Bill is of a technical nature and is not glamorous. But I would invite your Lordships to consider this project in a somewhat broader perspective. With investment accounts at one end of the spectrum and the Giro at the other, the Post Office will at last answer the need for a popular bank on a national scale giving a reasonably full range of simple facilities for transferring and investing money. I believe that these two major innovations ensure that this will come to be regarded as one
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of the most creative and significant periods in the history of the Post Office. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Snow.)

ANGLO-IRISH SOCIAL SECURITY AGREEMENT
3.40 p.m.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, it might be convenient for me now to repeat a reply which has just been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance in answer to a Question about negotiations with the Irish Republic for a reciprocal agreement on social security. Her statement was as follows:
" I am glad to be able to inform the House that the British Ambassador in Dublin and the Minister for Social Welfare of the Irish Republic have this afternoon signed a reciprocal agreement on social security between the Governments of the two countries. This is the first agreement covering 'British retirement pensions and the contributory old-age pensions of the Republic. It will come into force on April 4, 1966. Under the agreement people in the Republic who have British retirement pensions or widow's benefit will have them paid at the rates current in this country. There are also provisions for the linking of Insurance under the two schemes. It has further been agreed that, in assessing means for the purpose of the Republic's non-contributory pensions, British war pensioners will have the same amount of their pensions disregarded as do Service pensioners of the Republic."
That concludes the statement.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for repeating this statement. I welcome it very much. I know that this is something which has been the subject of negotiation for a considerable time. I welcome in particular the fact that British retirement pensions and widows' benefits earned in this country by people now living in the Republic will be paid at the rate current in this country. The important word is "current" because, if I

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understand it aright—and I would ask the noble Lord to confirm this—that means that, instead of pensions continuing forever to be paid at the rates current at the time when the British pensioner had gone to live in Ireland, the rates will now be raised as they are raised in this country.
I am not quite certain what is meant by linking Insurance under the two schemes, and if the noble Lord has any information on this I would ask him if he would give it to us. The disregards for British war pensions in the Republic's non-contributory pension scheme is also important, and I am glad that the Irish Government have agreed that the same disregard should apply in relation to British war pensions as that in the Republic scheme.
LORD REA: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, may I give a warm welcome from these Benches to the statement the noble Lord has made? It is most encouraging that we are getting on so much better terms with the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. if we could act in a tripartite way with Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, we could get closer and closer together; and I congratulate the Government on a very good step forward.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rea, for his gracious remarks. On the question he raised about the Irish Republic pensioners in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic are already paying their pensioners in Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the rates current in the Republic.
The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is quite right when he interpreted the words "the rates current in this country" in the way he did. He also raised the question of the British Insurance transfer. British Insurance will be transferred to the Republic where contributions have been paid in both countries and one pension is payable in either country or only a reduced rate of penion is paid by one country. British contributions will count towards the 156 test of the Irish Republic and the British and British average will be added to the average in the Republic. In some cases, the pensioner will sacrifice his British pension in order to receive a higher rate in the Republic,
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but can transfer back to the United Kingdom, if there is a subsequent increase in British rates.
The noble Lord also raised the question of British war pensions in the Irish Republic. The Republic ignores the first £80 of its own war service pension when a pensioner claims a non-contributory pension and he then has to satisfy a means test. Under the agreement, British war pensioners will be treated in the same way.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, I should just like to congratulate the Government on a remarkable achievement.

POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK BILL
3.45 p.m.
Debate resumed.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, the Government are coming in for a lot of congratulations this afternoon, because I would also congratulate them on bringing forward the Post Office Savings Bank Bill. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Snow, for his clear and detailed exposition of the Bill. As he said, it was given a welcome in another place and I think that he can rest assured that it will receive a welcome here, too.
It is a simple Bill, basically, because what it does is to encourage savings. That is a welcome step for us all, in whatever part of the House we sit. One cannot help but reflect that between 1951 and 1964 savings multiplied sixteen times. The fact that this happened during a Conservative period of office one merely mentions in passing. The point is that it did not occur by accident, and it did not occur by passing Acts of Parliament. It occurred basically by encouragement, by assistance and by various other methods which help people to save on their own. While this Bill, in itself is not likely to increase the savings of the country sixteen times, it will at least encourage those who have their money in the Post Office Savings Bank, by giving them the opportunity of a more realistic interest on their money, as compared to the existing 2½ per cent.
It is a fact that since the war people own far more, whether it be houses, land, cars or money. Much more money

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is owned and there is a greater body of opinion concerned with seeing that that money is put to the best possible use. I think it would be fair to say that increased earnings and increased ability to save have not been matched by a corresponding increase in the knowledge of how best to save. Unit trusts have done a good deal in this respect, and more people now own shares than ever before, even if only about 9 per cent. of the population are owners of shares. The other people do their savings through the Post Office Savings Bank, the Trustee Savings Bank and Premium Bonds.
These are basically, of course, small savers, but that does not mean to say that they are short-time savers. We must bear in mind that people who save through the Post Office save because they probably go to the Post Office every week, or possibly two or three times a week, and while they are occupied with other business they make use of the Post Office Savings Bank. The result is that their money in the Post Office Savings Bank has accumulated over the years and represents, in many cases, lifelong savings. If these are long-term, life-long savings, then I think that Parliament must be concerned that those who invest their money this way should not have any advantage taken of them, simply because they regard the Post Office as a secure place for their money and interest of 2½per cent., with no form of capital appreciation, is not giving them anywhere near the best use of their money.
I think that one of the reasons for this Bill is that, over the last ten years, Post Office Savings Bank funds have been relatively static, compared with the Trustees Savings Bank and Premium Bonds, whose deposits and funds have increased considerably. Recently local authorities have been offering very high rates for short-term loans, and they have been getting them. In a number of cases, the Trustee Savings Bank have been able to take advantage of these loans by purchasing them and passing on to the depositors the benefits of these high rates. They have done this by the special investment department of the Trustee Savings Bank. This facility has been de-
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nied to the Post Office, and this Bill will rectify the position.
One cannot help wondering, in passing, how this might be contrasted with the exhortations of the right honourable gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has told us over a number of months how prices must be kept down, how wages must be kept down and, indeed, how dividends must be kept down, as well. Here comes his right honourable friend the Postmaster General with a Bill asking permission to increase his dividends by 100 per cent. I am myself by way of being a trustee of a Trustee Savings Bank, and in our particular bank, the East Anglian Trustee Savings Bank, for a period of some six months we were denied the opportunity of increasing the interest paid on the special investment department by ¼ per cent. Though the bank was able to pay 5¼ per cent., the depositors were denied the ability to receive that extra payment, simply because the National Debt Office, presumably under the jurisdiction of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that the increased payment must not be paid. But, as I have said, here comes the Postmaster General seeking permission to increase his interest payments by no less than 100 per cent. I think that one appreciates the reasons why this has been done.
This is a good Bill, and we are in favour of it. However, I should like, if I may, to ask the noble Lord, Lord Snow, one or two rather more detailed and pointed questions, for this reason. It is entirely commendable that the Post Office should be brought more into line with the Trustee Savings Bank, but I think it would be a pity if by this Bill the Post Office should be given the opportunity of outbidding the Trustee Savings Bank—and I think the noble Lord said that this was not the intention—whether this would be by intent or by inadvertence. The noble Lord said that this was not the purpose of the Bill, but I should like to highlight one or two particular facets of it so that, if he can, he will give an answer this afternoon, or, failing that, will look at it before the next stage of the Bill, because I am not so convinced that the Bill is as innocuous as it may at first sight seem.
Clause 3 refers in general to the Post Office Savings Bank Investment Account Fund, and what may be debited to it,

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and relevant powers. But it is, in effect, a Government guarantee against a deficiency. At the moment, the Ordinary Department of the Trustee Savings Bank and the existing Post Office Savings Bank have this guarantee against a deficiency. But the Special Investment Department of the Trustee Savings Bank does not have this guarantee. It would appear, therefore, that the Post Office Savings Bank Investment Account may be going to enjoy a certain degree of security which at the moment is not enjoyed by the Trustee Savings Bank.
Clause 4 deals with the investment of money in the Fund and says that this must be done in accordance with Part II of Schedule 1 to the Trustee Investments Act 1961. Part II of Schedule 1 to this Act includes Commonwealth loans and debenture and loan stocks of British companies with a share capital of £1 million and which have paid dividends for the five preceding years. This, of course, differs from the investment powers allowed to the Trustee Savings Bank, for they are allowed to invest only in mortgages to local authorities, dated Government securities or dated corporation securities. They are specifically prevented from investing in Commonwealth loans by the Trustee Investments Act 1961. This closed a line of investment that was previously open to them, and which, incidentally, was very remunerative. Nor are they allowed to invest in British securities. There have been, for instance, since the last Budget, many debenture issues, such as I.C.I. and British Insulated Callender's Cables, to take but two, where a yield of 7 per cent., and better, has been obtainable. This, as I understand the Bill, will be permitted to the Post Office Savings Bank, and yet it will not be permitted to the Trustee Savings Bank. One wonders whether this is an intentional differentiation.
Here I should like to ask the noble Lord whether it is proposed that a depositor may not take any advantage of the Investment Account Fund unless he has a holding in the Ordinary Department of the Post Office Savings Bank. I think the noble Lord said that you had to have a holding of £50. This is so at the moment in the Trustee Savings Bank. One wonders—and I assume this provision has been put into this Bill be-
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cause it also refers to the Trustee Savings Bank—whether the noble Lord would consider re-thinking this. I find very little purpose in this rule. I cannot see why a depositor should be made to receive only 2½ per cent. on £50 in order that he may thereafter receive 5 per cent., or thereabouts, on his remaining investment. This seems to me to be a rather pointless provision, both in this Bill and in the Trustee Savings Bank Act. I should have thought that it would possibly discourage people from investing their money. Maybe this is supposed to discourage them from removing it. I shall be grateful if the noble Lord will consider looking at this again, because I do not see that it contains any great inherent value.
I wonder, also, whether the noble Lord would be prepared to explain a little further than he did the tax position of the Fund, because under Clause 7 it would seem that any profit made by the Investment Account Fund is to be tax free. I thought the noble Lord said it was not to be tax free, but my reading of the Bill is that it is. If this is so, this is again in marked contrast to the Special Investment Department of the Trustee Savings Bank, where both income tax and capital gains tax has to be paid.
Moving to the Schedule I would draw to the noble Lord's attention paragraph 2, which refers to loans being made to local authorities, not by mortgage, which has been the practice in the past, but by agreement. I think this is a relatively new venture, and it may be welcomed. The Bill says that stamp duty will not be paid on these agreements, but instead, the aggregate of the sums that would have been paid in stamp duty will be paid over in block. What, therefore, is the purpose of this provision if the same amount of money is to be paid as would have been paid if the stamp duty had been paid? I fail to see this, unless it is for one very significant reason, which would allow the stamp duty, or its equivalent, to be paid, not by the borrower, the local authority, but by the lender, who in this case would be the Post Office Savings Bank. If this is so, of course it would be a significant difference between what happens in Trustee Savings Banks, and this would immediately put the Post Office at a substantial advantage over the Trustee

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Savings Banks, as any local authority would obviously prefer to lend money where the lender, the Post Office, would pay the stamp duty, rather than where the borrower, namely themselves, would pay the stamp duty.
I have mentioned these specific points, not in order in any way to deny a welcome to this Bill or, indeed, to denigrate it in any way at all, because it is a good Bill and I welcome it. But if it is to enable the Post Office to move into an area of being more competitive, then I think it is right that one should see that the competition which is envisaged is fair and just, and I think this is the purpose in the noble Lord's mind. I hope that this Bill, when it becomes law—and, indeed, I suppose one may say if it becomes law now—will encourage not only the savings of the country but also the savers themselves.
4.2 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I should like to say a few words of welcome to this Bill, because for some time now one of the strange things about our economy has seemed to be the apparent indifference of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the importance of savings in our economy. I should have thought that a few hundred millions swung from current consumption into savings—and that means capital formation—would have made a tremendous difference in our battle for the pound. He is alleged to rely on the advice of economists who originated in other countries; and it may be that, as we know, the serfs of Hungary never had any savings at all, and for that reason savings have been rather overlooked in this context.
Now that he is moving on the savings front, I think the Post Office ought to undertake a great deal more publicity to try to get people to put money in the new accounts they are creating. If one considers the purpose for which people save, one finds there are two overriding desires among a great proportion of our population. The first is a motor car, and the second is some sort of dwelling on marriage. The majority of people who own motor cars do not provide a proper depreciation against their wearing out and against having to buy a new one. These accounts would be an ideal repository for an annual payment in of a
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motor depreciation account. A large number of teenagers are tending to marry at very early ages nowadays, and Parliament has to make all sorts of arrangements for them to have low deposits and cheap mortgages on houses. If only somebody would persuade them to start saving their very large wages early and to put them into something like this, it would be much more to the purpose.
Finally, I should say that there is one slight element of deceit (I think I may call it) in all Post Office Savings accounts. They say that the first £15 is free of Income Tax. They do not also say, "But the first £15 will definitely not be free of surtax." I have always thought that this is a silly and petty provision, and rather unworthy of Her Majesty's Government. With those few remarks I welcome the Bill.
4.5 p.m.
LORD SNOW: My Lords, I am glad of the welcome that this Bill has received from the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, and the noble Lord, Lord Hawke. I think I can reassure the noble Earl to the extent of at least 90 per cent. of his worries. There is genuinely no intention of taking an unfair advantage of the Trustee Savings Banks, and where there appear to be differences, those differences are theoretical. For instance, it is perfectly true that the Government have a guarantee on the Ordinary deposit accounts, exactly as the Trustee Savings Banks have. The Trustee Savings Banks do not have a guarantee on the Special investment deposits. On the other hand, the Government must be able to give a guarantee to all its accounts. This is a condition of Government saving in this way. So there is a theoretical advantage, it is true, in favour of the Post Office Savings Bank as against the Trustee Savings Banks, but it seems to us that this advantage is purely theoretical. No one thinks that the Trustee Savings Banks are not going to be able to meet their depositors, and we cannot depart from the broad principle that the Government must be able to guarantee their accounts, but we should not think that this made any difference in the competitive position of the two systems.
Similarly in the investment powers which are referred to in Clause 4, here the range of investments has been deliberately widely drawn. But the Government intend that the securities to be prescribed,

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initially at any rate, shall be those in paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 8 and 9 of Part 11 of the Schedule to the Trustee Investments Act, which bring them into line with the powers granted to the Trustee Savings Banks. That is, the securities which it will be possible to invest in for these investment accounts will be Government securities of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, Government guaranteed securities, securities of public authorities, nationalised undertakings and local authority loans and securities. This is the same fistful that the Trustee Savings Banks have at their own disposal. It is purely a matter of flexibility in the future that the possibilities are left open, and presumably there is always the possibility of extending the trustee powers in exactly the same way.
The question of the £50 limit has been fairly carefully considered, but we will have another look at it in the light of what the noble Earl said. The actual arguments were, first, that our understanding is that not all Trustee Savings Banks are certain that they would not like the £50 limit. That was the first consideration. The second was that if there is no money in the 2½ per cent. accounts, then all movements have to be at one month's notice, which might not be convenient for depositors and would tend to reduce the earning power of the investment accounts. I admit that these points are somewhat small and technical, but they have some substance. Nevertheless, we are perfectly prepared to have a look at it.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I wonder whether, while he is looking at this matter, the noble Lord would also look at whether or not the proviso to have one month's notice before withdrawing is also sensible. It might be possible to join the two together and to say that, not only was it unnecessary to have a deposit of £50, but also the one month's notice could be reduced, which I should think would be an advantage.
LORD SNOW: That will be looked at. The fourth point was the tax position of the new fund. There the position is exactly the same in the Post Office Savings Bank and the Trustee Savings Banks. The investment account business will have similar liabilities to tax to the Special investment deposit business of the Trustee Savings Banks. The new
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Fund is to make contributions to the Exchequer in lieu of corporation tax on income and capital gains arising from the investments of the Fund but subject to a limited exemption and relief similar to that enjoyed by the Trustee Savings Bank. The exemption extends the amount of interest credited to the depositors, and the relief to the costs of management. In fact I mentioned that in my speech, but it probably was not clear. Indeed the position is exactly equivalent.
Finally, we come to paragraph 2 of this Schedule and the problem of stamp duty. This is merely a matter of technique. It is supposed to provide a convenient procedure for the recovery of the stamp duty in respect of loans which are secured by agreements under paragraph 1. Under paragraph 2(1)(a) the National Debt Commissioners will account to the Inland Revenue periodically for the aggregate amount of duty that would have been payable if the loans had been secured by mortgage deed. The Commissioners will then be able to recover the amount of this duty from the local authorities concerned under paragraph 2(1)(b). This is purely a technical matter which seems to us to be sensible and convenient.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again. This is possibly a matter of detail, but in fact I think there is nothing in the Bill to say that this is recoverable from the local authority. The Bill merely says that the Postmaster General may recover it. Can the noble Lord say whether it will be written into the Order that the money will be recoverable, because this makes a substantial difference?
LORD SNOW: My Lords, my understanding is that "may" is to be interpreted as "will", but I shall have to investigate the position and write to the noble Earl.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

MINES (WORKING FACILITIES AND SUPPORT) BILL [H.L.] STATUTE LAW REVISION BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL
4.14 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. This Bill marks the first stage in the Government's proposals for reshaping the social security schemes of the country. As the House will recall, when the Government came into office they made their first priority the payment of higher retirement pensions and other National Insurance benefits, together with improvements in National Assistance scales. At the same time, the Government announced that they proposed to carry out a general review of social security, and it has been made clear that as progress on it is made, measures will be introduced to carry into effect the decisions reached.
The main purpose of the Bill is therefore to bring into effect the Government's proposals for earnings-related supplements to the existing flat-rate benefits for the early months of unemployment, sickness and widowhood. At the same time, the Government are proposing certain valuable simplifications and rationalisations in other parts of the National Insurance schemes, particularly on unemployment benefit. The Bill also gives a suitable opportunity to bring in quickly the changes in the Industrial Injuries Scheme which are needed to carry out the recommendations made in the Report by the Committee on the Assessment of Disablement, which was so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord McCorquodale of Newton. Finally, there are proposals for a few minor changes designed to keep the present National Insurance Scheme in good day-to-day running order.
Having thus briefly sketched in the main features of the Bill, perhaps I may discuss in rather more detail the major points in the Bill. I turn first to the proposals for earnings-related supplements, and the additional contributions needed to pay for them, set out in Clauses 1, 2 and 4 of the Bill. The Government have, of course, been committed from the start to providing earnings - related National Insurance benefits for these contingencies, but I
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know that there has been some interest in why priority has been given to these proposals. The Government's policy on this was explained in The National Plan, published last September. The extent to which our social provisions can be improved depends fundamentally on the growth of the economy. One of the factors in this must be the most efficient use of labour in the light of scientific change and development, and this means encouraging the proper mobility of labour. If this is to be done, then adequate economic protection must be provided for workers who have to change their jobs. Considerable help is provided by the system of lump sum payments under the Redundancy Payments Act, which started last December, and further help will be provided by the earnings-related supplements to unemployment benefit proposed in the Bill.
But National Insurance benefits fulfil a social as well as an economic purpose, and the sudden drop in income which unemployment brings can be matched by a similar drop when the breadwinner is sick or dies. In the Government's view, therefore, it was essential to provide similar earnings-related supplements for the early months of sickness and widowhood, too. Indeed, because of the inherently close links between unemployment and sickness, it would have been extremely difficult to distinguish between them without, for example, encouraging some sick people to try to register as unemployed in order to get the higher benefit. I would stress that these proposals relate only to the early periods of loss of earnings. In the Government's view the provision of benefit on a long-term basis for people such as the chronically sick raises different issues, which are being considered as part of the review of social security.
Clause 2 of the Bill provides for supplements to unemployment and sickness benefit payable for up to six months to people over 18 and under pension age, who are entitled to the flat-rate benefit. The clause also contains special provisions to allow supplement to be paid with injury benefit or widow's benefit where these take the place of unemployment and sickness benefit. The supplements will be one-third of average weekly earnings between £9 and £30. They will be paid on top of the present fiat-rate benefits, including increases for

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dependants, subject to a maximum total benefit of 85 per cent. of earnings. The maximum supplement will therefore be £7 (one-third of £21) for the claimant with average weekly earnings of £30 or more. The 85 per cent. limit is to secure that claimants generally are not better off when sick or unemployed than they would be at work. A maximum of this kind is a natural feature of a scheme in which benefits are related to earnings and is particularly necessary where the personal rate of benefit can be substantially augmented by allowances for dependants. The figure of 85 per cent. is on the basis that when a man is unemployed or sick he does not pay National Insurance contributions and may save on other items, too. For other examples of benefit payable, I would refer your Lordships to the Table at the end of the White Paper on the Bill, Command No. 2887.
In order to get the scheme started as quickly as possible—it is hoped this autumn—and to keep it as simple as possible, supplements will be based on earnings assessable to Schedule E income tax—in general, earnings taxed under P.A.Y.E. Average weekly earnings will be taken as one-fiftieth of the annual figure usually in the last complete tax year. Claimants will be asked to produce the Certificate of Pay and Tax Deducted—the Inland Revenue form P60 or its equivalent—which the employer gives to each employee at the end of the tax year. Where the P60 cannot be used, inquiries will have to be sent to employers, but the Government hope to keep this to a minimum by encouraging employees to retain their P60s. It would, however, be unjustifiably expensive to calculate and pay supplement for the large number of very short spells of unemployment and sickness, and so the clause provides that it shall not be paid for the first twelve days of such spells. These supplements will help many people. The numbers of unemployed and sick vary, but the Government Actuary estimates that on average about a quarter of a million sick people (including 30,000 on injury benefit) and about 110,000 unemployed people (assuming a 2 per cent. level of unemployment) would be receiving the supplement at any one time, and on this basis the cost of the supplement in the first full year is estimated at about £64 million.
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Clause 4 provides for two important changes in widow's allowance, the specially high benefit now paid for 13 weeks after the husband's death to women who are under 60 or whose husbands had not retired. First, the allowance will be paid for 26 weeks, instead of 13, for all widows entitled to it on or after the appointed day. Secondly, widows of employed men who have not retired and who die after the appointed day will receive a widow's supplementary allowance, calculated in broadly the same way as the supplement to the husband's unemployment or sickness benefit. The rate of the supplement will be one-third of his average weekly earnings between £9 and £30, giving a maximum supplement of £7 a week on top of the existing widow's allowance of £5 12s. 6d., plus allowances for children. Similar improvements will apply to industrial widows, It is expected that the extended period of widow's allowance will benefit about 85,000 widows a year, and that the new supplement will be paid to about 70,000 widows a year, giving a total cost in a full year of about £9 million.
Clause 1 provides the extra graduated contributions needed to pay for these earnings-related benefits. In order to get the scheme started quickly, the present machinery for graduated contributions for the graduated retirement pension scheme is used. New ½ per cent. graduated contributions a side will therefore be added on to the existing 4¼ per cent. contributions payable by employer and employee on earnings between £9 and £18 and will also extend to earnings between £18 and £30—the latter being the maximum reckonable earnings for the new supplements. It is not feasible to contract people out of the new earnings-related unemployment and sickness supplements, and so the new ½ per cent. will be paid also by those who are contracted out of the graduated pension part of the scheme. I should like to make it quite clear that the new ½per cent. graduated contribution will in all cases also count towards graduated pension. This is an incidental result of the fact that, to get the new scheme under way as quickly as possible, the new contribution will be calculated and collected as an increase in the existing 4¼ per cent. contribution week by week. For, under the existing scheme, employers are permitted, if they wish, to provide the Ministry only

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with annual totals of graduated contributions paid by each employee—and most employers do so. By the time the total reaches the Ministry, therefore, it is not feasible to separate out the new ½per cent. contributions, and it would not be possible to change this without completely upsetting employers' arrangements. Accordingly, the ½ per cent. contribution will be included in the total of a person's graduated contributions each "unit" of which—namely £7 10s. for a man and £9 for a woman—produces 6d. a week graduated retirement pension. The present contracting-out arrangements for graduated pension purposes remain undisturbed, and existing contracting-out certificates remain valid. The new contributions will raise £76 million in the first full year. This compares with extra expenditure of £77 million—£64 million for supplements to unemployment and sickness benefit, £9 million for improvements in widows' benefits, and £4 million for administration costs.
Clause 3 provides for certain changes to reduce difficulties and anomalies in unemployment benefit which have been thrown into relief by the introduction of earnings-related supplement. Subsection (1) of the clause deals with the difficult problem of unemployment benefit for the comparatively small number of workers whose employment has not been terminated but who are temporarily suspended from work by the employer. I would emphasise that it does not affect at all the worker whose employment has come to an end and who is looking for a new job. At present workers who are on short time or are temporarily laid off can qualify for unemployment benefit, subject to a complicated set of rules. But these have caused difficulties and anomalies, and in some industries arrangements for short-time working have been manipulated to get round the benefit rule. This has meant that employment exchanges in certain areas have to deal with a mass of benefit claims from workers who already have an employer, at the cost of their constructive work on behalf of the totally unemployed. It can also mean that the general mass of workers—many of whom earn less full-time than others are getting when they are on short-time—are subsidising earnings in certain industries. The introduction of earnings-
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related supplements would increase both the administrative problems and the anomalies of subsidising certain industries.
In the Government's view, where an employer wants to retain a worker in his employment he should accept responsibility for paying him a guaranteed minimum wage—at least for the initial period. Many employers already do this, and their workers do not claim unemployment benefit. The Bill therefore proposes, in Clause 3(1), that as a permanent long-term measure, the first six days of suspension shall not give title to unemployment benefit, either flat-rate or supplement. Since Sundays are excluded, this means that workers who are suspended will not start to qualify for unemployment benefit until suspension has lasted a week. The Government recognise, however, that to impose the new six-day rule in its entirety from the outset would impose hardship where there are at present no satisfactory guaranteed wage agreements. The Bill therefore provides for a transitional period of three years in which the new six-day rule will apply only to the new earnings-related supplement and in which flat-rate benefit will be payable as at present. This transitional period will give both sides of industry time to negotiate on the provision to be made for short-time working and for the first week of lay-off when this will no longer be covered by the National Insurance Fund. The Government will study the position reached halfway through this transitional period, and if the progress made is not satisfactory will, if necessary, examine the possibility of legislation to make guaranteed week agreements compulsory. This transition should ensure an important long-term improvement in the scheme, without producing the short-term hardship which a sudden, complete, reform might bring.
Clause 3(2) of the Bill sets out another reform, this time in the duration of flat-rate unemployment benefit. At present this is 180 days (7 months' benefit, excluding Sundays), plus up to 312 days (one year) of "added days", depending on a person's contribution and benefit history. But unemployment usually arises through social and economic factors over which the individual has little or no control, and it is unfair to pay benefit for a shorter period to the man who has

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worked in a less stable industry and has been harder hit by economic factors. The calculation of added days is also a further complication of unemployment benefit. The Government therefore propose again to simplify the arrangements by substituting a straight 312-day maximum duration for flat-rate unemployment benefit. This will give up to twelve months total benefit—six months of which may attract earnings-related supplement. These changes in Clause 3, together with the new earnings-related supplements, the scheme for redundancy payments and further simplifications which are to be made by regulations, will ensure a new deal for people who have unavoidably lost their jobs and are available for re-employment.
I turn now to changes in the industrial injuries scheme in Clauses 5 to 7. Clause 5 is consequential on the proposal, to which I referred on Clause 2, to pay earnings-related sickness benefit supplement under the national insurance scheme on top of injury benefit. At present there are minor differences in title to and payment of injury benefit, as compared with sickness benefit. These are already the cause of considerable administrative difficulty, and the proposal to pay simultaneously sickness supplement and injury benefit made it essential to bring the schemes into line. Clause 5 accordingly alters the conditions for injury benefit. The main change will be that injury benefit will not be payable for the day of the accident in most of the cases where it is now payable; it is probable, however, that in many cases wages (or wages less benefit) are paid for that day. Moreover, in certain other cases the changes will benefit the insured person. In any case, the payment of supplement with injury benefit, which is the main reason for the changes, will provide a considerable measure of extra help to the industrially injured.
Clauses 6 and 7 arise from the Report of the Committee on the Assessment of Disablement, and implement its recommendations so far as the Industrial Injuries Scheme is concerned. Similar changes are being made in the War Pensions Scheme by Royal Warrant. I think the House will agree with me that we owe a great debt to the Committee for its full and careful study of this most important problem of war and industrial disablement, and for its lucid and valuable Report. Again I
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should like to mention the noble Lord, Lord McCorquodale of Newton, who was the Committee's Chairman and also the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, who was a member. As I indicated to the House when the Report was published on December 20, the Government were happy to accept in full the proposals which were made and are glad that they are now able to bring legislation forward on them so soon. It is hoped to bring the improvements into effect soon after Royal Assent to the Bill.
Under Clause 6 a new increase of disablement pension is to be provided, as recommended by the Committee, for people who are exceptionally severely disabled and likely to remain so permanently. The new allowance will be at the rate of £3 a week and will be payable in addition to existing benefits, in-chiding constant attendance allowance. The clause ensures that it will go to pensioners in hospital, as well as to those being cared for at home, and that it will also be applied to old workmen's compensation cases. It is estimated that perhaps 1,000 people will benefit. Clause 7 arises from the Committee's consideration of the list of scheduled disablements. They recommended an increase from 60 to 70 per cent. in the scheduled assessment of disablement for certain amputations between mid-thigh and the knee. This change can be made by regulations for new cases but Clause 7 ensures that there is also power to give the benefit of this change to existing cases. The opportunity is also taken in this clause to make a small change which will enable constant attendance allowance under the Industrial Injuries Scheme to be paid to a small number of badly disabled men, injured more than once, whose compensation arises from two or more different sources.
Clauses 8 and 9 make certain technical changes in the machinery under the National Insurance and Industrial Injuries schemes for adjudicating on claims to benefit. Clause 8 arises from the proposal to pay the new earnings-related supplement on top of injury benefit. The adjudication machinery under the two schemes is almost identical, with the same persons operating as insurance officers, local appeal tribunals and Commissioners for both schemes; but the mere existence of two sets of authorities will create special problems. The clause

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therefore provides for the assimilation of the Industrial Injuries system (other than the special medical adjudication system) into the National Insurance system. I would emphasise that existing rights of appeal will in no way be altered.
Clause 9 is virtually consequential, in that it restyles the present Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners, who are the final appeal authorities under the two schemes, as Chief National Insurance Commissioner and National Insurance Commissioners respectively. This is to remove doubts that have arisen with some appellants about the status of Deputy Commissioners. Again the change is technical and does not affect the way appeals operate. Clauses 10 and 11 contain minor adjustments to the schemes to which I referred at the opening of my speech. Some make minor beneficial modifications in certain benefit conditions; the rest are in the main to make the schemes simpler to administer. The remaining parts of the Bill contain the formal provisions and those needed to bring the substantive provisions into operation, and I do not think I need detain your Lordships by describing them in detail. Fuller details on the finances can, of course, be found in the Government Actuary's Report on the Bill, published as Command Paper No. 2884.
I would now commend the Bill to your Lordships as a useful and beneficial measure. It marks the first major stage in the Government's review of our social security system. The Government are conscious that a very great deal remains to be done. Indeed, the improvements made by the Bill inevitably throw into relief the areas yet to be covered. The Government are, however, pressing on with their review and, as noble Lords will doubtless have seen, my right honourable friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance has referred two questions of particular public interest to the National Insurance Advisory Committee for their consideration and advice, in the light of representations made to them. The first is that of unemployment benefit conditions for people who have retired with an occupational pension before the National Insurance retirement pension age. The second is the retirement pension earnings rule. In the meantime, the Bill will provide a new system of earnings-
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related benefits for the early periods of unemployment, sickness and widowhood; the system of unemployment benefit will, under the Bill and regulations, be rationalised and modernised, and extra benefits will be made to certain severely disabled industrial injury cases. Finally, certain aspects of the administration of the National Insurance schemes will be simplified and improved. In these ways new advances will be made in our social security and the path will be laid for the future developments to which the Government are pledged. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Bowles.)
4.38 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I start by thanking the noble Lord for his patient and careful explanation of the contents of the Bill, and also for giving us some information outside the Bill as well. As the noble Lord said, the Bill introduces for the first time the principle that unemployment and sickness benefit should no longer be at the same rate for all but should be related to past earnings, and that the same should apply to industrial injury benefit. The principle of relating benefits to earnings is not entirely new, since the Guaranteed Pensions Scheme already relates the graduated supplement to the retirement pension to previous earnings. But for unemployment and sickness it is new, and it is on a new basis. All political Parties have accepted and advocated its innovation. Indeed, the Election Manifestos of all three Parties in 1964 contained undertakings to put it into effect.
For my part, I welcome the implementation of the principle. Indeed, I could scarcely do otherwise for, as the right honourable lady the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance indicated on the Committee stage in another place, I was already discussing it with the T.U.C. nearly three years ago. The Minister implied, however, that it was not until the National Economic Development Council recommended it that the Conservative Government started work on it. But, as their report Conditions Favourable to Faster Growth shows, the suggestion did not originate with N.E.D.C. In fact, the Ministry of National Insurance had

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already been working on it, and Ministers had already discussed its implications and complications. All the same, it was encouraging to have the endorsement of N.E.D.C., and that still stands.
The arguments in favour of applying the principle to unemployment benefit are strong. As the noble Lord said, they are twofold. From the point of view of the individual, which is probably the more important, particularly the individual with earnings above the national average for so-called manual workers, the drop in income when a man loses his job or is prevented by illness from doing it can be very serious. The average wage as at last October was £19 11s. 9d. That means that a man on the average wage, if he has a wife and two children, drops to £8 7s. net a week, while an unmarried man would drop to £4. This obviously involves real hardship. Secondly, from the national point of view, as the noble Lord said, we want to reduce the resistance to change which such a degree of hardship intensifies. That is why I put the individual first—it starts there. If we are to shake out the overmanning and increase mobility in industry, to put into effect the principle that unemployment benefit and sickness benefit should be related to earnings is at least as important—I would say more important—as a national scheme which gives lump sum payments to men and women made redundant by industrial development and change.
My noble friend Lord Blakenham is, I think, entitled to take most of the credit for the redundancy payments scheme which the present Government introduced last year. So, too, the Conservative Government can claim credit for starting the process of working out ways and means of carrying out the principle of relating unemploment benefit and sickness benefits to earnings—a process which had been brought a long way forward before the present Government took over. The noble Lord has said that the number of contributors who will benefit when they become unemployed is estimated to average 110,000. This compares with a total number of 360,000 unemployed last month. We understand the reasons for this, but it shows that the problem does not cease there.
There is one point I should like to mention. The Government Actuary's
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calculations of the cost of the scheme appear to have been based on a 2 per cent. ratio of unemployment. If there is more mobility, then will not the amount of transitional unemployment be rather higher than that? I wonder whether it was really safe to take that as a basis for the future. For sickness benefit, the arguments are rather different. As a matter of administration it would be possible for unemployment benefit to be related to earnings whilst sickness benefit was not. The two benefits are paid in different ways. The noble Lord mentioned the fact that it might be possible for those who fell sick to register as unemployed, but I should have thought it was less likely now than it was before the war that employees who were off sick would sign on as unemployed in order to get the higher benefit. The introduction of redundancy payments has seen to that. But the fact is that the two benefits are still closely connected.
There is the much broader question of how far employers should be responsible for their employees when they are ill. In 1962 an inquiry was carried out to find out what proportion of employees who fell sick were covered by employers' sick pay schemes. As a result of that it was found—and I give rough figures—that 88 per cent. of the white collar workers were covered; at the other extreme it was 41·4 per cent. of unskilled workers. The overall average was 56·6 per cent. for men and 59·5 per cent. for women. The skilled workers and the semi-skilled workers were, respectively, just above and just below the average.
These figures, of course, do not indicate how much help employees receive. In some schemes the employer makes up the National Insurance sickness benefit to full wages or salary, although presumably not to normal earnings where there is regular overtime. In others he makes it up to a fixed proportion of wages or salary. In each case he generally does so for a fixed maximum period—perhaps not necessarily a fixed maximum period, but sometimes a maximum period related to the length of service. Sometimes it would be full wages for a period followed by a proportion of wages. Some employers, I find, even pay full wages and ignore sickness benefit entirely. There must be many cases where

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an employee is financially better off when he is sick than when he is working, since sickness benefit is not, I believe, liable to income tax. It is obviously important that the Departments of Health and the Ministry of National Insurance should maintain their vigilance to prevent abuse.
The right honourable lady the Minister said on Second Reading in another place that under the Bill about 250,000 sick would on average be receiving supplement at any one time. Because of private supplementation of National Insurance sickness benefit some may not be any better off as a result of the Bill. We cannot help that. What at least is plain is that the need for earnings-related sickness benefit is less universal than for earnings-related unemployment benefit, because of the existence of private sickness schemes covering to some degree nearly three employees out of five. Nevertheless, for those earning over £9 a week who are over 18 years of age, I am sure the earnings-related supplement will be very welcome, and for that reason I believe it is right to cover in this scheme both the short-term sick as well as the unemployed.
To do so will put an additional burden of £38 million on employers—that is, ultimately on the consumer. Against that has to be set the greater willingness to accept change which it is hoped will result from the introduction of earnings-related unemployment benefit. I believe employers and the community as a whole will gain in the long run from earnings-related unemployment benefit and earnings-related sickness benefit. But it may well be that even greater vigilance will be required on the part of the Ministry and the Departments of Health to ensure that the earnings-related sickness benefit is not abused.
In one respect it seems to me that the Bill does not go far enough. I regret that the problem of the long-term sick is not touched at all. The earnings-related supplement, both for the unemployed and for the sick, is payable from the 13th day after they become sick or unemployed, for six months only. I can see the argument for this as it affects unemployed, and of course to some extent it is tied up with the industrial
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injuries benefit. It may be said that to go on paying earnings-related unemployment benefit after six months might tempt a man to remain unemployed and not even to look for another job. In fact, the Bill actually cuts down the maximum period of entitlement to flat-rate unemployment benefit, as the noble Lord said, from 82 weeks to one year. That means that a man gets earnings-related supplement for six months, then drops to fiat-rate benefit (plus National Assistance, if necessary) for another six months or so, and after that goes on to National Assistance.
But what is the logic for the long-term sick? Why should he not receive earnings-related sickness benefit? I found, both as a Member of Parliament and as a Minister, that among the most poignant cases that came my way were those of young married employees with families: men earning good money, who were suddenly smitten by some totally incapacitating accident or illness. Would it not have been relatively simple to include them? Their average earnings in the base year could have been adjusted in line with a rise in the cost of living, as is done, for example, I believe, in the Canadian Social Security Scheme.
I know it will be said that this is a Bill to deal with short-term benefits only, but it need not have been, and in my opinion should not have been. Sickness benefit does not at present discriminate between short-term and long-term sickness. Having paid 156 contributions—that is to say, after three years of uninterrupted employment—one is entitled to sickness benefit, I believe, for the rest of the normal working span of one's life, if one needs it. But the Bill discriminates, for the first time under National Insurance, between the short-term and the long-term sick; and, if anything, the needs of the long-term sick are greater, especially of the breadwinners.
Why have the Government done this? I believe it is largely because one could not have a long-term sickness benefit that did not cover the self-employed, and the self-employed are not covered at all by the earnings-related sickness benefit. Do they not earn, too? Are the Party opposite indifferent towards the self-employed? Have they tried to find a way of including the self-employed for earnings-related sickness benefit? Surely

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it would have been possible to have two or three stages of flat-rate contributions, and to collect them by, for example, an addition to the weekly stamp.
The Minister of National Insurance has described the scheme in this Bill as "an interim scheme". It is not clear whether she was referring to the scheme as a whole or to the method of collecting contributions. At the last Election, "Labour was ready", said the manifesto, "poised to swing its plans into instant operation". Well, my Lords, after fifteen months, and just before the next Election, it swings into operation a plan which was initiated three years ago by the Conservative Government, and which it now describes as "an interim scheme". The plans which they said they had ready at the last Election are now emerging in a torrent of White Papers at the pull of a lever signalling the next General Election. One should perhaps be thankful that in all this cascade of Bills and White Papers we find something to agree with, and I can say that I agree with most of this Bill. It is not what it includes, but what it fails to include that worries me.
I think it was right to apply the same principle to widowhood as to unemployment benefit, and to allow widows to draw earnings-related supplement based on their husband's earnings for the period of widow's allowance. I think it is right to double the period of widow's allowance to six months. I think it is right to double the thirteen-week period of temporary allowance for widows of severely disabled war pensioners—a point which I am not certain that the noble Lord mentioned. Of course, this would not be done by the Bill; it would be done by the Royal Warrant. I am glad that this is being kept in line with the widow's allowance, and I myself take particular pride in having played some part in getting this allowance for widows while I was Minister of Pensions.
I also think it is right to implement the McCorquodale Committee's recommendations in their application to industrial injuries under this Bill, as well as to war pensioners, through the Royal Warrant. I think it is right to amend Section 20 of the National Insurance Act, as the noble Lord explained, in relation to days of suspended employment. I was grateful that he gave that explanation to us. I am not entirely clear why such a long
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transitional period as three years is necessary, but the noble Lord has said that the matter will be looked at in eighteen months to see if progress has been satisfactory. I think it is also right to fuse the two tribunals—those dealing with National Insurance and Industrial Injuries.
While I warmly support the principles of the Bill, I am not so sure about all the ways in which it is proposed that these principles should be put into effect. I have already referred to the limit of six months for the payment of sickness benefit. There is also the limitation at the start. Neither earnings-related sickness benefit nor earnings-related unemployment benefit is to be paid for the first two weeks. Whatever other justification may be pled for this Bill, the basic reasons are obviously purely administrative. I quite appreciate that, as a matter of administration, it may not be possible to pay the supplement until three weeks after the day when the unemployment or sickness began; but that is no reason in itself for not recognising the entitlement from the day it begins. After all, if the grocer or the coal merchant or the banker knows that earnings-related supplement is going to be received in the end from the day when unemployment or sickness begins, he will be more ready to allow the man who falls sick or loses his job to run up a bill or to get credit.
I quite realise that a man who has been in his job for two years or more will get at least two weeks' pay on redundancy. But it seems a bit hard to grab back, as it were, the benefit conferred by the redundancy payments scheme in this way. Besides that, under the "last in, first out" rule many men may be made redundant before they have completed two years, and so will get nothing. What about them? As for sickness, I understand that more than half the periods of absence from work on account of sickness are for less than two weeks. Those away for three days or less are already not covered for flat-rate benefit. I wonder whether the noble Lord has considered this.
Would not the right thing to do have been either to make it compulsory for employers to make up National Insurance to normal wages or salary, or at least

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a high proportion of it, for the first fortnight (there might be marginal difficulties; there might have to be some exemptions in certain trades, but that would be one alternative to cover this fortnight), or, alternatively, to pay earnings-related sickness benefit from the start of the period of sickness, if sickness exceeds three days. It seems to me that these are real alternatives. I am not saying that it can be paid right away. Of course, a period for investigation and the like is needed. The question is: from what point should the entitlement run? This is a mutual insurance scheme to which employers and employees are each to contribute ½ per cent. of their earnings between £9 and £30. The first two weeks—apart from the first three days—of unemployment or sickness are clearly an insurable risk. There is no Exchequer contribution towards this scheme. Even administrative costs, as the noble Lord said, are repayable out of National Insurance funds. That, also, I believe to be right. How much would it cost each side, I wonder, to cover this risk for the first fortnight? I wonder whether the noble Lord has those figures.
The noble Lord referred to one feature of this scheme, which is that nobody is to receive by way of flat-rate benefit, plus earnings-related benefit, more than 85 per cent. of his earnings. The minimum guarantee has been discarded, and is replaced by a maximum income guarantee—the income "stop". I understand the reasons for this, but I hope that the noble Lord will say that this is going to be operated with considerable sympathy and comprehension. I want to ask him whether Clause 2(8)(b) is to be used to give relief in marginal cases. For example, take the man who has been earning much more at the time he falls sick than he earned in the previous year. It may not be just a question of promotion or a higher wage: he may have been sick in the previous year, or unemployed in the previous year, and his average in the relevant income tax year might have been depressed by a period of sickness or unemployment. Yet still he would be subject to the income "stop" related to his earnings in the relevant income year, and he would be subject to it despite his family commitments—and it is really only the men with
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big family commitments who are likely to encounter this income "stop".
I hope the noble Lord will be able to give me some information about this, because it is important. It is important that we should always be seen to be aiding those who most need it. It is one thing to ease the lot of someone who is earning £30 a week and who drops suddenly to £4 a week—that is in itself a good thing to do—but it is much more important to ease the lot of the man earning relatively low wages, who has a large family, and falls out of employment or becomes sick.
To conclude, my Lords, I welcome this Bill. Apart from the doubt about the average level of unemployment assumed, it seems to be based on sound contributory principles. But I very much regret the failure to provide for the long-term sick. I believe that a great opportunity has been missed to do something for people who are among those most in need. I also regret the way in which this Bill is being rushed through Parliament. It is not a rates Bill; it breaks new ground and should not have been treated as a rates Bill. Of course, it is true that the sooner the Bill becomes law the sooner benefits will become payable; but if the Government wanted benefits to be payable this autumn they ought to have introduced the Bill sooner and given it a longer run in Parliament, so that Parliament could have examined it more closely. I am quite sure that, had we been in power, a Bill to introduce earnings-related benefits would already have been on the Statute Book.
5.2 p.m.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, on the matters which have been before your Lordships' House this afternoon the Government have come in for a fair amount of congratulation and, if I may say so kindly, for some feint praise by the last speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. It is perhaps invidious for me, bearing in mind where I sit in this Chamber, to congratulate the Government, but, in all sincerity, I do think that they are to be congratulated on introducing such a Bill as this at a time when the country is facing grave financial difficulties—and, I would remind your Lordships, difficulties which were not of the Government's making. The noble Lord, Lord Drumablyn, has said that, had the

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Party which he represents been in office at the present moment, a Bill such as this would probably have been before your Lordships much sooner. But he did say earlier on that the Conservative Party had similar plans for such a Bill three years ago, which means that they had two years before the last Election.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me for intervening? I am sure that he does not mean to misrepresent me on this. What I said was that we started to consider this three years ago. I do not think the noble Lord should be under any misapprehension as to the time it takes to bring this kind of Bill to completion. All I said was that we would have introduced it sooner. I think we would have introduced it sooner, but one has to take into account that it would probably have taken at least two years to prepare.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: I am much obliged to the noble Lord. He has made my point for me. If it could not be done within two years, then I think the present Government have done pretty well to do it in sixteen months. However, I feel that this Bill is a further example of promises made in October, 1964, having been honoured by the present Government, although that is not the main matter so far as I am concerned. I think it is further evidence of this Government's determination to make adequate provision, so far as our financial position will allow, for those sections of the community most in need.
If there is one thing that stands out so far as I personally am concerned, it is that this Bill marks the beginning of a new process in social thought—the kind of social thinking which will become more and more essential and more and more important within the foreseeable future. I refer in particular to the scheme for wage-related sickness and unemployment benefits. This Bill, if it is passed, will remedy a really grave social injustice, and one which has been going on for many generations: that people, when they fall sick, become elderly or are widowed, or when society is unable to provide employment, are faced with serious financial crises which not only threaten but in fact make a serious attack upon the standard of living of the individual and the family.
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I am sure that many of your Lordships will feel it is quite surprising that in our so-called civilised society this situation has been accepted and allowed to exist for so long. I think that this Bill must be welcomed by all who feel a real sense of responsibility for those in the community who are less fortunately placed than many of us. By associating ourselves with it—and everyone has done so far—I believe that your Lordships' House will be clearly indicating and demonstrating that we are in the vanguard of social thinking, and are really concerned with human welfare. As the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, quite rightly stated, the Bill is not perfect—I doubt whether many Bills, if any, ever are—for there still remains much to be done if we are going to provide adequately for the family in all circumstances.
I should like to call the attention of my noble friend Lord Bowles to one omission, and, while I am not asking him at this stage—let me be quite fair about this—to give an assurance that it will be put right immediately, because I know it cannot be, I do ask him to indicate, if he would be good enough, that the matter will be considered. I refer to the claim of a comparatively new voluntary organisation known as the Disablement Incomes Group—" D.I.G. ". It is an organisation with which I have no connection and in which I hold no office, and I am not their spokesman. This organisation asks—and here I want to quote:
" for the provision by the State of a modest basic income with special supplementary allowances for all disabled persons ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom whatever the cause of the disablement and irrespective of previous National Insurance contribution ".
In other words, it asks for financial benefit to be available to all severely disabled persons, of either sex, whether they have been State-insured or not.
It is not necessary for me to remind your Lordships, because your Lordships will appreciate the fact, that long-term chronic disablement can be, and is for many people, very expensive. I speak to your Lordships as a sociologist. Much of the poverty revealed in a report called The Poor and the Poorest,by Abel-Smith and Townsend, occurs in the homes of disabled persons. The husband with a disabled wife cannot get any financial help in respect of his added financial liability. My information—though it

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may be wrong—is that the husband can claim income tax relief only if help has to be brought into the home, not to look after the wife but to look after the children. If there are no children, my information is that relief cannot be granted, even though it may still be necessary for him to have someone in the house, probably full-time, to look after his wife when he is at work. Wife disablement is a very serious matter for the ordinary wage earner. I know, and I appreciate the fact, that the Minister is undertaking a review of social security, and I should be content if my noble friend Lord Bowles would undertake to mention this matter to the Minister, pointing out, when he does so, that both Norway and Denmark have made such provision already. I think I am right in saying that Australia has had a simple invalid pension scheme since 1910. Perhaps the schemes of these three countries could be looked at with a view to providing what I am asking for.
5.12 p.m.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, as I listened to the noble Lord on the Opposite Benches I was wondering whether I was in fairyland. I remember the time when he was a Minister of this Department in the House of Commons. Never once did I hear him argue in the House of Commons for the chronic sick. This matter has been raised by the noble Lord to-day only as a result of this Bill. I remember that for thirteen years we pleaded in the House of Commons for the "ten-shilling widow's" pension to be increased to 30s. but we always got a rejection, and it made me wonder when I heard the noble Lord speak about what his Party would have done if they had been in power.
I should like to congratulate the Government on introducing this Bill, despite the financial difficulties they have faced in the last eighteen months. In our Election Manifesto we outlined plans for social security for a five-year term of office and not for a Government that have been in office for only sixteen months. But in that sixteen months the Government have given the highest increase in old-age pension since 1946. They have given the same increase to sickness and industrial injuries and war disability pension benefits. The National
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Assistance scales have also been given a high increase. The earnings rule for widows was abolished only two months after the Government came into power. The "ten-shilling widow's" amount was increased to 30s. per week. The workers have been given redundancy payments when they lose their jobs, and thousands of disabled workers under the old Workmen's Compensation Act have all got increases. The physically broken man in industry and the war pensioner will now get, under this Bill, £3 a week extra.
I put it to your Lordships that this is a record of which any Government can be proud: that in the difficulties they have faced they have not forgotten the needy of our society. It was outlined last week in the welfare debate in another place that a general review of the whole field of social security is taking place. As the noble Lord knows, this Bill stems from that review. This is an interim measure. It will be a part, in the future, of the social security scheme that is envisaged by the Government. The Bill is to pay an earnings-related supplement on unemployment, sickness and widows' benefits. The provision for an earnings-related unemployment benefit is complementary to the Redundancy Payments Act and will play a big part in promoting the mobility of labour and the economic and technological changes of the future.
I welcome the earnings-related supplement in sickness cases and in widows' benefits. When a person becomes ill, his standard of life drops considerably, and the same applies when he becomes unemployed. It is tragic also for the widow who loses her husband; because her standard of life takes a very hard knock. In all these cases real hardship is endured and there are great worries for those affected. As the Minister said in another place, we are at the beginning of reshaping in a generous way our social security, and are now taking the first opportunity to make improvements. In my working life in the mines I have seen men trailing to work when they should have been at home in bed. They had to do it because they were afraid of the financial effect on their family of staying away from work.
In the last twenty years this tendency has practically disappeared. I am confident that in time this Bill should eliminate it entirely. There has been an

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argument in the House of Commons by the Conservatives that this Bill will increase absenteeism and encourage the malingerer. Anxiety has been expressed about the high ceiling for sickness benefit and the danger that absenteeism will be encouraged. But, my Lords, we cannot legislate on such a basis; one cannot judge a field of wheat by one or two bad ears. On the other hand, there is the argument that the 85 per cent. ceiling is too low in the cases of the lower-paid workers. I should like, therefore, to examine these arguments. Absenteeism is caused, in the main, by the person who takes one or two days off work; it means that that person, for no good reason, does not go to work.
How will such a person fare under this Bill? He will not attract the flat rate benefit. He has to serve three waiting days after proving his sickness or unemployment before he is entitled to benefit. Neither will he get the supplement embodied in this Bill, because there are 12 waiting days which are not repayable. Furthermore, before a person can get benefit, evidence of incapacity must be produced by a doctor's certificate or he has to register at an employment exchange if unemployed and be available for work. And benefit can be stopped where a man refuses suitable employment. Again, if a man does not go to work, it would reduce his yearly income; so that when he is sick it will be reflected in any supplementary for the next year.
My Lords, this Bill, instead of encouraging absenteeism, does the reverse. There are systems of controls to check those who are "swinging the lead" in their claim for sickness benefit. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions in another place gave us the figures in this respect. In 1965, 818,000 sickness and injury benefit claimants were examined by independent medical practitioners, and 476,000 were visited at their homes. Of 21 million people insured for sickness benefit, 70 per cent. make no claim during the course of the year; 20 per cent. claim only once in the year, and while 10 per cent. claim more than once, only a third of these claim three or more times and most are genuine claims for benefit. Therefore I hope that those who think that the British worker is always looking to take advan-
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tage of increased social benefits will regard these figures as sufficient criteria to prove that the great majority of workers fulfil their responsibilities and obligations to the industries in which they work and to the nation at large.
I do not for one moment believe that there is a problem in this argument of absenteeism. Of malingerers, there are a small number, but there are sufficient checks on them. They are investigated and checked as to their incapacity for work, and it must not be assumed that they all get benefit every time they claim. However, we cannot have penal legislation on the vast majority of decent people simply because of a few "bad eggs" in our society. While the risk of doubtful claims has to be borne in mind, I think it would be wrong to think that the supplement embodied in the Bill, with its twelve waiting-days period and 85 per cent. ceiling, will create a problem for us. Where the spell of unemployment or sickness is less than twelve days, there will usually be other sources of income to add to the flat rate of benefit—earnings for the last week at work, and in many cases an income tax refund. It is when unemployment or sickness has lasted a fortnight that the fall, from earnings to the flat rate of benefit starts to be most important. In fact, by not paying the supplement for the first fortnight it is possible to make it available for up to six months of sickness or unemployment thereafter. It ensures that the additional money being provided through the National Insurance Fund is concentrated on people whose loss of earnings has been appreciable.
What the new supplement will do is to provide benefit in cases of longer-term absences from work than now applies. Clause 2 of the Bill provides that the supplement shall be paid to employed contributors over eighteen years of age and under pensionable age, who are entitled to the flat rate of unemployment or sickness benefit. The figure, which the Minister has stated, is of one-third of the average weekly earnings between £9 and £30. So the maximum supplement on a £30-a-week man will be £7 a week on his flat rate. I think that there can be no objection taken to this, as the object is to ensure that claimants are generally not better off than they

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would be if they were at work. The 85 per cent. ceiling is based on gross earnings and not on net earnings. It takes into account the fact that gross earnings are subject to deductions for P.A.Y.E., National Insurance, and other deductions from pay.
The other feature about the Bill is that it provides for help also for the early period of widowhood. The widow's allowance at present is a special benefit paid at the rate of £5 12s. 6d. a week for thirteen weeks during the difficult period after her husband's death, provided that the husband had not retired or the widow is under 60 years of age. The provision in this Bill will increase the period to 26 weeks, or six months, and will provide an earnings-related supplement similar to that which would have been provided with the husband's employment or sickness benefit, if he had lived. In this way, both the amount of money and the period for which it can be paid will be greatly increased.
In the field of social security for widows and widowed mothers, the Government have done well. I have good reasons for saying this to my noble friend, in the light of his speech. I have here a booklet,All the Answers,issued to Conservative candidates in the last Election by the Conservative Research Department. There would have been no abolition of the earnings rule for widowed mothers, if the Conservatives had been returned to power in 1964, because this is what they said in that booklet:
" Difficulties would occur on changing from widowed mother's allowance to widow's pension if the earnings rule was abolished for all widows; a similar difficulty would arise when widows changed from widow's pension to retirement pension at the age of 60. Either course would substitute new problems for existing ones."
So there was no intention in the last Election to abolish the earnings rule for widows, and it says much for the Labour Government that all the difficulties the Conservatives saw in this Election booklet vanished in two months, when this Government abolished the earnings rule.
It is also pleasing to note that the Minister has given wide terms of reference to the National Insurance Advisory Committee to have a full examination of the working of the earnings rule as applied to pensioners. This has not been
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looked at since 1956. The cost of all the earnings-related supplement is to be met by a new ½ per cent. graduated contribution payable by employer and employee. This at least maintains the contributory principle under which insured persons and their employers pay towards the cost of National Insurance benefits.
In the Commons last week, there was great pressure by the Conservative Party for contracting out of the supplement in this Bill on the basis of occupational schemes of sickness pay. I hope that the Government will not accept this for one moment. Great difficulties would ensue from this. Not all those who have contracted out of the graduated pensions scheme have a sick pay scheme. To accept contracting out would mean four different types of people. We should have those who were contracted out for pension and sickness benefit. We should have those contracted in for both. We should have those who contracted out for pension but not for sickness benefit; and we should have those contracted out for sickness benefit but not for pension. This would mean four different rates of contribution and would create problems for the employer, apart from the administrative problems that this would be bound to cause.
An employer could seek to evade his contracted-out obligations by sacking his employee when he was ill or by discharging him when he appeared to be ill. There would be no safeguard at all for the man in a situation like that, if he were contracted out of this scheme. In many industries where there is an occupational sickness scheme they are interested to take into account the National Insurance benefit, and I hope that the Government will see to it in this Bill that at least the employers do not take the supplement for which the man is paying. Since its inauguration, the National Insurance scheme has been based on the pooling of risks. Contracting out of the supplementation scheme would be most attractive to those industries where the incidence of sickness is light, and to allow it would hit at the principle behind this Bill, and also at the basis of National Insurance over its whole lifetime.
The Bill, as I understand it, is to provide extra benefits for people. Therefore, it must be judged as a first major stage of the changes in National Insurance

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which are likely to be needed in the future. The effect of the Bill in relation to the National Industrial Injuries scheme is one of great importance to men who work in mines and factories, as well as to old people who were disabled fighting for this country. It has long been accepted that there should be special provision for people who suffer from industrial accidents or diseases. At present, the Industrial Injuries scheme provides higher rates of benefit and special forms of provision for these people.
First, there is the provision of short-term benefits. At present, injury benefit payable for up to the first six months of incapacity for work caused by an accident at work, or an industrial disease, is £2 15s. a week higher than the standard rate of sickness benefit of £4 a week, which is payable to a person who is incapable of work through non-industrial causes. Under this Bill, the new earnings-related supplement of sickness benefit will be payable on top of injury benefit to a person who qualifies for injury benefit instead of sickness benefit. This ensures that the measure of preference for the industrially injured still remains part of our social security scheme.
I should like at this stage to support my noble friend on the Front Bench and pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord McCorquodale of Newton, who was Chairman of the Committee on the assessment of disability, and also the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, who sat on the Committee. They did valuable work on this Committee, and I am pleased to note that their recommendations as affecting the exceptionally severely disabled men of war and industry are implemented in this Bill. Under the Industrial Injuries Act the highest assessment is 100 per cent. There are, however, many people who not only have an industrial disability which qualifies them for 100 per cent. pension, but also suffer from other industrially caused disability. These people will he entitled to constant attendance allowance under the Industrial Injuries Act, because they require someone to care for their personal needs. There was no way in the previous Acts in which their personal benefit assessment could take account of their exceptionally severe disablement. This Bill now provides, as the McCorquodale Committee recommended, that such exceptionally dis-
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abled people who need constant attendance will qualify for an additional personal benefit of £3 a week. The number may be small, fortunately, but it is right that attempts should be made, so far as this is at all possible, to take account, in monetary terms, of their terrible injuries. This is also to apply to war pensioners with the same degree of disablement, and this will be done through the Royal Warrants.
There are many matters in the Bill that I have not touched upon, like the three waiting days in sickness, which I hope some day will go. There is also the question of manipulation of short-time working to get around the benefit rules, as is done in certain industries. The Minister, I am pleased to note, has given notice that the short-time working condition of eligibility for unemployment benefit is to go in three years' time. Probably we shall be able to say something in Committee, but I think the Minister is on the right track. All industries who retain their employees on a short-time working basis ought to give their employees a guaranteed week agreement.
Therefore, I welcome the Bill. The fight we face is to eradicate poverty, which still exists for many people, and the hardships experienced by our old people. Not only are Governments involved in this crusade, but the whole nation. It is when the nation as a whole decides that it is their responsibility, that Government will be able to banish poverty from our midst. The Government in sixteen months have most certainly done their best to eradicate much human suffering and poverty, but there is still a lot to be done. I hope that this Bill will be a further step in that direction, and I await the full organised plan for the future security of our people.
5.37 p.m.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, we have had a most interesting debate, and I thank noble Lords for the kind things they have said about the Bill and the way in which the Government have acted. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, raised the question of whether the Government Actuary's figure of 2 per cent. was right. The position is, as he will remember, that the Government tell the Actuary to work out certain numbers, figures or facts. So he was instructed to take 2 per cent. as the

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rate of unemployment, and that is why he worked on that percentage.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, if the noble Lord will forgive me, the point I was asking was why this had been done. I was wondering why it is that the Government have taken this level of 2 per cent., in view of the fact that, as I said, if the Government's policy of getting more mobility, and so on, is going to work, we may have more transitional unemployment.
LORD BOWLES: I appreciate that, and had it in mind. I thought the noble Lord made himself quite clear about that. I am just saying that this figure was taken. When the Redundancy Payments Act has been in operation for some time, we may give another estimate to the Government Actuary on the percentage of unemployment.
As regards the 12 waiting days, the noble Lord said it is estimated that about half the successful claims for sickness benefit and unemployment benefit last less than 12 days (although in some cases the period may link with an earlier period for benefit purposes). Payment for all or some of these days will therefore mean, when allied to the extra administrative costs, either a significant increase in the proposed contributions or a reduction in supplement paid to longer-term unemployed and sick. It is estimated that the cost of paying earnings-related supplements after three days—that is to say, the same waiting period as the flat-rate benefits—would be about £6 million in a full year for the extra unemployment benefit supplement plus the extra costs of administration. This estimate is based on the assumption of a 2 per cent. level of unemployment, which is used by the Government Actuary, on Government instructions, in estimating future costs of unemployment benefits.
The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, also raised the question of sick pay supplements. The fear has often been expressed that sick pay supplements run by employers may lead to over-compensation when their benefits are added on to those of flat-rate benefit and the new earnings-related supplement to-gather. The Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance reckon that there are some 10½ million people who are en-
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titled to sickness benefit who will also be in the field for the supplement and to some extent will also be covered by sick pay schemes. The number in sick pay schemes is higher than this because of people not entitled to sickness benefit, in particular married women who have opted not to pay flat-rate contributions. The size and duration of payments made under sick pay schemes vary greatly. In many cases National Insurance benefits are taken into account automatically—. that is, deducted from sick pay. In such cases the new supplements will cause the scheme's benefits to be adjusted so that no problem should arise. In other cases it will be up to the employers to renegotiate the provisions of their schemes with their employees.
My right honourable friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance said during the Committee stage of the Bill in another place on this point:
"… the present sick pay benefit schemes vis-á-vis the provisions made under the Bill will be matters for the usual negotiations between employer and employee."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 724 (No. 49), col. 1343, 16/2/66.]
She went on to say:
" Private employers have already taken into account benefits paid now under the National Insurance Scheme. No doubt employers will want to discuss with their employees what they will do as a result of the provisions of this Bill and this seems to me to be the right way of going about the matter."—[Col. 1351.]
Then the noble Lord rather regretted that provision for the long-term sick and chronically sick was not in the Bill. As I explained in my opening speech—I dare say the noble Lord had his notes and was sticking to them, in spite of what I had to say—the Government have in mind the position of the long-term sick as part of the general review of the social security scheme. The problem of the long-term sick is, however, different from that of short-term sickness. In effect, long-term sickness is a form of premature retirement, and it would not be proper or fair to base benefit for the long-term sick on average earnings in the last complete income tax year, as is proposed in the Bill, for the supplement. It would mean that a long-term benefit depended on what a person's earnings happened to be at one particular period.

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The noble Lord also asked me about Clause 2(8)(b). The noble Lord said that this enables the 85 per cent. benefit ceiling formula to be varied. The powers will be available for cases where the amount of flat rate benefit in payment is less than the standard rate: for example, where there has been a contribution deficiency, or a claimant is subject to a hospital in-patient deduction. The paragraph does not enable major variations to be made in the 85 per cent. rule, but will ensure that it can be applied to special groups, such as those in hospital, as generously as possible.
My noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell— I thank him for his welcome of the Bill and my speech—referred to the disablement income group, and also mentioned the particular problem of disabled wives. I can assure my noble friend that my right honourable friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance has the questions which he has mentioned very much in mind as part of the review of the social services. Then there was the speech of my noble friend Lord Blyton. The Government thank him for his congratulations. I should like to say what an interesting speech he made, as he always does. The only question he put to me was the question of not allowing any further contracting out. The Bill does not allow any contracting out so far as short-term benefits are concerned. I am grateful for the reception which this Bill has received, and I only hope that whatever the news may be—I have not been out of the. Chamber for three or four hours—this Bill may become an Act of Parliament before the next General Election.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned during pleasure and resumed by the LORD CHANCELLOR.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
5.45 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I wish to make a Business statement. In view of the announcement made by my right honourable friend the Prime. Minister earlier this evening, the Business for the remainder of this Session has been rearranged through the usual channels as follows. The Business for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week will be as
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planned, and as appears on the Order Paper. On Thursday, March 3, we intend to take the Committee and remaining stages of the National Insurance Bill, and the Second Reading of the Rating Bill, and then the debate on the development of Oxford, on the Motion in the name of my noble friend Lord Segal, will be held as arranged. On Friday, March 4, the House will meet at 11 a.m. in order to consider the Farmers' Machinery Syndicates Grants (Extension of Period) Order 1966; the Payments in Aid of Agricultural Schemes (Extension) Order 1966; the Universities (Scotland) Bill, Committee and remaining stages; the Local Government (Pecuniary Interests) (Scotland) Bill, Committee and remaining stages, and then we intend to take the Committee and remaining stages of the National Health Bill and the Committee and remaining stages of the Rating Bill.
On Monday, March 7, the House will he asked to consider the Draft Police Pensions (Amendment) Regulations Order, and to give a Third Reading to the Air Corporations Bill. It is intended to follow this with the Committee and remaining stages of the Post Office Savings Bank Bill, and the Third Reading of the Abortion Bill. On Tuesday and Wednesday, March 8 and 9, the House will debate the Defence White Paper on a Government Motion. On Thursday, March 10, it is intended to hold a Royal Commission for the approval of Bills, followed by the Prorogation of Parliament. On that day the House will meet at 2 p.m. That is the end of the Statement.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord the Chief Whip. Your Lordships will observe that the announcement of the date of the Election came almost as much as a surprise to him as it did to every one of your Lordships, judging by the detail which he had worked out. I think the programme looks all right, although perhaps I ought to say that the passage of these Bills must obviously be conditional upon the attitude which the Government take to any suggestions that we may have to make during the course of the remaining stages of those Bills.
LORD REA: My Lords, may I say that we on these Benches agree with what the noble Lord has said and are very

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willing indeed to adopt the proposed programme.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question: whether it is possible to take the Report stage of the Abortion Bill, as there has to be a Report stage before the Third Reading. The noble Lord has not mentioned the Report stage, and we are now back in Committee again. We shall have to have a Report stage. When are we to take that—on Friday?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am most grateful for the welcome which the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Lord, Lord Rea, have given to this Statement. I must admit that the cause of this came as much as a surprise to me as it did to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. In regard to the Abortion Bill, I note that the Third Reading is down for next Monday. As the noble Viscount will know, Standing Orders will have been suspended. It will be for my noble friend Lord Silkin and the House to decide whether to take the Report and the Third Reading on that day. I think we could leave any further arrangements to the usual channels and to my noble friend Lord Silkin.
I had a whispered complaint from my noble friend Lady Summerskill, in regard to the Matrimonial Homes Bill. This Bill has not yet received a Second Reading, and even with the greatest good will of noble Lords opposite and their friends in another place, with Prorogation next week I do not think it will be possible to get that Bill through this House and the other place for the Royal Assent next Thursday. But perhaps my noble friend will see that such a Bill is put down for a First Reading at the first moment of the next Session, when we, on this side of the House, will certainly support her in it.
LORD CARRINGTON: The noble Lords will then be on this side of the House.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I am not as simple as my noble friend thinks. Before I whispered in his ear, I had made other enquiries, and if he likes to pursue his enquiries further he may find that we shall have time on Tuesday. I am sorry to appear to be a
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little enigmatic, but that is a woman's privilege.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I should not have the courage to suggest that the noble Lady is simple, but the fact is that there would not be much point in proceeding with that Bill at this stage, particularly with the heavy weight of business. However, as I have said, in not so many days' time the noble Lady will have the opportunity of moving that Bill.

ABORTION BILL [H.L.]
5.51 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the House to be put into Committee (on Recommitment).
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I beg to move, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Silkin.)
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, what his intentions are in regard to this Bill. If we go into Committee on this Bill it is perfectly apparent, from the programme of Business for next week, that there is not the slightest possibility of this Bill, even if it has passed through this House, being considered at all in another place. It is bound to drop, and I would ask the noble Lord whose Bill it is whether he would explain to us what point he thinks there would be in continuing long debates in Committee on this Bill to-night. If he wishes to, it will be open to him, as it will be to the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, to introduce a new Bill on the same subject early in the next Parliament. I am merely seeking to find out the noble Lord's intentions.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, has suggested to me that we might merely take the non-controversial Amendments to-day and leave the Bill in that form. I have thought about it and consulted some of my friends, but the fact is that quite a number of noble Lords have come here in the belief that we are going to discuss this Bill this afternoon and this evening. They have gone to some inconvenience, and I feel that, without

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consulting all of those who are here for that purpose, it would be unfair if I were merely to accept the noble and learned Viscount's suggestion.
So far as I am concerned, I should welcome the opportunity of an early evening, and I quite realise that this Bill cannot become law between now and March 10. Nevertheless, I think we should be serving a useful purpose if we could get this Bill through its Third Reading in this House, and it would simplify proceedings in the next Session of Parliament, when I intend to introduce another Bill. So I hope that the noble and learned Viscount will not hold it against me if I say that I feel that we should go on this evening as far as we can.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, it may be a matter for the House to decide whether we do proceed with a Committee stage which can produce no useful result. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, may want to get this Bill read a third time for propaganda purposes, but I cannot see that it is likely to simplify the process of legislation in the next Government. In view of the news which has been announced and which noble Lords who came here did not know was going to be announced (at least, many of them would not have known: some of the noble Lords opposite may not be like Mr. George Brown, and they may have had some information), I should have thought that to ask us to spend long hours tonight discussing a Bill which cannot get any further would not be as good a procedure as for the noble Lord to withdraw his Bill now. Whatever takes place in debates on this Bill between now and Dissolution cannot affect the ultimate position.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, nothing that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, said induced me to believe that he wished to get a Third Reading of his Bill for propaganda purposes.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, it seems to me to be highly discourteous to the House. Not only has by noble friend done a great amount of work throughout the week-end, trying to meet all the points raised by noble Lords, but I see that the noble Lord, Lord Molson, is sitting there with a large tome open by his side. He has obviously
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done a great deal of work, and it seems to me curious that at this last moment, after the debate has been announced, noble Lords should now be told that the noble and learned Viscount does not wish to proceed with the Committee stage.
LORD CARRINGTON: Dissolution.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, as to the Dissolution, we all knew, of course, that some announcement was going to be made.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, I think a number of noble Lords have come here prepared to debate this Bill. The Committee stage is one that ought to be gone over carefully. There are many issues which could be debated with great advantage, on the various Amendments which have been put down, and I see no reason why we should not proceed with it. I had not expected my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne to defer so abjectly to the decree of the Prime Minister as to call off the business in this House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
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 women'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 a defective or 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).

LORD SILKIN: A good many of these Amendments which I have put down are an improvement on the existing drafting, and in most cases (I think perhaps in all) they do not affect what was intended in the Bill. This particular Amendment is to a large extent a matter of drafting. It ties up what is proposed in the present Bill with the position as it is at the moment. It also reintroduces the concept that the practitioners have to act in good faith. That was not in the Bill as it left the Committee, but I am advised that it is essential for it to be incorporated, and I have so incorporated it. I know it was represented that it might be discourteous or offensive to the medical profession to suggest that they have to act in good faith, and I was quite happy to omit those words, but it has been represented to me that those words ought to go in as a matter of proper procedure and therefore I am quite happy to include them. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 5, leave out from (" this ") to end of line 12, and insert (" section, a person shall not be guilty of an offence or crime of abortion by reason of the termination of a pregnancy by a registered medical practitioner if the practitioner is of the opinion, formed in good faith, that the termination of the pregnancy is necessary on any one or more of the following grounds, that is to say—").—(Lord Silkin.)
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I hope the noble Lord will explain why he has put in these words "formed in good faith". It is surely not enough for him to tell the Committee he has been advised that it is a good thing to do. Knowing the noble Lord, I am quite sure that he asked why it was a good thing to do, and that an explanation was given to him. Therefore I hope he will give your Lordships, and me, the explanation and the reason why he accepted the advice given to him.
I must say that I find it difficult to see that the addition of these words adds anything to this Bill. Presumably the words "formed in good faith" have been inserted to enable a prosecution to be launched should the prosecution be in a position to prove, which seems to me extremely improbable, that the opinion was not formed in good faith; that is to say, that it was not the doctor's honest opinion. And if it was not the doctor's
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honest opinion then in truth it was not his opinion. I do not see myself that the addition of these words really adds anything to the Bill. If it is not in truth the opinion of the medical practitioners, then the procedure laid down by the Bill will not be complied with. I should be grateful if the noble Lord, even at this hour, could explain fully why it is that it is thought necessary to insert these words. Certainly we may have a further opportunity of considering this.
6.2 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): support my noble friend, Lord Silkin. The Government feel that these words are necessary and the Amendment has been drafted on the advice of Parliamentary Counsel. On the precise point put by the noble and learned Viscount, I would explain our views in this way. The present draft of the Bill makes it lawful for a pregnancy to be terminated provided that two doctors certify in writing that it is necessary on one or other of the grounds specified in the Bill. The effect of this in practice would be to make the legality of the abortion depend only on the issue of the two certificates. That is an unnecessary invitation to abuse. The Amendment now moved by my noble friend, coupled with a later Amendment, provides that a pregnancy may be terminated if two doctors are of the opinion, formed in good faith, that it is necessary on one or more of the grounds specified in the Bill and if they so certify in writing. This places the legality of the abortion on the doctors' opinion formed in good faith. The doctor may be wrong in his opinion, but so long as the opinion was honestly formed he would be protected by the Bill. In other words, in the event of a prosecution, the Crown would have to prove bad faith on the part of the doctor in forming the opinion on the certificate.
The noble and learned Viscount suggested that, without the Amendment, a prosecution could lie only if it was not the doctor's honest opinion, but that is by no means as certain as he appears to think. It seems, therefore, desirable to make the position clear, as the terms of the Amendment, in our view, make it clear; because, first, it accurately reflects the true position, that the legality of the operation depends on the opinion of the

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doctor; secondly, it safeguards the position of the doctor who has made an honest mistake in diagnosis; and, thirdly, it follows the precedent of the existing case law in the Bourne case and another case, where it was held that it was not unlawful for the doctor to carry out the abortion if the act was done in good faith to preserve the life or physical or mental health of the mother. In other words, at this point the Amendment moved by my noble friend will simply implement what is the existing case law, which is already in terms of good faith, and there is, therefore, nothing new in the concept put forward by my noble friend.
This Bill deals with a special situation. It relates to an act which, if certain conditions are not complied with, is a criminal offence, and the circumstances surrounding it are therefore different from the circumstances surrounding most of the operations doctors are called upon to perform, where there is no question of any criminal offence being involved. Her Majesty's Government regard this as an Amendment which should be commended to the Committee.
LORD SEGAL: I should like from the noble Lord some information on what I regard as a very important matter. If this Amendment is carried, and if Amendment No. 8 is carried, the phrase "formed in good faith" will occur twice. Would any imputation of bad faith possibly arise against the doctor if it could be proved that a very large pecuniary consideration has entered into the carrying out of the operation? And, further, if he used the expression "large pecuniary gain" what figure would be involved? It is a most important point which I believe has not entered into the consideration of this Bill. I should be glad to have his opinion on what constitutes "in good faith" where large financial gain is involved.
LORD STONHAM: My noble friend did not himself specify what he meant by "large financial gain". I would point out that later Amendments to be moved by my noble friend Lord Silkin will specify the place of the operation, that is the hospital or equivalent of hospital approved by the Minister of Health; and will specify the standing of the doctor who will perform the operation. I should not have thought that the pay-
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ment of a fee to the doctor, if it was done other than in a National Health hospital, would enter into it at all. The question of good faith or bad faith would rest entirely on whether or not the doctor or doctors had observed the conditions under which the termination of pregnancy would not be an offence, and the question of whether or not a doctor received a fee would not, in my view, affect the matter of a doctor's professional honour.
LORD CONESFORD: I am bound to say that I support this Amendment. I, think it is certainly an improvement on the wording of the Bill. While I appreciate the point made by my noble and learned friend, I think I can also see the argument the other way, and I am certainly firmly of opinion that the words inserted in the Amendment could not reasonably be taken as insulting to the medical profession. I think that what was said in the Bourne case and the way it was reported is sufficient to show that putting these words in the Statute, whether or not they are strictly necessary, cannot be injurious on the ground that they are insulting to the medical profession. On those grounds, I hope the Amendment will be accepted.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I am not by any means satisfied that these words are really necessary. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in beginning his reply, sought to draw a distinction between the wording of this Amendment and the Bill as it is at the present time. Under the Bill two medical practitioners have to certify in writing that their opinion is so-and-so, and here again they have to give their opinion; in both cases we are dealing with matters of opinion, and I should have thought that under the Bill as it stood there was no question of prosecution if an honest opinion was given, even if it was wrong. But while I do not think these words really add anything of importance to the Bill, if the noble Lord wants them and thinks them important, I certainly shall not resist it. I am not suggesting that their addition is insulting. I think just to say they follow the Bourne case is not really enough. I should have thought they were unnecessary; but if the noble Lord wants them, I do not oppose it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SILKIN: I beg to move this Amendment, which the noble and learned Viscount will be glad to hear has been put down to meet a point which he made. It makes quite clear that the two factors, the life of the mother and the health of the mother, are independent, and that on either ground an abortion may take place. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 14, after (" or ") insert (" of ").—(Lord Silkin.)
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I think this is a desirable Amendment. If it had not been made the clause would have run:
"….involving serious risk to the life or grave injury to the health.…"
That is a heavy burden for doctors to be satisfied about, that it would involve "grave injury to the health". I am sure it was the intention of the noble Lord to provide that it would either involve serious risk to the life or serious risk of grave injury to the health. The insertion of this word "of" makes provision for that.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
6.11 p.m.
LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved, in paragraph (b), to leave out "the child if born would be likely to" and insert:
"there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would".
The noble Lord said: Paragraph (b) of subsection (1) deals with the child who, if born, would be likely to suffer from physical or mental abnormalities, and so on. In the earlier stages there was some discussion as to the meaning of the words, "likely to suffer." The noble and learned Viscount took them to mean that the probabilities were that the child would suffer—that is, as he now says, that there was a greater chance than otherwise that it would suffer these abnormalities and defects. I did not myself understand the words to mean that. I understood them to mean that there would be a substantial risk of a child being born with the defects, and I understand a "substantial risk" to mean that, while the odds may not be in favour of its happening, there is a strong likelihood of its happening. It is difficult to define it more closely, because I think we all understand what "substantial risk" means. Therefore I am moving the
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Amendment to include the words "a substantial risk" of these things happening, instead of its being "likely". In my view, it is a clarification of what I had intended by that word. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 17, leave out (" the child if born would be likely to ") and insert the said new words.—(Lord Silkin.)
VISCOUNT DILHORNE VISCOUNT DILHORNE moved, as an Amendment to the Amendment, to leave out "there is a substantial risk" and to insert instead "it is more probable than not". The noble and learned Viscount said: The noble Lord has put down the words that he understood were the real meaning of "likely". I am afraid that I differed from him in the interpretation of the word "likely". I did not think that something was likely to happen unless the chances were that it would happen. I think it is most important that he has raised this question. I hope that your Lordships will not accept this formula. We are seeking to alter the law and to make it clear and certain. There can be nothing more uncertain than what constitutes "a substantial risk". Who is going to interpret what is "a substantial risk"?—members of the medical profession in different parts of the country, and with no guidance at all from this Bill, and no guidance from the noble Lord. What exactly does he mean by "a substantial risk"?
On February 1 the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter made a powerful speech on the Bill, as it was, on paragraph (b) thinking, as did the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that it was intended to cover the case where the odds were against a child being born who would not have any prospect of reasonable enjoyment of life. What does the noble Lord regard as "a substantial risk"—one chance in 4, one chance in 10, or in 7 or in 25? I think we ought to ask the noble Lord to say what he means by this, because if he means that there is one chance in four of a child of this character being born, that means that, if you allow termination on that ground, you will be allowing termination of pregnancy which would result, in three out of four cases, in the birth of a perfectly normal person. That is what is covered by this phrase "substantial risk". In the other cases, where you regard a one-in-seven chance as a substantial risk, it means that in fact

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you would be destroying more potential human life which will be normal to avoid having one child born who has no prospect of a reasonable enjoyment of life.
Whatever else is right, I feel sure that to put in words as vague as "substantial risk" will not do; and for the purpose of discussing this matter I have put down a formula which contains what I intended the word "likely" to mean—namely, that the balance of probability was in favour of the child's being of this character, and of its being born with no prospect of reasonable enjoyment of life. But I am content to go a little further than that, if need be, so long as one gives clear guidance. I should be content if it was "as probable as not" that the child would be so born—that is to say, that it was an "even money" chance. That, I think, would be as far as one can reasonably go. But to say that there is a "substantial risk" is too vague. One could say that there is a substantial risk, I suppose, if there were one chance in 10, or one in 15, of a child being so born. But surely, one could not possibly accept the proposition that, because of that chance, one in 15, 14 pregnancies could be terminated which otherwise would produce perfectly normal, healthy children.
The point is a short one, but an important one. I have put down my Amendment in its present form, but I should be equally agreeable to having the words "as probable as not" instead of "more probable than not". I should be content with that, and would move it in that form, if your Lordships would permit me. But I am absolutely opposed to words which are so vague and indefinite as "a substantial risk". I beg to move.
Amendment to Amendment moved—
Leave out ("there is a substantial risk") and insert ("it is more probable than not").—(Viscount Dilhorne.)
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: I think this is a difficult question upon which to come to an opinion. Even if the words "substantial risk" were accepted, and it was taken, as I had imagined, to mean perhaps, three out of ten, or something like that, the fact that we all form our own opinions shows the danger of these words. But I have felt that in the case, for instance, of an ordinary married couple, where there is perhaps German
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measles, or something like that, in the early stages of pregnancy, there might be a termination of the pregnancy, in the hope that there would be other, more happy pregnancies in the future. In that way I should wish to support the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. But we are embarking here, as the noble and learned Viscount has suggested, on a very drastic change in the law. We are entering a realm which is comparatively uncharted. I think that at this moment we might be very wise to follow the Amendment to the Amendment and say that we will embark on this only if, according to our present knowledge, the chance of a child being born with these abnormalities was greater rather than less.
LORD CONESFORD: I agree that this is an extremely difficult matter, but I am not at all happy about the Amendment to the Amendment moved by my noble and learned friend. There are few subjects in philosophy more difficult than the question of probability. I find it very difficult to attach any meaning to the words, "it is more probable than not". What I think they mean is simply, "it is probable". Had the Amendment to the Amendment been moved in that form, we should have the simple question whether we preferred the words, "there is a substantial risk" or "it is probable". I think that is an arguable and a difficult matter.
I have no medical qualifications, and I do not know how far doctors who practise in this sphere can, so to speak, state the odds numerically; but it would not astonish me to hear that in many cases it was quite impossible to do so. Therefore it seems to me that the words "substantial risk", which is the sort of thing that people have to consider in many aspects of life—and one which has to be considered from time to time by the courts—are probably about as good as we could get. I feel very strongly that what we have to choose between is the words of Lord Silkin's Amendment "there is a substantial risk", and the alternative "it is probable".
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: The noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, has intimated to me that he would like to move Amendment No. 4 in a slightly different form. With the permission of the Committee, I will read out the new form and, if the Committee agrees,

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that will be the wording before your Lordships. The new form of the Amendment is to leave out the words "there is a substantial risk", and to insert the words "it is as probable as not".
LORD CONESFORD: I should like to say that what I have just said applies equally to the alternative wording.
6.23 p.m.
LORD BRAIN: I hope that the noble and learned Viscount will forgive me if I say that I must oppose his Amendment to the Amendment because it is quite unrealistic from the medical point of view. I should like to give your Lordships some examples of this. To take German measles to start with, when German measles occurs during the first few weeks of pregnancy the likelihood of the child's being born deformed is considerably more than 50 per cent., but as time goes on the likelihood grows less. It would be quite impracticable for any doctor to say at any particular point, "We have passed that point at which it is as likely as not, and therefore the pregnancy ought not to be terminated".
One not uncommon mode of inheritance is such that the chances of a child being abnormal are exactly 50 per cent. I have no doubt it was that fact which the noble and learned Viscount had in mind when he made this slight alteration in his Amendment. But there are other forms of inheritance where the risk is less but quite definitely calculable. There are circumstances in which two parents, both apparently healthy, have a child who is born abnormal and who is known to suffer from a condition the risks of inheritance of which are exactly 25 per cent. Let me give your Lordships an example that came to my own notice.
Two healthy parents had a child who was abnormal and who died paralysed at the age of about a year. The risks of this condition being inherited were exactly 25 per cent. They consulted the doctor about what they should do about having another child. They were told, "The odds are 3 to 1 that your next child will be healthy". Unfortunately, the second child was exactly the same as the first; it also died paralysed at the age of one year. What advice should one give to those parents? Can one reassure them? Can one succeed in
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relieving them of their anxieties? Do you say, "If you have another child the odds are still 3 to 1 it will be normal"? Or should one, if one accepts the principle of terminating a pregnancy on grounds of foetal risk, say that this is a case where the risk is substantial and therefore they should be allowed to have the pregnancy terminated?
It is problems of this kind with which doctors have to deal. I would say that in every-day practice doctors are quite accustomed to dealing with substantial risks, to saying, "There is a substantial risk that the effect of this operation would be so-and-so". But rarely are they in a position to say that this risk is more or less than 50 per cent. So if we accept the principle of termination of pregnancy on the ground of risk to the child, one had to take into account factors other than those which can be calculated numerically. Very often one cannot calculate them numerically.
There is another factor which is involved. The question is not merely "What is the risk?", but, "Risk of what?". A comparatively slight risk of a very serious disorder has quite different implications from a risk which is much more severe but of a much less severe disorder. I feel that on practical grounds, from a medical point of view, we should accept the principle of a substantial risk, and I propose to vote against the Amendment to the Amendment if it comes to a vote.
LORD SEGAL: I should like to rise to say one or two words in support of the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Brain. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, said that there is some doubt as to the interpretation by the doctor of the term "substantial risk". But surely in the Amendment to the Amendment he himself has proposed, is it not a case of confusion worse confounded? Supposing there is a risk, as Lord Brain has suggested, of 25 per cent., or 33 per cent. If the Amendment to the Amendment of the noble Viscount were carried, it would have to be a risk of 51 per cent. before termination of pregnancy could be legalised. He has altered it to a slight extent by making it now 50 per cent. instead of 51 per cent. But if the risk were 49 per cent., the judgment would go against the doctor because

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through 1 or 2 per cent. he may have put himself on the wrong side of the law. Surely we cannot judge individual cases, where a mother, for example, may already have given birth to one or two or three deformed children, on the basis of the law of averages or probability. Every doctor has to judge the individual case with which he himself is faced.
In principle one must speak against this Amendment. I am totally against this House trying to give advice to a doctor on the way in which he should exercise his particular judgment when he is faced with what is a purely medical problem. When are you going to judge the statistics as accurate? Medical science constantly advances. In the case of a woman who has already had German measles the risk may be 25 per cent. this year, but perhaps in two or three years the risk may be reduced to 15 or 10 per cent. Let us get right away from judging cases of individual difficulty on the law of averages. We have already accepted from Lord Silkin that a doctor must be judged as carrying out this operation in good faith. In my judgment, it is best for the Committee to leave it at that.
6.30 p.m.
VISCOUNT WAVERLEY: I, too, should like to support the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, as supported by my noble friend Lord Brain and the noble Lord, Lord Segal. The fact is that a fifty-fifty situation would be so restrictive as to be, for practical purposes, inoperative. A fifty-fifty genetic risk is extremely high and for practical purposes does not occur. On the question of recessive genes, the maximum risk known at the moment is usually one in four, or 25 per cent., but it might be a good deal lower. Of course, it is likely that in the not very distant future, with analyses of the amniotic fluid, the fluid in which the foœtus is surrounded, it might be possible when there are these recessive genes problems to say that it is absolutely 100 per cent. certain that a child is going to be all right, or, alternatively, that it is 100 per cent. certain that a child is going to be affected. In any case, I should have thought that this would be a substantial risk, and I should have thought, also, that if it were 100 per cent. certain it would come under the category of Clause 1(a).
LORD MOLSON: Three eminent medical Members of your Lordships' House have all spoken against the Amendment to the Amendment. There is one further point that I should like to add. My noble and learned friend spoke as though it were essential for your Lordships' House to lay down exactly what the criteria are to be. But that, of course, is not the way in which this Bill is framed. It is the intention of this Bill that a judgment shall be formed by the two medical practitioners concerned. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable, and I think necessary, that legislation should be sufficiently widely drafted to enable that judgment to be properly exercised. To argue that there would be three pregnancies terminated unnecessarily for every one which prevented an undesirable birth—if it were believed by the medical profession that the statistics were three to one—is, of course, entirely a misunderstanding of the machinery of this Bill. All that the noble Lord's Amendment is intended to do is to widen the discretion and to enable the medical practitioners to form a judgment, without being arbitrarily restricted to some numerical proportion which we are told by the medical profession is without any reality at all. Therefore, for that practical drafting reason, I hope that your Lordships will reject the Amendment to the Amendment, as well as for the reasons which have been advanced by the three eminent doctors who have addressed us.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: The wording of my Amendment was, in fact, taken from a suggestion made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parker of Waddington, as the noble Lord, Lord Cones-ford, will probably remember, when we were discussing this provision at an earlier stage. I think he used both expressions: "more probable than not", which I think is now fairly frequently used in the courts, though I do not seek to defend it, and also "as probable as not". I must say that I think the expression "substantial risk" is extremely indefinite in this particular context. I will not remind your Lordships of the speech made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter, who went very thoroughly in that speech

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into what I understand the medical profession can say as to the prospects or chances.
I agree that in this Bill one has to entrust a wide measure of discretion to the medical profession. One must rely upon them and put faith in them, and I certainly do. But, at the same time, one must see that this Bill does not become a vehicle for abuse of what many of your Lordships would wish to see; and the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, in moving his Amendment certainly gave no indication of what interpretation he thought ought rightly to be placed upon the words "substantial risk".
The noble Lord, Lord Brain, has pointed out the difficulties about my Amendment, but none of those who have spoken has given me the slightest indication of where he thinks the borderline would come between what is a substantial risk and what is not a substantial risk. Therefore, we are left, if we accept the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, with a use of words with no guidance as to their interpretation, and which may be widely differently interpreted in different parts of the country.
I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Brain, will agree that, if those words are in, two members of the medical profession in one part of the country may think that one case involves no substantial risk, whereas two medical practioners in another part of the country may regard an exactly similar case as involving a substantial risk. I myself do not think that it is a very happy result if, as a result of this legislation, one can get a wide disparity of treatment. Of course, you cannot eliminate the possibility of doctors taking different views on examination. But I am postulating here two cases which are indistinguishable, and it seems to me that if you just say "substantial risk" and nothing more you are leaving it in such a way that it will not be very satisfactory, because of the widely differing interpretations that can be placed upon those words in different parts of the country.
LORD BRAIN: This is a matter of medical judgment and, inevitably, as the noble and learned Viscount has just said, doctors must be free to exercise their judgment. This was also true under the interpretation of the implications of the
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Bourne case. No doubt judgments differ. This is inevitable. But the main point is that these are risks which cannot be mathematically calculated.
LORD SILKIN: The noble and learned Viscount is not getting over his difficulty by the words which he is proposing to use. If he says "as probable as not" there may be different opinions on the same set of facts by different doctors. You will never get complete agreement as to what are the odds on an operation. Moreover, this is not a betting transaction, and I do not think you can really lay odds that it is more probable than not, or that it is as probable as not. You must give the doctor discretion in a particular case, having regard to all the facts, to decide whether or not he is prepared to recommend an abortion. After all, there must first of all be the application of the mother. Do not let us forget that every time.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: It is not in the Bill.
LORD SILKIN: It is the mother who makes the application. It is then for two doctors to decide whether her application comes within the framework of the Bill, and they have to form a judgment, as the noble Lord, Lord Brain, and other noble Lords have said, as to what is a substantial risk. I think it is a proper onus to put upon them, because it is something that doctors have to do every day of the week. They are constantly deciding what is a proper risk to take. Therefore I hope that noble Lords will accept the Amendment.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I had given way to the noble Lord, Lord Brain. I had not quite concluded what I was saying, but I did not like to interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, in his further observations upon this clause. It is quite true that there may always be an honest difference of opinion between members of the medical profession; but we are not here dealing quite with that field. We are seeking to give guidance to the medical profession, and whether you are giving sufficient guidance by using such words as "substantial risk" I rather beg leave to doubt. I hope that the noble Lord, when he comes to produce his next Bill, will give further thought to this, because I think there is a case for trying

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to give some further guidance as to what exactly is intended here. If no further guidance is given, then many people may think that this particular provision is going far too wide.
The noble Lord will remember that I supported this particular provision at an earlier stage when it was being much criticised, and I support a provision of this kind now for this reason. I think that the German measles cases can ordinarily be dealt with under Bourne'scase—I quoted some cases where they had been—and could, therefore, be dealt with under paragraph (a). But this particular provision is here only for the case where the condition of the child is not likely to cause a serious risk to the health of the mother before, at or after birth—and that I think will be a very exceptional case: it will not often arise. I shall not press my Amendment now, but I hope that the noble Lord will give some further thought to this because I think that, if he does not, he may find that a number of their Lordships and others will think that this is opening too wide a door, and a wider door than is intended.
Amendment to Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
6.41 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE VISCOUNT DILHORNE moved to leave out paragraph (c). The noble and learned Viscount said: This is an Amendment which I think is of some importance and which I hope will not be misunderstood. At an earlier stage the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, made a powerful speech in respect of young women who became pregnant when they were under 16. I think we all of us agree that it really can be a tragedy, and usually is, when that occurs. It is always a mother unmarried at the time of pregnancy, although, of course, in a great many of these cases the confinement, if it were allowed to take place, would take place many months after the mother's sixteenth birthday. So I start from this position: that we are not here concerned with the tragic character of the pregnancy of someone under 16. That is not the question. We can all agree upon the fact that it is a very sad thing to happen.
LORD SILKIN: I do not want to interrupt the noble and learned Viscount unduly, but could we not discuss Amend-
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ments Nos. 5, 6 and 7 together?—because the real issue is only this question of the mother being under 16. On the face of it we are discussing merely No. 5 but if the noble and learned Viscount will agree that we can talk about Nos. 5, 6 and 7 together, I am quite happy that he should continue.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I am in the hands of the Committee. I am afraid I had put down my Order Paper, and I thought I was speaking on Amendment No. 7. It is my mistake. But certainly that is all I should wish to discuss upon this, and we can take Amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 7 together. I was saying that, so far as this is concerned, there is nothing between any of us, I think, in that it is terribly sad when someone under 16 becomes pregnant. But the issue here is whether such a young woman should be given a particular right to have her pregnancy terminated on the ground of her age.
The way I ask the Committee to look at it is from the point of view of the interests of no one else except the girl. When we were in Committee last time I quoted a letter I had received from an eminent gynecologist who had had something to say on this question. I will quote again, if I may, from his letter:
" As to the girl under 16—and I see many in my practice—nothing in my experience would justify a legalised, dangerous surgical assault on her on grounds of age alone. I do not believe it would serve her better than sympathetic and understanding obstetric care, and the provision of adoption for her child. Certainly there is to-day little social stigma left to burden her."
I mentioned last time some information I had been given—I cannot say whether it is right or wrong—about the dangers of this operation, and the risks involved. I will not remind your Lordships of what I said then.
If we do not have this particular provision in this Bill, what will the position be? The person under 16 who is pregnant will go to her medical practitioners, and the issue will be whether or not she comes within paragraph (a). There is no question of excluding her from that. It will then be for the medical practitioners to say whether or not they think in the interests of her health—and they will be weighing it up—that this particular pregnancy should be terminated. I should like to see it left in that way,

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because I can see that if by this Bill you appear to give a girl, just because she is under 16, a right to such a termination, you will be putting some medical practitioners in an extremely difficult position. She will say, "Here is this Bill. I am under 16. Here is my birth certificate. That is a ground for terminating the pregnancy." Whatever we put in this Bill, the doctor will have to consider the interests of her health, and whether it is really in the interests of her health that she should run the risk of this dangerous operation, or whether it is not really better for her, having regard to her age, to have the baby without an operation and to have it adopted.
I do not profess to judge on that, but I do feel that it is undesirable to give this special right to persons under sixteen, not depending on their health at all but depending simply upon their age. I think it would be better if such cases were dealt with—and they are dealt with now, I understand—under the decision in the Bourne case, which would be covered, and indeed is expanded, by paragraph (a). I move this Amendment for those reasons, and I hope it will not be represented that I am in the least degree unsympathetic to those who, at this age, find themselves pregnant.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 20, leave out paragraph (c).—(Viscount Dilhorne.)
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: I feel I have to say two things about this Amendment, and I am afraid they seem rather contradictory the one to the other. I feel I ought in honesty to say, first of all, that I know that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and many other Bishops strongly support this particular Amendment, but I have thought a lot about this and the opinion that I have formed, I hope in good faith, is that I cannot support this particular Amendment. But I feel I must briefly explain the reasons which have led me to that opinion.
In a country like our own we have in many matters postponed the age of responsibility to far beyond the age of puberty, and this, I think, imposes a duty on society to deal very sympathetically with these cases when they arise. I cannot think that in all cases there would literally be a grave risk to the
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health of the young pregnant mother, but what I do think is that there would be a very grave risk of a serious interruption of her education and normal development to maturity. Whether we have an abortion or whether we have an adoption, there will probably be in both cases some traumatic experience, but, for myself, I feel that the shorter of two processes is more likely to be beneficial than, or at any rate not so harmful as, the longer. So, with a great deal of regret on this particular point—and I think this is the only one in the list of Amendments to which this applies—I feel I have to differ from the noble and learned Viscount.
6.50 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I should like to welcome the speech which we have just heard. On other occasions I have been highly critical of some of the right reverend Prelates, but on this occasion I am delighted to have heard the speech to which the Committee has just listened. We have already debated this question, and, as the noble Viscount quite rightly said, I have already made a contribution, which I am reluctant to repeat. But this is such an important Amendment that I think we must give some time to debating it.
I would remind the Committee that we are now discussing the plight of girls of under 16—and next year girls of that age will still be schoolgirls because, as I have said before, we are raising the school-leaving age to 16. If we were debating this next year we should be saying: Should we give a schoolgirl the right of abortion? There is no compulsion here; no girl is compelled to have an abortion. Should we give the under-16 (and some girls are now having babies at 13), the 13, 14 or 15-year-old girl, the right to abortion? I should like to remind your Lordships of Alec Bourne who risked his whole professional career when he aborted a girl of 14. One cannot say that when that happened the country was condemnatory; on the contrary they admired the courage of that man who was prepared to risk the whole of his career, rather than see a little girl of 14 made a mother—the mother of an unwanted child—many years before her time.
I feel that this Amendment is punitive; for unless the girl's life is in danger she

541
is condemned to carry the burden of an illegitimate child all her life. I cannot agree with the noble and learned Viscount when he says that there is no stigma. We know that many of these young mothers are hiding themselves in London and the big centres of population. Why do they do that if there is no stigma? Why not remain, say, in Ireland? I say this because we have had to send a special officer from the G.L.C. to Ireland, in order to arrange the adoption of some children, born here, of Irish girls. If there is no stigma, why do they hide in London? If there is no stigma, why does a landlady refuse to accept a girl with a fatherless baby in her arms? It is nonsense for the noble and learned Viscount to say that there is no stigma. The stigma is as great now as it was in the last century, and in the century before that.
The right reverend Prelate mentioned school. I have said that this Amendment is punitive. Let us see how it affects the girl of 13, 14 or 15 who is to have her baby next year, when it will be compulsory for her to stay at school until she is 16. Will she be denied further education? What is to happen to the baby? I am not being frivolous when I ask, what is the girl to do with the baby? Is she to push it to school, and perhaps try to get it into a nursery in the neighbourhood, as perhaps her mother, and other working mothers, do with their babies? And has this little girl to make all these arrangements for herself and for her child? We must he realistic and think in terms of the child, born in poverty-stricken circumstances, who has this baby and is compelled, while herself still a child, to make all the arrangements for it.
The noble and learned Viscount said that he had consulted a gynecologist. He read out a letter from a gynecologist. Gynaecologists are concerned only with the mechanics of obstetrics. No doubt the gynecologist is right in saying that the pelvis of the average girl of 14 or 15 to-day will permit a normal confinement. The reason it will permit a normal confinement is that she has been adequately fed, and there is very little rickets in the country. Rickets is a nutritional disease. In the old days it was very serious, and a rickety mother often had difficulty at confinement. The noble and learned Viscount was told by the gynæcologist,
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who is there to assess all these possibilities, what are the chances of a girl surviving the confinement. He knows the chances are quite high.
But are we here only to discuss the anatomy of the girl of 13, 14 or 15 and the details of her delivery? What of the immaturity of the girl's mind? The right reverend Prelate has already mentioned that she is not granted by the State any of the privileges which are given to her older sisters; and that she will not even be able to vote until she is 21. We are here discussing motherhood. Are we treating this child as an animal bearing its puppies or are we concerning ourselves, as we should, with her psyche and her ultimate welfare? Are we going to say, as the noble and learned, Viscount had just said "Let her have a baby; let it be adopted." I could scarcely believe that I heard that phrase from the noble and learned Viscount.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: The noble Lady has attributed to me personally a quotation that I read, to the effect that there was to-day little social stigma. I do not mind the noble Lady attributing to me views which I had not personally expressed; but I ought to make it clear that I was quoting from a letter.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: The noble and learned Viscount and I have considerable experience in both Houses. Neither I nor he would quote a letter in support of a case if we did not believe what the letter said. We have been told, in the letter by the gynecologist and by others, that the thing to do is to let the child of 13, 14 or 15 produce a baby and then get rid of it as quickly as possible. Only a man could say that—only someone who has never been pregnant. The maternal instinct, the desire for procreation, in a woman is so great that to tell her that all she has to do is to produce a child and then to give it away is really the acme of cynicism.
I ask the Committee's forgiveness for becoming a little impassioned on this question. This argument we have heard to-day would be paralleled by asserting that every youth of 14 or 15 who is capable of sexual intercourse is fit to assume parenthood—that he is fit for

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parenthood, with all its attendant responsibilities: to find a home at 15; to earn sufficient money to ensure his and his child's present and future wellbeing. Would the noble and learned Viscount like to see his child, a boy of 15, saddled with a baby which he had to find a job to keep, and so be denied his education? Yet this is the treatment to be meted out to the girl. She is expected to carry this burden: to find a home; to keep the child.
I ask noble Lords to envisage the picture. When the noble and learned Viscount was speaking, I felt that he could be thinking only of a girl from a poor home, a girl accustomed to hardship. That is why he argued that she is used to a tough life, she is used to poverty, she is used to hardship and she will manage to weather this. I would ask the noble and learned Viscount whether, if a 15-year-old girl in an expensive boarding school were to be impregnated by some lout hanging about the school, he would be equally happy about the situation. I know exactly what would happen to her. She would be whisked away to a discreet nursing home where the pregnancy would be terminated. But the friends of some of the less well-off girls, these 14 and 15-year-olds of whom we are speaking, may be equally solicitous and would busy themselves with finding a back-street abortionist for her. Last week, after being passed by a free vote in this House, the original paragraph (c) was deleted. Last week's vote was manipulated. Never before, in the whole of my Parliamentary career, have I seen a vote manipulated as was the vote last week, after the paragraph had been deleted by a free vote, with a majority of 25. By accepting this Amendment to-night we should ensure that the evil we have sought to eliminate—the back-street abortion—was still with us.
7.1 p.m.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: I wish to support my noble friend's Amendment No. 6, and to speak against the Amendment to the Amendment of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne. However physically mature a girl of sixteen is, I do not believe that it is desirable that she should become a mother unless she wants to. The Amendment to the Amendment further weakens the Bill,
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which is a very small advance towards liberalising our attitude to abortion. In fact, it would put on the Statute Book only what is current medical practice to-day.
I have not spoken in this debate so far, because I should have liked to see a very different Bill passed in your Lordships' House. I strongly hold the view that the decision as to whether a woman should or should not have a child is not only the woman's right, but her birthright. The noble and learned Viscount has said that such a Bill would not have a chance of being passed in this House. That may be so, but it does not reflect any particular credit on this House. The reasons are purely biological. If the sex ratio of men and women in your Lordships' House were reversed, I believe that such a Bill would stand a very good chance. I am a fairly mild feminist. I should not wish to die on a battlefield for equal pay. But I hold the view on the use of all contraceptive methods, including abortion, in the early months, when it is necessary, and if done under proper medical conditions, that it is the woman's right to decide. Of course, I do not speak of those whose religion precludes them from all this.
The noble and learned Viscount has enlarged on the risks of abortion generally. But the right of decision for a woman also includes the right to take the risk, if she so wishes. After all, one may consider that a pregnant woman risks the life of an unborn child when she goes for a ride in a car these days. Listening carefully to all the arguments about the sanctity of human life, I still found them a little hollow. Quite apart from the fact that we are often so profligate about sending men to be killed in a war, I do not believe that society gives its blessing either to the unmarried mother or the illegitimate child. They are still the outcasts of our society and all we do to help the mother is to try to take the child away from her. So, as this Bill does not go really very far to humanise and civilise the law on abortion, and whilst I think that it will not do very much to stop back-street abortions, I am against any Amendment which will further weaken the Bill and I do not support the Amendment to the Amendment.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: I hope that I may be useful to the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, if I tell the Committee of a solution which has not yet been mentioned, and which is by no means uncommon in the country village. In these communities, if a girl has an illegitimate baby, especially if she is very young, it is customary for the grandmother of the child to take the child and tell the village that it is her own youngest child. The village is not in the least deceived, but being right and sensible people, the villagers accept the convention and the mother of the child helps her mother to bring up her child, which she calls her little brother or sister. I have known this happen in a highly educated family, whose daughter became pregnant while at boarding school. I do not think that that solution is practised as much as it should be, but it is the humane and good solution in all these cases.
On this question, I wonder whether we could have some survey of psychological opinion. I am informed by authorities I trust that many psychologists consider that the termination of pregnancy in such a girl will have a bad psychological effect. The school girl who gets into trouble is frequently a girl who suffers from personality defects. She is the unsuccessful girl, who has never made much success of her schooldays. She is now going to produce something. It is held by some that the final discouragement of the termination of her pregnancy—saying to her that this is one more failure on her part—might have a discouraging and had effect on her psychological future. I do not know whether psychological opinion is much represented in this House, but I hope that before the Bill is re-introduced there will be an opportunity to find out what psychologists say of the effect of termination upon such a girl.
7.9 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: I do not wish to intervene on the main question here, but I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, made some comments which should not go without any reply. She said, about an Amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, and argued at great length in this House and decided by a Division in a very full House, that the issue was manipulated. That is an accusation against this House. Had it been made in
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another place, it would have been wildly out of order, but I do not think that even in this House it should pass without protest.
I have on occasions supported the noble Lady. I respect her deeply. I know with what sincerity she speaks. But I would suggest to her that she should do what all of us have to try to do—that is, credit with humanity and sincerity those who take views different from those we take ourselves. I am one who opposed the inadequate mother clause, both on the Committee stage and on the Report stage. I thought that there were overwhelming reasons against it, which I endeavoured to put to the Committee and to the House. But there were a number of noble Lords who voted one way on the Committee stage and another way on the Report stage. One perfectly honest reason may have been that they were actually convinced by the reasons advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger. This House is not manipulated if it listens to the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger. Many of us believe that she is one of the people supremely worth listening to.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: When the noble Lord says that I could not possibly say it in another place, he knows as well as I do that such a thing could not have happened in another place.
LORD CONESFORD: Indeed it could. I had some twenty years in the other place, but I do not know whether that was as long or longer than the period when the noble Baroness was there. But I assure her that it could happen. It is not at all unknown there for something decided in Committee to be reversed on Report.
7.12 p.m.
VISCOUNT BARRINGTON: Not for the first time I feel in some difficulty here, because I do not want to be more out of order than the noble Baroness has been accused of being; but I comfort myself with something that the Leader of the House once said: that it is almost impossible to get out of order in this House. As there have been some very general issues raised in this debate, I would put myself in your Lordships' hands and ask whether I might make some comment on those issues, which I think are important,

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because the whole point of debating this Bill at the moment is, I think, to shed what light we can on it, even if we say things now which could possibly be better said on Third Reading, if only because it gives an opportunity of their being, knocked down.
What I want to say is that, without being a doctor or a lawyer, I would support this Amendment of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, on this ground. It seems to me that doctors in ordinary cases are expected to judge only on questions of health. They may judge right or wrong; but we all put our lives in their hands, and, so far as I am concerned, I do not think I can praise too highly those whom I have known.
But in this case they are also being asked to make a decision on a question of law, and if it is not out of order, or wasting your Lordships' time, I would ask whether anyone noticed a letter which appeared in the British Medical Journal recently, giving the view of a large number of gynecologists who were circulated in the Birmingham area. It appeared on February 5. They were asked by the gynaecologist who wrote the letter whether they approved of the general principles of this Bill; if they thought it would help or hinder in the task of clarifying the law. Your Lordships, if you wish, can of course read the letter for yourselves, but the last but one paragraph of the letter said:
" It seems doubtful whether most British gynecologists would alter their present practice however the laws relating to abortion were to he liberalised, and they would wish to retain the right to be personally responsible for the final decision."
The cases for and against the Bill were set out in that letter, and gynaecologists were asked to give a decision under four heads: whether they were in agreement with the memorandum which was against altering the law, and would have their names used; whether they were in agreement with it, but preferred their names not to be used; whether they were in agreement with it with modifications; or whether they were not in agreement. The answers given in that letter were discouraging to me as to the clarification effected by this Bill, because 3 said that they would like the law to be altered,
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10 said that they preferred it to remain substantially the same, and 55 said that they did not want it altered and thought it was best as it is. That is not offered as evidence, of course; but I think the letter is worth looking at, if only because, although the noble Lady said they were concerned only with obstetrics, they are the people who, on this subject, want to know what the law is. With respect, I should have thought that the view of lawyers on the point of clarifying the law was worth listening to.
It is difficult in a debate like this, when we have ranged at tremendous lengths over this difficult subject, to cut down anything one has to say. I would only say—and I would not say this if I did not rely on the noble Baroness's maternal instinct; because I think she has a great kindness towards immature and undeveloped people—that it seems to me that a crucial point is raised here which has not been discussed enough. It is that we are not concerned only with the mother. The question is: are we also concerned with another living human being? The general view of many people is that to regard a foetus as a living person with any rights is so absurd that it is not worth discussing. If I were to say that I always understood that the Anglican teaching was that "children and the fruit of the womb are a gift that comes from God", I should be thought to be highly superstitious. If I said that they are something that we do not well understand, and cannot produce ourselves artificially, I think I should be on safer ground. We do not understand our children. We do not understand, if one is killed, how to replace it. If it is said that no scientist has ever suggested that a fœtus is a human being from the word "Go"—and I use the phrase "the word Go" deliberately to mean a word of command from something (whether you call it God or Nature may not matter, any more than whether the noble Lady, who does not believe in the soul, does believe in the psyche) but from the word "Go" something happens which causes the thing to live—then I should like to read to your Lordships three short extracts from a talk that was originally delivered by a scientist who is a lecturer in anatomy at Cambridge. It was delivered to the Newman Society, and was

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published afterwards in the Month for January, 1964. The seven lines I wish to read are these:
" Of course, if we study the development of the embryo with modern techniques of microscopy, we know that it can properly be called 'human' right from the time of conception …. The fertilised human ovum contains all the genetic instructions, the principle or organisation, of 'form' in the Aristotelian sense, that will result in its developing precisely into Tom and not Harry."—
that is to say, the individual and not merely one of human species.
"The genetic endowment, conferring individuality on the developing organism, survives, in experimental animals, even the transfer of the embryo from the natural mother into the body of a foster mother."
A technique for that is being done. That is not put up as a suggestion of Papal infallibility; it is not presented as a Papal Bull; but what is sauce for the bull is sauce for the bulldozer, and there is a certain tendency to bulldoze your Lordships into assuming that we are not concerned at all with a third party.
The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, 'has frequently brought' out that this is an extremely serious thing to do—to take a potential life of a potential human being. I do not entirely understand the word" potential". But I feel that some alternative view ought to be given. If an embryo from the word "Go" is not a human being with rights, I should be very interested to know what it is. We have had a view from the noble Lord, Lord Soper. I read it very carefully and I cannot at present say that I have found it very helpful—perhaps because I found it difficult to follow.
The noble Baroness Lady Summer-skill gave a concise answer. She put it in the form of a counter-question. She said: How can you compare a fœtus to an adult educated person? That is the question which I think ought to be answered. I can only answer it in this way. I should compare them in the same way as I compare myself to the noble Baroness. On the face of it, there are a good many differences of opinion; and even when we go into the same Lobby it is often with a different point of view. Certainly we appear to have one thing in common; I believe that we are the only two Members of your Lordships' House who are capable of being shocked by an Anglican Bishop; but as we are shocked in different directions, by dif-
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ferent Bishops, that in itself is not a sign of resemblance.
On any ground of utility—I was going to say" beautility"—in this comparison I should be left with very much the short end of the stethoscope, or whatever instrument doctors use for these purposes. But the one thing we really have in common is that, so far as I know, we were both begotten by a man on a woman and successfully avoided (in one case deservedly) being aborted. That is something we have in common with each other, and with the rest of your Lordships, but not with an amoeba or a tumour, or an inflamed appendix or an Avocado pear, or any of the other things which the noble Baroness, in full lyrical flight, is so brilliant at bringing out, if I may say so a little unfairly, to discredit the fœtus; because the fœtus is already handicapped, and I am speaking as one who is probably nearer to a fœtus than any of your Lordships, in that I am probably less developed. It is handicapped by its
name.
I mean that quite seriously, because often when we think in terms of words I believe that we are apt to be confused. I should like to give one illustration of that. There is a verse in the Psalms:
"Thy word has been a light unto my feet and a lantern to my ways."
We may think that is nonsense, or sense; but nobody can say that it is undignified or that if one quotes it one is trying to be funny. If I slightly altered one word and said:
" Thy word has been a lantern unto my fœtus"
I should be accused of making a very bad joke in very bad taste; because the word "fœtus" is comic; because it is a scientific word. If one thinks what these two words mean, why should it be comic to suggest that there is Divine guidance for the whole of a human being in an undeveloped state, and not to suggest there should be guidance for a part of it on which it progresses here and there? I think that is a subject for thought which is worth going into.
My feeling is that, as the whole purpose of this debate is to throw light on these things, I will not detain your Lordships any longer because it would take much too long to go into them further. But Light is not only a word

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which is used in the Bible for Life; it also symbolises consciousness; and that is a kind of light which, as the noble Baroness knows, when consciousness has been" knocked out", can be restored. Light in the sense of Life is a thing that cannot.
" Put out the light, and then put out the light:
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister"—
and I think it is not necessary to remind your Lordships that Othello in Shakespeare's play was not talking to any member of the Venetian Cabinet, but to a candle by the light of which he was proposing to extinguish a life, as he thought on excellent grounds, though he discovered afterwards that the evidence was not good enough.
" If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature "—
LORD STONHAM: May I interrupt the noble Viscount for one moment? Is he aware that we are discussing the somewhat narrow point of whether paragraph (c) should be deleted from the Bill?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
VISCOUNT BARRINGTON: I fully realise that, and I apologise to your Lordships for being carried away by the eloquence of the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, on these points. The point of the quotation is that that sort of light-life cannot be put back again.
" I know not where is that Promethean heat That can that light relume."
My Lords, until we know that, we ought to go very carefully indeed.
LORD RAGLAN: I have only one small point in support of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. A young girl under 16 is supposed to be protected by law, and yet we say that she has no right to a remedy if she conceives. I see no point in having one law which is meant to protect, and another law which ignores the damage if that protection fails.
7.23 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: I do not wish to express any opinions at all on the matter
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before the Committee, but in view of some of the things that have been said I think we should get back to a few facts. One is that nothing in my noble friend's Amendment would compel any child to have an abortion. I think it is necessary to say that, in view of the suggestion made by the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, that it might have a bad psychological effect on a child if a pregnancy was terminated, and that she might think that this was just one more failure. No responsible doctor would wish to terminate a pregnancy if the girl did not want it. Another fact is that we are considering children under 16.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: We are considering, after all, a poor little girl who has got herself into a scrape, and who can be made to do what her elders tell her. I do not think the question of the girl's consent is really very significant. We have to act in her interests and consider what the psychological effect would be on her, and not what she wants to do.
LORD STONHAM: That is how I understood the noble Earl's point. The second point I want to make, which has not been made in the debate so far, is that we are talking about children under 16 who are pregnant, and who cannot in law give consent to intercourse or marry. Therefore it is highly probable, if not certain, that they must have been the subject of an offence; otherwise they would not be pregnant. These are the children we are considering in this Amendment. As the right reverend Prelate said, it must have a major effect on the life of such a child if she is going to have a baby.
The noble and learned Viscount rightly said that an abortion is an operation. It could be a very serious operation—one would not dispute that—but I think the figure for the death rate from therapeutic abortions is about one in 1,500, whereas the death rate for all gyæecological operations is one in 300.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I asked the noble Lord on the last occasion if he could give me some figures as to the numbers who had died during this last year from operations in connection with the termination of pregnancies, in National Health Service hospitals.
LORD STONHAM: The number for a period of three years up to the year 1963 were five, and from that we get the average of one in 1,500 of therapeutic abortions. With regard to the termination of pregnancy, that would be for a variety of causes, and the deaths from such operations in 1961 were one in 700 as compared with one in 300 for all gynecological operations. I merely mention this lest noble Lords might think that there is a greater danger to a child in having such an operation than not having it.
One other point should be mentioned. My noble friend Baroness Summerskill assured us that in a child of 14 or 15 her pelvis was such, in these days of better feeding and better health, that she could safely bear a child. The really important thing is not whether she can safely hear a child because, as the noble and learned Viscount has pointed out, if she could not do so she would be covered by paragraph (a). The important thing is whether she, and perhaps her parents, feel that in all the circumstances of her pregnancy and its likely effects on her future life she should have her pregnancy terminated. As I told the House in Committee before, if the House wants a provision on these lines then the Government see no practical objection to it.
There is one last technical point which I might nut to my noble friend Lord Silk in. It is that the words inserted by his Amendment, if they are accented, will not appear as paragraph (c) of Clause l but as a "full-out" provision after paragraph (b). The reason is that the cases of the defective and the under-16 cannot properly appear on the same footing as paragraphs (a) and (b), which are governed by the words in Amendment 1. These are:
" if the practitioner is of the opinion, formed in good faith, that the termination of the pregnancy is necessary on any one or more of the following grounds,".
These words imply that it is a matter of medical judgment whether one of these grounds justifies an abortion in a particular case. But in the case of the defective or the under-16 it is more appropriate that requirement should be that the practitioner should be of the opinion, formed in good faith, that the pregnant
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Woman is a defective or became pregnant while under the age of 16.
7.33 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: I do not think the House wants to prolong this discussion very much longer. We had a debate on this subject in Committee. On that occasion the noble and learned Viscount put down a similar Amendment but did not press it to a Division. I do not know whether he feels more strongly about it this evening than he did last time, but we went into all the pros and cons of this subject and I do not propose to do so again.
I just want to deal with one point which he made. I gather he was not unsympathetic to the girl under 16 who has conceived having an abortion. What he is objecting to is that she should have it as a matter of course, on demand, simply because she is under 16. But is that so? Even under this Bill as drafted that was not my view. My view was that she should be able to ask for it because she is under 16 but it would still be for the two doctors to decide, and if, as the noble and learned Viscount suggested, there should be grounds why it would be injurious to her health to have an abortion, and the doctors take that view, then they would have every justification for not allowing her to have an abortion. Therefore I do not feel that is in itself a reason for objecting to this provision.
On the last occasion I put to noble Lords a frank personal question. I asked them whether, if this girl under 16 happened to be their own daughter, they would not move heaven and earth to get an abortion somehow, and I pointed out that they would not mind whether it was under paragraph (a) or any other paragraph. I cannot imagine any noble Lord, not even the noble and learned Viscount, if he has a daughter, allowing that daughter's pregnancy to go to term and her giving birth to a child if he had an opportunity of getting her an abortion. I would go further and say that if noble Lords in this House could not get it in the normal way they would use every means of getting it. I feel is is quite wrong to have two different standards: one for what we should do in our own personal lives and the other that we are going to prescribe for other people.

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If the noble and learned Viscount is not satisfied that the two doctors could refuse an abortion because it would be injurious to her health, I am perfectly prepared to give an assurance that I will consult medical friends and others and see whether some provision of this kind might not be introduced into the new version of my Bill which I hope to introduce at the beginning of the next Parliament, and provide that, in considering this, the doctors have to take into account what would be the effect on the health or mental condition of the girl under 16. As that is the main point raised by the noble and learned Viscount, I hope that with that assurance he may be satisfied that the clause can now go through, as amended by me.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I have listened to this debate, which has covered a wide field, but I really did not think that a speech I made was capable of the gross misrepresentation which the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, gave to it. I am extremely sorry that she did. She introduced a new note into our debates. I hope it will not be repeated. I am also sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has sought to raise personal questions in regard to noble Lords' families. If he really wants to know, I have two unmarried daughters, one under 16. He posed the question whether if she became pregnant I would move heaven and earth to secure an abortion for her. I would say this to him, and this is my approach to this matter: if she did become pregnant I would regard it as a tragedy, and if that tragedy occurred I should certainly want to see that she had the best possible advice and help—but that does not necessarily mean abortion.
The noble Baroness, Lady Summer-skill, speaks as if an abortion was of an absolutely trivial character. She does not have any regard to the psychological consequences to the child. She talks about deprivation and the effect on the maternal instincts if the child is adopted, but she does not talk about the psychological effect if the pregnancy is terminated. Lady Gaitskell's approach was of a very different kind, and I sympathise with, although I do not share, the point of view which she expressed. It is certainly an arguable proposition that a woman should not have a baby unless
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she wants to. But in assessing all this we must, I think, have regard to the risks involved. What the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said really supported what I said on the last occasion about the risks. There have been, he says, in the last five years, or three years, five deaths, with this operation perfectly properly performed. I think I am right in saying that in the last year alone there have been three, and I am not in the least shaken myself by the knowledge that when there have to be gynecological operations for health reasons the death rate is one in 300. Here we are considering cases of young people who are pregnant and saying they must have the right to run the risk of this operation involving that particular death rate.
But of course it is not only the death rate that is the consequence. The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, did me a great injustice when she tried to represent that I was thinking of a girl from a poor home accustomed to hardship. Then she said that with a 15-year-old schoolgirl we all know what would happen here. That is not my approach at all, and there is nothing I said which would justify that kind of observation, which I greatly resent. My approach is quite different. Here we are concerned with health, and it is a very narrow issue; because the 13-year-old, the 14-year-old and perhaps the 15-year-old would almost certainly come under paragraph (a), where the doctor is required to balance the health of the pregnant woman before, at or after pregnancy against the risks of the operation. In many of these cases of pregnancy before 16, with all the emphasis about how in many cases it will be the result of a criminal offence, the confinement will be after 16 and it will be possible to marry before confinement takes place. But here what is proposed is that this special category should be put in a special position where, on proof of age, production of birth certificate, a doctor can say, "The law says that on that you are entitled to termination"; that is what this particular provision will provide. Think what the doctor's decision is going to be if he is convinced by the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, and others that this operation really involves no risk to health at all.

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I am concerned that the doctors in their discretion should give the best possible advice, and I quoted from a letter of an eminent gyæecologist. He, of course, does not rely only on his opinion. It is no use the noble Baroness taking him as if he were concerned only with obstetrics. He has reports from psychiatrists and others upon these people. What I am trying to secure is a proper balance; not that someone will come along and say, "I am under sixteen; here is my birth certificate. Please abort me"; but that the doctor, without any pressure put upon him, shall have the right, as he will have under paragraph (a), to decide and do what is in the best interest of that unfortunate girl under 16. If you leave this Bill with paragraph (a) alone, that he can do, and in many cases he may think it right to terminate; in other case he might think it right and better for the girl to have the baby, and if she cannot bring it up to have it adopted. But each case will have to be separately considered. What I think is wrong is to put a provision in this Bill which prejudices the doctor's decision in favour of termination, because if you put in this para-
Resolved in the negative, and Amendment to the Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
[The Sitting was suspended at seven minutes before eight, and resumed at a quarter before nine o'clock.]
graph (c) you are, saying that, by proving her age by production of a birth certificate, that is ground for abortion, taken by itself. I think this matter is adequately covered under paragraph (a), and I shall therefore seek to secure that effect is given to that view in this Bill.
LORD SILKIN: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 25, at end insert (" or that the pregnant woman is a defective or became pregnant while under the age of sixteen ").—(Lord Silkin.)
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I beg to move.
Amendment to Amendment moved—
leave out (" or became pregnant while under the age of sixteen ").—(Viscount Dilhorne.)
7.50 p.m.
On Question, Whether the Amendment to the Amendment (No. 7) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 21; Not-Contents, 26.

CONTENTS

Amulree, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Iddesleigh, E. [Teller.]

Atholl, D.

Falkland, V.

Newall, L.

Audley, Bs.

Ferrers, E.[Teller.]

Oxford, L. Bp.

Barrington, V.

Forster of Harraby, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Brain, L.

Furness, V.

St. Just, L.

Conesford, L.

Grenfell, L.

Waverley, V.

Craigmyle, L.

Hereford, V.

Ypres, E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Champion, L.

Latham, L.

Silkin, L.

Colwyn, L.

Leicester, L. Bp.

Southwark, L. Bp.

Effingham, E.

Molson, L.

Stonham, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Morrison, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Peddie, L.

Strange of Knokin, Bs.

Greenway, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Summerskill, Bs.[Teller.]

Henderson, L.

Raglan, L.

Wellington, D.

Hurcomb, L.

Segal, L.

Winterbottom, L.[Teller.]

Lambert, V.

Shepherd, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

8.45 p.m.
LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved to add to the clause:
" ( ) Except in a case where the practitioner is of the opinion, formed in good faith, that the termination is immediately necessary in order to save the life of the pregnant woman (and certifies his opinion in writing either before or after carrying out the treatment), the following conditions must be complied with

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in connection with any treatment for the termination of a pregnancy, that is to say—

(a) the treatment must be carried out by a practitioner who holds an appointment as registrar or in a superior capacity under a hospital board, being an appointment involving the practice of gynaecology;

(b) the treatment must be carried out in a hospital vested in the Minister of Health or the Secretary of State under the National Health Service Acts, or in a place for the time being approved for the purposes of this section by the Minister of Health or the Secretary of State;

(c) the opinion mentioned in subsection (1) of this section must be certified in writing by the practitioner who carried out the treatment before the treatment is begun; and

(d) another registered medical practitioner must be of the same opinion. formed in good faith and certified as aforesaid, as that specified in the certificate of the practitioner who carries out the treatment.

( ) In determining the matters referred to in paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of this section, a registered medical practitioner may take into account such circumstances, whether past, present or prospective, as are in his opinion relevant to his patient's physical or mental health."
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is designed to improve the drafting, but it is partly an Amendment of substance. I think that I can best serve the purposes of the Committee if I go through the paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d) very briefly and indicate where they differ from the Bill as originally drafted, or as passed in Committee on a previous occasion. Paragraph (a) is an alteration from the provision that there should be—
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I do not know whether the noble Lord would forgive me for interrupting for one moment, but I think, speaking for two out of three Members on this side of the Committee, that there is no issue arising on the earlier part of this Amendment. The only issue arises as to whether Amendments to the Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 should be carried. So if it would help the noble Lord, he might save a little time on that.
LORD SILKIN: If that is the case, I will reserve what I have to say in the introduction to the Amendment, and move it formally.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 25, at end insert the said subsections.—(Lord Silkin.)
VISCOUNT DILHORNE VISCOUNT DILHORNE moved, as an Amendment to the Amendment, to leave out all words from the beginning down to and including "the treatment),". The noble and learned Viscount said: It might be for the convenience of the Committee at this late hour to consider together Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 to the Amendment. No. 9 is to leave out what I might call the emergency procedure provision. I myself have never felt that there was need for that, because I could not visualise circumstances in this country where it would not be possible to get the opinion of two medical practitioners of the character described in the Bill. I do not think it will have any application, but I will reserve. my position with regard to that and, if need be, move a later Amendment.
With regard to Amendment No. 10 to the Amendment, this is one to which the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, and the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, and I myself attach considerable importance. This operation is of a very different character from an operation conducted just for health reasons—
LORD SILKIN: The noble and learned Viscount interrupted me and said that what I had to say on the original Amendment was unnecessary. May I say to him that I am prepared to accept No. 10.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: In that case. I beg to move formally.
Amendment to Amendment moved—
Leave out from beginning to (" the") in line 5.—(Viscount Dilhorne.)
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment to the Amendment.
Amendment to Amendment, by leave. withdrawn.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I beg to move.
Amendment to Amendment moved—
After paragraph (d) insert the following new paragraph—
( "( ) there has been before treatment an application in writing by the pregnant woman, or, if under sixteen years of age, of the pregnant girl and one of her parents or of the pregnant girl and her guardian for the termination of the pregnancy.")— (Viscount Dilhorne.)
On Question, Amendment to Amendment agreed to.
LORD STRANGE LORD STRANGE moved, as an Amendment to the Amendment, to add as a new subsection:
" ( ) Where a registered medical practitioner refuses to carry out treatment for the termination of a pregnancy, he shall immediately notify a female welfare officer, appointed by the local authority, of such refusal, and it shall thereupon be the duty of the welfare officer so far as practicable to secure the physical and mental health and well-being of the pregnant woman and of the child if born."
The noble Lord said: I would explain that, though my Amendment seems very simple, there is an implication behind it which I think is very important to this Bill; and I do not think that this part of the Bill has been touched on before. I shall try to illustrate what I mean by using the figures which have been bandied about at various times in this debate. I know that these figures cannot be accurate, because, of course, abortionists will not employ chartered accountants, and we must therefore assume what are the real facts. We must also assume that all women who require an abortion go to their general practitioners, and first ask them for an abortion before they seek out an illegal abortionist. I do not think that is true at all, but we cannot have any figures on this point and, therefore, we must assume that this is the case. We must also assume that all women go to their local general practitioner and consult him at all times. These assumptions are not quite true, but they are made in order to give an illustration.
The illustration I would give is this. If these assumptions were true, then at the end of the surgery queues throughout the country, on every day of the year, there would be a number of moist-palmed girls with drooping heads, and there would be a number of very worried old ladies who lived in a shoe. They would be waiting till the doctor came, and as the law stands at the moment he would be able to tell between 2,000 and 3,000 of them, "I can help you". If this Bill goes through (and it is very difficult to estimate this, because it is changing somewhat the ones who are going to get through and the ones who are not), all the women to whom it would be harmful to have a child would be given an abortion, and on these assumptive figures that would mean that to about 20,000 women the doctor could say, "I can help
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you", while about 80,000 women would go out into the street with abortion and suicide in their minds.
My small Amendment introduces another factor into the Bill. The factor is that the general practitioner would be able to tell them, "You will be put in touch with a social officer appointed by the local council, and she will try to help you." I feel that this large number of rejected women who would not come under the Bill could be helped to a great extent by another woman. They could get some sympathy and they could discuss their case. But as things are at the moment, I do not anticipate that the social worker would be able to do very much good. I think that the majority of the women would slip through her fingers and would go off to an illegal abortionist. The only time the social officer would see these unsuccessful women would be when they crawled up to her and asked her to get them a bed to die in. She would not see the majority of them again. However, this would be a step in the right direction and, what is more, it would be a foot through the door for what I think to-day must be done. I do not think the question of the women who will not be qualified under the Bill and who must seek illegal abortion should be left standing, and this foot through the door would open the way to forming one day a legal bridge.
The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, has brought off a unique political double, and her equally brilliant daughter in the other House is pushing forward a Bill which I can honestly describe as a charter for the unmarried mother. If a legal bridge could be built between the Abortion Bill and the charter for the unmarried mother, and if the adoption law could be altered somewhat, I think it would form a flarepath which a great number of these women would accept, rather than seek out the illegal abortionist. They would have something offered them, in any case. But, of course, I cannot suggest this at the moment. I think that if I suggested the idea of forming a legal bridge between two Bills which are not yet law, and of altering an existing law which has given every satisfaction the way it is, the noble and learned Lords in this House might describe my legal bridge as pons asinorum;so I will not suggest it.
I believe in this so much; and I have stayed especially for two or three weeks,

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not with the idea of keeping and boring your Lordships when you all want to go home, but because I believe in this thing, and I will try to explain what could happen if this legal bridge was ever erected. First of all, the foot through the door, for which I am asking to-day, would be established; and therefore these women would be in touch with female social workers. Such a worker would talk to them and would explain to them, first, what are, I think, the real dangers of abortion. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, has given us some very interesting figures about abortion in this country and the effect it had concerning one gynecological ward, but we do not really know. In this country there are no real figures to tell us how effective it is and how dangerous it is. Owing to this lack of figures I think the average woman is inclined to tell her girl friend, "Abortion is just like having a tooth out"; but I do not think that that is the case.
The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, gave us earlier (I memorised the column: it is col. 1194 of Volume 270) a description of abortion in Russia. She visited, I think I am correct in saying, an abortion centre—I do not know how many there were—and according to the figures she gave us an abortion was being performed on a woman every 30 seconds through the working day, presumably, and through the working year. I do not suppose that in the history of the world any other country has ever performed so many abortions and, presumably, kept records of them. One result of it is that the Russians have abandoned or altered their law in connection with abortion. Now the Russians are very tough people. I have read about two people who sold pies which did not have in them the proper meat ration laid down by law, and who were hanged. Therefore, I think that what the Russians have done in altering the law means that it is dangerous. One has got to get it into one's head that abortion is dangerous—that is my view. Anyway, this social worker would explain to these women that it is dangerous and that they are taking a risk. She would then explain to them this legal bridge which I have outlined and which would take them down a sort of flarepath, under the umbrella of what I call the helpful State
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in which we live, and lead them to adoption.
There is another point that I should make, which I have not heard mentioned in this debate, although it may have been referred to. According to the colonial reports, 10 per cent. of the women, after they had received abortion, were very sorry they had received it. They regretted losing their babies. On these figures, it would mean 10,000 women. I think that if this were put to these women, that they could take a choice of having a baby and having it adopted, a large percentage, especially of "the old ladies who live in a shoe", or some of the tougher of the sweaty-palmed girls, would take it.
But, of course, there would be a small percentage of girls who were terrified of what the neighbours would say, of the shame and so on, and in their cases it would depend on whether they fell among the right type of female social officers. If she was the right type—and this is what I should do if I were she—she would say," We will get you out of this place. We will put you somewhere else. Here is a wedding ring, slip it on and give yourself your own husband". Because so great is the mental torture these women go through that it is worth anything to correct it. So far as the actual adoption is concerned, whether it is good or bad, I would remind you that the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, gave us a case history of which she had knowledge, with which she was concerned and which was very effective.
Personally I rather wish that Mr. Charles Dickens could be here, or, failing him, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe or Miss Florence Montgomery or Mrs. Molesworth. They could have written on this subject a wonderful Victorian tale. They could have told how this innocent babe was cast to a brothel-cum-off-licence-abortionist; then that she or he was adopted by criminal parents and turned out to be something like Eric or Little by Little and led these parents into the sunshine outside, reformed, with piety in their hearts, in their Sunday clothes, with prayer books, and baskets overflowing with crusts and stale fish to give to the starving poor. It would have been a wonderful story. Actually it is true—without the stale fish and the crusts of bread.
There is one point which is the wasp in the raspberry jam of my idea of the bridge; and that is that once a woman sees a child, or hears it call, it releases in her a very great number of interlocked hereditary instincts which go right back through our race and into the darkness beyond. Once she has heard the cry of the child she would try to seek it, she would even give her life for the child. So it would be essential that she should not see that child, otherwise she would chase it and probably find it and she would ruin the child's life, the adoptive parents' life and hurt her own. How that could be done is difficult if it could not be done at home. It is certainly very unfair to have it done in a hospital or in a private room.
If my legal bridge could ever be constructed—and I think something should be done for the rejected woman—I feel it would be criticised on the ground that it was a passport to immorality. That is about what it is—a passport to immorality. But we live in an evolutionary society and evolution takes place from time to time in our history and in that of other races. In this evolutionary cycle the automatic are triggered to run down everything established and old fashioned and put nothing in its place. Of course, the laws of morality act on these automatic people like a cloak waved to a fighting bull. They are not satisfied they have the thing down, but in the end they lose their instinct to tear things down and feel rather lost, as if they were trying to play football without rules. Non-automatic people build up the old morality laws much as they were before; but sharper, tighter and clearer. That of course is the object of this exercise, because it moves us another step in the evolutionary ladder.
I dare say people will criticise it on religious grounds, as religion runs through this Bill. It cannot help it. I personally believe that if this bridge were ever constructed, it would be pure Christianity. I trust that the right reverend Prelate will not think I am breaking in where Anglicans fear to tread. I think I may be a fringe Christian: but I think the "Man without a shadow" taught the recognition of moral equality; he recognised not only the established, the lucky, the physically strong, the easy-to-be-good; but also the
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rejected, the despised and the outcast—the woman taken in adultery, the dying thief, the Pagan company commander, the local whore.
I would give a reason why I have been so persistent in mentioning this addition to the Bill at all. About twelve years ago a doctor friend of mine told me a case history that he thought that might interest me as a writer. You will understand that I am not trying to boast of my books; they are all out-of-date and unreadable to-day. However, the story stuck in my mind. The manager of a large hotel had reports of a girl who was said to be trying to commit suicide. He was a busy man. He turned a psychiatrist loose on her and the psychiatrist put her in hospital. She got the job of mending linen, and was given thread of a suitable colour and a new packet of needles. After a day or two the sister in charge noticed that the packet of needles was empty. After a certain amount of persuasion, the girl told her she had been swallowing them. She informed the doctor, who came and counted the empty tucks in the packet and estimated how many needles she had swallowed. He operated on her and left her in cotton wool until she recovered. The psychiatrist told him that the girl was the only child of a widow, who had been carefully brought up and this was the first time she had had a job away from home. Both agreed that the girl was perfectly sane and they thought she was rather a nice girl. The doctor was able to tell the psychiatrist that she was pregnant and had tried to obtain an abortion by swallowing the needles.
I did not know what to think of this. It was fantastic that in the 1950s a girl should be so ignorant that she did not even know the geography of her own body. Later, being imaginative, it worked in my mind and I tried to put myself in her position. I imagined that I went to an hotel with a man, received flattery which I had never had before, went out to a pub, had a few drinks, pretending to be like the rest of them, and then when the sexual impulse was aroused was unable to resist. Then, when she found out she was pregnant and the young man or old man knew, he probably cleared out. With all that, I can sympathise and understand; but when it came to the final

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point, I felt that no man could realise the agony in a woman's mind which would reduce her to swallowing needles one by one over a period of days. After thinking it over for a good long time, I came to the conclusion that I could understand it and, for the first time in my life, I realised what the recognition of moral equality really meant.
If a legal bridge can be built one day, I believe that it will be for the first time in over 2,000 years that we have ever tried to put into practice the Christian doctrine of the recognition of moral equality. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for bringing in this Bill, which has brought forward so many interesting and instructive speeches which form a good foundation for the future, and also for allowing me to say my piece. I trust that I have not confused your Lordships with my soap-box oratory on this simple Amendment, that the rejected woman be associated with the female officer appointed by the local committee. I trust that your Lordships will remember that there must be some solution for the women who want abortion and are not included in this Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment to Amendment moved—
At end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Strange.)
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I should like to support the noble Lord's Amendment. This is a modification of the Amendment he put down on Committee stage. After our rather heated discussions on who shall and who shall not be eligible for an abortion, this may appear to be a limited Amendment which perhaps does not deserve mention in this Bill. But the noble Lord has spoken about an important category of women who desperately hoped that they would be eligible under the Bill—namely, the married woman who already has a big family living in crowded quarters and with an uncooperative husband; the healthy single girl over 16 who is faced with the difficulties of being the mother of an illegitimate child. She also may go, sincerely believing that she will be eligible. and find that she cannot be accepted; and, as the noble Lord said, she will feel rejected.
We really cannot ignore the end products of this Bill, which is what these
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women who do not qualify will be. Many of us have said, particularly after paragraph (c) was deleted—I said this in the last debate—that these women would not be deterred but would seek a back-street abortionist. I believe there are about 2,000 legal abortions, but there are 60,000 illegal abortions. These women, finding that they cannot be aborted legally, will, as I say, go to the back-street abortionist.
My noble friend suggests that at this stage these women should be put under the wing of some woman who is sympathetic, understanding and knowledgeable, who not only can be their friend, but can direct them to that particular welfare agency where they might be aided. I think, therefore, that this is an important part of this Bill. We are providing for people who come into the field of operation of the Bill, but who cannot have their needs met. I would only ask my noble friend, as somebody who knows the world, how this welfare officer can be injected into the situation. When the woman goes to her general practitioner, and he says to her, "You do not qualify", will he then reveal the fact that she is pregnant to anybody? She may not want it to be revealed. I want to say to my noble friend that the principle here is right. I cannot at the moment think how the mechanics would work, but the principle is absolutely right, and we should provide for these women who hope that the Bill might meet their case but who find that they cannot be helped.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: I am absolutely against this Amendment, because I think it is a gross infringement of privacy. I think that a lot of these women who go to a medical practitioner would not want that medical practitioner to notify anybody about the fact that they want an abortion. If we are to deal with this problem, surely the best way to do it is to proceed as the Swedes do. The stigma in Sweden is less. They have kindergartens and homes for the children. The mothers go out to work. And the mothers often marry again, because there is less stigma attached Is it suggested that we simply notify the welfare officer and allow the welfare officer to have the responsibility of caring both for the mother and for the child. My goodness! welfare officers are so few. Where are we going to get them? And where are we

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to get those who are really sympathetic to this point of view? I do not know. Personally, I think this is not the way to tackle a problem of this kind.
LORD SEGAL: This is one of the occasions in which I find myself in total disagreement with my noble friend Lady Gaitskell. I cannot for a moment understand why there should be any infringement of privacy if a case of a pregnant mother is referred to a female welfare officer. Surely, these welfare officers are highly trained and highly skilled. They understand the position in which the woman finds herself, and they can be absolutely trusted to retain the confidence when it is made to them. I think it is most important that a pregnant girl, when she finds that she has been rejected by her own medical practitioner, or by a consultant in a hospital, should not be driven to one of two alternatives: either to carry on the pregnancy when she feels deep down that she is no longer able to carry on with it, or going to the back street abortionist.
What is a woman in such a position to do? She will say: "My own general practitioner feels that I have not a case to stand on. In his kindness of heart he has referred me to a hospital, and there the registrar or the consultant has endorsed his view." Surely the woman left in that position will try every means possible to turn somewhere else, to another doctor, perhaps to some other hospital which will take a kinder and more humane view of her difficulty. So what is she to do? To whom is she to turn? I think the opinion of this House and the country is united, at all costs, on trying to undermine the position of the illegal abortionist. Here, I think, is a supreme instance where a pregnant girl, left in this predicament, will find a satisfactory way out.
Let us remember this. Not every general practitioner is compelled to be on the midwifery list. He can often refer one of his own patients who is pregnant to some other doctor, a general practitioner, who may be having special midwifery cases of his own, but who also receives them from other doctors. In the same way, we have to realise that once this Bill is passed it is entirely permissive. There may be a great many doctors who may refuse, on religious or
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conscientious grounds, to carry the provisions of this Bill into effect. Imagine the predicament of a pregnant mother, in some remote country district, where she has no other doctor to turn to, and where the whole area may be under the medical care of a partnership. What is she to do? There must be some way out for her to avoid recourse to the back street abortionist.
Therefore I earnestly hope that the noble Lord, Lord Strange, will persist with this Amendment and insist on carrying it through to a Division, so that a woman in this position will still have the alternative open to her in the terms of his Amendment. It says:
"… it shall thereupon be the duty of the Welfare Officer …"—
that is a statutory duty imposed upon her—
" so far as practicable to secure "—
I should prefer to say "to assist in securing", because it may not be within her means actually to secure—
" the physical and mental health and wellbeing of the pregnant woman …"
That takes her back to paragraph (a) of Clause 1, so that she does not have to despair if she is turned down by her own doctor or by her nearest hospital. In the same way that certain doctors have their own midwifery list, I hope the welfare officer will have her own list of doctors willing to perform an abortion on humanitarian grounds, where there is some justification for it, so that she can refer the woman to another medical officer who is more sympathetic, who has access, perhaps, to another hospital more in line with the Aberdeen method of approach to this problem, so that she is not left in despair and driven into the mercies of the professional abortionist and there is some way out of relieving her from her own trouble and her own predicament.
9.18 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: I shall detain your Lordships for only a few moments, but there was almost a direct challenge from the mover of this Amendment to these Benches to answer the question whether or not there would be a religious objection. Of course, the opposite is the case. I think there may be some sociological difficulties to be straightened out. I am not absolutely

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certain whether you can impose on the medical profession this social duty without, at any rate, knowing from them whether they are willing and able to bear it. But as far as the unmarried mothers are concerned, a large number of them are already put in touch with social workers, many of them, though not all, in connection with the Church, and before these laws are enforced at all there are those who are very fully occupied in trying to secure the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of those who find themselves in this predicament. I am a little alarmed at some of the things which have been said in the last few moments. The idea of a welfare service existing, so to speak, to make up for the deficiencies of doctors who do not think it right to perform abortions—
LORD SEGAL: If the right reverend Prelate will forgive me for interrupting, I think the implication of my remarks was not in respect of the deficiencies of doctors. The corollary often would be that the woman in this predicament, instead of being left to the single opinion of her own practitioner or of one hospital, would be able to obtain confirmatory advice from other similar sources to enable her to go on with her pregnancy with a much easier mind.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: That is putting it in a less questionable form, but in the way I understood it I thought some doctors might resent it very much if they thought there was a social welfare service to suggest better advice than they considered it right to give.
I think these questions would have to be considered before this Bill became law, but as this is a kind of trial run I think I could bring myself to vote for this Amendment, although I should have been much happier if it had been the duty of the medical practitioner to offer this service to his patients. I think that would be safer. Also I am a little surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, should praise the Swedish example. I believe Sweden is the country with the highest suicide rate, and I think we should ask ourselves whether or not they have found the answer to all the social problems yet.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: Divide!
LORD STONHAM: The noble Lord, Lord Strange, has cast his spell again, and he has apparently persuaded all my noble friends that his Amendment should be accepted. The noble Lord's evocative imagery is such that at one time I thought I heard him refer to a legal bridge made of raspberry jam with a wasp in it. That is an impossible proposition, I know, but it gives an example of the spell-binding oratory of the noble Lord. I hope he will forgive me if I just examine one or two of the propositions and, as it were, get back to what he said in the Amendment, and not some of the constructions which have been put upon it.
I would agree entirely with what I think are the intentions of the noble Lord. I would agree entirely with what my noble friend Baroness Summerskill said about the predicament of the woman, desperately hoping that she might be eligible and finding that she is not. Then, as my noble friend said, the noble Lord has at least part of the answer, and the principle of what he wants to do is absolutely right: namely, that there should be suitable succour, advice, friendship and help for a woman in these distressing circumstances who finds that she has been refused an abortion under this Bill when it becomes an Act. It does not help her to be told that she does not satisfy the rules and regulations. She is still in such a condition that, as the noble Lord said, she might be driven to swallowing needles in the hope of ending her mental and physical torment.
When we consider these matters it is not a case of deciding intentions. When we put them into the Bill, it is not good enough to have intentions; we have to say what those words would mean if they were put into a Statute I would submit that, however much there is in practice, and there is a very great deal, to be said for a doctor in appropriate cases referring to a welfare authority any woman whose request for an abortion has been refused, there is unquestionably the point, put by my noble friend Lady Gaitskell, that there must be many women in such circumstances who would not wish that to be done as a statutory responsibility, so that whether they want it or not some other person is going to be told.
The noble Lord made some calculations. I was not quite able to follow

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them all and I did not understand their basis. But it does seem to me that throughout our discussions on this Bill there has been a lack of knowledge of what goes on in our hospitals now. In the latest year for which I have figures, 1962, it is estimated that in our hospitals the rate of admissions for abortions had reached 72,400, which is 78·1 per 10.000 women in this country aged between 15 and 44. Out of that number some 2,800 were therapeutic abortions. Of the remainder, roughly 70,000, it is anybody's guess how many were inevitable abortions occurring naturally and abortions which may have been procured. I mention these figures because this is not something new, and also because our hospitals will be able to cope.
Another figure I may mention is the figure for Finland, where the position is rather more generous than it may well be if my noble friend's Bill becomes an Act. The most recent figures of legal abortions there show a little over 6,000–75·3 per 1,000 normal deliveries; they have about one tenth of our population. So again we get an idea of what might happen in this country.
Coming back to the point of the noble Lord's Amendment, that there shall be a statutory obligation placed on a doctor, when he has refused to perform an abortion under this Bill, to refer the woman to a female welfare officer who shall
"so far as practicable"—
I do not quite know what that means—
"secure the physical and mental health and well-being of the pregnant woman …"
it does not seem to me a statutory starter. Nor does it seem necessary or desirable to make statutory provision for this. Surely it would be better, as I believe the noble Lord wants, for the matter to be left to the discretion of the doctor to take such action as he considers desirable in the circumstances of the individual case, having regard to the wishes and the needs of the pregnant woman. But on the grounds of impracticability, I hope the noble Lord will see that his Amendment, at least as it is framed, is not acceptable either to him or to anyone else. It is not appropriate to make statutory provision in this matter. For one thing, he does not provide in his Amendment any sanction for failure to notify. In all other matters in this Bill we provide sanctions, but he does not
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provide anything of that kind. May I ask the noble Lord this question? He referred to the doctor refusing an abortion. Would he consider it to be a refusal if a doctor said "Certainly not" when a woman came to him and demanded an abortion which was illegal under this Bill when it becomes an Act? That is what his Amendment would mean.
However much I agree that these women, all women, should be given all possible help by all the social services, and however valuable this discussion may have been because it has shown up a need, I hope the noble Lord will agree that his Amendment, at least, does not meet that need and is not acceptable.
9.30 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: I have great sympathy with the intention of this Amendment, but I do not think it will work. First of all, I think it quite wrong to put an additional burden, a compulsory burden, on the doctor immediately to notify a female welfare officer. Already we are putting considerable burdens on the doctor. We do not say which doctor, but actually in the Amendment there are two. We are already putting sufficient burdens on them. If they carry out an abortion they have to notify it to the medical officer of health, and I think this is putting a burden on them which may act as a deterrent. I am much in favour of bringing the social worker into this field wherever appropriate, and I would not accept the view that it is an infringement of privacy, except if the unfortunate woman is compelled, willy-nilly, to be interviewed by a female welfare officer. I think she herself ought to have some discretion as to whether she wants to be interviewed by a female welfare officer, and should not have it decided for her.
If the noble Lord is prepared to accept my assurance, I should like further to consider in what way we can bring the welfare officer into the picture in appropriate cases. I do not think it is appropriate in all cases. As I have already indicated, it is my intention to introduce another measure immediately after the reassembly, when I should certainly take into consideration the views that have been expressed about the possibility of bringing the female social welfare officer into the picture in appropriate cases. If

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the noble Lord is prepared to accept that assurance from me, I hope that perhaps he may feel willing to withdraw this Amendment.
LORD STRANGE: I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness who have spoken on this question. I am most sincere about it and would like to press the Amendment. I will tell your Lordships why. When the Bill gets to the
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: As it appears that fewer than 30 Lords have voted, in accordance with Standing Order No. 51 I declare the Question not decided and, pursuant to
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Report stage it can be altered, and things can be put into it; but I should not like to see it leave the Bill for ever, because I think the idea is basically right. Therefore, I am pressing my Amendment.
9.37 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment to the Amendment (No. 11) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided:Contents,7;Not-Contents, 10.

CONTENTS

Effingham, E.

Segal, L.

Summerskill, Bs. [Teller.]

Greenway, L.

Strange, L. [Teller.]

Ypres, E.

Newall, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Brain, L.

Molson, L.

Stonham, L.

Colwyn, L.

Raglan, L.[Teller.]

Waverley, V.

Gaitskell, Bs.[Teller.]

Silkin, L.

Wellington, D.

Gardiner, L.(L.Chancellor.)

the Standing Order, the House will now resume.
House resumed accordingly.
House adjourned at seventeen minutes before ten o'clock.