Lords Sitting of 21 July 1966

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

FRONT-ENTRANCE BUSES
3.5 p.m.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have received any reports on the working of the front-entrance buses now employed on certain London bus routes, and whether their use is likely to be extended to additional routes.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): My Lords, responsibility for these experiments rests with the London Transport Board, and my right honourable friend would not expect to receive reports on their working. But she welcomes the experiment as promising various advantages to the public and to the Board.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that limited reply, may I ask whether he would not agree that accidents caused when passengers are alighting from or boarding buses would be entirely eliminated by the more extensive use of this type of vehicle? And would he not agree that the safety factor is the chief consideration in deciding whether its use ought to be extended or not?
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I agree completely with my noble friend that these buses have a safety advantage in that passengers cannot get on and off when the bus is moving. Safety is obviously one of the factors that London Transport will have in mind when considering how far they should extend the operation of front-entrance buses. I may say that in the regulations issued on
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July 1 my right honourable friend has given operators more freedom to experiment in this type of vehicle.
LORD ROWLEY: My Lords, in view of the fact that some of us have had experience of these buses on route 24, would my noble friend represent to the Minister, and through her to the London Transport Board, that it is greatly to be hoped that they will be made much more comfortable than they proved to be when operated on that route?
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, of course the Minister has no responsibility at all for day-to-day management in this matter, but I am sure that such a suggestion coming from such a quarter will be considered by the Board.

SAFETY REGULATIONS FOR CIVIL SUBMERSIBLE VEHICLES
3.7 p.m.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: 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 when it is intended to introduce safety regulations for civil submersible vehicles.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD RHODES): My Lords, if such vehicles were ships they would be subject to the Merchant Shipping Acts. The application of the Acts to such craft would need special consideration when the need arises.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I ask whether he is aware that big developments in civil submersible vehicles are taking place; and can he assure the House that this country will be the first in the field in seeing that there are safety regulations available for such vehicles when produced and in use, in the same way as this country has led the world in seeing that there are adequate safety regulations for ships, mines and aircraft, and in many other directions? Especially is this important in view of the fact that we are a maritime nation and do not want to be behind other countries in this matter.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, yes. I have taken the Question as a helpful and a constructive one, and I went to considerable trouble to find out as much as I possibly could about this matter. We have not much evidence that anything of this sort is imminent, but if the noble Lord has any evidence at all I shall be pleased to receive it.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, would the noble Lord tell us exactly what is a civil submersible vehicle?
LORD RHODES: My Lords, I think in that matter I had better call upon the noble Lord opposite.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: My Lords, is the Minister aware that a civil submersible vehicle is a vehicle that goes into the water, and on the bed of the water as well? Submarines have been used in the oceans of the world for military purposes, but they are of no use at all for civil purposes. Since water covers two-thirds of the earth's surface, there is a great need for civil submersible vehicles to work for civil purposes in the oceans and on the bed of the oceans.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, I think the noble Lord will agree that if we pursue this subject much further we shall both get into deep water.

TRAFFIC CONTROL ON THREE-LANE ROADS
3.10 p.m.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: 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 progress has been made during the last two years, to the latest available date, in the provision of alternately offset double or single white lines on a straight road of three lanes.]
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, trials with the use of offset double white lines on a number of roads have been in progress over periods varying from one to three years, and my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport hopes to make a statement soon.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. Is he aware that, so far as can be seen, these experiments are highly successful? Everybody who has experienced them wonders why much more rapid progress has not been made in providing these offset double and single white lines on many roads, and in general extending their use. Could this matter not now be hurried up after all this length of time?
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I must admit that at one time, when I first saw these lines, I thought completely as the noble Lord does on this point. But the results of these trials have not yet been fully assessed in the Department. So far, it appears that the use of offset lines alternately has not secured a marked improvement at all sites. In some cases there is evidence of an increase, though perhaps not of severity, in the number of accidents, and also of danger at the change-over points. This needs further investigation, but we rather hope that the Minister will take a decision which will be announced shortly.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, can the Minister assure us that, whatever may be done to lessen the danger of such three-lane highways as we now unfortunately have, nothing will lessen Her Majesty's Government's determination to abolish three-lane highways altogether as soon as they possibly can, because they are death traps?
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, we are in complete agreement with that. The dual carriageway is obviously the road we shall build in the future.

IMMIGRATION CONTROL
3.14 p.m.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is not desirable that the inflow of immigrants should if possible be so regulated as to remain within the capacity of this country to absorb it, and since the number of dependants of immigrants can at present be neither regulated nor predicted, whether they

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will consider requiring future immigrants to register the number of dependants likely to join them and then treating this number as a factor affecting the decision whether to grant permission of entry.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, the whole purpose of the control is to relate the total inflow of immigrants, including dependants, to the capacity of this country to absorb them. It is already the practice to require a Commonwealth citizen overseas who is given a Ministry of Labour voucher or an entry certificate for settlement to provide particulars of the dependants entitled to enter the United Kingdom with him or to follow him later. We do not think it right, however, to make the grant of the entry document dependent on the number of entitled dependants.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I ask him whether he recalls that on May 23 last the Home Secretary said outside another place, on a public occasion—and I quote from The Times:
"In present circumstances the Government is bound to contain the flow of immigrants within the economic and social capacity of the country to absorb them."
Does he not agree that this apparently innocuous statement, and numerous others similar to it, must mislead the man in the street by leading him to suppose that a Government which says that it must contain the flow has power to control the flow, which in respect of dependants it most assuredly has not? May I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that in the first five months of the present year—which is not, of course, the season of the main inflow—whereas the intake of voucher holders, which is controlled, was 2,000-odd, the intake of dependants, which is not controlled, was 14,000-odd?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am, of course, aware of the statement by my right honourable friend, but there is no conflict between that statement and the Answer which I have just given. Her Majesty's Government will not, however, accept a policy of separating wives from their husbands and young children from their parents. That is why, when the restrictions had to be tightened, we prefer-
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red to reduce the number of families by reducing the issue of vouchers, rather than break up families by the method implied by the noble Lord.
With regard to the noble Lord's point about the first five months of this year, he has apparently misunderstood the figures. The facts show that our policy is already succeeding. In 1964, the net inflow of immigration from all the countries of the Commonwealth was 75,499; last year it was 63,819. The process is continuing this year, for which I am able to give the figures for the first six months In the first six months of last year the net inflow from all Commonwealth countries was 49,097, in the first six months of this year it was 34,061. With regard to dependants, what is of even greater significance is that in the first six months of this year, for the first time for many years, they comprise less than the numbers ill the corresponding period of the previous year.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there is nothing in the Question I asked which was calculated to promote or encourage the separation of families? The suggestion was merely that in selecting the immigrants some regard should be had to the number of dependants who would be likely to come with them. May I also ask him, in respect of the absorptive capacity referred to in the second part of my Question, whether he has seen the recent statement of the National Secretary of the Indian Workers' Association, to the effect that the Association has no desire to see the integration of Indians taking place since they desire to retain their own cultural traditions and have indeed requested that Urdu, Hindi and Gujerati should be taught in English schools? Is it not equally true of most Muslims and Sikhs that they, too, rightly desire to retain their own social and cultural traditions, rather than to accept ours, some of which they regard, with a certain degree of justification, as highly uncivilised?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am, of course, aware of the desire of many immigrants to preserve their own religious, national and cultural way of life, but the whole of Her Majesty's Government's policy, and the greater part of the White Paper, is devoted to steps for integrating these Commonwealth

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citizens into the British community. That policy is succeeding very well, and will proceed as energetically as Her Majesty's Government can pursue it.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I do not quite understand the noble Lord's first Answer. As I understand it, he said that a man can be given a voucher to enter, and is then asked how many dependants he has. So there is, in fact, no control over the number of dependants coming in, because he is given the voucher in the first place. Is that correct?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the purpose of completing the entry certificate and stating the number of dependants, either coming in or likely to come in, is to gather statistics and so that we can prevent evasion. We have no control over the number of dependants of a particular voucher holder, either before or after he enters the country.
LORD DERWENT: But if the Government want to control the number of immigrants so that they may be absorbed easily—and that I understand, is Government policy—if they do not limit the number of vouchers for the dependants who are coming in, how can they keep control over the total number?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, certainly did not understand my first Answer, because facts with regard to the number of dependants will influence subsequent decisions on the number of vouchers that will be issued.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he is aware of the immediate and potential difficulties which can arise from the tendency of immigrants to concentrate in well-defined areas? May I ask, also, what steps Her Majesty's Government are taking, or what steps they can take, to effect a dispersal which would facilitate integration into the community?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, we are of course aware of some tendency to concentrate in particular areas, although it is not so marked as is generally supposed. One of the reasons is that many immigrants tend to congregate where their fellow citizens live, and also in the poorer parts of the great cities. The policy of Her Majesty's Government in this respect is to assist local authorities in the provi-
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sion of amenities and facilities so that such concentrations may be dispersed.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend, quite seriously—I asked him this question last year and he did not answer—how many women dependants designated as wives a Muslim may bring into the country?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I can only tell my noble friend that there have been occasions when we have admitted more than one wife, but not more than two.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it is not the case that all those who have studied this problem agree that the arrival here of wives and dependants, whether of white or coloured immigrants, adds to the stability and health of those communities and should be welcomed by this House?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I would entirely agree with the view expressed by my noble friend. If my original Answer did not make it clear, I should add that the figures I have given were for the net inflow from all the countries of the Commonwealth, whatever the colour of the skin of the immigrant, and Her Majesty's Government make no distinction in this regard.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that one African visitor to the Coronation, who himself travelled first-class in a steamship, brought fifteen wives all of whom went steerage?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, in addition to mentioning that discrimination, with which I wholly disagree, the noble Earl should have said that he went back and took all his fifteen wives with him.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question? Would he explain what he means by "families and wives"? I make particular reference to the prevalence in, for instance, Jamaica of what are called "civil law marriages", which have no reference whatever to legality. They are merely arrangements between a man and a woman who decide to live together and have children for so long as it suits them. It is a very prevalent custom in Jamaica, and when such a man comes

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to England he may in all honesty regard that woman as definable as a wife. But do the Government recognise that kind of union here, where it would be an entirely illegal position?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, with regard to the families which Her Majesty's Government recognise, they are the wife and children under sixteen, with a little latitude beyond that in some cases for the exercise of discretion. With regard to the definition of a wife, we do not attempt a precise definition which will cover all the countries of the world. But with regard to the West Indies, we are aware of the prevalence of what is sometimes called the "common law marriage" and we have admitted, and do admit, some wives of that type who would not have had what we in this country regard as a normal union.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, could my noble friend say whether he considers that the reception arrangements for receiving immigrants into this country are adequate?
LORD STONHAM: No, my Lords, they are not wholly adequate, but they are constantly being improved.

FUTURE BUSINESS
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I make a short Business Statement? As Members will know, we had intended to take the Second Reading of the Finance Bill on Thursday, July 28. Unfortunately, there has been a change in Business in another place, and this Bill is unlikely to be received by us until fairly late on Thursday, July 28. While I recognise that Members are very indulgent—
A NOBLE LORD: Not "Members", but "noble Lords".
LORD SHEPHERD:—and our arrangements are very flexible, I think it would be too late to ask the House to take the Second Reading of the Bill on that day. However, there have been
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discussions through the usual channels, and it has been decided to recommend to the House that we should have a debate on a Government Motion to take note of the Economic Situation. Perhaps noble Lords who wish to discuss the Economic Situation and the Finance Bill might think next Thursday a suitable day for delivering their speeches, so that when the Finance Bill is taken later in the following week the proceedings will be relatively short.

DERBY CHURCHES (SAINT CHRISTOPHER'S, SAINT PETER'S AND SAINT PAUL'S) BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendment, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL
3.28 p.m.
Read 3a, with the Amendments.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, I beg to move an Amendment: at page 18, line 3, leave out from "incorporated" to "this" in line 5, and insert "with".
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 3, leave out from ("incorporated") to ("this") in line 5 and insert ("with").—(The Earl of Listowel.)
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, could we have some sort of explanation?
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: Most certainly, my Lords. This is a late Amendment put forward by the Promoters of the Bill, and copies of the Amendment lie on the Table of the House.
LORD CARRINGTON: What is it for?
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: It is a verbal amendment of this clause, and for that reason I did not think your Lordships would expect me to advance any arguments in support.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

TELEVISING THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE HOUSE
3.30 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD)THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD) rose to move, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider how the Resolution of the House of June 15 last, welcoming the televising of some of its proceedings for an experimental period, can best be carried into effect:
That the Lords following with the Chairman of Committees be named of the Committee:—
E. Iddesleigh,
V. Falkland,
B. Asquith of Yarnbury,
L. Balfour of Inchrye,
L. Birkett,
L. Clwyd,
B. Emmet of Amberley,
L. Ferrier,
L. Haire of Whiteabbey,
L. Harlech,
L. Reay,
L. Sherfield,
L. Silkin,
L. Soper,
B. Wootton of Abinger.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I rise to move the Motion standing in my name. As the House will observe, it is identical to the Motion which I brought before this House on Tuesday, and which, with the leave of the House, was then postponed, except that the names of the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, have been added to the list of proposed Members. Your Lordships will recall that on Tuesday the view was expressed by one or two senior Members of the House that those who voted against the Resolution welcoming the televising of our proceedings for an experimental period, which was carried here on June 15, were not sufficiently represented in the list which I was then proposing. Without commenting on the correctness of that view, I hope and believe that the House will feel that that difficulty, in so far as it did exist, has now been overcome by the addition of the two noble Lords I have mentioned.
I should perhaps add that the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, suggested on Tuesday that the higher reaches of the
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Peerage were inadequately represented, and pointed out that there was no one higher than a Baron or Baroness among those proposed—and we know that they represent the lowest forms of noble life. The noble Duke will now observe that the two names which I am asking the House to add are those of an Earl and a Viscount, and I hope that he will therefore be appeased, although I cannot pretend that we are suggesting any Dukes or Marquesses on this occasion—but no doubt their time will come. I ought to say that, while I feel this may serve to placate the noble Duke, it was not the primary intention of the suggestion, and I should not like it to be taken as a precedent for the future. Nevertheless, I hope that your Lordships will feel that the Motion brought forward in its present form gives effect to the Resolution of June 15, and will therefore approve it. I beg to move.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider how the Resolution of the House of June 15 last, welcoming the televising of some of its proceedings for an experimental period, can best be carried into effect.
That the Lords following with the Chairman of Committees be named of the Committee:—
E. Iddesleigh,
V. Falkland,
B. Asquith of Yarnbury,
L. Balfour of Inchrye,
L. Birkett,
L. Clwyd,
B. Emmet of Amberley,
L. Ferrier,
L. Haire of Whiteabbey,
L. Harlech,
L. Reay,
L. Sherfield,
L. Silkin,
L. Soper,
B. Wootton of Abinger.
—(The Earl of Longford.)
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl the Leader of the House for withdrawing the Motion last Tuesday and for tabling this fresh Motion, with the additional strength of one Earl and one Viscount. I am sure it will be a much-improved Committee, with the addition of two more Members of this House who did not vote in favour of the original Resolution. If I had voted on that occasion, on June 15,

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I should have voted for the Resolution moved by my noble friend Lord Egremont; so although, if I had been appointed to the Committee, a considerable amount of weight would have been added, it would have been on the wrong side.
I should like to ask the noble Earl just one question about the terms of reference, merely for the purpose of elucidation. By its terms, the Resolution moved by the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, on June 15, welcomed the televising of our proceedings for an experimental period. The terms of this Motion are to see how that Resolution "can best be carried into effect". I think I am right in interpreting the present Motion as meaning no more and no less than this: that the Committee now being appointed will be able to go into the whole matter from a practical point of view, to see what difficulties exist, what supervision it may be necessary to exercise and by whom it should be exercised; and that, in the end we shall get from this Committee, after they have considered all these matters, including matters of privilege, a Report, which we shall then have before us for consideration before finally deciding whether to go on with televising our proceedings or not.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I should certainly have thought that the points raised by the noble Viscount would come well within the orbit of this Committee. They are not the only points which will need to be gone into, but I should think the noble Viscount need have no possible fear about the range of this Committee, because its terms are so closely tied to those of the Resolution which was actually carried here.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Earl for adding these two names to the Committee. I certainly hope that this is an indication of the way in which he will treat other suggestions that I shall no doubt be making in the next fortnight upon other matters, and that I shall have equal success in getting them adopted by the noble Earl the Leader of the House. I am sure the noble Earl and the noble Viscount who have been added to this Committee will look after the interests of Dukes and Marquesses extremely well.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Viscount and to the noble Duke. I have no idea, of course, what these other proposals by the noble Duke may be. The most positive proposal which I recall his placing before the House was the idea of polo for the masses. It may be that that is what he has in mind.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: My Lords, I should like to point out to the noble Earl, just for the record, that it seems that the figures are still out of gear. The original figures, as objected to by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, contained two who voted against the Resolution and eleven who voted for it. This Motion now brings the figures up to four as against eleven, and they are still out of gear. It should really be five, at least. It would still be out of gear, even with five. I think your Lordships will agree to that.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I cannot, of course, speak for the rest of the House, but I do not agree with the noble Earl, for the reasons I explained the other day.
LORD REAY: My Lords, this seems to me an important question of principle. On the one hand, the argument has been put forward that the Committee should be composed of Members representing equally those who voted for and those who voted against the general principle embodied in the Resolution as a result of which this Committee is being appointed. On the other hand, there seems to me a reasonable argument that in this instance, such a Committee should contain no Member at all who voted against the general principle of televising the proceedings of the House. I wonder whether at some time we can have some indication as to what is the proper principle to be applied on the appointment of a Committee of this sort.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I think the only answer I can make is that one must strike a balance between the two criteria indicated by the noble Lord.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I think this matter was raised on the last occasion by my noble friend Lord Salisbury. Even on that occasion, before

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the discussion ended, he expressed complete satisfaction with what the noble Earl the Leader of the House was proposing to do. I think we should really not criticise in any way what he is now doing, which seems to me to carry out what was the desire of this House.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I am deeply grateful to the noble Lord.
LORD HARLECH: My Lords, may I say—and this may help the noble Earl—that my noble friend Lord Dudley may like to know that quite a number of these Members did not vote either way, so eleven did not vote for the Resolution.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, may I ask one more question, just for elucidation? It is probably owing to my own stupidity, but I did not quite understand the noble Earl's reply to the noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne. Is it the position that when the Committee we are now appointing has reported, it will still be open to the House to decide not to proceed with televising its proceedings?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, if I may say so with great respect, that, I should have thought, was obvious. The Committee will report back to the House, and it will be for the House to say what they wish to do about the Report of the Committee.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
3.38 p.m.
LORD SALTOUNhad given Notice of his intention to move, That it be an instruction to the Select Committee on Televising the Proceedings of the House that they make no recommendation that is not in accord with the traditional dignity of the House. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the only thing I should like slightly to challenge in what was said a few moments ago is that there are lower orders of nobility. After all, your Lordships are all Peers, and therefore there can be no lower orders. My Lords, I put down my Motion upon observing that the Committee first nominated by the noble Earl consisted very largely of Members who have been in this House a very short time and who could not he expected to know the old traditions of your Lordships' House; and that there were very very few who had had any lengthy experience of the House. In fact, apart from
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the Lord Chairman, there were only three Members of the Committee who had more than ten years' experience of your Lordships' House. Some of the noble Lords who were nominated to serve on the Committee have expressed very strong and decided views about this House, and it seemed to me that, however much they knew about television, the interests of your Lordships' House should be considered rather more carefully. And I am bound to say that I very much welcome the additions the noble Earl has made in the Committee which has now been approved by your Lordships. I think that to have the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, with his 38 years' experience of this House, upon that Committee is a very great advantage. What I am really saying this afternoon will, I hope, strengthen his hand.
I hope the noble Earl who leads the House will not mind my saying that he comes of a distinguished family. We who can make no claim to such distinction are, I think, to be excused if we reckon a family distinguished which can produce in its history more than one distinguished man in a couple of centuries; and the noble Earl's family has several, as most of your Lordships know. There is one among them who has always been rather a hero of mine. That is Sir Edward Pakenham, a very distinguished soldier of the Peninsula War, who was Adjutant-General of Wellington's Army in 1813 in Biscay, and who was made a Knight of the Bath. On that occasion he wrote to his brother Tom, a kindred spirit and the noble Earl's great-great-grandfather, what he thought about it. In what he wrote he so clearly defined one of the cardinal principles of your Lordships as long ago as history exists that, with your permission, I will use his words and not my own to lay this principle before your Lordships. He writes:
"These College of Arms gentlemen, by way of recommendation, have begged me to allow them to apply for some emblems of victory in the armorial bearings, to commemorate supposed services. I have civilly informed them that I will see them damned first and should they apply to you on the subject, remind them of my determination. Under our happy rules of Government and of society a gentleman is expected to conduct himself with the exertion belonging to principle whatever his calling may be, and perhaps one of a man's first personal attentions should he, by proper restraint, neither to show himself off nor allow other people from folly and sinister motives to do so."

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That is the Pakenham tradition and that has been the tradition of your Lordships' House, as I hope to show you, for a very long time past. It certainly was the tradition of this House in those days, and I believe it yet to be so. If you look down the history of our House you will find some exceptions—you will always find exceptions to that. I suppose the one that leaps to the eye is Lord Byron and, although I am not sure about him, Lord Brougham might be in the same category. But if you look for exceptions you will find it extraordinarily hard to find them and you will find these rules of behaviour confirmed for very far in the past. I am personally certain, in spite of our own very much swollen numbers and in spite of the fact that a whole generation of your Lordships has lacked the father (who had been killed) to educate them, that if you were to look round the numbers of this House to-day you would find the same principle upheld—with possibly a few exceptions, and those exceptions negligible.
I am open to this argument against me. The noble Earl may possibly say: "This is very nice; but it is only an idea of Lord Saltoun. He has no evidence to show that this really is a principle". I have the fact itself, which is sufficiently notorious and which you can prove for yourselves. It is not a matter in which it is very easy to get written evidence because your predecessors rarely left any documentary evidence and such productions would naturally be tainted. In any case, in the past we have not had the habit, which I am afraid I look upon as a pernicious habit, of perpetually talking about ourselves. But it does happen that I can produce written evidence, and that of the very best quality.
Many of your Lordships will know that in the year 1509, or very shortly after, when Henry VIII first came to the Throne, Erasmus paid one of his numerous visits to Britain. He was the greatest scholar in Europe and was visiting a very cultured and learned Court and a King who probably was the best educated King in Europe. He had a great many friends; he had travelled a lot about England. He had been to Oxford, he had dined at Magdalen,
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hunted with a pack which I presume was the forerunner of the Heythrop, lectured at Cambridge and his particular friend in England was Lord Mountjoy. He was a very tactful and pleasant companion and very many of your Lordships' predecessors were among his friends and associates. His letters about England and English things have been freely plundered by every student of the history of the time—and very rightly so; because he was an extremely acute and accurate observer.
One of his letters was on the subject of your Lordships and in it he expressed his surprise at the complete absence of any pretension or desire to show off exhibited by the Peers of England. He adds that it makes them the most conversible people in the world; and he also adds that it would be a mistake to allow this easy conversation to betray you into any presumption or impertinence, because they were able to set you in your place more quickly and better than any other people.
That is very good evidence that from the time of Henry VIII, at least, this was a rule of this House, a rule of your Lordships' behaviour. I am bound to say that I think it is a very difficult task that we set our Committee when we tell them to combine the best way of showing ourselves off by means of television, without trespassing on the old, ancient standards of your Lordships' conduct. I do not say it is impossible; but I do think it is a task that requires a certain amount of dexterity; and for that reason thought it important to bring the matter to your Lordships' notice and especially to the notice of the Committee. I hope that it may strengthen my noble friend Lord Iddesleigh in any representations he may feel called upon to make to you; because if our cardinal principle is that a man's
"first personal attentions should be, by proper restraint, neither to show himself off nor allow other people …to do so",
I think the Committee has quite a difficult task.
I would add only one other point, which is this. I have been told that all those old standards have gone; that television is here and we have to make terms with it; that the world is changing every day and we have to make our account

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with it; that all these old virtues are obstacles to people's careers. Well, I personally feel it is very wrong to think that any virtue obstructs a career. When I look back on my own life I feel it was not too much but too little virtue that obstructed my career. But if your Lordships have changed from that old code, if you have adopted a new code, then I say that a greater change has taken place in this House than has been directly effected by any Act of Parliament. I do not believe it has. I believe that your Lordships are still the same as you always were, and on that account I beg to move.
Moved, That it be an instruction to the Select Committee on Televising the Proceedings of the House that they make no recommendation that is not in accord with the traditional dignity of the House.—(Lord Saltoun.)
3.50 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, while I cannot feel that there is any great danger that this very distinguished Committee will be likely to recommend something not in accord with the traditional dignity of this House, I should like just shortly to suggest that the Committee might profitably not be lulled too easily into accepting one suggestion which was made in the recent debate by a very large number of speakers, who seemed to think that something on the lines of the programme "Today in Parliament" could be transferred on to the television screen with separate speakers; and that that would be the answer to this problem. On reflection I cannot feel that, if that course were adopted, there would not he a danger that the traditional dignity of this House might be affected.
To take as an example last Monday's "Today in Parliament", I think that 36 or 37 separate speeches of Members of Parliament and Peers were quoted in the 14 minutes that that programme lasted. If you have a single voice on sound radio quoting excerpts from 37 separate speeches in 14 minutes, the result is a stimulating and interesting programme. But if that presentation were to be transferred on to the television screen, and there were quoted pithy extracts from the fifteen-minute speeches of 37 different Members of Parliament and Members of this House, I believe that the result would be something so far beyond the wildest dreams of the noble Lord, Lord Egre-
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mont, that it would be a nightmare. I hope, therefore, in view of the many suggestions that were made in the debate that this would be the answer to this problem, that the Committee will consider that suggestion with very great care before they accede to it, because, on reflection, I cannot believe that is the answer to the problem.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I voted for the Motion because I thought we ought to be willing to be "with it". But I think that the labours of the Committee might be considerably lightened if they made it their own task to explore the financial angle, because it costs a good deal of money to televise everything, and it has been suggested to me that the resulting product would be very unlikely to be able to be commercially sold to either of the two organisations who could put it on the air. In fact, I was told that we grossly overvalue our public interest.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, may I support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, in three sentences? As your Lordships may perhaps know, I regard this proposal to televise our proceedings as most undesirable, and I have said so; but, if it has to be done, surely every care must be taken not to cheapen our proceedings, which is something I feel could quite easily happen. I heartily dislike this unholy union of Parliament and television, and I do not think that in the long run it will do us any good. But, at all events, let us hedge round any arrangements that are made with strict and binding safeguards. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, will press his Motion. I cannot believe that any noble Lord jealous of the reputation of this House will oppose it.
3.53 p.m.
LORD REAY: My Lords, despite the cultured and discursive dissertation of the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, I must confess that I remain in some doubt as to what this Motion in fact means. If it reflects the opposition of the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun—supported by the noble Earl, Lord Arran—to the principle of the televising of the proceedings of this House, surely there are other methods open to him to record his dissent than to require this House to give an instruc-

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tion to the Committee. If it is simply a general reminder of the respect that is and should be owing to the dignity of this House, I should have thought that this was a moral recommendation which was probably harmless and probably unnecessary, except that perhaps one must make a concession to age, and I dare say that the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, might consider writing letters to members of the Committee who have not had 38 years' experience of this House.
If, on the other hand, this Motion contains a suggestion, however partial or implicit, that the television of any part of the proceedings of this House is undesirable, I suggest that such an instruction would be an improper one to pass on to the Committee, as it would run against the vote of this House on June 15, which favoured the televising of some of the proceedings of this House for an experimental period; and it is for the consideration of how that might best be implemented that this Committee has been established.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, I oppose this Motion, not because of a principle, but simply because when you have a Committee of this size and eminence you cannot start by giving it an instruction. This is what the Committee is set up for, to consider all these problems, and we cannot tell them that they must behave themselves in this particular way.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, will not press his Motion. I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Reay, said, that if this is simply a moral exhortation to the Committee not to forget themselves or the traditions of the House, it is unnecessary; and it is in fact a reflection on the Committee, because it really must be assumed that this Committee is not likely to overlook the traditional dignity of the House. I cannot, if I may say so with respect to the noble Lord, accept the idea that a noble Lord who has been here only ten years is incapable of understanding the traditions of the House, whereas one who has been here longer (in my case twenty years) would understand rather better, and whereas some-
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one like my dear friend the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, who has been here for 38 years, will understand them better still. One cannot weigh the sensitivity of Members of the House to the dignity of the House according to their years of service, so I would certainly reject that part of the argument.
If, on the other hand, it is an attempt to defeat or hamstring the effect of the Resolution of June 15, I would say that it is quite inconsistent with the Resolution which the House passed on that occasion, and to which they have just given effect by setting up a Select Committee. This is not a Party matter, as we all know, but if there are any noble Lords in this House who pay any attention to humble submissions of mine I hope, despite the great esteem we all bear for the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, that they will reject this proposal; though I am bound to say that I hope the noble Lord will not press it any further.
3.58 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I am rather surprised at what the noble Earl has said, especially on this question of experience. Does he really mean to suggest that the act of introducing somebody into your Lordships' House causes him to spring, like Athene from the forehead of Zeus, fully-armed, knowing all the intricate customs and habits of your Lordships' House? Is that a kind of sacrament by which we confer such knowledge? I do not think that this is so at all. I think everybody in your Lordships' House remarked, as I did, that as a Committee of this kind it had very little experience of your Lordships' House. I was not sure, and I still am not sure, whether that was not deliberately done by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, because of some of his revolutionary ideas about your Lordships' House, as a means of carrying them into effect. I still am not at all sure about that. He has said nothing at all yet to encourage me on that. I have produced to him what is the ancient tradition of your Lordships' House, and the ancient tradition of his own family, and I think that is a very important thing for the Committee to have in mind.
If the noble Earl, Lord Arran, wishes to divide, I will certainly divide with him. But I am not anxious to press the matter

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at this time, because I think that when the Committee reports will be the time for any opposition that we wish to make. But I am not at all happy about the attitude of the noble Earl the Leader of the House in this matter, and I shall remain in the hands of the noble Earl, Lord Arran, on whether we divide. I have said what I have to say, and I hope that any representations made in the Committee by the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, will receive great attention, because nobody knows better than he does the ancient habits and traditions of our House.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I should like to suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, that I do not think he will strengthen the point of his first speech, which I am sure will be read by the whole House, by proceeding to a Division. We have, after all, set up this Committee, and I find myself in agreement with what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell. On the whole, if you set up a Committee and believe in it, then, however good the instruction may be, you do not give any instruction, because you credit the Committee with sense. I do not believe it is the desire of this House that we should divide on this point. The noble Lord has given us a most interesting speech; I think he has served us well by so doing, and that he will serve us equally well if he does not press his Motion to a Division, but asks to withdraw it.
On Question, Motion negatived.

SINGAPORE BILL [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order).
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

MINISTRY OF SOCIAL SECURITY BILL
4.3 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. I do not want to say a great deal about the Bill to-day, but I should like,
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first, to thank noble Lords in general, on both sides of the House, for the constructive comments that have been made. Particularly, I would thank the noble Lords, Lord Drumalbyn and Lord Windlesham, not only for the way in which they have helped us in the consideration of the Bill at large, but for enabling us to improve its provisions in certain limited, though none the less important, respects.
The purpose of the Bill is one that we must all applaud. The new non-contributory benefits scheme will mean extra benefits for those who are now receiving National Assistance—people who by definition are among the less well-off members of the community. Then the new scheme is to be administered within the Ministry of Social Security, and this will mean an end to the separate and distinct nature of non-contributory payments, so that, in the long run, there will be a single pattern of offices dealing with the whole range of social security payments. Perhaps above all, the new scheme should—and we all hope will—mean that those old people who in the past have declined to accept National Assistance, though they could have had it, will in the future have no reason for holding back from claiming what is theirs by right, because the new supplementary pension to which they are entitled is so clearly set out in the Bill.
This Bill constitutes a thorough job of reform in the field of means-related benefits, but, as I have said, it will be an effective job of reform only if it removes, once and for all, reluctance and prejudice against claiming such benefits when one is entitled to them. This is why the new Ministry will be doing all it can, by means of an extensive publicity campaign in the national Press and elsewhere, to encourage old people to claim supplementary pensions. But Press publicity needs to be supplemented by the personal endeavour of all who are in touch with old people who are not so well off. I would therefore urge noble Lords, in the same way as did my right honourable friend in another place, and as I did at an earlier stage of the Bill, to take every opportunity to explain to the elderly in the months ahead what they can obtain as of right under the Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Bowles.)
4.6 p.m.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, I hope that I may be pardoned if I use the Third Reading of the Bill to ride a hobbyhorse of mine for a minute or two. I was unable to be present in your Lordships' House during most of the Committee stage of the Bill, and I was not here for any part of the Report stage. Therefore, it is only recently that I came across two words in the Bill that caused me some concern. They are on page 9, at line 33, and the two words are "illegitimate children". I am not concerned this afternoon to go into the principles of the Bill: I am completely convinced, as your Lordships all seem to be, that this is an extremely good Bill; and all of us who have represented constituencies in another place know the great value it will be to many of the poorer people in the community.
But with regard to these two words, my concern is that they are creeping into what will be a new Act of Parliament. My concern is that we continue in our country to use the term "illegitimate child". I have looked up the Oxford Dictionary, and I find that among the definitions of "illegitimate" are "not authorised by law"; "improper"; "abnormal"; "not born in lawful wedlock"; and the last definition, "bastard", has now become a swear word in our ordinary vocabulary. I cannot for the life of me see how, in this enlightened day, we should regard any child in our community as "not authorised by law". It may well be that the actions of the parents have not been authorised in a lawful way, but to tag this term on to any British child to-day seems to me to be a complete anachronism. I see nothing improper in the existence of a child who might have been born out of lawful wedlock.
In recent days we have had the Report of the Committee on the Law of Succession in relation to illegitimate persons. That very distinguished Committee, under the chairmanship of Lord Justice Russell, has indicated that it is desirable, in the case of a test of parents, that illegitimate children shall be considered for the inheritence. I understand that legislation is to be enacted to cover that point. This proves that going through the minds of many people to-day is the thought that we ought to tackle the question of these two words. I read the other day (I think in The Times newspaper) that in one of
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the Scandinavian countries the term was to be completely abolished in reference to the children of that country. I am concerned about the stigma which is constantly attached to children whom we call illegimate, and I believe that it is wrong that that term should be associated with any child to-day.
I had thought of trying to put down an Amendment to delete these words from the Bill. I confess that I was at a loss to find an alternative. I wondered whether it would be better to use the term, "born out of wedlock". But still that would stick, although I do not think it is nearly so bad as the term, "illegitimate". Because of my failure, which I confess, to find an alternative word, I must content myself, but I would ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in the compilation and the drafting of future legislation, where this term might arise, they could search, through the activities of their learned draftsmen, and use the knowledge of Ministers of the Crown, to find some different term, so that these two words may cease to be part of the vocabulary of our country. Your Lordships will forgive me, but I feel rather strongly on this matter. This term, I think, is completely out of date in the second half of the twentieth century and I appeal to my noble friend to suggest to Ministers who may be concerned for the future to proceed along the lines I have tried to indicate.
4.13 p.m.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I do not intend to detain your Lordships for many moments this afternoon. But there are one or two matters appropriate, I think, to this stage of the Bill about which I should like to say something before we finally part with it. In a sense, this Bill represents something like a turning point in the administration of this service; indeed, I think it is not too much to say that it represents a turning point in the administration of the social services as a whole. The Bill recognises that it is not possible to administer this service without some form of means test, however disagreeable a means test may be.
Noble Lords on the opposite side of the Chamber, and their friends, long entertained the view that it was possible for a basic scale rate to be adequate to meet the needs of everybody. That was

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an illusion which we inherited from Lord Beveridge. In this Bill we take leave of Lord Beveridge for good. The needs of individuals vary so widely that it is not possible for a uniform scale rate to meet the needs of all as we expect them to be met today. The scales which were recommended by Lord Beveridge in his Report were, as he said, scales which aimed at subsistence level, and nothing more than subsistence level. To-day, we have moved a long way from that. To-day the public would not accept a basic scale rate which aimed only at a subsistence level. We aim at something—and, indeed, have achieved—a good deal more than that.
But it is not practical administration to aim at something better than subsistence level unless the additional payment is paid after a means test. As I say, everyone to-day accepts the means test as an unavoidable condition of meeting adequately the needs of the poorest section of the population. Our task now, as the noble Lord said a moment ago, is to reconcile the public to the means test. Indeed, I hope that all of us will use such influence as we possess to induce persons who might otherwise be reluctant to do so to apply for the assistance to which they are entitled.
In achieving that result we might, I think, have had more help from some sections of the newspapers than we have had. When I was at the Assistance Board I used to read newspaper cuttings very freely. There was the case of a man who was charged with some trivial offence in the police court, and when the magistrates had convicted him and asked the police for the man's record, the police officer began by saying, "He is receiving National Assistance." It was not surprising that people came to look on National Assistance as something which was reserved for the work-shies, the "corner-boys", and all the rest of them. We did our best to disillusion them, and I think we achieved a measure of success. But it would have been a much easier task if we had had the help and assistance of some sections—and I emphasise "some sections"—of the newspapers. To-day, of course, a means test outside the field of this particular service is a very common thing. I suppose that all of us pass through a means test every year when our income tax is assessed. There is a means test for education
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grants and, if the Minister of Housing and Local Government has been correctly reported, there will soon be something very like a means test for municipal houses.
I welcome the proposals which the Bill contains for administering the means test. It will be possible for people to make an application in writing, if they desire to do so. No doubt there will be some who will prefer to apply in this way. The present method of obtaining the information by a personal visit was introduced for the express purpose of meeting the difficulties that many people experience in filling up forms. However, there it is; and if it helps to overcome the reluctance to apply for help—and I hope that it will—I think we should all welcome it. Then they may have an interview at the Board's local office. That has always been possible, and many people to-day go to the office rather than have an official call at the house.
If this Bill facilitates applications, it will be a useful contribution to the successful working of this service, but I do not myself believe that it is the application for assistance, or indeed the name "National Assistance", as is so often said, which prevents people from making application. I think the fundamental reason is that the payment is made after a means test. I believe there is some support for my view in the experience which the local authorities are having of administering the rate rebates which it is now possible for them to make. I have been told that the local authorities have found that only about half the persons who are probably entitled to rate rebates have made any application for them. Rate rebates, of course, are given after a means test, and I am afraid that to some extent supports my view that it is the condition of the means test which discourages people from applying for help. I hope I am wrong in this, and I am glad to hear the noble Lord say that the Department concerned—the new Ministry of Social Security—will pursue those methods of publicity which I tried to follow when I was there, and that they will overcome the objection to the means test and perhaps lessen the feeling which I believe to be present to-day among persons who refrain from applying for the help to which they are entitled.

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I have very little more to say. I would say a word about the survey of the financial and other circumstances of retirement pensions which is being produced by the Ministry of National Insurance with the assistance of the National Assistance Board. I think there is some misunderstanding in people's minds about the numbers of persons who are entitled to assistance but who are refraining from applying. The survey shows that although there are 710,000 households, representing something like 850,000 pensioners who have some title to assistance, they are not all, by any means, without resources or living in poverty. From this figure of 710,000 households there has to be deducted those for whom the gap between their needs and their resources is bridged by some other form of resource. It may be a disregarded source; or it may be, again, that they are living with relatives who supply many of the things which the householder would normally have to purchase himself; or, again, it may be, as the report shows, that many of them possess some small capital resources and are not making application until those resources are exhausted.
When account is taken of all those classes of person, the report concludes that the actual number of persons who appear to be living on the pension without assistance and to have no other resources is only 85,000. Of course, 85,000 is a large number, and we should like to see those 85,000 persons, if they possess no other resources, assisted by the new Ministry of Social Security. But out of the very large number of old age pensioners in the country to-day, I think the authorities have not done too badly if they have reduced the number of those who possess no resources except the pension to a figure of 85,000. All sorts of figures have been mentioned, and I regret to say that when the Election was in sight the number tended to increase. Indeed, I read one speech during the Election in which it was claimed that over a million persons were living on the pension without other resources. That certainly was an exaggeration. I think the noble Lord himself mentioned a figure of 200,000 in the Second Reading debate. It is important to appreciate what this survey has actually disclosed, and I think that, on
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the whole, the authorities are not to be blamed if the numbers have been reduced to as low as 85,000.
That is all I desire to say. I welcome this Bill; I hope it will succeed. I hope that in the rather dismal forecast which I have made about some aspects of it I shall be proved to be wrong and that this Bill will overcome those tantalising and difficult problems with which I struggled when I was at the National Assistance Board.
4.25 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I think the House is fortunate to have the benefit of the advice of the noble Lord who has played such a distinguished part in meeting the need: I refer to my noble friend, Lord Ilford, who for ten years was Chairman of the National Assistance Board. This Bill, of course, spells the end of the National Assistance Board. As the noble Lord, Lord Bowles, has said, the Bill is designed to meet need in a new way, and we welcome that very much indeed.
There have been many lengthy debates on various subjects in the course of the passage of this Bill through this House, and for my part I would only repeat one or two questions which I asked and which, if I may say so, have not been fully answered. The first of them is this. I asked whether Clause 17(3) was still considered to be apt for its purpose. That is the clause which says:
"Where it appears to the Commission that it is necessary for protecting the interests of a claimant or of his dependants that the whole or part of the benefit should be issued to some other person, or where the claimant so requests, they may determine that it shall be so issued."
I gave my reasons for thinking that it might be held that the clause did not cover every case where a payment of this kind might be made by the Board direct to some other person. This arose out of the debate on payments to landlords. The noble Lord gave me an answer then, but I think it was his intention at that time to look further into the matter, and I hope that, after the further consideration which has no doubt been given, he will be able to give me a further reply on that point.
The second point I wanted to raise arose out of the debate which we had at

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the end of the Committee stage, when we were talking about the payments to be made by persons in residential accommodation. I would ask whether the local authorities have the power to accept voluntary payments from a person in residential accommodation over and above the amounts existing under Section 22(5) of the National Assistance Act and in accordance with Part III of Schedule 2 to this Bill. I have come across cases where people have been anxious, for conscientious or generous reasons or other reasons, to make payments over and above their legal liabilities, and it has been found that such payments cannot be accepted. That is why I asked this question, because I think that in some cases people in residential accommodation who feel that they can afford to pay the full amount might wish to do so.
From those minor points I come to two more significant points. Emphasis has been laid, quite rightly, on the part that the Bill is designed to play in drawing those who are not at present receiving National Assistance although entitled to it into the ambit of National Assistance under its new name. I should like to ask broadly—I admit this is in a way a rhetorical question—whether the measures in this Bill will be effective in getting the great majority of those elderly people who would receive assistance if they applied for it, people who are already past pension age, to come forward and apply for it. This, of course, as I say, is a rhetorical question and a question to which time alone can provide the answer. But I would say it is one thing to confer a right, and it is quite a different thing to get people to exercise it.
We discussed at an earlier stage whether a duty should be laid upon people to take these benefits. I am sure that would not be right. Even if we placed this duty on people, I cannot conceive there would be any means of enforcing it or ensuring that they performed the duty. But there will still undoubtedly be people who, given the other income which can be disregarded, as stated in the report on the financial and other circumstances of retirement pensioners, feel that they can manage on what they have and prefer to do so.
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The two measures in the Bill that are designed to encourage people to apply seem to me to be, first of all, the change of name of the present National Assistance allowances to supplementary pensions; and, secondly, the consolidation of the discretionary payments for special need into the addition of 9s. to the basic requirements. I think it is right to ask whether these measures will be effective in getting the great majority of elderly people to apply. There are, of course, the administrative steps, one of which my noble friend has referred to, and there are also the single payment books to cover both contributory and non-contributory benefits, and the steps to be taken to ensure that as everyone reaches entitlement age he or she is told of entitlement to non-contributory benefits if their resources fall below a certain level. To that the noble Lord has added this afternoon a statement that there is to be a national advertising campaign when the scheme comes into operation. That I am glad to hear, and I am sure that everyone will respond to his invitation to encourage people to make application wherever they feel they may.
All these steps are well suited to encourage those who have not yet reached retirement age to claim non-contributory benefit if they are entitled to it; but in themselves, apart from the national advertising campaign—and I am not certain how much that will do—they will do nothing to help those already past retirement age to claim if they are entitled to claim. I would say that we still regret that a clear duty on the Government is not laid down in the Bill to seek out such people. The inquiry into the financial and other circumstances of retirement pensioners by the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance—if I may correct a verbal slip of my noble friend, I believe he said the Ministry of Housing and Local Government—showed that, of retirement pensioners, over one-third did not know or understand they were entitled to help, and that over one-fifth did not apply because of pride or dislike of charity. The only way, it seems to me, to get such people to apply is to seek them out and explain the situation to them. This has to be done by someone, and of course literature distributed to ministers of religion, doctors and to social workers can help a good deal.

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At this stage I would refer to the point made by my noble friend Lord Windlesham regarding the literature. One of the most difficult things for people who are very closely associated with the subject is to make a clear statement to people who know nothing about it. This, I think, applies to the staffs of Ministries. It is a good thing for officials in Departments to inform others, intermediaries if you like, expert at dealing with the public, and let them put out the information that they obtain in a manner which can be clearly understood by the public; I commend my noble friend's suggestion to the Ministry. I know this is done to a certain extent, but I think it can be done more than it is.
I would make the point that the people who are covered by the inquiry were all retired pensioners, and I suspect that a much higher proportion of non-pensioners entitled to supplements but not receiving them need to have explained to them that there is no shame attached to an Exchequer subsidy of this kind, especially where their resources have been eroded by inflation. What we have felt, I think, is that not sufficient provision has been made in the Bill to deal with this particular aspect; that is, for those who are not receiving retirement pension, those who are not on the books, of whom there is no record. It seems to me that this is the weak point of the Bill.
The other main question is this, and it is a question which perhaps has not been sufficiently probed, although I referred to it on Second Reading. The noble Lord, Lord Sorensen had a lot of points to answer, and I do not blame him for not giving me an answer at that time. But do the Government regard the relationship between non-contributory and contributory benefit which the Bill establishes to be the correct one? The noble Lord claimed that this Bill is one step of a series of changes designed to bring our social security system up to date; first, the earnings related benefits for the unemployed and the sick; now this. The noble Lord has indicated that the Government intend in due course to introduce the third step in the trilogy, one which had not been planned by the previous Government, unlike the earnings related benefit for the unemployed—that is, the earnings related pension scheme.
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In this Bill the Government have raised the basic requirements just above the level of contributory benefit. In practice any pensioner whose resources fall short of basic requirements plus rent will receive a bonus of 9s., as I understand it. I do not think we have ever had from the Government an explanation of why they have raised the non-contributory basic requirements above the contributory level of benefits, or what it portends for the future. I might ask whether they have done it for the same reasons as in the past. National Assistance rates have occasionally risen above National Insurance levels. The reason was that the cost of living had risen since the National Insurance benefits were last increased, and it has often been the practice, in the interval between the increases in National Insurance benefit, to raise National Assistance benefit. That might be one reason. Or do they consider that non-contributory benefits should be above basic contributory benefits? If so, do they intend to increase the disparity in favour of non-contributory benefits, or do they intend to maintain the relationship established by this Bill? Or, quite simply, have they not yet made up their minds?
The Bill throws into relief this question of fixing the level of National Assistance, whatever you like to call it, because under Section 6 of the National Assistance Act it is for the National Assitance Board to prepare and submit to the Minister draft regulations as to the computation of requirements and resources, and for the Minister to make regulations—and I quote:
"either in the form of the draft as submitted, or with such variations and amendments as he thinks fit."
This Bill lays down the requirements and empowers the Minister to alter them by regulations. The effect of the change is, I think, an important one. It is that, at least in form, the calculation of requirements, the fixing of the basic scales, is taken out of the hands of the non-political body and put into those of a politician.
There has in the past been considerable pressure for the minimum living standards to be determined by an outside impartial body in relation to certain price and economic indicators, and of course the same argument has been

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applied to the National Insurance pension. In practice, the National Assistance level has never varied widely from the National Insurance pension. There was a period, from 1952 onwards, when the National Assistance level was above the National Insurance pension, the National Insurance pension having fallen back in the years prior to 1951. In this Bill the two are brought into line, although retirement pensioners and those who have been out of the employment field for more than two years are, as I have said, given an extra 9s. to cover special needs.
We may disagree about the way in which people should be encouraged or enabled to make provision for themselves in their old age without recourse to the Exchequer, whether through the State-organised scheme or through private provisions of one sort or another. But what I think we all consider a desirable objective is that people should make such provision in some way, and that, to the extent they do so, as time goes on the need for Exchequer supplementation under this Bill should be considerably diminished. What seems important is that we should find some means of avoiding in the future political wrangles as to the level to which increases should be raised by Exchequer assistance. What I am asking is whether the Government consider that the level now reached is the right level in relation to National Insurance, and, if so, how they propose to maintain it. It seems inevitable that for some time to come there should be disagreement about the nature of National Insurance provision, but I believe it to be wholly undesirable that the level of immediate needs should be a matter for vote-catching, because we are all anxious that minimum needs should be met. As standards of living rise, so the living standards should be raised. Surely, in this scientific age we can deal with the problem of that level, and what the level should be at any particular time, in a scientific way.
I would conclude by saying that we have given this Bill a welcome, and we are glad that, despite the economic circumstances, the Government are giving financial help for the poorest and the weakest. I personally still regret that the Government have felt it necessary to do away with the distinction between
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contributory and non-contributory benefits. I hope that we all share the objective that people should be encouraged to make provision for themselves without recourse to Exchequer supplements. I also hope that we all share the view that those who are unable to provide for themselves a sufficient amount without recourse to Exchequer supplements should not hesitate to have recourse to them. I do not think that the removal of the distinction contributes to that end. I believe that this is a blemish on an otherwise good Bill.
I hope that the noble Lord will be able to deal with these points. I consider that the last point that I have raised is an important one, and his reply on it will give some indication for the future of what are the Government's ideas for the planning of social security services. I have little doubt that, as time goes on, the objectives indicated in our Manifesto, that there should be one broad service looking after social security, to include insurance, other pensions, industrial injuries and health, will all be brought together with suitable provision for their administration. I believe that this is the objective to work for. I believe that the Government are now taking a step in that direction, and to the extent that they are taking that step we welcome it.
4.46 p.m.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, we have had a most interesting Third Reading debate, and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in it. First of all, may I say to my noble friend Lord Royle, who raised the question of the words "illegitimate children", that, as he knows, this point was raised on Second Reading by the noble Lord, Lord Soper. The difficulty is that this is a rather smaller piece of legislation than the substantive legislation, and I think it would be quite inappropriate in a Bill of this kind to change the wording, as has been suggested. It needs to be looked at in a much wider sense, and probably some general consolidation legislation may in the future be introduced which would cover the point raised by my noble friends.
My noble friend Lord Sorensen whispered to me that the phrase "natural children" is sometimes used. That might be better and less offensive

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than "illegitimate children" or "bastards". But that is a matter to which no doubt—and I can promise this—the Government will give serious consideration. The noble Lord, Lord Ilford, in his most helpful, useful and learned speech, referred to the means test and compared it with the means test in the old days. I think that if he casts his mind back he will realise that what we really objected to most was the family means test. I dare say the noble Lord will remember that in the old days they used to search around to see whether a person had a sister or an aunt or somebody who could be called upon to keep him, rather than let him have assistance. That is a principle to which we strongly objected, and we still do. But I think we have all come round to the idea that a means test for the individual who is seeking supplementary benefit for himself is at the moment the only sensible and correct test which we can apply and of which I think society as a whole would approve. In those circumstances, I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the point. I see that he is nodding assent; he rather agrees with what I am saying.
I was interested that he should have read to us the figures showing the reduction in numbers to 85,000 of pensioners who live solely on their old age pensions. As he said, this shows how thoroughly the work of the officers of the Board has been carried out. It also shows, from the figures I gave, and which he also mentioned, that of 850,000 pensioners entitled to assistance, perhaps one-tenth of the households are living solely on their pensions, which shows that these people are really being sought out thoroughly. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will see in these figures some answers to the points that he has raised and which have been rather worrying him through each of the stages of this Bill. The noble Lord raised the question of Clause 17(3), about which we had a long debate on the last occasion. The Government are satisfied that that subsection is quite appropriate for its purpose. I shall be glad to write to the noble Lord in more detail as to the point he raised about payments to be made to local authorities by people in residential accommodation. I am not at the moment
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in a position during this Third Reading debate to go into sufficient detail to satisfy the noble Lord's very critical mind.
I must make it quite clear that Her Majesty's Government are as anxious as anybody, and certainly as keen as the noble Lord, to see that the people entitled to supplementary pensions are sought out. In fact, the main objectives of this Bill are first of all to get rid of the words "National Assistance", then to have the one book, and then to get everybody we possibly can to try to draw these matters to the attention of the old people who are not drawing all they are entitled to. We feel that every form of publicity should be given so that they may know their rights, emphasising that there is no shame involved in this and that in fact it is foolish for them not to draw what they are entitled to. The sort of attitude "I am entitled to another 5s. a week, or whatever it may be, but I am not going to take it" seems not like normal human nature. It may well be that in time any sneer or smear in relation to National Assistance will be lost sight of.
I have already mentioned many times the question of publicity; I have drawn attention to the advertising campaign and have made other statements about this at various times. There is going to be a national campaign this autumn; this is the only way we can reach non-pensioners. The noble Lord will be interested to know that it is also intended that every retirement pensioner, whatever his age, shall receive a leaflet in the autumn explaining the new supplementary pension. The explanatory leaflet will be handed over to pensioners when they collect their pensions at the Post Office during a particular week in the autumn.
As to the question raised by the noble Lord about the future relationship between contributory and non-contributory benefits, this raises major questions of policy on which the noble Lord would not expect me to pronounce this afternoon. He made a long speech, and I shall not now try to answer it all in detail. I will write to him on any points that I may have overlooked, because the House wants to get on to other business. But I can assure the House that his speech, as all speeches which have been made from all parts of the House, will be borne in mind when it comes to preparing the next step in the social security

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legislation. We want to learn from one another in these debates. It does not matter which Party knowledge comes from, whether Conservative, Labour, the Cross-Benches or Independent—whoever it may be, we want as much information, advice and help from noble Lords as possible, so that when we come to prepare the next Bill in the march forward in social security we shall be able to do even better than we have this time.
On Question, Bill read 3a with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

THE ESTATE AGENTS' PROFESSION
4.55 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL THE EARL OF KINNOULL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they consider any, and if so what, steps should be taken to regulate the estate agents profession. The noble Earl said: My Lords, it is indeed an honour that an Unstarred Question should come before the House at such an early stage of the day; in fact, many Members of the House might almost regard it as a half-day. Before I explain my purpose in putting down this Unstarred Question on the control of estate agents, perhaps I should disclose that part of my professional work is connected with estate agency business. Having said that, I should like also to say that the Question is asked wholly at my own instigation, and not on behalf of any of the professional bodies. It is a subject which I believe is in need of the most urgent legislation, and I very much hope that when the noble Lord comes to reply he will, first of all, be able to assure the House that the Government recognise the urgency of the problem; secondly, that the Government accept the responsibility that any legislation which comes forward should be in the form of a Government Bill and not a Private Member's Bill; and, lastly, that they will introduce such legislation in the very near future.
It is no exaggeration to say that the reform of the estate agency profession has been discussed in Parliament for almost as long as the reform of your Lordships'House—and, indeed, if I may say so, it has not had such rapid or such marked success. Over eighty years ago, in 1880, the first Bill was introduced
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to control the practice of estate agents and was rejected. Since then four Bills have been introduced, namely, in 1913, 1923, 1963 and January of this year, 1966, all of which foundered. On top of that, a Select Committee of your Lordships' House was set up in 1935 to study the existing laws regarding estate agents.
I have studied the reasons why, so far, no legislation has come forward, and I think it comes down to four basic reasons: first, that until January, 1966, no Government of the day would accept the responsibility for any legislation on the matter, taking the view that estate agents should put their own house in order; secondly, that there was a strong suspicion from members outside the professional bodies that any legislation would bring about a "closed shop" and would be for the benefit of the professional members more than for the benefit of the public; thirdly, that the professional bodies themselves, up to 1963, could never agree on the form which any legislation should take, and lastly, and perhaps most important of all, that people considered estate agency not as a profession but purely as a commercial venture which should be entitled to the same amount of commercial freedom as other commercial ventures enjoy.
The House will be aware that the job of an estate agent is to buy, sell, value or manage urban and rural property. It is an immensely variable profession. At one moment one is discussing the sale of a small residential flat, and at the next one might be discussing the sale of the Hilton Hotel. On another day one will be collecting rents, and on yet another day will be valuing a client's reversionary interest in a property. All this requires knowledge beyond just the knowledge of the market value of property. It requires a knowledge of the law of the land, the law of contract, the law of landlord and tenant, the law of town and country planning, and a knowledge of building construction. The estate agent often finds himself in the unique and responsible position of advising on what to most people is the most important investment in their lives, their home. I suggest that the estate agent's job requires the highest integrity, and there is no doubt in my mind that an estate agency can be regarded only as a profession and, like other professions, should be governed by statutory authority. Yet it is well-known to your

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Lordships that at present there is absolutely no control over estate agency, and the gate is wide open.
There are roughly three categories of estate agencies: first, the members of the professional bodies, such as the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and the Chartered Land Agents' Society, who are bound by their own professional codes. Then, secondly, there are what I call the part-timers—the architects, the solicitors and the accountants. Again, they are bound by their professional codes. Lastly, there is the group, varying from the honest to the dishonest, who are not bound by any code of conduct, and this category of course attracts both the scrupulous and the unscrupulous person, those with or without integrity and with or without any proper knowledge of their work. There are to-day over 30,000 estate agents practising in this country, of which about one-third come in the last category, and it is this body which has brought the profession into such disrepute.
It is interesting to note that complaints against estate agents are to-day very similar to the complaints that were made in 1935, before the Select Committee of your Lordships'House—misappropriation of deposit funds, the charging of unwarrantable fees well over the professional scales, mock auctions and incompetence. All of these occur to-day as they did in 1935 and they will continue to occur, to the hardship of innocent people, until something is done. The only difference now from 1935 is that in 1935 auctioneers and house agents had to take out an annual licence, and the Select Committee then recommended that power should be given to withdraw those licences if there was evidence of malpractice. This recommendation could not be carried out to-day because the licences were abolished in 1948.
Abuses in conduct by estate agents vary from sheer dishonesty to just incompetent practice. The most common dishonest practice, and one about which one reads almost weekly and certainly monthly, is that the agent disappears with the deposit funds of clients. I have not been able to establish an accurate figure of the number of cases of dishonest agents, but I assure the House that the frequency of court cases is very disturbing and perhaps even more disturbing is the number
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of unknown cases which never reach the courts. On the question of incompetence, the damage that can result from bad or unscrupulous advice can, of course, be immense. By putting money into their house people are often putting at risk their entire life savings, and if they lose part of that capital as a result of poor advice there is usually very little they can do.
There is one point which I should like to raise with the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, to-day, and that is what the energetic Minister of Housing suggested some months ago in regard to local councils setting up their own estate agencies. If this should come about, I believe it will be a most serious infringement of the livelihoods of all those engaged in full-time estate agency. It would open the door, I suggest, to a free service of, say, solicitors and barristers and any other profession one cares to name. It would be a most costly operation to the ratepayers, and altogether thoroughly impracticable. I would appreciate the noble Lord's comments on this, and should like to know whether, in fact, it is the Government's intention to press forward with this idea.
As I said at the beginning, in the past three years, there have been two private Bills on this subject, both introduced in another place and both sponsored by the professonal bodies. The intention of each Bill was to enforce the registration of estate agents, to lay down a standard of competence and conduct, and to set up a compensation fund for the benefit of the public. The first Bill foundered on its Second Reading when it was talked out. The second Bill, considered in January of this year, was amended to embrace the arguments of those opposed to the first Bill, and it duly received a Second Reading in another place. At that time the Government spokesman gave his official blessing with these words:
"that is a subject in which the Government recognise that we have a responsibility to legislate. Indeed, if the Government were not already committed to a very large legislative programme, we ourselves might have wished to introduce a Bill on the subject."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. Commons, Vol. 723. col. 627; 28/1/66.]
The Bill then went to Committee, but was lost when the General Election was called. So one might say that, but for Parliamentary procedure, this Bill could well be on the Statute Book now.
It is no secret that the two Private Bills sponsored by the professional bodies have cost those bodies over £15,000 of their voluntary funds, and I would now suggest that it is the Government's turn to take up that last Bill and find time to see it through all its stages. Since the General Election the professional bodies have again been pressing the Government to take action. The latest position, as I have read from a Press statement—and, perhaps, the noble Lord will confirm this later—is that the professional bodies have apparently accepted that there is no room in Government legislation for such a Bill at the present time. So what they have suggested is setting up a voluntary estate agents' council at their own expense, if the Board of Trade will give it its official blessing.
I have lead that the council would prepare a standard of conduct and would eventually issue licences to all its members, and request them to take out fidelity bonds. Members would in turn enjoy the privilege of displaying a Board of Trade insignia to the public, and then, through consistent publicity, it is hoped that the public would be educated to deal only with members of this council. But much as one welcomes this move of the professional bodies, it is surely only an expensive compromise and would merely delay the taking of legislative action by the Government, which is their clear duty. The proposed council, because of its voluntary nature, would have no control over the very fish it wishes to net—that is, the unscrupulous agents—and those agents would continue to go unharmed. The success of the council would entirely depend on the public's reaction and response.
The case for reform of the estate agents' profession has been discussed, as I have said, for over eighty years, and I believe that now the case is undisputed that reform should take place. I would ask the Government to-day why it is, when they accepted responsibility for legislation last January, and when they accepted that it was clearly in the public interest that control should be enforced, they are still dragging their feet. I should be grateful if, when the noble Lord comes to reply, he would give the House a clear indication of when the Government intend to bring forward this legislation, legislation which
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I submit is both important and long overdue.
5.8 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I rise to add just a few words to what the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has said on this subject, and I am speaking to-day as the Chairman of the Consumer Council. I am going to put to your Lordships' House some of the comments which the Council have made, and I know that in what I say to-day I have their support.
I think the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has made a very strong case for doing something in this very important matter. My Council became involved in this subject only in connection with the Bill which, in another place, was supported very strongly by the members of all Parties, and which was taken a long way in the last Parliament. So far did it get that, as the noble Earl has said, if it had not been for the Dissolution of Parliament I feel fairly confident that the Bill would by now have been law.
In connection with the advice which we were asked to give and the inquiries which the Council made, we consulted a great number of different bodies—the estate agents' societies, of which there are a considerable number; chartered surveyors; and an important survey, made by the Research Institute for Consumer Affairs, known as RICA, which made a survey on estate agents. All that we could discover has been most ably recounted by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and we felt very strongly that the Bill which had been presented in another place was a good Bill. It was one which we should have liked to see go through Parliament, and we think there is a strong case for legislation.
There are just one or two comments I should like to make. The chartered bodies would like a minimum standard of professional competence, and also the registration of estate agents. The Consumer Council was not opposed to the registration of estate agents provided that a sufficient number of the public were members of the registration council. Under the last Bill, the number representing the professional bodies and the estate agents was greatly in excess of the number representing the general public—the consumers, one might say, of the

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service provided by estate agents. By putting some pressure upon those who were interested in the Bill, we got them to agree to a larger number of representatives of the public on the registration council. This, I think, would have made the registration council an effective and a fair body.
The inquiry by RICA, to which I have referred, showed that among many estate agents there was a lack of knowledge as to the qualifications and standards necessary for the practice of estate agency, and it revealed a number of matters to which the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has alluded and which I think build up a good case for some legislation. On the question of registration, we were concerned that there should be representation of the general public: otherwise we felt we might be creating a closed shop on the registration council which could militate against the public interest.
A question was raised about maximum charges, and my Council, on going into this matter carefully, thought that this would be a mistake, since limiting charges might create some kind of monopoly. As a matter of fact, at the present moment the fees which are charged by estate agents are being reviewed by the Monopolies Commission, and my Council may possibly be giving evidence in this matter. In any case, we were not in favour of maximum charges being laid down, because, in practice, as one knows, maximum charges can very easily become minimum charges, and there may be a certain amount of abuse. It is interesting that in Scotland the buying and selling of houses is often done through solicitors without the aid of estate agents, and with apparent success.
I think that if the Government are interested in this subject, as I hope they are, they will realise that it is one in which the protection of the public is urgently needed. I did not know until I heard the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, how many times legislation had been brought forward in the last eighty years, and how long this matter had been under discussion. To-day, when the buying and selling of houses is done on a very considerable scale, and when, as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has said, young people just starting their
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married lives are probably putting a considerable proportion of their savings into buying a house which may have to last them a great many years, it is very important that they should have some protection from the dishonest members of the house agents' profession.
I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, that we are not saying that the house agents' profession as such is not an honest profession—I am quite sure it is—but there are a certain number of house agents (I think he gave the figure of one-third) whose standards we should not consider to be right or proper, and of whom the public may very often be victims. So I hope that the Government will take this matter seriously and that we shall have some legislation for the protection of the public.
5.16 p.m.
LORD MITCH1SON: My Lords, I am sure we have all listened with great interest and a good deal of gratitude to the speeches of the noble Earl who put this Question and the noble Baroness, who put forward the views of the Consumer Council as well as her own views. My Lords, there was in fact one piece of legislation which did get through. The trouble with house agents has been very largely in the big towns, and particularly in London. Indeed, for some years after the war jokes about house agents almost reached the status of the old music-hall jokes about mothers-in-law and cheeses; and there was a great deal of work which, although one would not call it actually dishonest, was in some cases pretty inefficient and resulted in people paying house agents for something they never got. What they wanted was a house. They may have got many other things, but not that.
In 1953, the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, introduced in another place a Private Member's Bill which finally became the Accommodation Agencies Act of that year. It was introduced as an Act of limited duration, and perhaps the best testimony to the need for it, and to its usefulness, is that it has been continued from year to year; and I think I am right in saying that it is still in force. It has not been a dead letter; there have been occasional prosecutions under it. I refer to the Act because I think it illustrates as well as anything can the sort of

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difficulty one is in when dealing with this kind of question. I am not going to read the Act out, short though it is, but its Title described it as
"An Act to prohibit the taking of certain commissions in dealings with persons seeking houses or flats to let and the unauthorised advertisement for letting of houses and flats."
I think that indicates the kind of mischief that the Act was intended to meet.
As I say, it seems to have had, within that rather limited field, considerable success, and I think the existence of legislation of this kind raises the question that was behind both the speeches we have just heard: assuming that there is something wrong, who is the right person, and what is the right machinery, to deal with it? In this particular case Parliament itself went into the matter. The Act does not go into any great detail, but it goes into sufficient detail to enable criminal prosecutions to be laid and to enable people to know what they can do within the law. It goes, for instance, among other things, into the question of the solicitor who, whether in England or in Scotland (for the Act applies to Scotland as well as to England), is, in effect, an agent for dealing with houses.
For many years, of course, hairdressers badly wanted to be registered—and they had a case. They said that it was essential to have clean hairdressers. They said: "We ought to be controlled to some extent; and we ourselves are the best people to do it". But such a situation may result—and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, very fairly pointed it out—in those who are already in the profession keeping out others who might be good recruits to it.
I am not saying this in any critical spirit, but the person referred to as an estate agent may be all kinds of person—I think that came out from the speech that we have just heard. He may be a member of a chartered body, with considerable standing, claiming that his, at any rate, is a profession. But there are other people, doing the same kind of thing, as a rule on a smaller scale, and in a different sort of way, whom I think one would hardly describe as professional people; yet they are estate agents. One has to ensure that no useful and honest activity in this sphere, even though it is on a small scale, is ruled out for lack of professional qualifications. I was not greatly
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impressed by the amount of law that estate agents are supposed to know; because I rather doubt whether, as a rule, they do know it. Whether that is so or not, it is a difficult matter to lay down the right standards.
Then it is said that the profession, or (to use a neutral word) calling, can do it for themselves. I doubt it in a case of this kind. What they tend to do is just what the noble Baroness described. I did not know of the particular case she mentioned; but I guessed that that is what would happen. They wanted to set up a controlling body, with a few members of the public and a great many of themselves. An alternative would be to put in somebody from the Board of Trade, but as a rule the Board of Trade "will not play". I do not know what my noble friend the Minister is going to say about it; but this idea has been tried also in another calling. We have recently had a move by travel agents to get something of this sort done. Travel agents, again, are a very mixed collection of people. Some are much better and more efficient than others; some, I am afraid, have recently been hauled up in criminal proceedings.
My Lords, one cannot expect a body of that very mixed character, whether they are hairdressers, estate agents or travel agents, to deal with the matter for themselves. The question is whether a body with powers to let people into and out of the calling is the right sort of body. All I want to say on this is that in this particular case I think it might prove extremely difficult to get a satisfactory body from within the calling. I notice that Parliament itself, as the noble Earl pointed out, has taken the responsibility of, at any rate, looking into the matter and, in the particular case I have just mentioned, the Act of 1953, laying down some guidance to prevent abuse. That seems to me to be one possibility that might usefully be considered. But I must say to the noble Earl, having spent a certain number of years in another place, that I should not reckon as very high his chances of getting Government time for a Bill of this sort. It is not possible in Parliament as it is nowadays to deal with everything, but there is machinery for Private Members' Bills (of which the 1953 Act was an instance)

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which enables things to be done in that way where there is a broad measure of agreement.
I do not agree that this matter ought to be kept out of the purview of the local authorities. It seems to me to be a great mistake to try to deal with the changing of hands of houses of one kind in the council office—as they have to deal not only with council houses but also with the other accommodation which almost any council in a big town must have at its disposal—and the dealing with exchanges or sales of houses in private hands. I think, therefore, that while one ought not to say that the local authority is necessarily the one right body to deal with every case it would be an advantage if, as my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing seems to have suggested, there were arrangements at the town hall for something of this sort to be done.
I do not expect to carry the noble Earl with me, but I am sure that he will be the first person to recognise that the more reputable we can make the business altogether, the better, in the long run, it will be for the profession. It seems to me that they will have plenty to do. I do not think the councils are going to take the bread out of their mouths or the fees out of their pockets. The transactions vary, from the sale of a very large house—with which a local authority is hardly likely to be concerned—to the rather small transaction where, again, these estate agents may not be concerned. I am thinking of cases where people may be hunting to find the kind of house they require, and do not know how to do it—the sort of business that depends on advertising in tobacconists' shops, and the like, which we know about all over London.
I hope, therefore, that when the societies and others, and the Consumer Council itself, are considering this matter they will, if I may say so with deference, remember (as I am sure they will) that this is a very human question. It is the sort of thing for which Parliament is bound to have a responsibility and the sort of thing for which the local authority, as a housing authority, is also bound to have a kind of responsibility. Therefore they will not feel satisfied with laying down codes of conduct on their own, or
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with securing the representation of the public by putting some members of the public on a professional body; because I do not think that that would do what is required. The best representation for a purpose of this kind is the elected representation of a local council. It is very much better than trying to find half a dozen people who may be taken to represent the public.
I must say, speaking personally, that I should be very glad to see something introduced to deal with the abuses which still exist, whether it is done by amending the 1953 Act or by something more. I should also welcome, again speaking only for myself, some sort of council of an advisory character which could advise the local authority and the Ministry. I do not know what my noble friend is going to say; but the Board of Trade have a terrible lot on their plate, as have the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. I incline to the feeling that the best way to do this would be to try to give powers to the local council. I hope the noble Earl, to whom I am grateful for raising this matter, will not think me frivolous if I say that that was what the hairdressers always wanted.
5.29 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARO: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I should like to say that I do not think his comparison between the hairdressers and the estate agents was really very apt. It is true that a hairdresser may cut your hair badly, but it soon grows again. He could, I suppose, give you some appalling concoction which would send you bald, but in that case you could always get damages. But an estate agent, if he is a crook, can get hold of some very guillible individual and can run him into an expenditure of very many thousands of pounds. After all, we have a great many qualified professional men who have to be registered. One could as well say, "Why not allow anybody to practise as a chartered accountant? "I support my noble friend. I agree that the Board of Trade and the Government have their hands full at this moment, especially the Government, but that is not really any excuse for not trying to prevent frauds on innocent people.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Viscount? I am grateful that he mentioned chartered

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accountants, because it reminded me to say something that I ought to have said before. It seems to me that chartered accountants, solicitors and various other professional people have statutory duties. A chartered accountant has, in connection with the accounts of companies, for instance; and solicitors, obviously, have an enormous stautory responsibility. I think that is the difference between that kind of profession and what we are considering here. So far as I know, estate agents have not any serious statutory responsibility.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, they may not have a statutory responsibility, but one responsibility they have is mortgage valuations.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I will not prolong the debate, but I wanted to make that point about comparing hairdressers and estate agents. I thought it was rather a wide comparison.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I would suggest to my noble friend that if his simile with the hairdressers is not to be pressed, perhaps that with the plumbers might more aptly be pressed. I believe they have been pressing for registration for as long as the estate agents have. Parliament has always shown itself extremely tender in this matter, for fear, as the noble Earl has very fairly said, of establishing a closed shop; one which could, and very easily might, exclude eligible people who ought to be admitted to the profession.
5.33 p.m.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the debate and for rising to say just a few words. I do not believe that any noble Lord who has spoken has ever been a member of a firm where estate agency was part of the business. I was, and still am, a member of the Chartered Surveyors' Institution, although I have not practised for a long time and when I was in practice I was not what would, broadly speaking, be called an estate agent; none the less, I probably come a little nearer the profession than most other noble Lords in the Chamber to-day. I therefore hope I may be excused if I take up two or three minutes.
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I wound up the Second Reading debate for the Promoters of the first of the two Private Bills which have been referred to, which was lost on Second Reading. The Bill was lost on Second Reading because there is a fringe of the estate agents' profession, a fringe of so-called estate agents, who adopt a commercial attitude to the business as against a professional attitude which is the line that the chartered body to which I belong has always taken. This is a difficulty which we have to consider, where to draw the line, because estate agency can be practised in this country by people with no training and no experience, and so at present there in no protection for the public at all.
What I do not think has been mentioned, and it is extremely distressing to the chartered bodies, is that there are those who, for one reason or another, have had membership of a chartered body taken away from them because of a breach of the code of conduct. There is no reason for these people to do anything except to rubout the word "chartered" from their brass plate and carry on the next day doing exactly the same as the day before. That is the sort of situation which we wish to see improved.
One always feels that those who practise the law put themselves on a pedestal when it comes to considering the professions of others. I am not going to pursue that with the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, now, although members of the chartered bodies are frequently cited in Statutes as arbitrators and are given other duties, and so it is not quite right, I think, to suggest that the reputable branch of the estate agents' profession does not have responsible statutory obligations.
In conclusion, may I say that I hope the time is not too far distant when we can find not only Parliamentary time but a way of ensuring a proper standard for the profession, not principally for the benefit of those who work in the profession and follow it for their living, but for the benefit of the public at large and the country generally. I think that important. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, that all of this is best done by some sort of local authority lay help. I think we should approach it from a proper professional outlook and

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treat it as a serious subject which demands public attention and some Government help before too much time has flown by. Then I think we shall have done something very much for the general benefit.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, would the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, accept from me before he sits down that I did not mean to say, and do not think I did say, "all of this", but "some of this"?
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I am sorry if I misunderstood the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison. I did come into the Chamber after his speech had started. If I misunderstood him, the fault is mine.
5.35 p.m.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, we have had seven speakers and four have brought in the claims of other professions or industries. It shows the difficulties that surround the subject. The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who raised this topic, is in possession of information which I gave to him last Monday when he came to the Board of Trade to seek information, and I am not able to say a lot in reply. I shall divulge the reasons in a few minutes. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, said he was in some difficulty about one part of his problem, but his problem is nothing compared with mine because I am inhibited on this occasion.
I do not think there is any doubt that there is in this House a body of opinion on the question of consumer protection and the interest of the consumer which is unexcelled anywhere else. This House has a first-class body of opinion on this subject. Far from treating the subject lightly, I would treat it with great seriousness. The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and the noble Lord, Lord Grimston of Westbury, who is sitting near him, have had experience, as has the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, in another place, extending over many years, and they could not fail to have had this matter drawn to their attention, especially during their interviews with their constituents, because problems of this sort crop up all the time. Hardly any of us who served as Members of Parliament in another place have not come up against this serious problem. I would say to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, that he had a good answer from the noble Lord,
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Lord Mitchison, about local authorities coming into this matter. In any case, I will pass on the comments of the noble Earl to my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
I should like to make one or two comments on attempts to control the activities of estate agents. Reports that discreditable people in this profession have been taking improper advantage of their clients have been advanced to all of us. Until the beginning of this year the subject was the responsibility of the Home Office, but at that time, in view of the responsibility of the Board of Trade for consumer protection and for monopolies and restrictive practices, it was decided that the Board of Trade should take over this matter.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, is quite right. There have been two attempts in recent years to promote Bills to control estate agents: one in 1963, when the Bill failed to obtain a Second Reading, and one earlier this year which lapsed because of the dissolution of Parliament. The latter Bill had more support than its predecessor, having been drawn up with the approval of the ten principal societies representing estate agents. As amended, this Bill would have set up an Estate Agents Council with a number of independent members. The Council would maintain a register of estate agents of good character, and lay down minimum standards of competence required by future applicants for registration. The Council would draw up a code of conduct which would have to be approved by the Board of Trade and would draw up rules about the opening and keeping of accounts for money held on behalf of clients. These were the principal provisions of the Bill. The Government have made it clear that they were in sympathy with the general aims of this second Bill, but with the already heavy legislative programme it is not a matter to which the Government can attach any high degree of priority. I must make that clear now.
This brings me to the noble Earl's question whether the Board of Trade regard estate agency as a commercial business or a profession. First, what is a profession? It is, I suppose, the business of giving for a fee disinterested advice based on certain qualifications and

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knowledge. But many commercial concerns do this and I could name several. Clearly the line between the two is by no means clear-cut. There is, in my view, little point in trying to make a categorical assessment on this subject. All I can say is that there are clearly aspects of the work of estate agents which fall in both categories.
There has recently been another development of which I might remind your Lordships. The Monopolies and Mergers Act 1965 gave the Board of Trade for the first time power to refer services as well as goods to the Monopolies Commission, and my right honourable friend announced last month that he proposed under this new power to refer to the Monopolies Commission the arrangement by which estate agents and others charge commission at standard rates in connection with the selling and leasing of house property. This will lead to an objective investigation into this question of fees, and the report, when it is published, should give useful guidance both to the Government and to estate agents, as well. I hope that we shall have the Report in a fairly short time.
I have referred earlier to the Bill which lapsed on the dissolution of Parliament. Since then, as the papers have reported, there have been discussions between the ten societies representing estate agents and the Board of Trade about action which might be taken in the absence of early legislation. Here is where I come to the reason for my inhibition this afternoon in not being able to give a full reply to the Question the noble Earl has raised. My right honourable friend hopes to make a statement very soon about the upshot of these discussions, but I cannot, and I am sure your Lordships will not expect me to, anticipate that statement. But I hope that when it has been made your Lordships will recognise that steps are being taken to bring about improvements in this industry or profession, or what you like to call it, that we should all like to see.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down—
LORD RHODES: I am afraid not.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: I wonder whether I could ask him this question. He has mentioned a statement that is about to be announced, and the question
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I was asking was whether the Government would take up the Bill that failed this January. I am not asking for a statement, but merely a reply on that point.
LORD RHODES: I suppose, according to what Orders we have in this House governing the rules of procedure, it is out of order.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: No.
LORD RHODES: Thank you very much. I learn every day. I will take up the point and let the noble Earl know.

THE SUMMER RECESS
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, perhaps I should say a further word about the rising of the House for the Summer Recess. I am now hopeful that it will be possible to propose that the House should adjourn on Tuesday the 9th or Wednesday the 10th August. The exact date must depend on the progress of business.
SAINT MARY, EALING BILL
Reported, with an Amendment.
THAMES CONSERVANCY BILL
Reported, with Amendments.