Lords Sitting of 24 May 1966

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Norwich
Several Lords—Took the Oath.

INDONESIA: EXPROPRIATED BRITISH ASSETS
2.38 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what representations, if any, they have made to the Indonesian Government regarding compensation for destruction or confiscation of British property and assets.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD WALSTON): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government made repeated representations to the previous Indonesian Government, both in London and in Djakarta, about expropriated British enterprises and plantations. The Government were also in close touch with the Indonesian authorities about compensation for British property destroyed in 1963.
Noble Lords will appreciate that hitherto the political situation in Indonesia has not been favourable to the settlement of these questions. However, Her Majesty's Government hope that it will soon be possible to engage in fruitful discussions with the new Indonesian Government on all outstanding problems, including these two important matters.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, I would ask: is he aware that many people think it extraordinary that Her Majesty's Government should be giving Indonesia £1 million of free aid while so many
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British subjects have had property confiscated in Indonesia? Further, may I ask Her Majesty's Government whether there was attached to this gift of £1 million any provision that compensation for British assets destroyed or taken would receive favourable consideration by the new Government of Indonesia?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I am well aware that there are a certain number of people in this country who do not always see eye to eye with the actions of Her Majesty's Government. However, this particular gift of £1 million was given solely for humanitarian reasons, to help Indonesia in a particular difficult situation, where very many people were dying—and still are—from lack of food, and no conditions whatever have been attached to the gift.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that answer, but may I ask him this further question? Can Her Majesty's Government ensure that this £1 million does, in fact, go completely for humanitarian purposes?
LORD WALSTON: Yes, my Lords: we have done this.

BAN ON FOOTBALLERS
2.41 p.m.
LORD WILLIS: 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 are aware that certain footballers who were convicted of illegal practices with regard to matches and who have served prison sentences for these offences, have now been barred from soccer for life by the F.A. and Football League; and whether they will intercede with these bodies to get these suspensions modified.]
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, the Government are aware of the facts outlined in the first part of the noble Lord's Question. There can however be no question of their seeking to intervene in the manner suggested in the second part of the Question. Disciplinary action against players who transgress

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the football code of conduct is a matter for the governing bodies of football. Her Majesty's Government have no standing in this matter, and it would be quite contrary to precedent for them to intervene.
LORD WILLIS: My Lords, while thanking my noble and charming friend for that reply, may I ask her three further questions? First, would she not agree that it is a transgression of the principles of British justice that a man should be punished twice for the same offence? Secondly, would she not further agree that, since a footballer's life is rather short, these young men should, in common with other people who have transgressed the law, be given the opportunity to rehabilitate themselves in their, profession? Thirdly, since this is World Cup Year, would it not be a good thing if in this matter the F.A. were to show some clemency and declare an amnesty, and give these young men a chance to find their way back to the profession they adorned for so long?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I am sure my noble friend will appreciate that anything that I were to say in a personal capacity, speaking from the Dispatch Box, would be valueless. If I may remind him, we have just prayed that we might
"set aside all partial affections and all prejudices".
I am sorry, but I cannot add any further comment to the reply I have already given on behalf of the Government.

RHODESIA: PRESIDENT KAUNDA'S SPEECH
2.43 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: 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 attention has been drawn to a speech by President Kaunda on May 12, in which he is reported by The Times as saying that "Blood has got to be spilt" to oust the Smith régime in Rhodesia, and to ask whether they will condemn such incite-
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ments to violence in Rhodesia, by President Kaunda or anyone else.]
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have repeatedly stated that they are opposed to violence from whatever quarter it may come.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl for his Answer. I understand I must take it that that applies to the particular case which I had in mind in putting down my Question?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, the noble Marquess is at liberty to interpret any Answers that I give in any fashion he chooses, but I must not be thought to be coming here this afternoon to pass a criticism on the Head of a friendly Commonwealth country.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that his second answer will be regarded by a great many people in this country as condoning violence and even murder?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am shocked that the noble Marquess, whose experience is unrivalled and who occupies a position of special esteem in this House, should have twisted my answer in that way.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether Her Majesty's Government cannot take some initiative in drawing Zambia and Malawi a little closer together in their attitude towards Rhodesia?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am glad to consider any suggestions from the noble Lord, or any other noble Lord in this House, in any such direction.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, since the context of this reported statement shows that the blood which had to be spilt was British blood, surely the Government on that occasion was not showing itself particularly friendly to this country.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, if I may say so frankly to the noble Lord, I should have thought that that was not a remark calculated to help the situation in a moment when one of our own Ministers is in Zambia, and when

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it seems most unwise to indulge in any premature criticisms.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, if, in spite of the views expressed by Her Majesty's Government, violence caused from Zambia or elsewhere continues in Rhodesia, are Her Majesty's Government prepared to review the question of oil sanctions in order that the security forces in Rhodesia may not be hampered by lack of petrol?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I should have thought that that was a wildly hypothetical point to raise.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT AND STAFFING
2.46 p.m.
LORD LEATHERLAND: 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 when the Maud Committee on personnel in local government is expected to report, or whether it is now not likely to report at all.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): My Lords, the Report of the Maud Committee on Management in Local Government is expected within the next few months, and the Report of the Mallaby Committee on Staffing in Local Government will be available at about the same time. An Interim Report by the Maud Committee, dealing with allowances for elected representatives, has already reached my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and will be published in three or four weeks' time.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply, which I think will give general satisfaction. May I ask him whether his right honourable friend intends to absorb these two Reports into the general work of the new Local Government Commission which is to be appointed, or whether he intends to take independent action straight away or in the early future?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, the Reports of the two Committees, the Maud and the Mallaby Committees, referred to in the original Question, will be available to the Royal Commission on Local Government, and we have no doubt that they will be of the greatest use to the Commission.

FUTURE BUSINESS
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): My Lords, at a suitable moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Longford will be making a Statement on the terms of reference and names of the members of the Royal Commissions on Local Government Reorganisation in England and Scotland.
Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House if I were to make a short statement about our future Business. Following the representations made in the House yesterday, discussions have been held, and it is hoped that the House will agree to take the debate on the humble Address in reply to the Queen's Message on the Proclamation of Emergency as the first main Business on Thursday afternoon. It has been agreed through the usual channels that the House will meet at 2.30 p.m. on that day in order to allow more time for the discussion of that Business. Perhaps it will also be for the convenience of the House if I inform your Lordships that it is hoped that the debate on the Second Reading of the Transport Finances Bill will take place on Thursday, May 26, and that the remaining stages should follow on the same day.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I beg leave to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Orders No. 35 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) and No. 41 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be suspended until the Recess at Whitsun.—(Lord Champion.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I beg leave to move the second Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Lord Jessel be added to the panel of Lords appointed to act as Deputy Chairmen of Committees for this Session.—(Lord Champion.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MILITARY AIRCRAFT (LOANS) BILL
2.50 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE FOR THE ROYAL AIR FORCE (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of the Bill is to give effect to arrangements, already publicised at very great length, for financing the Government's programme of purchases of American aircraft. Although the facts are well-known, and have frequently been discussed both here and in another place, I think it will be for the convenience of the House if I briefly summarise the process which led the Government to introduce this Bill.
Your Lordships will be aware that the present programme for the purchase of American aircraft was arrived at in three stages. First, under the Conservative Administration a decision was taken to equip the Fleet Air Arm with the Phantom F 4K fighter instead of, as had previously been planned, the P 1154. The second stage in the process was the decision, announced in February last year, to cancel the P 1154 and the short take-off tactical freighter for the Royal Air Force and to purchase instead the P 1127, the Phantom F 4M, and the Lockheed C 130—the Hercules. During negotiations with the American Government for the purchase of the C 130 and F 4M, the Government also arranged that the American Government would make available to us credit facilities to cover the dollar costs of these new purchases. It was later agreed, and announced in August last year, that
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these credit facilities should be extended to cover the Naval Phantoms ordered by the previous Administration.
The third and final stage in the process was completed early this year, and announced in the Defence White Paper. It entailed, following the decision to cancel the TSR 2, the adoption in its place of a programme entailing the use of a small force of American F 111A aircraft in the tactical reconnaissance and strike rôle. Initially this force would be supplemented by V-bombers used, again, in the tactical reconnaissance and strike rôle. Later, the V-bombers would be phased out and replaced by the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft.
The Government's reshaping of the Military Aircraft Programme had two main objectives—to relieve the burden on the economy, and to ensure that the Services obtained the aircraft they needed on time. As noble Lords will recall, in the case of two aircraft, the P 1154 and the short take-off tactical transport aircraft, there was great anxiety as to the dates at which they would come into service. Inevitably there has been controversy about so far-reaching and radical a set of decisions, but what we are discussing to-day is not so much the decisions themselves, as the manner in which they will be financed, and in particular the manner of minimising the effect of the decisions on the balance of payments, and this will no doubt give the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, an opportunity to pursue the subject which he attempted to pursue last week.
Let me first deal with the balance-of-payments point. It has been announced in another place that, over the next ten years, the total American aircraft programme—that is the 66 C 130s, 200-odd Phantoms for the Navy and the Royal Air Force, and 50 F 111As, together with their supporting equipment, dollar running costs, and interest payments, will cost in all £660 million over the ten years beginning April 1, 1966. Before allowing for interest payments, the total is £570 million. This is a formidable sum, some-think like twice the cost of the smaller corresponding dollar programme of the previous Government. This programme included, as your Lordships will be aware, not only the Naval F 4Ks, but about £25 million in dollar components for the TSR 2.

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We tackled this prospective dollar burden in three ways. First, by the credit arrangements, which I will come to later. Secondly by reviewing the other major dollar element in the Defence programme—the Polaris submarine and deciding to reduce the planned force from five to four. Thirdly, we sought to step up our exports of arms to offset the dollar bill, and, as your Lordships will be aware, we concluded arrangements with the United States Government for American procurement in this country, and for Anglo-American co-operative sales overseas which we expect to result in receipts of £240 million in overseas currencies. Before allowing for the effect of the credit arrangement, the result of these adjustments was to put us, in terms of dollars, into a position not very much worse than that from which we started. The average additional dollar burden of the new programme was well under £10 million a year, as compared with the Conservative Government's programme.
In domestic terms, of course, the benefits were enormous, and I want to stress that we achieved, as the Defence White Paper pointed out, savings of £1,200 million over the aircraft programme as a whole over the ten-year period. That point, however, is not immediately relevant to the purpose of the Bill, but I think it is none the less worth making. We had to face at the same time the impact of this dollar burden in return for this very great gain. The central feature of the new programme was that very heavy liabilities would arise during the next two or three years, when balance-of-payments pressures would inevitably be severe, and indeed it was a mark of the previous Government's defence plans that similar heavy burdens would have fallen to be met in the next few years. We were therefore very glad to conclude with the United States Government an arrangement under which the capital value of the aircraft now to be purchased, including the Naval Phantoms, would be made the subject of seven-year loans at the moderate rate of interest of 4¾ per cent. These loan arrangements will enable us to spread out the dollar burden in such a way that payments up to and including 1968 will be kept small, with the bulk of repayments falling in the period between 1968 and about 1977.
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The price we pay for spreading out the burden in this way is interest totalling about £90 million.
In all, therefore, by the time we have added in the interest, we face an additional dollar burden averaging about £16 million a year in consequence of these far-reaching decisions which on the other side will reduce the call on domestic resources in respect of arms production by an average of about £140 million a year—£1,400 million over the ten-year period. This £1,400 million represents facilities, skills and resources which we are able to divert to other parts of industry, making a contribution to the health of the economy, either by reducing the demand for imports or by directly increasing exports of manufactured goods. The purpose of the Bill now before your Lordships is to extend the Treasury's powers to borrow so that we can take advantage of the credit facilities negotiated with the Americans, and to make it possible to use the borrowed money to relieve Votes on which payments for the aircraft and their equipment will be made.
The need for legislation arises because the advances which the American Government are making to us to enable us to meet bills for the aircraft are specifically linked with progress payments made to the manufacturers. Although the Treasury has general powers to borrow in the course of its management of the National Debt, these powers do not enable the proceeds of such borrowing to be appropriated in aid of specific expenditure on Votes. These are the main reasons why legislation is being sought.
I should like now briefly to explain the mechanics of the process by which the money will be borrowed and accounted for and the process by which it will be paid back. I will then run briefly through the provisions of this small but rather technical Bill. As work goes ahead on the orders we have placed, the United States Department of Defence will make progress payments to American manufacturers. The money for these progress payments will be provided by periodical borrowings by the United Kingdom in the United States.
In parallel with this borrowing transaction in the United States, the Treasury, under the provisions of the Bill, will be required to lend money to the Ministries

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of Defence and Aviation, and these lendings will be shown as appropriations in aid of Votes presented to Parliament. In this way each year's borrowings will be submitted for Parliamentary scrutiny.
An example of this part of the process appears in the Ministry of Aviation's Vote 9—which sets out very clearly how the process works, and it is a difficult one to follow—which, although only a token Vote for £1,000, sets before Parliament the full extent of our expected borrowings in the current financial year.
In due course, the Exchequer will become liable to make interest payments and repayment of capital on the borrowings in the United States. The first such payment will fall due, we expect, at the end of the current financial year. Here again, a procedure is being adopted under which the Exchequer's repayments are mirrored in Votes which are subject to Parliamentary scrutiny, although in this case, of course, the sums involved are not token sums. These are the real sums of repayment. New subheads appear in the 1966–67 Estimates providing for loan repayments on the Votes of the Departments which would otherwise normally be paying cash for the equipment concerned. An example is Air Vote 7H, which provides for a repayment of £1·9 million in December, 1966. The impact of these arrangements will be that the cost of the aircraft falls on the Defence Budget at the same time that the burden of paying for them falls on the economy as a whole.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may I just ask the noble Lord to make one point clear? Am I to understand from that that the burden on the Defence Budget is pushed forward—in other words, the Defence Budget in the immediate future becomes artificially low and further forward it is swollen by paying for the aeroplanes we have had earlier?
LORD SHACKLETON: The noble Lord is quite right, though possibly I would not have chosen the terms he employed. This is indeed the whole purpose of the exercise, to produce a stable flow of payments over a period of years. Although certain repayments will begin at once, it is in fact thanks to the line of credit spread evenly, and the actual charge to the Vote will arise only at the moment when the repayment is made.
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So the noble Lord is entirely correct. This is the purpose of this particular operation. It is to produce a much more stable budgeting process over a period of years. As the noble Lord will recall, I did mention earlier that there was a very jagged and erratic Defence Budget before this arrangement was made. There was to be a very heavy increase in the early 1970s, and this was part of the situation the present Government had to deal with when they came into office. The provisions of the Bill will now, I hope, in the light of this explanation, be a little clearer.
Clause 1(1) authorises the Treasury over a period running until March, 1972, to issue sums not exceeding £430 million out of the Consolidated Fund to be applied as appropriations-in-aid of monies provided by Parliament for the purchase of American aircraft and for associated expenditure including dollar research and development costs. The figure of £430 million is expected to cover the capital cost of the Hercules—Phantom—F111 programme as now planned. Subsection (2) is designed to ensure that the transactions are kept under full Parliamentary control. The Treasury cannot lend any part of the £430 million to the Supply Departments unless the related expenditure has been approved in Estimates. The final subsection of Clause 1 authorises the Treasury to make the borrowings necessary for the purpose of financing these issues from the Consolidated Fund to the Votes of the Supply Departments. In fact the necessary finance will, as your Lordships are aware, be provided by dollar borrowings, and the National Loans Act 1939 specifically provides for overseas borrowings of this sort.
Clause 2 of the Bill regulates the repayment arrangements. The first subsection provides for the repayment of the Treasury by the Supply Departments, together with appropriate amounts of interest. The second subsection authorises the Treasury to use these receipts to redeem debt and pay interest charges. It is intended in the present case, of course, that receipts both of d reprincipal and interest from the Supply Departments will balance payments of interest anpayments of capital under the American credit arrangements.
The wording of this clause of the Bill is in line with that of previous Acts,

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such as the Armed Forces (Housing Loans) Acts. These are, if I may call them so, the basically simple provisions of the Bill. Under it the Government expect to derive the advantages I have earlier explained. It is a vital link in the process by which we shall provide our Forces with the equipment they need, at the time they need it, and at a price which the economy can bear. I therefore commend the Bill to the House, and beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Shackleton.)
3.9 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I understand that this is the first opportunity anyone has had to congratulate the noble Lord on his Privy Counsellorship. There is certainly nobody I would rather congratulate, and I am sure he knows how sincere that is. This being a Money Bill, this Second Reading debate is the only opportunity it provides to your Lordships' House to point out the Government's follies, illusions and contradictions in their struggle to justify the huge dollar expenditure they have incurred, part of which, and only part of which, is to be mot by Treasury borrowing provided for in this Bill.
This Bill, although the noble Lord put his usual brilliant gloss upon it, is about buying American aircraft in preference to British aircraft. It will enable us to borrow part of the money—about two-thirds of the total as yet admitted—to buy the Phantom, the Hercules and the F 111A from the United States, and I am acidly aware that we shall not be paying back these particular millions until the noble Lords opposite and their colleagues are no longer bearing the responsibility of raising the money.
I shall be speaking to-day with all three of these aircraft in mind but with reference mainly to the F 111. I asked earlier this month, as I ask again now, how the Government expect this limited force of 50 F 111As to perform the enormous task set them, even if it be limited to the Far East, from the time they are first placed in service until that still elastic date when the Anglo-French V.G. aircraft take over part of their rôle—that is to say, the F 111 rôle; the reconnaissance rôle, as I under-
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stand it, remaining with them. Here I would once again put a question which the noble Lord did not answer on the earlier occasion. Will the F 111 be expected to continue in a reconnaissance rôle beyond the time of the introduction of the V.G.aircraft, which so far as I know is not going to be given a reconnaissance capability.
All this has a direct bearing on the purport of this Bill because we suspect—and we have strong circumstantial cause to suspect—that this is only the thin end of the dollar wedge, and the advertised number of F 111s and, of course also the advertised recorded cost, are no more than the first gastronomic sniff, offered to the General Dynamics Corporation, of the British market now spread before them—
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the noble Lord said that this was the first gastronomic, what?
LORD ST. OSWALD: Sniff. "What a banquet!" they must be saying to themselves, and what a banquet it may prove to be! Let me catalogue some of the things which this force of so far fledgling aircraft, which the noble Lord himself has to-day called a small force, would be required to perform, supplemented by some V-bombers, retained in service beyond their expected retirement age.
A most careful reading of the speeches of the Secretary of State of March 7 and 8 suggests that these will have to do the work of the whole carrier force, which he has classified as "sacred cows". Three or four squadrons will be maintained in the Far East, half of them able to operate for reconnaissance. In addition, we shall have minor bases in Bahrein, Mesirah and Gan; and, if we are working with the Australians, in Darwin and Cocos, giving us coverage over the whole Middle East and Southern Asia and East Africa. Some will also be kept in Britain partly for training and partly in order that their aircrews may be rotated properly. In the Far East they will be required, according to the Secretary of State to provide protection for the fleet, for shipping and presumably also for land forces, in any operation, offensive or defensive, from such bases as we may have. They will have to be able to destroy the enemy's offensive forces, possibly against highly sophisticated defences, and at extreme ranges.

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I have not mentioned wastage, and I concede that the Minister may not wish to make estimates of this wastage. But we have to face the fact that this immense operational burden is to be placed upon a total force of 50 planes, including those held in Britain. In all this I have still not mentioned the rôle which these aircraft, I understand, will have as our intended nuclear deterrent East of Suez. This plane, which has not yet begun to be adapted for use by the Royal Air Force will not only have to be a jack-of-all-trades, but will be comparable to that man described by Henry Vaughan, for whom "God ordered motion, but ordained no rest." I confess that it strains my imagination to believe that this order will fill our requirements over the period envisaged, however spacious the "flight envelope" of which the noble Lord spoke earlier this month. I am not criticising its versatility, in which he has such confidence: what I am questioning is the number. I put it to the noble Lord and to the Government, that either they are banking on a withdrawal from the Far East, unpredicted in the White Paper, or they are intending to buy more of those planes for many more millions of dollars, without the courage to say so—an action which, of course, would make the offset ploy look pretty silly.
Let me be absolutely plain as to what I am inviting the noble Lord to say, so that he does not feel encouraged to give me, out of the generosity of his nature, three completely unconnected, unrequested pieces of information in response to the one requested. What I think he should be able to say, to be consistent with previous statements, is that without our commitments in the world being any further reduced than is specified in the White Paper, and with no additional buying of F 111s, these 50 aircraft, to be in service by the end of 1969 or the beginning of 1970, will be able to fulfil the whole task assigned to them, and to fulfil it until they are superseded.
He may feel bound by precedent to say just that. But in that case, I have to observe that, in our view, he would be offering so sickly a hostage to fortune that he might do better to wring its neck here and now. We shall watch the fate of that hostage with some sympathy, a sympathy which will, of course, extend
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to the noble Lord himself. I turn to the matter of cost.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, would the noble Lord tell me the three unrequested bits of information he does not want me to give him?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am speaking now of the past. I am drawing on my experience of the stratagem which is normally employed by the noble Lord and his colleagues.
I turn to the matter of cost. What cannot be questioned is that this Bill adds £430 million to the debit side of our balance of payments, without losing sight of the fact that the current or advertised dollar cost of the F 111A, the Phantom and C 130 tots up to £660 million, as indeed the noble Lord told us to-day. We on this side of the House have never said that it is wrong in itself to buy foreign aircraft; indeed, we found it necessary to buy the Phantom, at one point, for the Royal Navy.
But what the Government are doing is quite incomparable in scale and consequence. As an act of deliberate policy they have cancelled every British major future aircraft project which existed when they came into office, and have made us entirely dependent on America. The Government, and the Defence Ministers in particular, are understandably, and rather endearingly, sensitive about this, as we saw in our small debate twelve days ago. They cry out in exculpation, "Look what a saving we have made for the nation!" This cry was repeated by the noble Lord to-day. I am going to question whether it represents any kind of saving whatever.
By the definition of Ministers themselves, the F 111A is a stopgap. The noble Lord's Parliamentary Secretary the other day said that the F 111A was "intended primarily to tide us over an operational gap". At the end of that gap, on a date still unknown, the Anglo-French V.G. aircraft comes into service. But what this means is that for a decade—that is, during the 'seventies—we pay for two separate aircraft to take the place of one. I am thinking now of the TSR 2. We have been told how much the F 111A is to cost, at least in terms of the basic aircraft, though I am far from clear on what the follow-up cost may be, despite

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the noble Lord's opiate words earlier this month. We do not know what the V.G. plane will cost, but I am told that it is certainly likely to be more than the TSR 2. So instead of one bill, paid to our own manufacturers, for a plane which would have lasted throughout the 'seventies and been the envy of the world, we shall be paying two vast bills, one of them in dollars, to protect our interests during the same period. What sort of saving is this? It is a further load upon our balance of payments, a bonus to the American aircraft industry and a karate blow to our own. The noble Lord is somehow able to see this as an "enormous domestic benefit", to quote his words to-day.
It is still worse than all that, and I hope that the House, and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in particular, will pay attention to another aspect. In our 1966 survey of the 'seventies this is what is most menacing and most damaging in the Government's action and decisions. As we enter the 'seventies, we in this country shall find ourselves required to meet two huge bills at the same time. We shall be paying back the enormous debt on these American aircraft, part of which is being approved in this Bill; and we shall at the same time be called upon for the heavy so far unpublished and perhaps uncalculated development cost of the V.G. aircraft. These will be the twin peaks rearing themselves against the economic skyline of the seventies. As I have said, the economic mountaineers who will have to scale these peaks will not come from the Party or from among the Ministers who are now creating this great barrier which will face the nation after their departure from office. These also are not the words which the noble Lord chose to use this afternoon. They tell the same sad story as he told, in somewhat starker terms.
Mr. Healey has described the offset arrangement as "unique in history" but he then sets about weakening, if not totally destroying, that claim, or seeing part of it destroyed by a few home truths uncovered by the Opposition. One of the inner weaknesses of this claim was revealed by Mr. Healey, for instance, in a speech on May 11 to which the noble Lord and I both listened. I wonder if the noble Lord noticed this weakness.
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On that occasion Mr. Healey, proudly or desperately—and with present Ministers it is often hard to tell which—included in this "unique" offset arrangement the dollars spent by United States forces in Britain. Of course, there is nothing either unique or novel in United States forces spending dollars in this country: they have been doing it for years. What is unique and novel is the nerve of a Government of Great Britain pretending that this is a wheeze "which they have thought up on the British taxpayers' behalf. It is meant to excuse that staggering and, as we still say, totally unnecessary increase in dollar expenditure on military aircraft which this country is capable of designing and building better than the Americans, or was capable at the time the present Government came into power. In fact, in this Ministers have not achieved or invented, still less negotiated, any formula to ease the burden on the balance of payments or on the British taxpayer. Their scriptwriters have merely invented a new name for something which existed all along.
In mitigation of this particular piece of attempted legerdemain, it seems clear that the Secretary of State was taken aback when he discovered that the Americans were going to insist on the inclusion of this local expenditure in the offset arrangements—and he has sought to make a virtue of necessity or, more precisely, a virtue of subordination. That was not, it appears, the only tough stipulation upon which the Americans insisted. What I think the noble Lord might confess to-day—and no one could do it more gracefully—is that he and his colleagues have tried to put an entirely false glamour upon a form of dollar recovery which existed in the natural state of affairs.
As regards the "new" offset, this already bedraggled feather which Ministers pretend to wear so jauntily in their caps, it is most unhappily obvious that Mr. Denis Healey was bewildered and bested by Mr. McNamara at every turn. First of all he was jumped into including the so-called "collaborative sales" with third countries within an offset which was clearly understood at first to comprise direct dealings with the United States. And when he dusted himself down from that he found that the Saudi Arabian deal worth £100 million, or perhaps a great deal more, was to be

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retrospectively included in the collaborative bracket. So far we have two pigs in separate pokes. The direct sales are not "ensured," as Mr. Healey claimed in Parliament and on the hustings, and I congratulate the noble Lord to-day on being rather more modest. He used the phrase "we expect", not "we have ensured." These sales have to be won. In the so-called collaborative sales—the other section which represents two-thirds of the whole offset—there is indeed a very queer kind of collaboration, to judge by total experience up to now.
In closing, I am going to ask the noble Lord in paraphrase a question which he did not choose to answer earlier this month. The Secretary of State is on record as saying on May 11 this year:
"We could not have made the offer to the Saudis without American co-operation."
And, seconds later, that:
"We could not have made the offer, never mind have won the contract, without American co-operation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 728 (No. 18), col. 476; 11/5/66.]
The description I have been given, which has been published in the Press and referred to already in Parliament, is in total contradiction to this claim. It compels us to question the whole value, and even the sincerity, of the collaborative arrangement. So long as this question remains alive, it must damage the Government. I regard it as a typical instance of my charity to the noble Lord that I am giving him the opportunity to contradict this version of events. This is the account as given to me. So far from being "enabled to tender" by the American Government, the British sales team had been in active negotiation in Rhayad before the collaborative deals were ever mentioned, and at the point where the British contract was virtually accepted, a drastic last-minute attempt was made to snap it from us.
The noble Lord may tell me—and I hope he can—that I am totally mistaken; but if it is so, he has to say so. Is it or is it not true that during the time our negotiations were proceeding a powerful American sales team, mainly from Lockheeds, were also present attempting to sell the American Starfighter to displace our Lightnings? Is it true that when, despite this intervention by a powerful persistent competitor from America, our contract had been agreed
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for signing by both sides, this competitors' team was suddenly powerfully reinforced by Mr. David Rockefeller, among others, from the United States; that it called on the Saudi Defence Minister with an entirely new offer, cutting the previous offer of the Star-fighter by no less than 70 million dollars; that it was accompanied by the American Chargé d' Affaires in Rhayad and that it bore a persuasive message from President Johnson? If the noble Lord cannot deny this, if it should be true, if this is what the Americans mean and what the noble Lord accepts as "standing back", then it seems a pity that Mr. Cassius Clay did not interpret it in the same way, when our Mr. Cooper let loose his left hook last Saturday night.
3.30 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I think in one respect a welcome should be given to this Bill by all sides of the House. Whatever may be the ultimate effect of the agreement with the American Government, this is a borrowing Bill and, as such, it might have been regarded as within the powers of the Treasury to carry out these provisions under the National Loans Act 1939 without reference to the Houses of Parliament. I appreciate the fact that the Government took the view that this Bill is so significant that the Houses of Parliament should have the democratic opportunity to discuss these provisions and to decide upon them.
I wish to quote from the speech which the Chief Secretary to the Treasury delivered in another place on May 11 last. I quote from column 488 [Vol. 728] of the OFFICIAL REPORT, and he spoke as follows:
"…where such borrowing is, as in the present case, earmarked for specific expenditure, it would be unrealistic to regard the transaction simply as a loan; for in fact what is really happening is the acquisition of certain American aircraft by means of a loan and it is surely proper that the House should be enabled to exercise the same powers of control over expenditure as if the aircraft were being bought out of money voted by the House.
It is true that the passing of the necessary legislation inevitably consumes valuable Parliamentary time, but I feel sure that in this all-important field of Supply the House must act in such a way as fully to preserve its rights vis-á-vis the Government of the day. It is in this spirit that the Government,

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rather than attempting to rely on their general borrowing powers, have introduced the Bill."
I want to express approval of that democratic attitude. I suppose the best tribute to it would be to speak with the freedom in this discussion which the Government themselves have invited.
The Government propose in this measure to acquire for the Navy and the Royal Air Force three aircraft—the C 130 Hercules transport, the Phantom, and the F 111A. These are to be acquired at the tremendous cost of £450 million. Of this sum £20 million has already been borrowed and does not come within the terms of this Bill. The Bill itself refers only to £430 million. This sum will be spent during the six years ending March 31, 1972, and will be financed by borrowing from America at 4¾ per cent. repayable by 1978.
I had proposed to make three brief comments upon the provisions of the Bill. I am led to add one by the, as always, entertaining, provocative and contributory speech which has been given by the spokesman on the Opposition Front Bench. He referred to the effort of American armament firms, backed by the American Government, to try to get the British Government to give orders for American products. Perhaps the House will excuse me for saying that, although I have written fourteen books, only two have been best sellers, and I am quite convinced that they were good sellers because of their titles rather than their contents. One was called The Bloody Traffic; the other Death Pays a Dividend, and I am quite sure that most people thought they were buying a thriller. In a sense it was a thriller, but it was an exposure of the machinations of the armament firms in their use of Governments.
I do not have the least doubt that the spokesman for the Opposition is correct to-day, in saying that the representatives of American armament firms have been using their influence, backed by their own Government, to secure orders from our Government, exactly as our armament firms in all countries of the world are seeking to obtain the acceptance of orders—I am shocked to say this when we have a Minister for Disarmament—by a super-salesman who is going to act on behalf of the Government in this respect.
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I welcome what the noble Lord has said about American firms, but I ask him to look a little further at the investigations which have been made into the machinations of other firms. He will find, particularly from the inquiry which was made in America itself, that our armament firms in this country are just as guilty in this matter as any American firms can be.
The three points that I wish particularly to raise are these. I want, again, to submit to this Government that they cannot proceed with their vast armament programme and fulfil their own programme for social progress—for educational progress, health progress, housing progress and community development. I recognise at once—and I praise the Government forthis—that they are reducing expenditure on arms production by about £140 million over the next ten years. But expenditure on armaments in this country still stands at £2,000 million annually. This country cannot afford that, not only because of the difficulty of its own economy but because it means that social progress will be stayed. I am continually surprised, when emphasis is repeatedly laid on the necessity for economy, that so little attention is paid to the possibility of cutting our defence costs. I ask the Government once again to look very seriously at the proportion of their expenditure upon armaments and upon social progress.
The second point I want to make is this. I want to give a warning—and perhaps I may even have the support of the spokesman for the Opposition in this respect—about the dependence on the American Government which this Bill reflects. We cannot be self-reliant while there is this dependence upon America for arms. Our defence expenditure is justified on the ground that Britain should remain a Power of world influence, but what world influence are we going to have if our arms are dependent upon America and its Government? What independence can we pursue in our foreign policy if our arms are so tied to the American Government?
I want to ask this question, and I am asking something which was asked by the noble Lord. If these aircraft are held to be necessary, one wonders why the British aircraft industry is not in a position to produce them. During the last sixteen years the British aircraft

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industry has received something like £4,000 million of public money. We have been pouring that into our British aircraft firms, but now we have to ask the American Government and American aircraft firms to supply us with the aircraft which are supposed to be necessary. If the Government are accurate in their view that the British aircraft industry could not supply the aircraft which they need, then it is time there was a very thorough inquiry into the whole organisation of our aircraft industry.
The third point which I want to put to the Minister is this. Armaments are a reflection of foreign policy, and the F 111A is to serve particularly as a tactical strike aircraft for theatres of war East of Suez. Many of us dislike the East-of-Suez policy. I do not intend to pursue that issue to-day, because one had an opportunity in the Foreign Affairs debate some days ago. But, in considering the Bill which is now before this House, we are entitled to make a very relevant point.
The fifty F 111A aircraft are to be bought for delivery by January, 1970. Is it really contemplated that there will be no easing of the situation East of Suez by that date? Is there any provision—and I ask the Minister this very specifically, because it was asked in another place and it was not answered—for the modification or the cancellation of this contract with the American Government if an easing of the position east of Suez justifies it? I want to submit to the Government that there are hopeful signs of such an easing. The phased military withdrawal from Aden is to begin in six months. The peace talks between Indonesia and Malaysia are to begin, and they give the hope of releasing 55,000 British troops. One cannot contemplate the hideous war in Vietnam continuing until 1970. One has reason to hope that, by then, China may be brought into the United Nations.
The whole situation in South-East Asia must change if progress is to be made towards peace; and, if that progress is made towards peace, what provision is made in this Bill for modifying this contract with the American Government or for cancelling it in the circumstances which may develop? The Minister has to-day promised that the amounts borrowed from the United States will be
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subject to Parliamentary scrutiny each year, but can he say that, if conditions in South-East Asia change, as one hopes they may, and of which there is some promise, there are provisions for modifying or terminating this contract? My Lords, I regret this Bill and the necessity which the Government claim for it. I ask that, at least, if this claimed necessity becomes less or disappears, the Government will be in a position to terminate an agreement which I regard as humiliating to our country and dangerous to the cause of peace.
3.43 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord two questions before he replies? This Bill arranges for loans for, I think, two-thirds of the total cost. What assurance can the noble Lord give that that figure really is the total cost? I think £660 million was the figure the noble Lord mentioned. There is an enormous number of factors one can consider which might very well alter that cost considerably—the cost of labour, modifications, spares or replacements. I do not need to test the imagination very far to see what could happen. I imagine that a great many of these factors cannot be covered entirely. I must, of course, accept that. But could the noble Lord tell us how much he thinks really is covered? We have heard a good many stories of the rising costs of aeroplanes, and I do not suppose that these aeroplanes which we are now buying from the United States of America are utterly exceptional. We should be interested to know the degree of assurance which the noble Lord has.
The second question I would ask is this. When we make contracts overseas, what assurance have we that they are (a) in competition with the United States and (b) in collaboration with the United States? This is really rather a dangerous position to be in. It might lead to some quite nasty feeling between ourselves and the United States unless we make it clear just where we stand. Which is this contract. Does it fall on one side or does it fall on the other? We must remember that the United States themselves have a considerable balance-of-payments problem which causes them considerable anxiety. I put these two questions because I should very much like to know how far the Government are able to give us a clear

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picture on both these points. So far as my intelligence is able to discern, they have not been extremely clear up to the present time.
3.46 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, this is a short debate, but I have been asked many questions and I will try to deal with most of them. I appreciate that, being a Money Bill, the opportunities of discussing the Bill on Committee are restricted, although most of the points which the noble Lord made would not have been appropriate for the Committee stage, either. But I have no quarrel with him to-day on the speech he made beyond saying that I thought it was a bit of a travesty of the facts. I will try to deal with some of his points, but if I miss any he is very free to interrupt me and I will try to answer them. First, however—this is perhaps ungracious of me—may I say that I very much appreciate his personnal remark with regard to myself? He knows, also, that I appreciate his good opinion—on matters, perhaps, other than the one we are debating to-day.
My Lords, let me first of all correct one point. The noble Lord referred to the F 111 as being an aircraft intended to play the rôle of nuclear deterrent East of Suez. Indeed, it was quite clear that the noble Lord thought the F 111 was going to do every single job that the Air Force and, indeed, the carriers are now called on to perform. I want to repeat what the purpose of the F 111 is, because it has unquestionably given rise to the greatest controversy. It is a strike-reconnaissance aircraft. It is intended primarily to provide reconnaissance, but, equally, with a formidable conventional strike capacity, it will provide the sort of conventional deterrent that our existing aircraft are already providing. I have already paid tribute to the fact that, in preventing the Indonesian war escalating into something rather hotter, I believe the threat of the V-bombers in a conventional role has played a very important part. In saying this, I am not suggesting that the Air Force has done it alone, but this is one of the traditional uses of air power.
But the noble Lord was quite wrong in saying that if we had stuck to the TSR 2 we should have been enabled to avoid two huge bills for the F 111 and the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft.
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The truth, I am sorry to say, is a good deal less dramatic than this. The two huge bills together are smaller than the one bill for the TSR 2. The noble Lord forgets—he may never have known this—that the Anglo-French V.G. aircraft was in the programme before the TSR 2 was cancelled. It was always intended. Admittedly, it had not gone as far as it has now, but it had figured as part of the long-term costings. What the new programme will do is to make much better use of, and put much greater emphasis on, the variable geometry aircraft which we had always hoped to develop. But, of course, the F 111 aircraft will continue.
It is always very difficult, when using phrases like "small buy", "stop-gap" and so on, and it may be—I will give this to the noble Lord—that although the F 111 is in a sense being bought as a stop-gap until the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft comes along, it has certain qualities that the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft will not have. It w ill have a very much greater range and, I think, will be particularly valuable in the reconnaissance rôle—although, of course, the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft, like any aircraft, will have a reconnaissance capacity. At the moment we are using Canberras; there are Hunter reconnaissance aircraft and Phantoms also will be operating in a reconnaissance rôle. But in putting forward the mix of aircraft that will exist in the early 1970s, one sees that we shall have an initial mix of Phantoms, F 111s and V-bombers. In due course, as the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft comes in, the V-bombers will be phased out, and thereafter it is possible that the Phantoms that the Air Force are going to have in the ground strike, fighter strike, rôle will be replaced by variable geometry aircraft and may move into the fighter rôle. This is a very complex series of mixes.
The noble Lord asked me whether I thought this force of 50 F 111s would be enough; on the other hand, my noble friend Lord Brockway asked whether, if we achieve a more peaceful situation—which is something we all hope—we need them at all. I think the Government position is somewhere between the two. I am sure all noble Lords would agree that we should much rather not have to

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spend money on armaments, whether we are building them ourselves or buying them abroad. But the best view the Government can take of this—we have, of course, the benefit of a great deal of advice; I am not passing the buck to them; but we can only look at this matter in terms of the military situations we foresee—is that we think this will fulfil the rôle. But, clearly, there are circumstances which one can imagine when forces are inadequate. If I may say so, the noble Lord's Government left us with inadequate forces for the situation we are having to meet to-day. The degree of stretch that confronts the Armed Forces is a very serious problem. When I took over my post as Minister of Defence for the Royal Air Force I was struck by two things: one, how small was the Air Force; and, two, the fact that we had certain aircraft allegedly coming along which were not going to arrive in time. I except the TSR 2 from this; but certainly, so far as the P 1154 and the transport aircraft are concerned, they were not arriving in time to meet the needs of the Forces.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I do not want to intervene to make pedantic or Party points or debating points; but for one thing the noble Lord says that he found the Air Force small. It is notable that he is now making it very much smaller. But with regard to the coming-in of the variable geometry aircraft, of course I knew it was within our plans; it was, indeed, the brain-child of our mutual friend Mr. Julian Amery. But there would not have been this hurry to bring it in; we could have afforded—which we cannot afford now—for the length of time for development to be longer than the noble Lord is counting upon now. I believe, on the best authority that I have from colleagues who were in power at that time and who were closely concerned in it, that it was the intention that the TSR 2 should see us—and there were to be 158 of them—through the 1970's and then the variable geometry aircraft should take over.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, there would have been no prospect of Anglo-French collaboration if we did not want the variable geometry aircraft until the late 1980's.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, this is not true. They were going to have the first ones. I am afraid it is now the noble Lord who makes a debating point.
LORD SHACKLETON: Certainly they were going to have the first ones; but, in fact, in pure timing—and the great difficulty, as the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, will agree, and I am not making a Party point, is in matching time—it is easier to match. I was saying that in the programme, before we cancelled the TSR 2, the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft was provided for within the long-term costings at a date not significantly different from that at which it is coming in now. It may come in one or two years earlier. Even that is not certain.
The noble Lord said that I was making the Air Force smaller. I am making it larger. My noble friend Lord Brockway may not welcome this, but in fact the Air Force is, if anything, going to be much larger very much sooner, because certain aircraft which were "pie in the sky" to the noble Lord's Government will be replaced by aircraft that exist. This brings me to the point of the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, on the question of possible escalation—
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, since the noble Lord introduced my name into the discussion, may I ask this: whether he is making the R.A.F. bigger or smaller, will he agree that he and his Government are making the Fleet Air Arm a great deal smaller? Would he not agree that the Anglo-French vertical geometry aircraft might have suited the requirements of the Fleet Air Arm in this middle period of the 1970s?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I was dealing with the inaccurate statement by the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald. I do not propose again to go over the whole of the arguments on the question of the carriers. I can only say that there are noble Lords of the Party opposite as well as of this side who realise that it was not cost-effective in the late 1970s. But I must try not to be provocative or we shall get deeply involved.
I should like to take the point of the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, on the question of the possible escalation of costs on the basis of the three aircraft concerned.

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First, the C 130, as the noble Earl knows, already exists. It is a well tried aircraft, and although we are getting the later mark, we have, in fact, a satisfactory price arrangement. We shall be charged the average price that the United States Air Force is paying for it; and the longer the run, the less danger of increase. Although I must concede that there is always the danger of an increase of cost in relation to labour and materials, these are not the significant and worrying aspects of cost-escalation in the aircraft industry field. It is essentially in the extra cost of research and development and the extra cost of a more complicated or difficult form of manufacture. Therefore there is no reason for alarm with regard to either the C 130 or the Phantom.
In regard to the F 111—I have said this before and I do not want to labour it—there is a ceiling price which is approximately £2·1 million. The price the Air Force will pay for the aircraft will again he the average price paid by the U.S.A.F. within that ceiling; with, however, an increase up to £2·5 million. The latter part is only an estimate; but I hope there will be a precise price fixed in relation to research and development and the incorporation of certain British equipment. The margin for error here is pretty small.
I can only say that although I agree, as will all noble Lords, that confident statements in this field have in the past all too often been belied, I am as confident as it is possible to be about any group of aircraft, and I am infinitely more confident than I could have been about certain other types of aircraft in the past. I hope I have met the noble Lord as far as I can on this particular point. I am choosing my words "off the cuff" as carefully as I can.
LORD ST. OSWALD: The noble Lord is being confident—and we are not seeking to undermine his confidence—on the cost of basic aircraft. But he has been speaking now specifically of the basic aircraft and he mentioned the adaption necessary for the R.A.F. What he has not mentioned is the follow-up—that is to say, the spares and replacements—and this is really very important. As he knows and as we all know who
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have had to deal with these and other subjects, this can rise astronomically.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I cannot remember whether the noble Earl asked me about spares—
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I asked, really, for the whole range. May I have one question on this subject?—I am most grateful to the noble Lord for making the point. With a new aero-plane, there may well be very big modifications. In fact there are bound to be modifications, whether big or small. Do these come under the ceiling, or what happens? I should like to have some idea. There are many other things.
LORD SHACKLETON: The noble Earl is referring to the new aeroplanes and I imagine this primarily arises in relation to the F 111.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: Yes.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I must concede straight away that the extra cost of fitting the Spey to the, Phantom is very high indeed, and this is already allowed for in the cost. But in relation to the F 111 there is a ceiling price beyond which, so far as we are concerned regarding the basic American aircraft, the price should not go. I concede that there is always the possibility of a small increase in relation to labour or material costs, but this could not be significant. In any case, we have this ceiling. I did not know that I had been specifically asked about spares, but on this we have an agreement—I am now talking of follow-up spares, because the initial order covers the initial supply of spares, spare engines and a good deal of equipment—under which we shall thereafter work through the American co-operative logistic system and will pay the same price as the United States Air Force.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, if they pay through their nose, we shall pay through ours.
LORD SHACKLETON: Well, my Lords, the point is that I think the United States Air Force, in relation to this particular deal, have been more successful in avoiding paying through their nose than the Royal Air Force were under the previous Government. It is because there is a degree of contractual reliability,

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and heavy penalties which are employed by the United States Government in these matters, that we have this confidence.
I think I have gone as far as I can. The noble Earl said he was anxious not to weaken my confidence. I am happy to say that he has not weakened my confidence in this matter. The noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, in referring to our two bites of the cherry, rather questioned the wisdom of pushing forward expenditure in this way, and he said this might fall—unlikely though this prospect is, but we live in a democracy and we must face this possibility—on a Government other than the present one. This, of course, was the unfortunate position that the present Government found themselves in. I have explained to your Lordships that we found an extremely unbalanced Defence budget, and the most striking thing about it was the height of the peaks in the 1970s, the degree and the almost erratic shape of the Defence budgeting, and the very heavy charges which would have fallen in the 1970s, particularly, if I may say so, in relation to the Phantoms which the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, was buying for the Royal Navy.
I do not want to go into all the complexities of finance—
LORD ST. OSWALD: I should think not.
LORD SHACKLETON:—discounted cash flow techniques, and so on, but I would assure the noble Lord there are strong and sound reasons for pushing this expenditure forward. What is does particularly do is provide an even impact on the Defence budget, and in this context it makes sense not to introduce the variable geometry aircraft until the mid-1970s, if we can make do with the V-bombers until then; and it is our view that we can in fact do so.
My Lords, I am conscious that on this small Bill I have already taken a lot of time, and hardly answered any of the noble Lord's points. I think I have dealt with some of his main points. I would say, that his statement that we had cancelled every major aircraft project was, I think, not a very fair one. We have admitted, and noble Lords opposite are entitled to point to it, that we have cancelled certain major aircraft projects; that was due, if I may say so, to the folly
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of the previous Administration in failing I to make the right estimating, but I appreciate the difficulties in which they were in the matter. But, of course, there is a very considerable load on the aircraft industry at the moment, with the V.G. aircraft and the Jaguar coming along. I would say that there are excellent prospects, but the lesson which we have had to learn, which we had to learn so painfully, and which we learned through the bitter experience of the previous Government, is that in this sphere of the very sophisticated military aircraft—and this is a point for the noble Lord, Lord Brockway—we cannot "go it alone" and we can no longer rely on wholly producing these aircraft ourselves.
The noble Lord also referred to the offset agreement and he asked me certain questions to which I will try to give as frank answers as I can. He asked me whether Lockheeds were pressing very hard to sell the Starfighter right up to the end, and was Mr. David Rockefeller assisting them? Although I do not quite see what the special significance of that is, the answer is, Yes. I fully accept this. On the subject of this alleged message from President Johnson, I cannot comment, I do not think it would be suitable for me to comment even if I knew the answer. I would ask the noble Lord not to press me on this. There are, presumably, two stories around. I can only give the facts as I know them and I have inquired very deeply into this. The simple fact, as I understand this—and I believe this to be so—is that in October last year the Saudi-Arabian Government had expressed their readiness to accept an all-American offer to meet the whole of their air defence requirements. The noble Lord has one set of information and I have another, I suspect that mine is better than his. If he does not think so, we can only disagree. I can only state the facts as I know them.
If the United States Government had proceeded on that basis, as they could have done, it would have been the end of British chances of participating in the deal, beyond a few small and insignificant items; and at this point it was clear, as my right honourable friend the Minister of Aviation said in another place, that there was no hope of an all-British sale. Had it not been for the United States agreement to support the joint U.K.-U.S. programme, this could not have

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come off. But it was always made clear that it would not be possible to withdraw the all-American proposal which had, up till then, found favour with the Saudi-Arabian Government. Therefore, while I do not dispute most of the noble Lord's facts and I should think that they are substantially correct, the important factor in this is that there were two offers made—and here again one does not wish to embarrass the United States Government, either—one of which was a joint offer and had the strong support of the American Government; and in fact it was this joint effort that was accepted.
Nothing I say on this depreciates the efforts of the firms, the Ministry of Aviation, the salesmen or of anyone else. This was a tremendous combined effort in which everybody played his part. Even the Royal Air Force, as I should like to say, has given very considerable help in making these deals possible. So I think there is room for misunderstanding, and I can only say to the noble Lord that the facts I have given are the facts as I have myself been able to establish them.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am just as reluctant to embarrass the noble Lord as he is to embarrass the American Government, and he has been extremely frank and certainly as frank as I could have wished. There is one more thing arising from this which has puzzled many people, and that is why we were unable to make an effort, which we should have expected to be a successful effort, to obtain the deal with Jordan, considering our close association with Jordan over the years, which followed by a few weeks or months the Saudi-Arabian deal.
LORD SHACKLETON: I would rather not go into that at the moment.
LORD ST. OSWALD: Very well.
LORD SHACKLETON: The fact is, I agree, that we did not get it; but there are none the less a number of other deals which we hope we shall be able to enter into in the future.
I hope I have answered most of the noble Lord's main points. If there are any I have not answered, I shall be happy to deal with them, but I think I have dealt with them pretty broadly.
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I do not know whether I answered the second point made by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk. He raised the difficult matter of defining what is a collaborative sales agreement. This is a matter on which clearly there is room for that very misunderstanding to which the noble Earl referred. This must depend on a measure of good will and a measure of co-operation. In such dealings as I have had, or that my colleagues or, indeed, officials have had, with the United States Government, certainly there has been room for hard bargaining and disagreement. I hope that no serious disagreements will arise, but it is difficult to dot the i's completely.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, that means that we shall not know officially whether the contract has been gained in collaboration or in competition. I think this is a very fertile source of Anglo-American irritation.
LORD SHACKLETON: The noble Earl says that we shall not know officially. I take it that he means: is there any fixed criterion? It is arguable, and if we accepted Lord St. Oswald's version alone, without the additional information I have given, this could be said to be done in competition. But it was a joint effort. I can only say that I hope it will be apparent whether we have collaborated or competed. In this particular case, I am satisfied that it was a collaborative effort.
I should like to turn to the speech of my noble friend Lord Brockway. I am glad that he appreciates the correctness of the Government's action in putting this important Defence expenditure fairly and squarely under Parliamentary control. Unfortunately, I, too, must have been misled by the title of my noble friend's book, otherwise I should have been better informed if I had read Death Pays a Dividend, without thinking that it was just a detective story. I would only say this to my noble friend. He said that he wished we could use British aircraft, and at the same time he attacked the appointment of the Head of Defence Sales, and attacked the sales of defence equipment. If there is one sure way of ensuring that we have to buy Defence equipment from America, it is by refraining from trying to sell our own Defence equipment abroad. I am sure that the

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noble Lord, if he stands on those two points, is condemned in logic on both. The rôle of the Head of Defence Sales (and this is not the time to go into it at too great length), and indeed the purpose of selling Defence equipment abroad, is, first of all, to ensure that our friends and allies are supplied with the equipment they need. At the same time, it is of great importance, because there is a large amount of British industrial skills tied up in the Defence industry, and a great deal of civilian industry (we may regret this at the moment) derives strength from the Defence industries and the skills and development that go into them.
This argument I am using is not an argument against a progressive move towards disarmament. Indeed, we should all like to see a much greater measure of disarmament. But when we are faced with the world as it is to-day, and while the Government follow the present policy, which I believe has the broad support of the majority of people in the country, we have to see that our forces are properly equipped. Unfortunately, we have found that in relation to certain expensive advanced aircraft projects the cost of developing was more than we alone could afford. This was the story of the TSR 2 tragedy. In the circumstances, the cheapest solution was for us to buy American. But in the long run, we shall need the British aircraft industry, and we hope to continue to develop it in collaboration with Europe, and it will be necessary for us to sell Defence equipment abroad, not only on our own behalf, but on behalf of the French, unless we are to hand over the whole of this activity either to the United States or to the Russians.
I was asked whether there was any provision in this Bill, or in any other way, for cutting off the purchase of these aircraft. Certainly there is no such provision in this Bill, and it would be inappropriate that there should be. This is a Bill which is intended to give the Government powers to borrow the necessary money. If, in the event, they do not need to borrow the money, then they need not do so. It is always possible to cancel any Defence programme, as both this Government and the previous Government know all too well, so many having been cancelled. But it is apt to be an expensive business, and even if conditions
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East of Suez greatly improve, as we all hope they will, particularly in regard to confrontation—this will be a most welcome relief to our Forces and will lead to economies—the fact still remains that, to the best of our judgment, we shall need this sort of military capacity in the world in the 1970s. If there is a radical change over the next few years, it may be that we shall be able to think again. I am afraid I have given a general answer to my noble friend, but I hope that none the less I have answered him sufficiently.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him this question? He is asking in this Bill for a great deal of money, and he was critical of the Conservative Government's estimate on Defence expenditure in the 1970s. Can he tell the House whether the Estimates, which no doubt have been made for ten years or more ahead, show that the Defence Estimate will be kept under the £2,000 million on 1964 prices? In the light of what he has already said, if he says "Yes" I shall not believe him. If he says that he is confident, then I shall think his confidence misplaced.
LORD SHACKLETON: In the circumstances, there is no point in my commenting on what the noble Lord has said. He has made his point.
LORD CARRINGTON: The noble Lord does not think so, either.
LORD SHACKLETON: The fatal thing is that the Opposition are insatiable. We give them information of a kind which they never gave us, and they want more. I hope that your Lordships will give this Bill a Second Reading, and I commend it to the House.
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.

ROYAL COMMISSIONS ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT
4.20 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, with permission, I should like to repeat a Statement which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has made in another place. His words were:
"The House will recall that, on the 10th of February, I announced that the

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Counsellors of State acting on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen had approved the setting up of Royal Commissions to undertake a comprehensive review of local government in England and Scotland respectively.
"I am now happy to be able to tell the House that Her Majesty has been pleased to approve the appointment of Sir John Maud as Chairman of the Royal Commission on Local Government in England, and of the right honourable Lord Wheatley as Chairman of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland.
"I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT the terms of reference for the two Commissions and the names of the other members.
"When the House has had an opportunity to study the details, all honourable and right honourable gentlemen will, I think, agree with me that these are powerful Commissions on which we can place our hopes. I am sure we all wish them well in their work."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement of the Prime Minister.
Following is the information referred to in the Statement:
The terms of reference for the Royal Commission on Local Government in England are:
"To consider the structure of Local Government in England, outside Greater London, in relation to its existing functions; and to make recommendations for authorities and boundaries, and for functions and their division, having regard to the size and character of areas in which these can be most effectively exercised and the need to sustain a viable system of local democracy."
The names of the members are:

Sir John Maud, G.C.B., C.B.E. (Chairman),

Mr. J. E. Bolton, D.S.C. (Vice-Chairman),

Mr. V. G. H. Feather, C.B.E.,

Sir Francis Hill, C.B.E.,

Mr. J. I. Longland,

Mr. A. H. Marshall, C.B.E., Ph.D.,

Mr. Peter Mursell, M.B.E., D.L.,

Mr. Derek Senior,

Dame Evelyn Sharp, C.B.E.,

Mr. T. D. Smith,

Mr. R. C. Wallis, J.P.

The terms of reference for the Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland are:
"To consider the structure of Local Government in Scotland in relation to its existing functions; and to make recommendations for authorities and boundaries, and for functions and their division, having regard
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to the size and character of areas in which these can be most effectively exercised and the need to sustain a viable system of local democracy."
The names of the members are:

The Right Honourable Lord Wheatley (Chairman),

Miss M. B. Harvie Anderson, O.B.E., T.D.,

M.P. (Mrs. J. F. P. Skrimshire),

Mr. Henry Ballantyne, D.L., J.P.,

The Right Honourable Thomas Fraser, M.P.,

Mr. A. L. Imrie, C.B.E.,

Mr. D. R. Johnstone, M.P.,

Mr. James McBoyle, C.B.E., D.L.,

Mr. H. T. MacCalman.

One further member will be appointed shortly.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl the Leader of the House for repeating the Prime Minister's Statement, and I congratulate the Government on securing the services of Sir John Maud and Lord Wheatley as Chairmen of these two Commissions. I am sure that we all agree that these are admirable choices, and I should like to echo the words of the Statement in wishing the Chairmen and the members of their Commissions well in their important work.
I have one question to put to the noble Earl. The establishment of these Commissions has inevitably created a great deal of uncertainty in local government circles. While this uncertainty is natural, it is also potentially harmful and should clearly be dispelled as quickly as possible, since those who work in local government wish to know where they stand. Can the noble Earl give us any indication when the Government expect these two Commissions to report?
LORD WADE: My Lords, may I join in welcoming the appointment of these two distinguished gentlemen as Chairmen of these Commissions? I also hope that we may have some indication as to when the Commissions will commence work, and how long the reviews will take. Lastly, could the noble Earl the Leader of the House give any indication as to the position with regard to Wales?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, and the noble Lord, Lord Wade, for their support of these Commissions, and for their approval of the names of the Chairmen. I am sure there are many friends of Sir John Maud in this House who would agree that he

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is the ideal choice. And the same holds good of Lord Wheatley.
May I answer the point raised by both noble Lords, and say that it is hoped that the Commissions will report in not more than two years. As regards Wales, which I thought might be raised by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, if it had not been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wade—or possibly the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore—I can say this. Following rejection by the last Conservative Government of the proposals of the Local Government Commission for Wales, the then Secretary of State, Mr. Griffiths, on taking office, set up a Working Party composed mostly of officials to take a fresh look at local government. This survey, which has taken place in consultation with local authorities in Wales, is now almost complete. It is hoped that a White Paper will be presented in due course. When the White Paper has been drafted, the Secretary of State will be consulting his colleagues and hopes to be able to publish it before the end of the year.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that the reason why the Conservative Government's Commission on Wales became a dead letter was that it was felt that the terms of reference were inadequate? Is that not a lesson we should have learned in regard to the setting up of Commissions for England and Scotland?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am afraid I must leave the noble Lord to fight that one out with the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and other Welshmen. As the noble Lord knows, one of my grandmothers came from Llandudno, but that hardly equips me to pronounce on that particular point.

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL
4.25 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Bill provides a fund for the Loan Commissioners for lending to local authorities. The sum provided is £900 million. It is hoped that this will be adequate to enable the Public Works Loan Board to meet the requirements of the local authorities until about
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the end of 1967. There is also provision of a further £50 million which will enable the Loan Commissioners to enter into commitments for loans which will, in practice, be taken up after the expiration of the present Act. This follows the provisions of the previous Act.
It might interest your Lordships, as it has done me, to learn a little about the Public Works Loan Board, one of our smaller public offices, but one with a very long history. The first Commissioners were appointed in 1817, though they did not receive their present title until later that century. Throughout their history the Commissioners have had one function—to lend money for public purposes. Over the years, the purposes for which they have lent money have varied, and some of them, such as the Cattle Diseases Prevention Act, compensation for damage during riots, emigration, and a Thames Tunnel, seem a little strange to us now. But throughout their long history the Commissioners have been lending to local authorities towards their capital expenditure. Today, this is almost the only lending the Commissioners do, although I am told that they will lend occasional sums for harbours under the Harbours and Passing Tolls Act, 1861.
The Commissioners themselves meet frequently to approve loans and deal with any other business. They are appointed from persons with financial experience, especially with experience of local authority finance. They are unpaid—yet another example of people giving their time voluntarily for public service, part of a tradition of which I think this country has every right to be proud. Their staff is small, but they manage to deal with many thousands of applications for loans in a year, and last year the sums they lent out added up, in all, to over £600 million. I am sure the House will join with me in paying tribute to them and to their staff.
I think that I ought to refer briefly to the arrangements for lending to local authorities which the Board will be operating this financial year. All local authorities will be able to borrow from the Board, at advantageous rates of interest, 30 per cent. of their total long-term borrowing needs for the year. For authorities in less prosperous regions (Scotland, Wales, the North, and the

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North-West of England), the proportion will be 40 per cent., and any authority, whatever its total borrowing needs, will be able to get up to £100,000 from the Board. This last provision means that many hundreds of the smallest local authorities are able to finance all their capital works from the Board. These arrangements are the same as those that were in force last year. One change has, however, been made. An authority's quota will be reduced to the extent that it has already drawn a quota loan in one year on borrowing maturing in the succeeding year.
I know that there has been some disappointment that it has not proved possible to increase local authorities' quotas this year. However, I think that it is generally understood that in present circumstances the Chancellor did not feel himself able to do this. It does however remain the policy of the Government to adhere to the policy on local authority borrowing laid down in the 1963 White Paper on Local Authority Borrowing and to increase local authorities' quotas as soon as this is possible.
I hope that I have said enough about this very short but important Bill to commend it to your Lordships. It has only one clause of substance, which in its first part provides for the sum of £900 million to be put at the disposal of the Public Works Loan Commissioners, in its second part limits issues under the Act to the period during which the Act is operative, and in its third part permits the Commissioners to undertake to make loans which will be met out of funds to be made available by the next Act. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(Baroness Phillips.)
4.29 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I do not propose to detain your Lordships long on this matter this afternoon, even though the purist in me tells me that I should avow, as I now do, an interest in this field. I must confess that I should be hard pushed to it to talk at great length on this exceedingly æsthetic subject. Moreover, we have a certain amount of other Business to come. First of all, may I thank the noble Baroness for her lucid and informative introduction
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to the Second Reading of this Bill, and join with her in expressing, from these Benches, our gratitude to the Public Works Loan Commissioners. As she has said, they render valuable service, which is given voluntarily; and that should endear their work to your Lordships.
I believe that the 1963 Act on local borrowing, from which this Bill stems, struck just about the right balance of policy. It was right that a rather tighter discipline should be placed on short-term borrowing by local authorities, and in my view it was also right that they should have been given the expectation of easier access to the Public Works Loan Board for their longer-term financial requirements. At the same time I am not one of those who feel that all their longer term financing should be provided by the Public Works Loan Board. That would make them far too dependent in all financial respects upon the centre.
As the noble Baroness has indicated, the White Paper looked forward to a situation in which local authorities would have been able to raise up to 50 per cent. of their longer-term financing from the Public Works Loan Board, and I think that in the ordinary course of events the general platform this year would have been raised to 40 per cent. We have now been told by the Government that for the time being the general platform will remain at 30 per cent., and, in addition, that a tighter quota system will be imposed. This curtailing of the local authorities' expectations is, of course, regrettable. The services which they provide are extremely important, and expenditure on these services is bound to increase. If the proportion which they can raise at Government credit terms is docked, then inevitably they will be increasingly forced upon an already hard-pressed capital market. Nevertheless, I feel that, although the Government decision is regrettable, and the need for it is perhaps even more regrettable, I cannot bring myself to question the actual decision. We must recognise that in present circumstances the Government have no option but to restrict borrowing, and if that is so it would be illogical not to place restrictions on access by local authorities to the Board.

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The first point I would put to the noble Baroness is this. I shall be grateful if she can confirm that the Government still adhere, at least in principle, to the general doctrine, to be found in the 1963 White Paper, of easier access to the Loan Board. Secondly, do they view this temporary cutting as a purely interim measure; and can she tell us anything of the discussions, which I gather from the debate in another place have been going on, about impact, so far as the quota is concerned, between the local authority associations and Whitehall?
Finally, I should like to revert to one specific suggestion for easing the present situation which was advanced in another place when this Bill was given a Second Reading there. Some of your Lordships may be familiar with a recent innovation in the field of local government financing called the negotiable bond. It is now often called the "yearling bond", which is something of a misnomer, because the life of this bond can vary between one and five years. But already these bonds finance well over £100 million per year of local government expenditure, recourse to which is restricted by a ceiling of £1 million imposed by the Government. This is a flat and rather arbitrary ceiling, because it has been imposed not only on great corporations but also across the board, and so covers the tiniest of rural district councils as well. It was suggested in another place that in present circumstances it would make access to the market easier for local authorities if the £1 million ceiling were waived and they were permitted by this means to borrow up to 10 per cent. of their net outstanding debt. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury said that he would be glad to consider this suggestion. It seems to this semi-amateur to be rather a good aim, and I wonder whether the noble Baroness, when she replies, can confirm that the Government are prepared to look upon this proposal favourably.
Although this is not, to my surprise, a Money Bill I would conclude by saying that, while we deplore the need for this rather more restrictive policy on the part of the Government, we do not, of course, wish to oppose the Second Reading of the Bill which, as I have said, the noble
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Baroness has moved so lucidly and comprehensively.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should like first to thank the noble Earl for his great courtesy in giving me prior notice of these two points. I will be quite frank and say that, had he not done this, it would have been impossible for me even to attempt to give an answer; and therefore I greatly appreciate his action. I have endeavoured to get the answers. Of course, as the noble Earl knows only too well, the mere fact that one has notice of the questions does not mean that one can necessarily give the answers.
With regard to the point about the discussions which were mentioned during the debate in another place, I understand that this referred, in fact, to discussions with the representatives of local authorities: not only the discussions on the point of the quota but those which continue all the time. I have no information to give the noble Earl on this matter, because the discussions are still continuing.
I would confirm that the Government still adhere to the policy set out in the 1963 White Paper, and say that the present restrictions are regarded, as he so rightly said, as temporary and sadly necessary. On the last point, again I am sorry that I am unable to give him a very specific answer. I will merely repeat the statement made by Mr. Niall MacDermot, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in another place, in which he said that they would be prepared to look at the question raised by the honourable Member who had made the suggestion. As this was only quite recently, I am afraid that I cannot add anything to that. I am grateful to the noble Earl for his help in this matter. I have spent a rather busy weekend trying to assimilate these facts and to anticipate all the questions he would ask, and I am grateful that he has made this task relatively easy.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, may I merely say to the noble Baroness that having, like herself, spent part of the weekend "mugging up" this complex subject, and since we are now both experts in it, I hope she will bring to the attention of her colleague, the Financial Secretary, the view of these two great experts on

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the merits of the suggestion put in another place.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I will certainly bring to the attention of the Financial Secretary the points put forward by one expert.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

LAND REGISTRATION BILL [H.L.]
4.38 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. As your Lordships know, without registration of title to land the ordinary solicitor for the purchaser has to ascertain whether his client has a good title for at least the last 30 years. This means going back through all the abstracts of title and necessarily costs a good deal of money. With registration of title to land, once the title is registered anyone can safely acquire a registered title. If it should turn out that there is a mistake in the Register there is a fund which compensates him. Forty-one years ago, when the Act was passed, opinions were rather more divided than they are now about the value of compulsory registration of title, but to-day everyone would, I think, agree that it has proved its worth as a means by which transfers of title of land may be expedited, simplified and cheapened.
In August, 1964, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, announced a programme to extend the system of compulsory registration of title to land to all built up areas of England and Wales within eight years. I stated last year that the then Government approved and adopted that plan. It will take a good deal of planning and impose a considerable strain on the resources of the Land Registry. It means that they must increase their staff by about 15 per cent. per annum, and, allowing for wastage, this means in practice about 30 per cent. per annum. They have to acquire premises in which to open new district offices, and the whole programme has to be phased to fit in with these growing resources and
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with the development of the district land registries.
Then it was found that in practice there was another difficulty. The registration of title requires an up-to-date ordnance survey map, but the Ordnance Survey Department's plans did not include the completion of their work for the country as a whole until the end of the century. But, with the help which I have received from my right honourable friend the Minister of Land and Natural Resources and also the Treasury, their programme has been entirely altered and expedited to fit in with this eight-year crash programme to extend compulsory registration of title to all built-up areas within what will now be the next seven years, and the whole of the rest of the country within a further seven years. The object of this Bill, therefore, is to assist to implement the plan of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, because one or two difficulties have been found to arise, apart from the difficulty to which I have already referred of the reorganisation of the plans of the Ordnance Survey Department.
The object of Clause 1(1) is to clear away complicated procedural requirements. In 1925, as I have said, there was some doubt among conveyancers as to whether registered title would be a good thing or not, and therefore it was provided that registration could not become compulsory in any county without a lot of paraphernalia. There had to be a resolution by the county council for which not less than two-thirds of the members were present and voted, or, if the council did not agree and the Minister wanted to do it, then, if there was an objection, six month's notice had to be given. Moreover, if anybody wanted it there had to be a public inquiry. At the present time I think this is unnecessary.
Subsection (2) of Section 120 of the Act contains what I have referred to as the "paraphernalia". Both the Law Society and the various associations of the local authorities agree that these requirements are now quite out of date, because everybody is in favour of extending compulsory registration to the whole country as quickly as possible. Paragraph (a) of subsection (1) therefore removes these prior conditions so as to enable new areas of compulsory registration to come into being by a simple

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Order in Council. Of course the Land Registry, in phasing their programme for extension, will still consult the county councils and other local authorities well in advance. That goes without saying. It will obviously be necessary to give them prior notice and warning.
Subsection (2) of Clause 1 is intended to meet a further difficulty. At the present time in areas which are not subject to compulsory registration there can still be voluntary registration which the registrar is compelled to accept. If this were continued unchanged it would conceivably impede the general extension of land registration throughout the country, because these voluntary registrations are often awkward questions of title; senior staff have to be despatched to deal with them and special ordnance survey maps have to be made to cover the particular case in question. It is haphazard. In these circumstances we propose that voluntary registration shall not be entertained except in such classes of case as the Chief Land Registrar may signify that he is prepared to accept. That provides a flexible system. The Chief Land Registrar will from time to time publish lists in the legal press of categories of cases which he is prepared to entertain. If, for example, in a county in which compulsory registration does not at present exist there is going to be a building estate of 50 houses, the sensible thing no doubt is to register the title from the start, and that he will do. But it may be possible to extend the categories which he would register in the light of the development of the eight-year plan. In any event, he would be able to deal with emergency applications—for example, such as became necessary when the East Coast towns were flooded some years ago and a large number of title deeds were lost.
Nobody dislikes the idea of curtailing freedom to register more than I do, but the important thing is to ensure that compulsory registration of title is extended to the whole country as quickly as possible, with all the benefits of certainty and cheapness that it brings. Those really are the two objects of the Bill: to enable compulsory registration of title to be extended in an orderly, phased programme over the next seven years, and to restrict meanwhile some of the voluntary registrations which could otherwise take place.
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Advantage has been taken of the Bill to make one or two minor changes largely arising out of anomalies found in the Act. These are the subject matter of subsections (3) and (4) of Clause 1. In subsection (3) it is made clear that payment of compensation can be made where the only loss suffered by the claimant has been in legal costs and expenses. This compensation may be provided where an inaccurate title has been registered, and anybody who is damaged is then compensated out of a fund, for which trustees are responsible, the fund being provided by a small fee paid by everybody who uses the Registry.
This particular difficulty arises because section 83(8) of the 1925 Act says:
"In granting any indemnity the registrar may have regard to any costs and expenses properly incurred in relation to the matter and may add the same to the amount of the indemnity money which would otherwise be payable."
This, on an ordinary reading of it, says that if somebody is being paid compensation, you can add to it any legal costs or expenses incurred. But very often the lawyer's costs and expenses are the only damage which he suffered, and the section, as it at present stands, appears to mean that costs and expenses cannot be paid alone unless some other sum is being paid at the same time. That is the reason that subsection (3) provides that costs and expenses can be paid, even though no other sum is being paid at the same time.
Subsection (4) provides that an indemnity will no longer be payable to an applicant where his loss arises through any act, neglect or fault of his. At the present time, for some reason I have not been able to discover, he can be refused only where he has been guilty of fraud. It seems quite wrong that the Indemnity Fund should have to meet consequences which were caused by the claimant's own fault—for example, through failure to disclose an incumbrance which subsequently has to be entered on the Register, or where he submits an inaccurate plan, with the result that too much or too little land is included in the registered title. The Indemnity Fund is formed from the fees charged by the Land Registry, and it is my wish that these fees be kept as low as possible. I do not know why refusal came to be limited in the Act to fraud.

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The words "act, neglect or default" were originally in the Land Transfer Act 1897, Section 7(3) of which provided
"A person shall not be entitled to an indemnity for any loss where he has caused or substantially contributed to the loss by his act, neglect or default."
It seems to have been an error that that was not carried forward into the 1925 Act.
Clause 2 deals merely with the citation, construction and commencement of the Bill, and I need not detain your Lordships further upon it. My noble friend Lord Arwyn has asked me whether the Bill can be extended to mineral rights. Presumably he would like to see their registration also made compulsory. Applications are sometimes made for the registration of mineral rights. They are usually most difficult, and I think that my noble friend's proposal would really mean transferring to the Chief Land Registrar all the difficulties which the mining and quarrying industry now has. But whether or not that be so, I am advised that such an Amendment would be outside the Long Title of the Bill, and certainly outside its scope. As the object of the Bill is to simplify the tasks of the Land Registry so as to help them complete the eight-year plan, it would be entirely contrary to the Government's policy to extend the Bill in that way, even if it were possible. My Lords, I commend the Bill to your Lordships, and beg to move accordingly.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
4.54 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, considering the source from which this Bill appears to have emanated, and the noble and learned Lord's generosity in attributing it to my noble friend Lord Dilhorne, I do not suppose that anybody from these Benches will wish to object to it, the more so because it seems, to me at least, to be a most sensible measure.
The provisions of the 1925 Act which are repealed by Clause 1(1) are indeed curious. But I think that the noble and learned Lord has made a slight error in attributing this matter to the 1925 legislation. I think he would be interested in this quotation:
"We are sometimes charged with want of speed as law reformers. But in truth such of
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us as desire reforms of this kind are often surprised that we cannot obtain more assistance in passing our measures from the lay classes who are oppressed by the uninformed procedure."—[Hansard (4th Series), Vol. 46, col. 1567; 4/3/1897]
This was, in fact, part of the speech of the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Halsbury, on March 4, 1897, in your Lordships' House; and he was apologising for the necessity to put in most of the rigmarole which appeared in Section 20 of the Land Transfer Act of that year, which then became transposed into the 1925 Act, and now, in due course, comes before your Lordships to-day.
I am glad to hear that the County Councils' Association and the various other local authority bodies have been consulted about this, because although it would appear that the provisions are now unnecessary, they nevertheless had a theoretical stranglehold over the progress of this matter of land registration, and if they had had any strong feelings about it I think it would have been right to take these into account even to-day. But apparently all is well on that front. I think perhaps that the Council on Tribunals will not regret the demise of one type of inquiry, under Section 122, over which it would now have to have jurisdiction if this repeal were not made.
I have a certain amount of apprehension about the provisions of Clause 1(2), and it has not altogether been quieted by what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has said. I appreciate that this is a matter of balance between the need, on the one hand, to concentrate the resources of the Land Registry on the compulsory side of its work, and, on the other, the need to deal with the emergency voluntary registrations which may come up from time to time. The noble and learned Lord gave us only one instance of the classes of these voluntary registrations which may be considered, after the passing of this Bill, by the Registrar. I think that the House might welcome any further amplifications he has of this matter, because, as he said, it is a somewhat serious step to restrict the right of purchasers of property and other landowners to have their land registered, even although it is not in a compulsory area. For instance, when I bought my house in Suffolk it so happened that my predecessor had lost one of the deeds that was required to make good title. The

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only method by which to get round this, in order to provide a good title, was to have the land registered. This was duly done. I wonder what sort of restrictions are going to be placed upon that type of voluntary registration. If the noble and learned Lord could tell us a little more about this I should be much obliged.
I should also like to ask him a littlemore about both the staff and the Ordnance Survey, both of which he mentioned and which I believe to be of vital importance—indeed I know they are. First of all, the noble and learned Lord mentioned the figure of 30 per cent. per annum recruitment. Is he satisfied that, with the shortage of professional people suitable to do this work, that sort of figure will in fact be met? Does he know, or is he reasonably confident, that the number of people required will come forward? If not, clearly, this programme simply will not get any further; or, at any rate, it will be much slowed down.
The second point I would raise with him concerns the Ordnance Survey. I saw that on July 12 last year the right honourable gentleman the Minister of Land and Natural Resources, in a Written Answer in another place, made a statement that a comprehensive review of the work and resources of the Ordnance Survey was being undertaken. Are the figure of eight years, for built-up areas, and the date 1980, for the whole of England and Wales, which the noble and learned Lord has given us to-day, the result of that review? If not, can he say when the result of that review will be available? And do the preliminary pieces of information which have come from it support the timetable that he has given the House to-day?
I cannot believe that anyone will doubt that the provision in Section 83(8) of the 1925 Act, which is amended by Clause 1(3), must have been a mistake. In the days of the 1925 legislation I do not believe that the consolidation procedure was entirely as it is to-day. It may be that the necessity for both this and the following subsection arose simply from some failure, perhaps on your Lordships' part, to look with care at the Bill when it was before Parliament. At any rate, I fully support the change in subsection (3). Having heard what the noble and learned Lord said
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about the change made in subsection (4), I think that this also should receive your Lordships' support.
I must say that when I first read it, and before I had heard the noble Lord's explanation, I wondered whether it was because there had been some undue run on the Land Registry's Indemnity Fund caused by people claiming indemnity although they themselves had been in the wrong, though not fraudulent, in causing the mistake to be made. It is a curious fact that this limitation to fraud occurs in Section 83 of the 1925 Act, whereas so far as rectification is concerned the whole matter is dealt with on the basis of act or default in Section 82. There have, of course, been some very complicated cases dealt with under Section 82, which tend to show that sometimes a very fine distinction is made by the courts on what it is that causes or substantially contributes to the mistake being made. This will be brought by subsection (4) into the question of claiming an indemnity.
I do not know whether the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, has had an opportunity to look into the position, with the technical difficulties which sometimes may arise—perhaps when no map is produced at all; and when it was in fact the fault of the Land Registry themselves, or perhaps largely their fault, that caused the mistake—to see whether there may not be some hardship in this restriction of the right to indemnity. It does not appear to be so on the face of it, but there seem to be borderline cases in the courts. Although I would not expect the noble and learned Lord to give me an answer to-day, I wonder if he would kindly satisfy himself that no such dangers arise under this subsection. With those comments—and I hope that none of them will be taken as being in the least critical—I hope that the House will support the Bill and give it a Second Reading this afternoon.
5.2 p.m.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, my noble friend has said that, the origins of this Bill being what they are, no one is likely to be found in any quarter of your Lordships' House who would desire to oppose it. Certainly I have no intention to do so, and I have no desire to

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propose any modification in the Bill which is likely to impair its expedition or its usefulness. However, there is one matter on which I hope the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack may be able to give me some assurance.
Under the present law, as has been pointed out, a landowner who desires to register his title may require the Land Registrar to register his land whether it is within an area where registration is compulsory or not. It is also possible for registration to be made compulsory within a county or a county borough at the instance of the county council or the county borough council. The local authorities recognise reasons why circumstances have made the curtailment of these powers to introduce compulsory registration necessary, and they accept that. But they are not by any means satisfied about the other change which the Bill will make. They regard with some apprehension the loss of the power to call for registration voluntarily—apart, of course, from the power which the Registrar has of specifying the classes.
The local authorities, and particularly the urban authorities, are very large purchasers of land to-day. They must acquire land for their housing programmes, for their development areas, and for the redevelopment of the central areas of their towns. These acquisitions are very often followed by re-sales to persons who have been given consent to re-develop. All this imposes upon the legal staffs of the local authorities a very great burden. It will add very considerably to that burden if they are required, as they may be under this Bill, to deduce a separate title in each individual case, both of the initial purchase and of the subsequent re-sale. Titles of urban properties are usually involved, ancient and often highly complicated. This Bill will make it necessary for the local authority to spell out what may be a long and complicated title, not only on the first acquisition, but on each of the subsequent acquisitions as well.
I very much hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will be able to hold out the prospect of some relief in this direction. It is all very well to withdraw powers, as this Bill does, from the local authorities in order to relieve the burden upon the staffs of the
1304
Land Registry. I am sure that that in itself is a most excellent purpose. But the burden still remains—and it is in fact cast upon another no less burdened group of public officials, the legal staffs of the local authorities.
It would be out of place and inappropriate for me to appear to present this matter to the noble and learned Lord in the form of a bargain; I must be careful that I do not do that. But there can be no harm in my concluding my observations by reminding the noble and learned Lord that the local authorities will, in the interests of staff economies, surrender without protest the power which they now enjoy to compel registration in their areas. I hope the noble Lord the Lord Chancellor will be able to assure me that the Registrar will take that matter into consideration when he comes to prescribe the classes of persons who will be able to register their titles voluntarily. If the local authorities could be afforded that relief, it would be a very welcome relief to their legal staffs. Therefore, I hope the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will be able to give me some reassurance.
5.8 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House unnecessarily by emphasising points which have already been brought to your Lordships' attention. After having listened to the noble and learned Lord, I certainly do not wish to oppose the Bill in any way; but I should like to underline what Lord Ilford has just so eloquently and clearly enunciated, and that is the difficulty which may possibly beset local authorities under Clause 1(2). I am not sure, after listening to the Lord Chancellor, that he has not already covered this point, but I am sure that when he comes to sum up the debate he will be willing to say whether he can give the assurance which local authorities would like to have.
I need only say, as we all know, that when a local authority has embarked on a large-scale scheme of town redevelopment frequently a tangled web of legal titles has to be contended with, and it would be most helpful if they could feel that they could then apply and that that sort of case would be one of those specified as capable of being given particular attention under this Bill. It would, of course, be much appreciated if an assurance, to this

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effect could be given by the noble and learned Lord; that is to say, that such an application would not be barred as one which might receive particular attention and which would at least get sympathetic consideration—I almost said "favourable consideration", but I would not tie down the assurance in that way.
5.10 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I am sorry not to have heard the beginning of the speech of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor in moving the Second Reading of this Bill. I understand that in the course of it he made reference to the part I played in initiating a scheme for the rapid progress of land registration. I must express my gratitude to him, and say again how sorry I was not to hear the beginning of what he said.
I was delighted to hear that it is now thought to be possible to extend this system of registration to all urban areas within seven years from now, and to the whole of the country within a further seven years. Speaking from memory, that is a remarkable improvement on the forecast made at the time when I first had to consider this position. It is a very curious thing that for years and years this system of land registration was not at all popular with local authorities, solicitors and many other people (and in my belief a very sound scheme), but in recent years the mood of the country has changed completely and to-day it is wanted everywhere as soon as possible. Of course, the Land Registry must have carefully trained staff. They carry a very great burden of responsibility, and unless they are extremely accurate it is bound to cause a great deal of trouble. I think they deserve to be congratulated upon being able to contemplate such a rapid extension of staff—and training of staff, as this must mean—as to be able to fulfil this task in so short a period.
I am sure the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor regrets as much as we all do the necessity to restrict the right to voluntary registration, but to my mind that is a price which requires to be paid if we are to get registration over the whole of the country as soon as possible. I thought the plea of my noble friend Lord Ilford was a plea that that should happen as speedily as possible. But I am sure also that the Land
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Registrar will do what he can to meet voluntary applications for registration in the cases mentioned by the two noble Lords who have just spoken, so long as he can be sure that he will not, by so doing, delay the implementation of compulsory registration in urban areas and, later, over the whole of the country. I think it is inevitable, if compulsory registration is to proceed as quickly as I hope it will, that there must be some holding back of these voluntary applications for registration. But I have no doubt myself that they will be held back as little as possible.
I welcome this Bill which should facilitate the process and overcome some of the difficulties. I hope that it will be speedily enacted, and I hope, too, that when it is enacted it will be found possible in future years to accelerate still further the process of land registration, and so remove the doubts and fears felt by those who view with some degree of apprehension the temporary restriction of voluntary registration. I thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for what he has said, and I should like to pay my tribute to those who work in the Land Registry for the very valuable work they are performing.
5.14 p.m.
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, this is by no means a Party Bill, and I am therefore glad to be able to support what has been
submitted by the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, and the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, in accordance with what the Association of Municipal Corporations feel is desirable so far as this Bill is concerned. I do not intend to go over the arguments which have already been adduced for some flexibility in the Bill, in order to meet the somewhat exceptional position of local authorities in this matter of voluntary registration. I am sure that no one would wish to hamper or retard the work of local authorities in regard to town development. It is a great responsibility which has been placed upon them by the Government and, arising out of a long knowledge of the problems in connection with town development or redevelopment, responsible people in local government feel that this voluntary registration is absolutely necessary for them if their work is not to be hampered in the very near future.

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The proposals in the Bill are in no way opposed by the Association of Municipal Corporations, and they feel that the Bill is moving in the right direction. If it were felt that rapidly and without any loss of time registration throughout the country would be accomplished, then obviously the problem would not arise. But it is quite clear from what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has said, and from the provision in the Bill itself, that even with additional staff no one can expect a problem of this magnitude to be settled in a very brief time. However, I would urge and repeat that local authorities, with the wealth of their experience, ask this House and the Government to consider their exceptional position and give that flexibility which is absolutely necessary for them.
5.17 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, may I first thank your Lordships for the reception which this short Bill has had in all quarters of your Lordships' House? May I deal, first, with the point raised by the noble and learned Viscount, by the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, and the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, about local authorities. The Chief Land Registrar will certainly consult the local authorities first of all about his general programme. It is, as I understand it, his intention to make up his own mind as to the areas to which compulsory registration would be extended this year, next year and in 1968. Of course, if a particular county council, for example, has some special reason for wanting to be included one year rather than another, obviously he will consider that. If they all say, "We want to be done in the first two years", obviously he cannot complete a seven-year programme within two years.
Secondly, so far as local authorities are concerned, I should perhaps say that voluntary registration falls into the following categories: 39 per cent. are single-owner-occupied houses, and I am afraid I cannot give any undertaking that the Chief Land Registrar will be able to accept voluntary registration there; 17½ per cent. are building land for development; 16 per cent. are land acquired for investment and redevelopment; 10 per cent. are single plots, probably additions to a house or garden; 6 per cent. are
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land owned for commercial or industrial purposes; 5·4 per cent. are land owned by local authorities; 1·7 per cent. are agricultural land; 1·5 per cent. are shops and stores; 0·8 per cent. are land held by charities for religious purposes; 0·3 per cent. are breweries; 1 per cent. are unclassified.
The Chief Land Registrar proposes to accept voluntary registration applications where there is a development of a building estate of more than about 25 houses and plots, and comparable development of purpose-built flats. He may in those cases specify that plans will not be altered once the application is made, and that these estates should be specially surveyed. I am sure that he will bear in mind the special position of local authorities, certainly where development is to take place, and it may be possible to extend these categories in the light of the development of the eight-year plan. But, of course, as the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, pointed out, one cannot have things both ways. One cannot extend compulsory registration of title to all the built-up areas in the country within the next seven years and, at the same time, go on accepting all voluntary conveyances.
Then, I can assure the noble Viscount. Lord Colville of Culross, that I am told that the Ordnance Survey programme has been matched to fit the land registration programme, and that this is going well. Then he asked me whether there had been any undue run on the Indemnity Fund. That is not the case at all. The total amount paid out is relatively small. Speaking from memory, I think it is something like £20,000 during the whole time that the Fund has been in existence. This is simply a case of putting right what I think was an obvious mistake in the original Act, and I see no reason why the Amendment proposed should cause any hardship.
The noble Viscount also asked about staff, and asked me whether there was reasonable confidence that staff would come forward in view of the necessary considerable expansion to which I referred. In answer, I can only say, yes, so far the plan is going well. Of course, the Registrar, in choosing his sites for district offices, has particularly in mind sites where there are married women

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available, whether part-time or whole-time, because a great deal of this work is clerical work which staff of that kind can very well do. At the moment, what was originally an eight-year plan is going well and is slightly ahead of the programme. So that to date, certainly, there have been no difficulties as to staff. I think that covers the points which your Lordships have been good enough to raise, and I do not think there is any further matter I need deal with.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

TRANSPORT FINANCES BILL
5.23 p.m.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

TRIBUNALS AND INQUIRIES BILL [H.L.]
5.24 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AIREDALE in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved, after Clause 2, to insert the following new clause:
Betting Levy Appeal Tribunals
" . Notwithstanding anything in section 28(10) of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963, a member of the Council on Tribunals, in his capacity as such, may attend any hearing before a tribunal established by virtue of section 29 of that Act."
The noble Viscount said: I hope that those noble and learned Lords who are waiting for the Criminal Appeal Bill will forgive me if I detain your Lordships for only a short time, I hope, upon this particular matter, but I believe that it is one of importance and one which for some time we are unlikely to get another opportunity to deal with in any legislation. I have put down two Amendments and I think they would be better dis-
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cussed separately, if your Lordships would agree to that course.
The first of them deals with a matter which, as I said on Second Reading, the Council on Tribunals itself complained about in its 1964 Report. The difficulty is that, in connection with hearings of the betting levy appeal tribunals, which now function under the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963 but which originated in the Betting Levy Act 1961, there is a provision—it is Section 28(10) of the 1963 Act—which has in fact proved to have the effect of preventing a member of the Council on Tribunals, in his capacity as such, from attending the hearings of those appeal tribunals in England and in Wales.
I should like to make perfectly clear a matter which I muddled, I am afraid, during the Second Reading debate, and that is that I am not concerned at all with the rights of members of the Council on Tribunals to retire when the members of the tribunal itself have heard the case and have gone away to decide what they are going to do about it. This is quite another matter, and one which I do not wish to raise at all this afternoon. But it does seem to me that since Parliament, or at any rate the Lord Chancellor of the time and the Secretary of State for Scotland, have entrusted the Council on Tribunals with a surveyance of these betting levy appeal tribunals, it is a very strange thing that members of the Council are not entitled as of right to go to these tribunals to hear their proceedings. I think this is not a situation which Parliament intended.
On the last measure that was before your Lordships' House the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor showed himself very ready to correct what was quite clearly a drafting mistake in the 1925 Act, and I hope I may convince him that there has been another drafting mistake in what is now Section 28(10) of the 1963 Act; because at the time the 1961 legislation (which is where this originated) was going through Parliament, it was quite clear to Parliament and to the Government that the Council was complaining about various restrictions on its members attending the tribunals which it had to look after, and an announcement was made in both Houses when the Bill was being dealt with that it was proposed that these

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betting levy appeal tribunals should be looked after by the Council on Tribunals and that an order would be made accordingly.
There was very little discussion of the provisions in what was Clause 4(10) and in the Second Schedule to that Bill, and the only question which really touched upon whether the hearings of these tribunals should be in public or in private was, I think, an Amendment which was moved by the right honourable gentleman the present Member for Leyton during the Report stage in another place. My right honourable friend the Member for Huntingdonshire, who was then the Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office, said that, on the whole, he considered it would not be a good idea that these tribunals should sit in public unless the appellant chose to sanction this, and he drew a comparison with some of the income tax tribunals. I am not suggesting that these tribunals should sit in public, but I am suggesting that in the case of these tribunals (which are indeed, I think, very similar to the tax appeal tribunals) a member of the Council should be entitled to go and listen as of right. He can, so far as I know, in the case of tax tribunals, and to that extent, therefore, the parallel which was drawn in another place seems to me entirely apt.
But it was when my right honourable friend went on to deal with the question of providing, under the rule-making powers in the Bill, for the conduct of these tribunals that I think he went wrong, because he said this:
"I have no doubt that when…the Lord Chancellor and the Lord President of the Court of Session draft their rules of proceedings under the Second Schedule to the Bill they will bear in mind what has been said by the right honourable gentleman…and what is said by the Franks Committee."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 632, col. 1220; 20/12/60.]
They did bear it in mind, and there is a provision in Rule 7(2) of the relevant rules which says that a member of the Council on Tribunals, in that capacity, shall be allowed to attend.
The difficulty is that the creation of the offence under what is now Section 28(10)—that is, if anybody discloses any information which has come before the tribunal—has been interpreted as pre-
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venting the chairman from allowing a member to attend and sit. I am sure that Parliament never intended this. It does not look as though the Government intended this. The action that the Lord Chancellor's office took at the time seems to me expressly to refute any intention that a member should not be entitled to sit; and I am entirely at a loss to see how the Council on Tribunals can properly carry out its job in regard to these particular levy appeal tribunals if they cannot send one of their members along as of right to listen to what goes on.
I would only say, further, that I think I ought to have provided in this Amendment that the penalty on disclosure which is expressly laid upon members of the tribunals and the officers of the board should be extended, if this Amendment is acceptable, to the members of the Council on Tribunals themselves. I also think that this would require perhaps an Amendment to the Long Title of the Bill. I believe there is nothing in the Rules of this House which would prevent at least that happening. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Arwyn, will take pleasure from that particular state of affairs if he should wish to tempt the noble and learned Lord further on minerals in another Bill. So far as this Bill is concerned, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 2, to insert the following new clause:
(". Notwithstanding anything in section 28(10) of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963, a member of the Council on Tribunals, in his capacity as such, may attend any hearing before a tribunal established by virtue of section 29 of that Act.")—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
5.31 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am afraid that I cannot accept this Amendment, for the following reasons. Under the last Conservative Government we have become a country with betting shops and private casinos all over the place, so that men who could have been engaged in manufacturing something the people need are instead engaged in these services. It seems odd to think that it was only a few years ago that everybody was very doubtful whether we ought to allow a new form of horse-race betting called the Totalisator. Eventually we decided to take the risk and legalise the

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Totalisator; but only on terms that the bookmakers were properly treated. At Epsom, for example, where the bookmakers always had to pay stand fees, it was apprehended that the racecourse owners might, in favour of the Totalisator, increase the fees so much as to put the bookmakers out of business. So Parliament expressly provided that the stand fees of the bookmakers must not be increased above the amounts they were then paying.
In the same way, treating both alike, when it was felt that the Totalisator ought to produce some money for the improvement of bloodstock, and pay a levy accordingly, it was decided that the bookmakers must be treated in the same way and that they also must pay a levy. There was no mistake, so far as Parliament was concerned, in enacting, as it did in Section 28(10), that, except with his consent, the information disclosed by the bookmaker to the Betting Levy Appeal Board was not to be disclosed to anyone; and that if it was disclosed by anyone it was to be a serious criminal offence. The only two relevant Amendments with regard to that section which were at any stage moved were the one to which the noble Viscount has already referred—namely, the provision that hearings should be in public; and that was withdrawn—and, secondly, one relating to penalties. The original maximum fine was to have been £50, but Parliament felt so strongly about the need to protect the interests of the bookmaker that the sum was increased by an Amendment to £100.
It is quite wrong to suggest, merely because there is not a right in a member of the Council on Tribunals to attend a hearing before an appeal board against the bookmaker's will, that this in some way removes the appeal board altogether from the surveillance of the Council on Tribunals. It is still open to any bookmaker to go to the Council on Tribunals and say: "I have been badly treated by the appeal board: the chairman behaved very badly. I explained to them what my means were."—because means are very relevant. A bookmaker appeals on the ground that he has been put into the wrong category, or that his earnings have been exaggerated—and these are relevant to the levy that the bookmaker has to pay.
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There is nothing to prevent the Tribunal from inquiring into any complaint. Any bookmaker may go along to them and tell them all about it; he can tell them what he told the board and he can tell them how badly the board behaved. It is not accurate to say they are prevented from attending the hearings. All the Act says is that it is an offence to disclose the information which the bookmaker puts before the appeal board without his consent in writing. He can consent at any time. Even the Franks Committee recognised (of course, the Franks Committee were the parents of the Council on Tribunals) that there are some hearings which should be strictly in private. They said in their Report (paragraph 77):
"We are in no doubt that if adjudicating bodies, whether courts or tribunals, are to inspire that confidence in the administration of justice which is a condition of civil liberty they should, in general, sit in public. But just as on occasion the courts are prepared to try certain types of cases wholly or partly in camera, so, in the wide field covered by tribunals, there are occasions on which we think that justice may be better done, and the interests of the citizens better served, by privacy."
Then in paragraph 79 they said this:
"The more frequent type of case in which privacy is desirable is that in which intimate personal or financial circumstances have to be disclosed. Few people would doubt the wisdow of the practice whereby hearings before the General and Special Commissioners of Income Tax are held in private in order that the details of taxpayers' affairs shall not become public knowledge. …"
I agree with the noble Viscount that this is rather like tax tribunals where the members of the Tribunal are not admitted except with the taxpayers' consent. For over 100 years Parliament has said—with, I should have thought, the general consent of people as a whole—that it is all right for the State to force the taxpayer to tell it exactly what his income is, but that this information will not be disclosed to other people.
One can always make a good case for exceptions. One can say that it would be nice for the representative of the Council on Tribunals to force his way in, whether the bookmaker wanted him or not. There are, however, a great many special cases. If my noble friend Lady Summersk ill were here—which she is not—I am sure she would say that, where a wife has been deserted by her husband and he, having been ordered

1315
to pay maintenance, has disappeared, if he is anywhere in work at all, there is one person in the country who knows both where he is and what his earnings are—the Inland Revenue. And she would say that they certainly ought in some circumstances to give the information to wives.
There are a great many perfectly good arguments that can be advanced for breaching this general rule where someone has disclosed his income to the Revenue and other people have a legitimate interest in knowing what it is. But for over 100 years successive Governments have always fought any inroad into the general principle that in such cases the information is not to be disclosed without the consent of the taxpayer. The position in the sort of case we are discussing is very similar; because here one of the frequent grounds of appeal in many cases—there are not a great many appeals—as I understand it, is that the original Levy Board overrated the bookmakers' earnings. But bookmakers, just like the taxpayers, may not want their rivals to know what their turnover is—sometimes they may not even want their wives to know what their earnings are.
As your Lordships know, I am a great supporter of the Council on Tribunals, who do the most admirable work; but I think, if I may say so, that they are making rather heavy weather of this one exceptional case in which they are not allowed in without the bookmaker's consent. All they have to do on any case in which a bookmaker gives his consent is to send somebody along to see that the board's inquiry is being properly conducted. If they say to the bookmaker: "It is in your interests that we should be here, because we exist to protect you", it may be that the bookmaker will take the view that he is really the person to decide where his interests lie. I have no reason to suppose that in many cases the bookmaker will not very well say, "Yes, of course; if the Council on Tribunals are coming along to help me, that is splendid ". But I cannot, I think, advise your Lordships to break the very long tradition we have to recognise that where people's earnings are concerned, they are sensitive.
I know that the noble Viscount has been in close touch with the Council on
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Tribunals, but I am not sure whether he has been in close touch with the bookmakers. The noble Viscount indicates that he has not been. I should not have thought that this afternoon your Lordships ought to remove a protection which Parliament gave to the bookmakers under the Act and which is a reasonable one on the face of it, when they have been given no notice of this. I could hardly give them notice myself, because the Amendment was not put down until Friday, when I was in America. I should not have thought that, in those circumstances, it was right, and it is for these reasons that I am unable to accept this Amendment.
5.42 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: With great respect to the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, I am not quite sure what the reasons are. I appreciate that there may not have been a very great deal of time to look at this question and also that I may not have talked to the bookmakers. But, I suggest to your Lordships, there must be a distinction in this case between accessibility of this sort of tribunal to the public, which means the public, and letting in a member of this special Council. I cannot believe that anything that the noble and learned Lord has said was intended to suggest that a member of the Council on Tribunals would in any circumstances diclose in any way improperly the information which he got at one of these hearings. Indeed he is totally different from a member of the public in this respect because he is given a special charge by the order made by the Lord Chancellor's Department to look after the affairs of these tribunals.
I do not think it is a matter of making a fuss about one small instance where the thing has gone a little wrong. This case seems to me to involve a matter of principle. If the Council is to look after any tribunal, it seems to me that it should have access, as a right, to the hearing. I do not know whether I am right about this, but the information I have is that there is nothing to stop a member of the Council on Tribunals from attending Inland Revenue tribunals, a point which was set up as an example against my Amendment. If that is right, this argument must fall. With great respect to the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, I suggest that it is a very strange

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thing, as this matter was never discussed in Parliament when the Bill was originally before either another place or here, and, so far as I know, the matter was never discussed with the Council on Tribunals itself (and therefore the question of accessibility never entered the minds of Parliament), that, when we have an opportunity to do something about it in a way which I do not think is any wide breach or any precedent, we do not take it.
Finally, may I say this to the Lord Chancellor? It seems very strange, when the 1961 Act applied equally in Scotland as it does in England and Wales, that there should never have been any difficulty in Scotland, as I am informed, about members of the Scottish Committee of the Council going to these particular
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
5.51 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved, after Clause 2, to insert the following new clause:
Hearings under Part X of Local Government Act 1933. 1933 c. 51
". It is hereby declared that a member of the Council on Tribunals, in his capacity as such, may attend any hearing held by the Minister of Housing and Local Government under Part X of the Local Government Act 1933."
The noble Viscount said: I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will not have considered that I pressed my first Amendment to a Division as a personal affront, or any-
appeal tribunals. If that is right, it can be only because prosecutions are not being brought by the procurator fiscal because he considers it is entirely proper that they should go, and he does not consider it is a case where he would like to prosecute. Again perhaps I am wrong, but this is my information. Therefore I think that this question requires a certain amount of consideration and I should not lightly wish to withdraw this Amendment, because, as I say, I believe it raises a matter of principle.
5.48 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said new clause shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 35; Not-Contents, 18.

CONTENTS

Ampthill, L.

Elliot, of Harwood, B.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Baden-Powell, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Burton, L.

Ferrers, E. [Teller.]

Milverton, L.

Carrington, L.

Forster of Harraby, L.

Newall, L.

Colville of Culross, V. [Teller.]

Gridley, L.

Parker of Waddington, L.

Conesford, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Cottesloe, L.

Hawke, L.

St. Just, L.

Daventry, V.

Ilford, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Denham, L.

Ironside, L.

Strange, L.

Denning, L.

Killearn, L.

Swansea, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Limerick, E.

Thurlow, L.

Effingham, E.

Long, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Arwyn, L.

Hilton of Upton, L. [Teller.]

Phillips, B. [Teller.]

Burden, L.

Latham, L.

Plummer, B.

Champion, L.

Lilford, L.

Segal, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Lindgren, L.

Sinha, L.

Granville-West, L.

Longford, E.

Wade, L.

Haire of Whiteabbey, L.

Peddie, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

thing of the kind. I am sorry that there had to be a disagreement on what I believe to be a matter of principle, and I am glad that your Lordships have seen fit to reinforce that.
My second Amendment deals with a somewhat parallel situation, and again it is referred to, this time in Section 22, in the 1964 Report of the Council on Tribunals. Under Part X of the Local Government Act 1933 there is a general procedure for district audit and for surcharge. There are two sections, Sections 229 and 230, which provide alternative procedures for people to follow, in the first case against a surcharge, and in the second case, whether they appeal or not (and the matters can be

1319
joined), to ask either the High Court or the Minister of Housing and Local Government (as he now is) to make a declaration that what they did they did in the belief that it was reasonable or believed it to be authorised by law.
In Section 231 of the Act there is a provision which says that if anyone appeals or applies to the Minister there shall be provided to him a personal hearing by a person appointed by the Minister for that purpose. I believe I am right in saying that the Ministry have interpreted the word "personal" in this respect as meaning that the hearing has to be in private and that in the past there has been difficulty, not, I think, so much about a member of the Council on Tribunals attending the hearing, but about his having access to the inspector's report afterwards. I do not know whether, had the Ministry taken the other view, that the hearing was in public, they would also have continued to say that the inspector's report was something that they could not disclose. However, I do not seek to deal with inspectors' reports, but merely to make clear that in the word "personal" there is nothing in any way magic. It means, as I believe, that a person who in fact wishes to have his application or appeal dealt with by the Minister can go there himself; or, I have no doubt, if he so wishes, be represented; but there is nothing to denote secrecy.
I cannot believe that there can be any doubt about this, because when one looks at the comparable procedure laid down in the Rules of the Supreme Court for what happens if the matter goes, on the other method, to the High Court (it appears in Order 118), it is clear that there is nothing private about the hearing. Indeed, then it comes to the question of a declaration, under Section 230 of the 1933 Act, that a person who has been surcharged believed what he did to be reasonable or authorised by law. There is a provision in Rule 64(c) which says that
"Upon the hearing of the application any local government elector for the area may appear and be heard in opposition thereto "—
that is, in opposition to the declaration. So it is quite clear that the public are entitled to come, and the particular members of the public from that local
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authority area, to make representations.
It may be that I am making a mountain out of a molehill, but if there is any doubt about the meaning of this word "personal" in Section 231(2), then I think it should be made clear that it does not prevent members of the Council on Tribunals from going to these hearings. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 2, insert the said new clause.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I agree with the noble Viscount that this is really a parallel case, and I am afraid that I must oppose it on the same grounds. I am sorry that I was in ignorance about what happened in Scotland; but, as I understand it, the Council have been allowed into the previous kind of tribunal, the Betting Levy Appeal Board in Scotland, only where the bookmaker agrees, and they are certainly not allowed to attend Inland Revenue tribunals without the consent of the taxpayer. All we are arguing about is not whether they can attend any of these tribunals—because, of course, they can, with the consent of the bookmaker, or with the consent of the appellant, where there is a surcharge. The sole question is whether the statutory protection which Parliament has so far thought right to give, in the one case, to bookmakers, and in another case to a different class, is to be taken away without their consent or their having any opportunity of putting their arguments before Parliament.
In this case the relevant section says:
"Where under this Part of this Act an appeal or application is made to the Minister, the appellant or applicant shall be entitled, if he so desires, to a personal hearing by a person appointed for the purpose by the Minister."
Successive Governments of different complexion have been advised by their Law Officers that this means a hearing in private, and the same sort of consideration arises for these reasons. The surcharge appealed against may be in regard to a sum which the district auditors regard as an excessive claim, for example, for personal allowances, under Section 112 of the Local Government Act 1948, which gives members of local authorities the right to financial loss allowance. In deciding on the amount of the financial loss allowance, the appellant's financial

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circumstances will plainly be relevant. Furthermore, of course, so also is the ability of the appellant to meet the surcharge. He may contend that he ought to be relieved from personal liability for all or part, on the ground that insufficient regard was had to his means or to his ability to pay.
It is on these grounds that I feel unable to accept the Amendment. I quite agree that, in a sense, it is the same point again. The question is whether, Parliament having considered the matter, having given a particular class of person a right not to have their private affairs, in particular their incomes, disclosed without their consent, it would be proper to remove this in favour of a very worthy body who exist, after all, to protect these particular people. Of course, if a man says, "I do not mind a member of the Council on Tribunals attending—indeed, I should welcome it ", that is fine. As I pointed out before, and again in this case, if such an appellant thinks he has been wrongly treated by the Minister, or by whoever heard the inquiry on behalf of the Minister, he can complain to the Council on Tribunals and tell them all the facts, and they go into it.
The whole question is whether his private affairs are to be discussed in front of somebody else without his will.
"I, AB, do solemnly declare that I will impartially, to the best of my ability, execute my duties under the Income Tax Acts and the enactment relating to the profits tax; that I will not disclose any information received by me in the execution of my duties except for the purposes of my duties or for the purposes of any prosecution or defence relating to income tax or profits tax or in such other cases as may be required by law."
That is the oath the General and Special Commissioners take. On the whole, the principle is the same, though I should tell the noble Viscount that his Amendment is in some way defective, because under Article 2 of the Secretary of State for Wales and Minister of Land and Natural Resources Order, 1965, the functions of the Minister in relation to Wales has been transferred to the Secretary of State for Wales, so that on the face of it the Amendment is in any case defective, and would have to be resisted for that reason.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am glad the noble and learned Lord agrees that this is at any rate the same
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principle. While I accept on my part that my Amendment is defective, I wonder whether he would refer to the Act again, and also to Order 118 of the Rules of the Supreme Court? The position is this. Under Section 229, any person who is aggrieved by the decision of a district auditor may, where the allowance or surcharge or other decision relates to an amount exceeding £500, appeal to the High Court and may, in any other case, appeal to either the High Court or the Minister. In big cases, where the matter will be more explosive than in the small ones—in many instances, at any rate—and where much more money is at stake, as I read this Act the person who wishes to bring this appeal can only go to the High Court. If he goes to the High Court, under the Rules the matter is dealt with in public. If the case concerns something less than £500, he has an option: he can either go to the High Court or to the Minister. If he goes to the High Court, he is still bound by Order 118, and the hearing is still in public. If he goes to the Minister, for some reason which I fail totally to understand, he apparently acquires unto himself a cloak of secrecy. This makes no sense to me, although I may have it wrong.
I will certainly look at it again and check on the accuracy of my Amendment, and put down anything else that flows from this as, for example, an Amendment in the Long Title. I entirely appreciate the point the noble and learned Lord made about the oath taken by a Special Commissioner. I said in my speech on a previous Amendment that I thought it was entirely right that the provisions in Section 28(10) of the other Act, which made it an offence for certain specified people to disclose information, should be amended so that it brings in the member of the Council on Tribunals as well. He will then be in the same position as the person who takes the oath when he is a Special or a General Commissioner. I am sure this is right, and I would not suppose that there would be any who would object to it. If the noble and learned Lord would be kind enough to see whether I have this point right under the Orders of the Supreme Court, and satisfy himself that there is no curious anomaly here, as I truly believe there to be, then, of course, for

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the moment I would be glad to withdraw this Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Certainly I will look at that. It may be that the big cases introduce some question of public importance. But in the others there is a choice, as the noble Viscount has said. You can go to the High Court or to the Minister. It may be that the very reason why you decide to go to the Minister is that there it is a private hearing, and you know you will not have to discuss your means, or lack of means, in public. I appreciate that it is of course impossible to bind the tribunal to secrecy, because the man will not know what member of the tribunal is coming up. He may be his brother-in-law; it may be anybody. The question is why he should be forced to have a representative of the body which is supposed to be the body protecting him. He is quite able to say for himself whether he prefers to keep his private means to himself, or whether he would like a member of the tribunal there.
LORD PARKER OF WADDINGTON: May I add a few words on this point, if only as a member of the original Franks Committee? I confess that, being a member of that Committee, I never intended that the Council on Tribunals, which is charged by Parliament to be a watchdog of all these Tribunals, should be excluded, certainly in a case such as this. I have sat many times in the Divisional Court on appeals on questions of surcharge, and I have always envisaged that the alternative right to go to the Minister had nothing whatever to do with secrecy, but was merely a saving in expense. With a small amount involved, to save expense you go for a hearing to the Minister. You have a right to go to the High Court if you like, and in an important case, where a lot of money is at stake, you must. But in the High Court you get the full glare of publicity reported in the Press, and I see no reason why, not a member of the public, but a member of this particular body should not be allowed to go to the hearing.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
On Question, Whether the Long Title shall stand part of the Bill?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: It may well be that, as a result of the Amendment to which this House in Committee has agreed, there may have to be an Amendment to the Long Title. If that is the case, perhaps it would be suitable if I put it down at the next stage.
On Question, Long Title agreed to.
House resumed.
Bill reported, with an Amendment.

CRIMINAL APPEAL BILL [H.L.]
6.10 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Sittings and practice of Court of Appeal]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is a drafting Amendment to make it clear that "appeal" in Clause 2(3)(b) refers to an appeal from a judgment or order of the High Court. As your Lordships know, it is usual for an application for leave to appeal to be made, in the first instance, to a single Judge. If refused by him, the application may be renewed before the full Court. It is strictly not an appeal, but a further application, although many people, I think, refer to it as an "appeal". The sole object of this Amendment is to make it clear that the paragraph is not concerned with applications renewed before the full Court. As amended, the paragraph would read:
"an appeal from a judgment or order of that judge when sitting in the High Court or of a court of the High Court of which he was a member."
I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 26, leave out ("his") and insert (" that judge when sitting in the High Court ").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, just one question. I suppose this is limited to a Judge "sitting in the High Court", in order to distinguish between the Judge and a chairman of quarter sessions, and that the latter will be able to sit in the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal on an appeal from the court of quarter sessions over which he presided.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: He will not be able to do that. The intention is to remove the old right of a trial Judge to sit on an appeal against his own decision. This is not the modern practice and it would not happen now; but it seems desirable to say so. It was then considered that, as originally drafted, the Bill might be thought to prevent the single Judge from sitting when the full Court was hearing applications.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. I would ask him to consider whether there ought not to be something to deal with the position of the judge who also sits as chairman of the quarter sessions. I am not sure whether that is covered by paragraph (a) because of the words of the Amendment, which are words of limitation: "when sitting in the High Court". It is really a drafting point and I think there is no difference as to what is desired. I draw attention to it only because the words "when sitting in the High Court" look like words of limitation. It may be covered by paragraph (a), but perhaps the Lord Chancellor will look at it again.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes; certainly I will.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4:
Powers of Court of Appeal on determination of criminal appeals
4.—(1) Section 4(1) of the 1907 Act (which requires the Court of Criminal Appeal to allow an appeal, inter alia, if they think that the verdict of the jury should be set aside on the ground that it is unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to the evidence or that on any ground there was a miscarriage of justice, subject, however, to a proviso that they may dismiss the appeal if they consider
1326
that no substantial miscarriage of justice has actually occurred) shall be amended as follows:—
(b) for the words "on any ground there was a miscarriage of justice "there shall be substituted the words "there was a material irregularity in the course of the trial"; and
(c) in the proviso the word "substantial" shall cease to have effect.
(2) Neither section 4(3) of the 1907 Act (power of Court of Criminal Appeal on an appeal against sentence to pass another sentence in substitution for that passed at the trial) nor section 5(1) of that Act (power of the Court on a successful appeal against conviction on one part of the indictment to pass another sentence on some other part of the indictment in substitution for the sentence passed at the trial) shall authorise the Court of Appeal to pass a sentence such that the sentence passed on the part of the indictment on which the appellant remains convicted is of greater severity than the sentence passed at the trial taken as a whole, whether or not the last-mentioned sentence was expressed to be passed on that part of the indictment.
LORD CONESFORD LORD CONESFORD moved, in subsection (1), to leave out paragraph (b). The noble Lord said: The Committee will remember that on the Second Reading of the Bill the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearson, while approving the amendment of the law made by Clause 4(1)(a), feared the combined effect of paragraphs (b) and (c), and gave cogent reasons why, in his opinion, that might lead to undesirable consequences. We now have the opportunity of considering paragraphs (b) and (c) in greater detail.
I am glad that the noble and learned Lord supports me in my proposal that we should leave out paragraph (b). Why this paragraph appears in the Bill I do not know. The Report of the Committee of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, did not recommend it, and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, in his speech on Second Reading, did not mention this paragraph. Most of the Bill, indeed nearly all of the Bill, is based on the careful Report of the Donovan Committee, but this paragraph is not. I have again read all the relevant paragraphs in the body of the Report, but they give no clue why this paragraph (b) appears. Paragraph 321 of the Report, which sets out the 45 recommendations made by the Donovan Committee, has no recommendation between Recommendation 13, which advises the change made by paragraph (a), and

1327
Recommendation 14, which advises the alteration of the law made by paragraph (c). There is no recommendation in favour of paragraph (b).
I expect that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, may be as puzzled as the rest of us to see it. It certainly is not needed. Nobody, I think, will be found to dispute that, if there were any irregularity in the course of the trial which made the Court wish to allow the appeal, the words of Section 4 of the 1907 Act, as amended by paragraph (a), will certainly give ample power to allow the appeal. The change proposed in paragraph (b) makes no improvement, I think, in the wording of the section of the 1907 Act, and I beg to move the deletion of the paragraph.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 10, leave out paragraph (b).—(Lord Conesford.)
6.20 p.m.
LORD PEARSON: I support this Amendment, though I am open to persuasion. If some explanation is given as to what good results are expected to follow from paragraph (b), I am willing to be converted; but on the face of it the objection to paragraph (b) is that it seems to be almost urging people to bring forward appeals on purely technical grounds and with no merits at all. The existing wording which is proposed to be superseded is
"… on any ground there was a miscarriage of justice. …"
That means a substantial wrong, and that is obviously a good ground of appeal. But it is proposed to substitute the words
"a material irregularity in the course of the trial".
And it is very easy for an irregularity to occur in the course of a criminal trial where the procedure is of a somewhat elaborate character and in some respects artificial. A good example of artificiality can be drawn from the Report of the Donovan Committee. That appears from paragraphs 67 to 69.
There is a mysterious thing called the allocutus with which some of us are very familiar. That means this: that after conviction and before sentence it is right for the clerk of the court to say to the convicted person, "Have you anything to say why the judgment of the court
1328
should not be passed on you?" In my experience over some years, the convicted person never had the least idea, and it may be nobody else had either, what he was expected to say in answer to that question, what reason he could possibly have at that stage, when he had been convicted, for saying no sentence should be pronounced. And in every case of which I had experience the unfortunate convicted person did not know what to say and he certainly never had anything significant to say. So in practically every case the omission of the allocutus would do no practical, real harm whatsoever, but it would be obviously an irregularity because it would involve the omission of a part of the procedure which ought to have been duly carried out. And secondly it could be presented, at any rate, as a material irregularity because the convicted person ought to have had the opportunity of saying something in answer to that supposed question and he was deprived of that opportunity. That is a material irregularity and it is prima facie a good ground of appeal. It is true the appeal might be dismissed under the proviso to the section, but we have still to find what this Bill is going to do to the proviso, how much weaker the proviso is going to emerge as a result of this Bill.
In any case, I would venture to submit it is not a good thing to encourage appeals on merely technical grounds, mere matters of form of this kind. The old wording was that the ground of appeal, so far as we are concerned at the moment, was "a miscarriage of justice". That wording gives a much better idea of what the right reason for appeal ought to be, and I therefore submit, unless there is some explanation, this paragraph (b) on page 5 is a step in the wrong direction and ought to be omitted.
LORD PARKER OF WADDINGTON: It seems to me that there are two questions involved in this Amendment. The first one is whether the words "on any ground there was a miscarriage of justice" should be deleted and something else substituted. The second is whether what it is proposed to substitute is right. In regard to the first point, I find it very difficult to carry the original provision and the provision as amended in mind. Like the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, on the last occasion, I have

1329
had the original section typed out and also typed out next to it the law as it is proposed to be.
One of the troubles was that the original section, which none of us perhaps have read heretofore with the care with which it should be read, provided that the court of Criminal Appeal shall allow an appeal on one of three grounds. One was that the verdict was unreasonable and could not be supported, and for that will now be substituted paragraph (a)—"under all the circumstances of the case it is unsafe or unsatisfactory ". That was the first ground. The second ground was that the judgment of the court before whom the appellant was convicted should be set aside on the ground of a wrong decision on any question of law—what I think the lawyers would call a misdirection. And the third provision was "or that on any ground there was a miscarriage of justice". I should have thought a miscarriage of justice meant what it said: a wrong conviction, something which caused the prisoner to be wrongly convicted; and the trouble then was how the proviso linked up with that, because the proviso goes on to say that nevertheless the court may dismiss the appeal if they consider that no substantial miscarriage of justice has actually occurred.
I think the reason for the word "substantial" was to draw a distinction between "substantial miscarriage" in the proviso and just "miscarriage" in the effective part of the section. Of course, if, as I think is right, in the first part of the section "miscarriage of justice" means what it says, that justice has gone wrong and there is a wrong conviction, then whether the proviso carries the words "substantial miscarriage" or just "miscarriage" it just does not bite; it can only bite on a misdirection in law. Therefore, it seemed to me at any rate that as a pure matter of drafting it would be wrong to allow these words "on any ground there was a miscarriage of justice" to remain in the Section. That explains, I think, how it was suggested that these words should be deleted.
The second question is whether it is right to substitute for them that "there was a material irregularity in the course of the trial ". If nothing is substituted the court only has power to set the verdict aside if there was a misdirection or it is
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unsafe to allow the verdict to stand, the matter going to evidence. And there is case after case—I am not thinking of technical matters like the allocutus—that comes before the court where there has undoubtedly been irregularity which is not technical. "A material irregularity," I venture to suggest, is used in contradistinction to a technical irregularity.
We had a case only the other day where for a three-day trial the prisoner was brought every day in a taxi from the prison and taken back in the evening by no less a person than the foreman of the jury. Obviously, there is an irregularity, and room for a very material irregularity, though it might well be cured by the proviso. If, in fact, neither knew who the other was and did not overhear any conversation, it might be perfectly safe to allow the verdict to stand. Day after day there are irregularities at the Central Criminal Court, in this day and age, any amount of irregularities, where jurors are concerned, all of which are material irregularities, some of which will cause the verdicts to be quashed and others to which the proviso could be applied. Therefore, I suggest that as a pure matter of drafting and common sense the words "on any ground there was a miscarriage of justice" cannot stand with the words in the proviso, and that the words "there was a material irregularity in the course of the trial" are a fair substitute to cover the many irregularities of the sort I have mentioned which may arise.
6.29 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I have listened with great interest to the information given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parker of Waddington, and the reason why he thinks the words "on any ground there was a miscarriage of justice" should go and fresh words should be substituted for them. He suggests there is really a conflict in the clause as it stands between the words "on any ground there was a miscarriage of justice" and the proviso. He bases that argument, if I follow it correctly, on the interpretation he gives to the words "miscarriage of justice ". He says they can only mean that a man has been wrongly convicted. With the greatest respect to the noble and learned Lord, I should have thought that that is placing upon those words a narrow and restricted interpretation.

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Suppose that in the course of the trial a man who has not put his character in issue is cross-examined as to previous convictions. He may or may not be guilty of the offence charged; but would it not be said by any appellate tribunal that allowing him to be cross-examined as to character when he had not put his character in issue was a miscarriage of justice? If that view be right, then the words "miscarriage of justice", as I have always understood them (and I have read this section on many occasions) have a wider connotation than merely suggesting that someone has been wrongly convicted. If it has that wider connotation, then surely there is no conflict at all between the words in the body of the section and the proviso.
I, for one, would find it difficult to suppose that even in 1907 Parliamentary draftsmen would in one clause draft a patent contradiction in terms. So I must say that for myself I do not think that a case has been made out for the removal of the words "miscarriage of justice ", and I cannot recollect any criticism of that expression in the body of the Report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan. I think it would be much better for those words to stay, provided it is understood that they really should not be given such a narrow and limited interpretation as to mean that that particular part of the section can be used only if the court is of the opinion that there has been a wrong conviction. I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parker of Waddington, that if that is the correct meaning it becomes extremely difficult to apply the proviso. That reinforces my feeling that it cannot be the correct meaning. It cannot be right to give such a narrow meaning to the words "miscarriage of justice".
As to the words "material irregularity in the course of the trial ", I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearson, has put forward valid reasons for not liking those words. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Parker of Waddington, has distinguished between what he calls a material and a technical irregularity. But I would pose this question: material in what context? Who is to be the judge of materiality? No key is given to that in this proposed new formula. I suppose what is meant is,
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material in the sense of seriously affecting the conduct of the trial and so affecting the conclusion the jury might reach. But then, if that be so, it is material in bringing about a miscarriage of justice, because the man will not have been justly tried if that has happened. Therefore, when you consider what the word "material" means, you are brought back, it seems to me, to consider whether the irregularity, such as it is, was material in contributing to, or bringing about, a miscarriage of justice.
Therefore, I see no advantage whatsoever in the insertion of this new formula, and I think we should hesitate long before we accept this suggestion not put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, and, if I understand aright, a suggestion which really is entirely based upon giving a most restricted view to the words "miscarriage of justice".
6.34 p.m.
LORD TUCKER: I feel some diffidence in rising to address your Lordships on this matter, having regard to the fact that it is now more than twenty years since I sat in the Court of Criminal Appeal; and all the more so when I find myself dealing, or endeavouring to deal, with a difference of opinion between my noble and learned friend Lord Parker of Waddington, the present Lord Chief Justice, and my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne, the former Lord Chancellor. Having heard both, I wish from my experience of the Court of Criminal Appeal, although it is now twenty years old, to support the view taken by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice.
I found, when I was in the Court of Appeal, that again and again we were unable to make use of the proviso because decisions had been made in the past which prevented the Court of Criminal Appeal from exercising what I call a robust supervisory jurisdiction over the proceedings and coming to a decision themselves on whether there had been a miscarriage of justice, after an investigation of the trial. They were prevented because of decisions which had been passed and which said that the Court must have regard to what a reasonable jury, properly directed, might, or would, or must inevitably, have done—because those are all expressions which have

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occurred in the various decisions on the proviso, and two or three of them were in your Lordships' House. In my view, the net result of that was not to assist the Court of Criminal Appeal but to make it more difficult to apply the proviso.
If the words which are now in the Bill, and which are supported by my noble and learned friend Lord Parker of Waddington, stand, I think that the task of the Court of Criminal Appeal will be assisted, for the reason, as he pointed out, that there is this apparent contradiction between the reference to a miscarriage of justice in the first operative part of the section, and then, in the proviso, the words "substantial miscarriage of justice".
I think it would be much easier now to have the words "material irregularity of the proceedings". Then you have the proviso operating on that; you cut out the word "substantial", which to my mind means nothing, and you have the position in which the Court of Criminal Appeal would be dealing with a case, such as that put by my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne, of someone who has been cross-examined as to his previous convictions, where there would obviously be a material irregularity. Then the court would have to decide whether, in those circumstances, they could apply the proviso. I should think that they could not apply the proviso in a case of that kind, because there would have been a miscarriage of justice.
In my view, a miscarriage of justice not only means that an innocent man has been convicted (which is a thing which interests the public more than anything else, and which was one of the reasons why the Court of Criminal Appeal was set up); it also involves, as we have found when we have been exercising our criminal jurisdiction in the Privy Council, that the words "miscarriage of justice" can be applied also to a case where the proceedings have not been carried out in accordance with what we regard as the elementary essentials of justice: that a man has not been given the right to put his own case; that a man has not been given the right to call his witnesses. There are certain matters of that kind which would be covered by the words "miscarriage of justice" as being something which really
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does not represent a trial at all, according to British law.
I think that these two clauses in the Bill will strengthen the position of the Court of Appeal rather than weaken it, and will give them an opportunity, notwithstanding what has been said in some of the previous decisions, of applying the proviso more often than they are able to do at present.
6.39 p.m.
LORD DONOVAN: I rise not so much to make a speech as to ask a question. If this clause be passed, someone in due course has got to decide what is a material irregularity, and that person will be the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal. I take a "material irregularity" to mean something which may have affected the verdict of the jury to the prejudice of the appellant. If that be so, why is that verdict not unsafe or unsatisfactory?
6.40 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I suppose I ought to say something, although I am only going to say what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parker of Waddington, has already said, and I am sure I shall not say it nearly so well. It is a pity that we cannot take Amendment No. 3 before Amendment No. 2. The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, if he will forgive me for saying so, is always logical. In Amendment No. 3, he disagrees with the unanimous recommendation of the Donovan Committee that the word "substantial" should be removed. If he is right as to that, then he is right as to this. The wording here in question is the only thing in this Bill which is not simply implementing a recommendation of the Donovan Committee.
The reason why it is in the Bill is simply that if you are going to take out the word "substantial", and if paragraph (b) in the Bill is not there at all, if the rest of the section is left as it is, then you are left with the situation that
"The Court of Criminal Appeal on any such appeal against conviction shall allow the appeal if … on any ground there was a miscarriage of justice"
followed by a proviso saying that, although they think there has been a miscarriage of justice, they may dismiss the appeal if they do not think there has been a miscarriage of justice. This just makes a nonsense. You could not simply

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implement the recommendation of the Donovan Committee by leaving out the word "substantial" and not do anything about the preceding part of the section, because the distinction which at the moment exists, that you may think there is a miscarriage of justice but you may nevertheless dismiss the appeal if you do not consider it is a substantial one, makes sense. But if you take out the word "substantial", you are simply left with the situation that you are to allow the appeal if you think there has been a miscarriage of justice, but although you think there has been a miscarriage of justice you can dismiss the appeal if you do not think there has been a miscarriage of justice. Therefore, obviously some change in the earlier wording had to be made.
I can well understand any view that this is not the perfect wording. I am encouraged by the view of the noble and learned Lord Chief Justice that he thinks this wording is about right. But one could not leave the thing as it is. If a later Amendment succeeds, in which the word "substantial" is not taken out, then one does not need paragraph (b) at all; the whole section would remain as it is on this point. But that is the reason for it. As I said, I thought that I should not put it as well as the Lord Chief Justice, but the object of the subsection is to ensure that the accused person does not suffer from a mistake or irregularity which took away or materially affected his chance of being acquitted, but that he does not escape conviction merely because of a mistake or irregularity which did not have this effect. I should have thought that the rewording of the subsection achieves this, and in doing so does no more, in effect, than follow the practice of the Court. For those reasons, which are in substance the same reasons put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parker of Waddington, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, will withdraw his Amendment.
LORD CONESFORD: I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part, including the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor. I think that it was well worth while to make the point that this was not a recommendation of what I think is agreed in every section of the Committee to be a most careful
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Report. I am, I hope, sufficiently modest not to press any such Amendment in the face of the very strong and lucid opinions which have been expressed. I think that conceivably it may become necessary to return to this matter at a subsequent stage in the light of whatever we do with the next Amendment. Having made that clear, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.45 p.m.
LORD PEARSON LORD PEARSON moved, in subsection (1), to leave out paragraph (c). The noble and learned Lord said: We had a most interesting discussion on the previous Amendment which has certainly thrown light on this one, but I think that I must still put this Amendment forward because apparently this is the real matter in issue, whether it is right to delete the word "substantial" from the proviso. Your Lordships will observe that paragraph (c), on page 5 of the Bill, proposes that
"in the proviso the word 'substantial' shall cease to have effect".
I am contending that the word should continue to have effect, and that is the issue. The proviso is summarised, although not fully set out, at the top of page 5, in parenthesis. Your Lordships might like to have the full wording of the proviso, which I will read:
"Providing that the court may, notwithstanding that they are of opinion that the point raised in the appeal might be decided in favour of the appellant, dismiss the appeal if they consider that no substantial miscarriage of justice had actually occurred".
The report of the Donovan Committee, in paragraph 164, recommended that the word "substantial" should be deleted as being devoid of any practical meaning, and paragraph (c) would give effect to that recommendation of the Committee.
I venture to object to that proposal on three grounds. First, I venture to differ from the Committee in their views as to the significance or lack of significance of the word "substantial" in the proviso as it now appears in Section 4 of the 1907 Act. I must say that, as I have always read that proviso, I have always understood the whole stress and emphasis of it to be on the word "substantial". The meaning was that the court was to have regard to matters of

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substance rather than matters of mere form. So as I have always read that proviso, the word "substantial" is the important word, and if that is right it ought to be retained, or I suppose it should.
Secondly, supposing I am not right on that, there is the further reason that if you strike out the word "substantial" it will acquire significance by being struck out. It will lead to an obvious argument in any court of law, to this effect: "Parliament in the year 1966 went out of its way to strike out the word 'substantial' from the proviso. It is not to be supposed that Parliament was engaging in a mere philological exercise. There is an alteration of the wording which must convey an alteration of meaning, and one can see what the alteration of meaning is. Hitherto, a conviction would not be quashed unless there was a substantial miscarriage of justice. But that is now changed. It is no longer necessary that there should be a substantial miscarriage of justice. Any miscarriage of justice whether substantial or not will be sufficient. It means that the proviso is weakened and cannot be so frequently applied in the future as it has been in the past." I am not saying that that argument would necessarily succeed, for it might well fail, but it is a pity to introduce wording which lays the foundation for an argument of that kind.
Thirdly, the word "substantial" has been sitting happily in the proviso ever since the proviso began its life in 1907. It has been there for nearly fifty years; it has not done any harm to anyone; and if one view as to the meaning and emphasis of the clause is correct, it has been doing a great deal of good. In my submission, it would be wrong now to tear this word out of the proviso and throw it away. It is a useful word, and I venture to submit that no useful purpose would be served by now getting rid of it.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 14, leave out paragraph (c).—(Lord Pearson.)
LORD CONESFORD: In briefly supporting the noble and learned Lord, I only wish to draw attention to two matters. The first is that it is made clear in the Report that it is only because the word is regarded as surplusage that it is proposed to strike it out. No other
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reason is given. That is strengthened by the actual wording of Recommendation (14), which says:
"The proviso to section 4(1) of the Act should be retained in its present form (subject to the deletion of the word 'substantial' which at present qualifies the reference to miscarriage of justice) and there is no occasion for any statutory amendment to alter the construction now placed upon it."
In other words, that strengthens from the words of the Report itself what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearson, has just said; that it has done no harm at all in the way in which it is now and has always been interpreted. For that reason I support what my noble and learned friend has said.
6.51 p.m.
LORD DONOVAN: Perhaps, as the villain of the piece, I might say a word or two as to why the Committee made this recommendation. It was simply that we thought the word "substantial" was otiose and that if the 1907 Act were going to be amended this opportunity might be taken to delete it. It is quite easy to see how the word got there. If one reads the debates of 1907, one finds that there were many in Parliament who were very uneasy indeed about granting a right of appeal at all from the verdict of a jury in a criminal case. They foresaw all sorts of dire consequences. Accordingly, when dealing with a possibility that the guilty person might get off on some objection which was technically good but morally worthless, the sponsors of the Act of 1907 went out of their way to quell such fears, even if it meant indulging in a little nervous tautology. Such an appellant might establish his point, but his appeal nevertheless was not to be allowed unless a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred—and not merely had occurred but had "actually" occurred.
In the circumstances of the time some excess of caution was of course understandable. No one knew how this new court would construe and administer the Act, and a little emphasis was not out of place at the time. But now that, not 50 but 58 years of practical experience lie behind us, it is clear that the word "substantial" in this particular context is not only without practical significance but, in the opinion of some, unfortunate.

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How in practice does the matter arise? The appellant before the court has established his point. The court now has to consider whether it will allow the appeal and set him free, or apply the proviso and keep him confined. It accordingly poses to itself this question: Suppose this particular fault had not occurred at the trial, nevertheless, on all the evidence, could any reasonable jury after a proper summing-up have failed to convict? If the answer is, "No", the appeal is dismissed. If the answer is, "Well, they might reasonably have acquitted ", then the appeal is allowed.
In 1944 your Lordships' House laid down that that was the right test and embodied the right construction of the proviso. By dealing with the matter on those lines, the court, if it dismisses the appeal, makes plain its view that justice was done by the verdict of the jury despite the fault; in other words, that justice has not miscarried. But the introduction of the word "substantial" as an adjective qualifying the term "miscarriage of justice" suggests that there is some alternative, so to speak, in between. In other words, the court might say to an appellant, "Yes, you have established your point and we think you have suffered a miscarriage of justice. But it is only a very small one and therefore we dismiss your appeal." The miscarriage of justice, in other words, has not been substantial.
I can understand adjectives like "small", "insignificant", "insubstantial" and so on being applied to irregularities in the course of a trial, but if there has been a miscarriage of justice then by definition justice has not been done and the whole exercise has failed. If a man in such a case received a heavy sentence like poor Mr. Adolf Beck, we would talk of a gross miscarriage of justice. If he had merely been dismissed with a caution we might speak of a minor miscarriage, but we should then be talking of consequences. If justice has gone astray a miss is as good as a mile, and applying adjectives to such a situation does not alter the situation any more than it did when the maid admitted to her mistress that she had had an illegitimate baby but it was a very small one.
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I would respectfully suggest that in this matter there is really no half-way house. There is either a miscarriage of justice or there is none, and the proviso should operate accordingly. The presence of the word "substantial" in the proviso has no effect upon this situation. Moreover, it makes the section inconsistent with itself, because as the law now stands, and has stood since 1907, the main part of the section as we have heard directs the court to allow the appeal if on any ground there has been a miscarriage of justice. So in the main part of the section an appellant succeeds if there has been any miscarriage of justice.
Can it really be that under the proviso, which only operates if the appellant has established his point, he has got to do something more and prove that the miscarriage had a particular quality—namely, that it was substantial? I suppose his answer would be, and could only be, "What miscarriage of justice is not?" In all the cases that I have read, and in all the cases of which I was a judge, no distinction has ever been drawn between one kind of miscarriage of justice and another so far as its inherent quality is concerned; and in the case of your Lordships' House which established the true construction of the proviso the word "substantial" was omitted, presumably as being otiose.
As Lord Simon, when he was Lord Chancellor, said in the case of Stirland v. the Director of Public Prosecutions, which is the locus classicus upon this matter:
"No reasonable jury, after a proper summing-up, could have failed to convict the Appellant on the rest of the evidence to which no objection could be taken. There was therefore no miscarriage of justice, and this is the proper test to determine whether the proviso to Section 4(1) of the 1907 Act should be applied."
So that the "proper test" can be applied without the use of the word "substantial" at all. Of course, there are passages in other courts where judges have used the word "substantial" in this context, but that is simply because it is there in the proviso. No one has ever said, so far as I know, that it makes any difference. I would certainly concede that, if there were any real danger that, by striking it out, some change would thereby be

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imported which would weaken society's defences against the criminal, then the word should stay; but how can that be when, for years past, the decisions applied by the courts have not relied on the word at all, and when the authoritative construction put upon the proviso in this House omits it? The question will still be, as in practice it is now: has a miscarriage occurred or not? If it has, it ought to be put right: if not, no question arises.
I said there were some who regard the presence of the word as unfortunate. The Law Society which, through its solicitors, has an unrivalled practical experience of the working of this Act, gave evidence before the Committee, and these are the words they used:
"The Council further believe that the inclusion in the proviso of the word substantial is unfortunate. No doubt what Parliament had in mind is that an insignificant breach or omission would not cause a miscarriage of justice and thus enable the proviso to be operated. It is inconceivable that the Court of Criminal Appeal would, as they might on a strict construction of the present proviso, hold (a) that there was a miscarriage of justice but (b) since it was insubstantial they would apply the proviso. It is the view of the Council that the word 'substantial' should be deleted from the proviso, and if the Court of Criminal Appeal considers that no miscarriage of justice has occurred the proviso should be applied and the appeal dismissed."
I respectfully agree, as did all my colleagues on the Committee, with that conclusion, and I hope that the exclusion of the word will be maintained. It is not a good thing to have in an Act of Parliament a word which in its context is, at best, useless and, at worst, confusing; and if, in addition, it has no practical advantage, we may as well bid it farewell. One might say the same, perhaps, of the word "actually" where it occurs before the word "occurred", but perhaps "sufficient unto the day".
7.3 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I must say that I find this a very difficult matter. I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, has made out a very powerful case for the removal of the word "substantial", but I am not sure that the real difficulty does not arise from the use of the words "miscarriage of justice" when people use them meaning entirely different things. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Parker of Waddington, said
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a few moments ago that they meant when someone had been wrongly convicted, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Tucker, said that one often spoke of a miscarriage of justice when something had gone wrong in the course of a trial. I suppose that, in one sense, any irregularity during a trial is a miscarriage of justice, although it may not result in an innocent person being wrongly convicted or a guilty person being wrongly acquitted.
I must say that I have always read this section as if the words "miscarriage of justice" applied not only to the end result but to what happened in the course of the trial. Only with that interpretation did it seem to me that one could really reconcile the proviso with what had gone before. The words "miscarriage of justice" do create a difficulty, because I think that what was really contemplated was that, although the court should allow the appeal if something of a serious character had gone wrong in the course of the trial, none the less if it was not of a serious character (and I am using very colloquial language) the proviso could be applied and the conviction upheld.
I do not know that at this late hour we can finally resolve this matter, but I should like to suggest to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that the whole language of this clause might be looked at again. I do not myself think it is very safe, for the reasons given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearson, just to omit the word "substantial", coupled with the insertion of the words in paragraph (b), because I think there is a very real risk indeed that it may be held that the effect of this deletion means a very considerable narrowing of the instances in which you can properly apply the proviso. At least, putting it at its lowest, I feel there would be considerable doubt about that.
I do not know whether it would be possible to draft a provision, possibly at greater length, which made more explicit what I think is the common intention of all who have spoken in relation to this particular provision. Although we may disagree about the interpretation of particular words and about whether a word serves any useful purpose or not, I for myself do not believe that there is any disagreement about what

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we want to achieve. I would have hoped we want to achieve. I should hope that, if Parliamentary counsel could start with a clean sheet of paper and perhaps forget about the words used in 1907, and could re-draft this provision, we might get a provision which was satisfactory to everyone and which achieved what was wanted. I think there is a clear idea of what is wanted, but I doubt very much whether these piecemeal amendments will produce the desired result.
LORD PARKER OF WADDINGTON: I quite agree with the noble Viscount that a case could be made out for redrafting the section completely, and I have often thought that there were advantages in that; but, at the same time, I think that any advantage which would accrue must be weighed against the real advantage of the fact that this clause has been in existence and has worked, and on the whole worked well, for some 59 years. The words have become hallowed by cases; and, quite seriously, as to whether the word "substantial" is here or not, I could not care less. The Court of Criminal Appeal will continue to administer the provisions of this section as they see fit, whether the word is there or not. They will continue to do what they have done in the past. On the whole, I should have thought the advantage was in leaving it.
LORD AIREDALE: I wonder whether, in sixty seconds, I could pick a quarrel with the expression "cease to have effect". I have listened very carefully to this debate, and, as I understand it, the justification for paragraph (c) is that the word "substantial" has no effect, that it never has had any effect in this context and, therefore, it is superfluous and can be omitted. If one does that in words which say "'substantial' shall cease to have effect", does that not lead people to suppose that, up to now, "substantial" has had some effect, and that the effect that it has had up to now shall henceforward cease? Could we not possibly redraft this very short paragraph to say that the word "substantial" shall be repealed, or use some expression which does not lead certain people to suppose that it is now being deprived of some effect which it has had up till now?
LORD DENNING: I would say only one word. In the past the proviso has
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not been used as robustly as it ought to have been. Indeed, that means that there is a strong case for reconsidering the whole of this clause and not adhering to the formula of the past; for trying to redraft it in a better way and for perhaps giving the Court of Criminal Appeal more power to see that no technicalities or misdirections which do not affect the justice of the case should interfere with the decision. I should prefer, on the whole, to see an attempt to redraft it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: On the last point, the one raised by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, the phrase "cease to have effect" is the normal formula for founding a repeal; the actual repeal is done by Schedule 3.
When a Committee of busy people take a lot of trouble and a long time to produce a Report—particularly if they produce a unanimous one—I should think that ordinarily it should be the business of Government to bring this before Parliament. It is not necessary for a Government to have a passionate view on every point. This was a unanimous recommendation of the Committee, and for myself I can only say that having read the Report it seemed to be right; and having heard what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, has said this afternoon it seems to me still more right.
I have given careful consideration to the clause as a whole. I can see there might be some advantage in starting all over again, in repealing the whole clause and drafting something new; on the other hand, I would urge the Committee to reflect on the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parker of Waddington, that there is a great deal to be said for keeping what you have when everybody knows what it is and when you are used to it. It did not seem to me then, and it does not seem to me now, that I should be justified in trying to redraft the whole clause in some new way which might only give rise to further problems of interpretation. I would invite the Committee to take the view that this Amendment ought not to be made, in particular for the reasons which were given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, in the course of his observations to the Committee.
LORD PEARSON: In view of the course of the discussion, and in view of the strong and weighty opinions expressed, I do not wish to press this Amendment, and I ask for the Committee's leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.13 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE VISCOUNT DILHORNE moved to leave out subsection (2) and to insert instead:
"(2) On any appeal against conviction the Court shall have the like power to quash the sentence passed and to pass another sentence as the Court has in the case of an appeal against sentence."
The noble and learned Viscount said: Even at this late hour, I should like to put this Amendment before the Committee, because I think it raises a matter of considerable importance. Subsection (2), which this Amendment proposes to leave out, seeks to prohibit the Court of Appeal from passing a severer sentence than that passed at the trial. The first question I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is in relation to line 25, where one finds the words:
"is of greater severity than the sentence passed at the trial"
What exactly is meant by that phrase? It is perfectly understandable in relation to sentences of imprisonment; but how is one to compare the imposition of a fine with imprisonment? Is any fine, no matter how large, to be regarded as less severe a sentence than, say, a month's imprisonment? It may be that the provision is intended only to relate to sentences of imprisonment or sentences involving loss of liberty. If so, I feel that that should be made clear beyond doubt, because I cannot otherwise see how you can easily assess the comparative severity of fines and sentences at all.
But my objection to this provision goes much deeper than that. I said on Second Reading that I think the present system with regard to increasing sentences in indefensible and has been so for many years. I entirely agree that it is wrong that the court should have power to increase a sentence only when the appellant appeals against the sentence in the belief that it is too heavy. I agree with the Report of the Committee of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, on that. But for years past we have been seeking
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to get greater uniformity of sentences. When a case comes before the Court of Criminal Appeal and the sentence is obviously grossly inadequate—that is to say, when there has been an error of a serious character in sentencing by an inferior court—it seems to me quite wrong that the appellate court has no power to put that error right unless the appellant himself has been so misguided as to appeal against sentence. It seems to me that the right change to make in the law is to make it similar to what has been in the law in Scotland since 1926 and in Northern Ireland since 1930. For 40 years the appellate court in Scotland has had the power to increase sentence in any case which comes before it; and this has been so for 36 years in Northern Ireland.
I would ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor whether he could give us any information as to how those provisions work in the rest of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I have never seen a word of criticism directed to the court having power to increase sentence when there is an appeal against conviction. Has there been any criticism by any body engaged in law reform? Has it worked badly? Has it produced adverse consequences in relation to the appellants, apart from the possibility that their sentences are corrected? If this Bill is passed in its present form criminals in England will enjoy an advantage over those in Scotland and Northern Ireland in that they will be able to appeal against conviction without any chance of having their sentences increased.
I think it is a powerful argument in support of my proposal that it will, if accepted, produce uniformity in the law in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland. This was considered by the Donovan Committee and is, in fact, referred to in paragraph 201. From that, the Committee will see that the Amendment I am putting forward met with the support, as the Committee reported, of two judicial witnesses of much experience. They thought that the Court of Criminal Appeal should have this power which Scotland and Northern Ireland enjoy. But the Report went on to say:
"We are not able to share this view. Apart from its being a complete break with the system which has now been in force for over half a century, the number of cases in which the sentence would be increased would, judging from experience, not be worth the additional work involved."

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I am rather puzzled by that, because, first of all, the argument about "its being a complete break with the system which has now been in force for over half a century" does not seem to me to he very convincing when you have had the other system operating in one part of Great Britain for 40 years and in another part for 36 years. Have they been working all right?
Then the argument goes on that "the number of cases in which the sentence would be increased would, judging from experience, not be worth the additional work involved." What experience is being judged from there? It cannot be experience in England, because sentences are not increased on appeals from conviction; there is no power to do so. Of course, sentences are seldom increased because there are very few appeals against sentences where there is any risk of that happening. Does this reference to "experience" relate to Scotland and Northern Ireland? It would be interesting to know.
Next there is the reference to its not being worth the "additional work involved". What additional work, in fact, would be involved? Surely on every case where there is an appeal against conviction the members of the Court know what sentence has been passed and for what offences; they know for what the man has been convicted; and I daresay in the vast majority of cases—and I hope it is so—there will be no gross error in the sentence that has been passed. In all those vast majority of cases there will not be any additional work involved; it will only be in the exceptional case where something has gone seriously wrong that any additional work will be imposed on the Court. It goes on to say
"The court would be looking at a considerable number of sentences only to refrain from interfering."
Those are the sentences in the course of dealing with appeals against conviction. The paragraph continues:
"In those cases where the sentence ought to be reduced it is a reasonable expectation that the prisoner himself would be found appealing not only against conviction but against sentence also."
I am not dealing with the case where the sentence ought to be reduced; I am
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dealing with the case—and the argument, as I thought, was dealing with the case—where it ought to be increased.
The final argument put in the Donovan Report against this proposal is this:
"One undesirable feature of the innovation would also be that some meritorious appeals against conviction would not be prosecuted because of fear that, in the event of failure, the sentence might be increased."
But what has been the experience in Scotland and Northern Ireland in relation to that? Is that a really valid argument for not giving the Court of Appeal power to correct something which is obviously wrong?
Perhaps the most powerful argument which can be put against this is that errors can be corrected only in cases in which there are appeals to the Court of Appeal; and although the number has increased so very much in recent years, it still forms a very low proportion of the total. The argument was advanced that if we were to give the Court the right to increase a sentence, we should have to give the prosecution a right of appeal to the Court to have a sentence increased. I am absolutely and utterly opposed to that, because the prosecution is in no way concerned with a sentence which is passed by the court: it is none of their business.
But I am wondering very much (this goes, perhaps, beyond the particular proposal in the Amendment) whether it is not worth seriously considering having a system whereby the clerks of the various courts—quarter sessions and assizes; courts from which an appeal lies to the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal—should report the sentences passed for the particular crimes. If that were done, it would take but a short time to glance down the list to see whether there were any sentences that were right out of the usual range; and the Appeal Court could be given power to call up those cases where, prima facie, the sentence was out of the usual range, whether too high or too low, so that the Court might satisfy itself that in fact no error had been made. I should like to see the Court of Appeal have the power to do that, both when they thought a sentence was excessive and when they thought it was too low. If we had some procedure of that kind, I believe that we should be

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making a long stride forward to securing greater uniformity of sentence, which I think is extremely desirable.
There is one other argument that I should like to advance, and I will deal with it as shortly as I can. I do not put forward this Amendment, which is modelled on the language in the Scottish Statute, to achieve the same result, as a deterrent to people against bringing frivolous appeals, unmeritorious appeals. That is not my argument. I base it on a broader ground of principle, of enabling the Court to do what is right in relation to cases that come before them. It seems to me hard to justify the proposition that, because the Court have had their hands tied for years, they should continue to have them tied and should not be freed, as they are in Scotland and Northern Ireland. At the same time, it should be recognised that if this change were made, it would operate (and I do not think this would be a bad thing) as a considerable deterrent to those who might attempt to bring appeals against conviction in the belief, and the knowledge, that, whether they won or lost, whatever the result, they could be no worse off than they were before they brought the appeal. Be that as it may, the force of the argument I am putting forward depends primarily, in my belief, on securing uniformity of the law in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland, and in taking a step to secure more uniformity of sentence, and giving the Court of Appeal more power to act as they think fit. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 16, leave out subsection (2) and insert:
("(2) On any appeal against conviction the Court shall have the like power to quash the sentence passed and to pass another sentence as the Court has in the case of an appeal against sentence.").—(Viscount Dilhorne.)
7.26 p.m.
LORD PARKER OF WADDINGTON: I have every sympathy with the noble and learned Viscount in his desire to do what we can to secure uniformity of sentences and, in particular, to see that the rogue gets his full deserts. If I thought that this Amendment would go any way towards achieving that object, I should vote for it wholeheartedly; but having looked at the figures, I doubt whether it is of any practical significance.
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Over the last ten years (this is an approximate figure, because the full figures for 1965 are not out) there have been 250,000—that is to say, a quarter of a million—convictions on indictment. And the number of cases in which there has been an appeal against conviction only (and it is to that class that this Amendment would apply) is no more than 4,575. That means that, under this Amendment, there would be only 1·8 per cent. of all convictions upon which the Court of Criminal Appeal could operate to put up the sentence—not, of course, in all of them; but the only field the Court would have to find the lenient sentences would be in 1·8 per cent. of the total number of cases. I ask: is it really worth it for that small number? It touches only the fringe of the problem.
The noble and learned Viscount also suggested that some scheme might be devised whereby there would be a large Court of Criminal Appeal office to which reports would be made of the sentences, and people would be charged to look through them to judge which were lenient sentences. That would be a vast operation. One has only to sit in the Court of Criminal Appeal, or as a single Judge doing their work under Section 17, to see from the outside of the papers sentences which look completely wrong. It is not until you have had a complete transcript—and you would require a transcript in every case to see the exact facts—that you begin to know why that sentence was passed, and can begin to judge whether it is a severe or a lenient sentence.
I hope that we can do something to secure greater uniformity, but my idea would be to see that it was done as far as possible at the trial level, without appeals to the Court of Criminal Appeal. I would hope that this strengthened Court of Criminal Appeal, strengthened as constituted by this Bill, might perhaps be more free with expressions of opinion in regard to sentences, and that their opinions might go, not, as to-day, merely to the deputy-chairmen of quarter sessions who deal with the cases, but to all the 347 recorders, assistant recorders, chairmen and deputy-chairmen dealing with indictable offences.
The other day we came across a sentence of nine months imprisonment passed

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for highjacking a lorry with £15,000 worth of goods. There was no appeal against sentence—that indeed would be a case within the noble and learned Viscount's Amendment. And, despite the fact that there was no appeal against sentence, we expressed complete horror at that sentence. Our comments received some publicity in the Press, but the only person who saw it in the transcript was the deputy-chairman himself. It seems to me that a remark like that ought to be circulated among all the 347 people dealing with indictable offences. That is only an illustration, but I would hope that a strengthened Court of Criminal Appeal could do something towards achieving something of this sort.
LORD DONOVAN: I wish to say only a few words. I have come to realise that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, when he is upon his feet in this House, and elsewhere, carries a great deal of weight; and he has put the case for this Amendment with all his wide gifts of persuasion and eloquence. Nevertheless, I would respectfully ask him whether he will reconsider it. I know, of course, that it would bring us into line with Scotland and with Northern Ireland, but one of the noble Viscount's political ancestors castigated consistency in terms which it is unnecessary for me to recall. Those courts have a much smaller problem compared with ours, and they can afford these things. But we have each year, if I take the 1964 figures as an example, something like 500 appeals against conviction, and in those cases it is a rarity, or at least it was, to find anything wrong with the sentence.
The noble and learned Viscount asked: What experience is the Committee referring to?—and we used those words in our Report. The experience was that of Mr. Justice Lawton and myself. In ten years of looking at these cases, where the appeal was against conviction only, I never saw any more than half a dozen sentences of which I thought: "Well, this man is very fortunate that he has not appealed against the sentence as well". That means this: that, unless times have changed, the Court will be looking each year at some 500 sentences really in order to alter something like half a dozen of them. At this time of day, and with the heavy programme which the Court of
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Criminal Appeal has, it is not the time to put upon the Court additional burdens which are not absolutely unavoidable.
Secondly, the Departmental Committee which considered this proposal felt that a person with good grounds for thinking that his conviction was appealable might be deterred from appealing because he receives a light or moderate sentence. He might well say to himself: If I do appeal, the Court will then take the opportunity to put up my sentence." In those circumstances, he is worse off than the man who thinks his conviction is perfectly good, and wants merely to appeal against his sentence if, after consideration, he thinks it right to do so. The Court can do nothing at all to him unless he himself sets the wheels in motion. If he has a light sentence, all he has to do is to sit tight and do nothing.
Thirdly, this Amendment leaves intact the somewhat unwholesome spectacle, with which we dealt at length in the Report, of one of Her Majesty's Courts having to put on a mask and conceal its true intentions from an appellant who hopes for a reduction of his sentence, but who is given leave to appeal only so that the Court may increase it. This Amendment would leave that situation unchanged, and on that ground I hope that the noble and learned Viscount will, upon reconsideration, withdraw the Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I would venture to express the same hope. The Amendment which the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, has moved has had a very full, interesting and, I am sure, worthwhile discussion, but I hope that, having heard the debate, and in view of the immense experience which lies behind the observations which have fallen from the noble and learned Lord. Lord Donovan, and the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, he may feel able to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD CONESFORD: I should like to say just a few words before my noble and learned friend replies. One observation of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice causes me some doubt. He mentioned to the Committee a case where the Court of Criminal Appeal found that, in a case of great importance to the public in a class of crime that is

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increasing to the horror of the public, an absurdly light sentence had been given. The noble and learned Lord said that the Court made some adverse comments on that fact, and that those comments (I think he said) reached a deputy chairman of quarter sessions. Think of the difference in the publicity given and the effect on the criminal classes if, instead of the observations going to one deputy chairman of quarter sessions, the proper sentence had been substituted by the Court of Criminal Appeal. The publicity would have been immense. The possible effect in the prevention of crime might have been considerable.
What troubles me so much is that we consider, and rightly consider—I do not complain of it—and almost lean over backwards to do justice to the individual. But sometimes I think we slightly forget the public and the necessity of protecting the public against crime. I appreciate, of course, what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, says about (I forget his exact expression) leading the appellant into a trap. But suppose that what my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne proposes were the law: then everybody would know that in every criminal appeal the question of sentence was at issue: not that the Court of Criminal Appeal or, as it will be, the Court of Appeal would lightly interfere with sentence, but in a proper case it would do so. It would be universal knowledge, as it is in Scotland, that in every appeal the sentence could be altered to what was thought to be right. I do not know in the least what my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne proposes to do with his Amendment on this occasion, but, speaking for myself, I very much hope that it is not the last we shall hear about something of the sort during the passage of this Bill.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I have listened with great attention to what has been said in the course of this debate, and I should like, if I may, to reply to some of the observations that have been made. My noble and learned friend Lord Donovan indeed fired all his guns at this Amendment. I should like to say, in relation to the last argument he advanced, that this Amendment still leaves what I might call the trap open to the man who appeals against sentence. I did not really deal with that in moving
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the Amendment, except to say that I was against that trap continuing. The reason why the Amendment is in the present form is because it is the simplest way to raise the issue, and it is the way it was done in the Scottish Act. I think that if this principle were accepted it would be much easier to get rid of the distinction between appealing against sentence and appealing against conviction. You would give the right to appeal, and the man would specify which it was; and, as my noble friend Lord Conesford said, it would be generally known in every case that where there was an appeal there was the possibility that the sentence would be increased, if was unduly light, and the possibility that an excessive sentence, if it was excessive, would be reduced.
I should like to deal shortly with some of the other arguments which have been advanced. I personally am not very impressed by the argument that some might he deterred from appealing when they had meritorious appeals. Having regard to the legal advice which one hopes will be available to them, if it is not at present, one would have thought that their chances on that could easily be assessed; and I should have thought that if a man was really innocent of the offence, he would not be deterred from appealing against conviction on the slight chance that the sentence would be increased. I thought the most powerful argument against the Amendment was the small number of cases out of the total number of convictions which would be affected by it. The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, gave the figure of 1·8 per cent. of the total, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, said 500 in the course of a year. These are small figures.
But I wonder whether it is really right to approach this matter entirely on the basis of statistics? I remember a case that happened in my constituency when I was a Member of another place, where a woman had been killed in terrible circumstances, and where there was a conviction and a sentence to imprisonment which anyone would have regarded as wholly inadequate. There was an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal, and the court could do nothing about the sentence. The effect of that sentence in that neighbourhood, following upon the conviction,

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was something which would take me perhaps too long to describe. It did a great deal of harm to the reputation of British justice. The fact that the man concerned was free in that neighbourhood within a very few years was a cause of great alarm and disquiet, not only in the village where this particular crime occurred, but in many areas round about.
If the Court had the power they have in Scotland, I personally adhere to the view that it would be beneficial to the administration of justice. I think it would be a desirable reform, and I entirely agree with the observations made by my noble friend Lord Conesford in saying that one increase of sentence which is widely publicised can have much more effect on those potential criminals than many words of admonition to chairmen of benches, quarter sessions, and so on. It is not for me to seek to force through this House a proposal which does not meet with the support of those actually charged with the responsibility in this connection. But I do ask that further thought should be given to this, because I believe the time is bound to come when the court itself will realise that, without this power, they really cannot do justice as they should and no doubt wish to do. With those observations, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: If I may, I should like to make two comments on Clause 4. The first of them follows to some degree, although not completely, from the discussion on the last Amendment, and that is the question of the number of appeals against either conviction or sentence, or both, with which the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, would have to deal.
On the Second Reading the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, gave it as his opinion that the proper way to deal with the problem was to implement, or seek to implement, the provisions of the Widgery Committee on Legal Aid. He said that he was not in a position at that time to state what attitude his right honourable friend the Home Secretary would be able to take on this matter.
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It seems to me that, although clearly it cannot go into this Bill, this particular provision is so closely involved in the success of the new Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, that it ought not to be divorced from it by any length of time. I seriously hope that the noble and learned Lord will be able to get a decision out of the Home Secretary on this particular matter, and will be able to legislate on it fairly early.
If the information I have is right—I believe it gives me some backing on this—there has been a considerable increase in the number of appeals since the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, made his announcement, last August I think it was, that the provision that now appears in subsection (2) of Clause 4 was in practice to be implemented from that date. My information seems to have been somewhat unsatisfactory as to its accuracy, but I hope that part at least is correct. If this is so, this problem is likely to be urgent, and I hope the noble and learned Lord will press for what he considers to be the right solution. I do not think I disagree with him.
I have had some correspondence with the noble Lord's Department (because he was not here) about the question of drafting. I was perhaps a trifle overenthusiastic in my criticism on Second Reading about the drafting of this clause. I appreciate that this is a difficult matter. I have looked at the draft of a Keeling Schedule for this clause, and I am enormously grateful to those who have done some work upon it. It is extremely long, and means re-writing sections out of five or six Acts of Parliament, one of them a Northern Ireland Act; and I also realise, on account of the way that Clause 1(6)(a) is drafted that it will mean further alterations in the substance of the Bill.
It seems to me that there are other more important things that the draftsmen have to do than to deal with Keeling Schedules and other amendments to Clause 1, and I have therefore not pursued this matter at this stage, and do not intend to do so any more. But I hope it will be borne in mind that these Keeling Schedules make life a great deal easier for Parliament, even if they do not make it all that much easier for the practitioner afterwards, because he uses a book which

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is brought up to date regularly, and at frequent intervals. When one is dealing with this sort of Bill in Parliament, it is the greatest help to have the matter set out on the back and not to have some provision in the substantive part of the Bill which makes it impossible to do it. I am glad to see that in another Bill produced by the noble and learned Lord it has indeed been done.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: May I say in answer to those points, first, that I have no reason to suppose that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary does not share my approval of the Widgery Report. But I must add that two other things are involved, first money, and, secondly, Parliamentary time, and I am not in a position to give any undertaking. On the second point we took some trouble to get out a Keeling schedule in this case, but I am glad that the noble Viscount appreciated that it was very long and did not really help, though—I must not say this entirely to please him—we have a Keeling schedule in the Family Provisions Bill, which has been read a First time.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Record of proceedings at the trial]:
On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Again, I am sorry to intervene on this. On Second Reading, when dealing with the mechanical recording of proceedings in courts, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor let fall the view that any copy typist can transcribe from a tape recording of a court trial. It may well have been that his view of the usefulness of this clause has been coloured by the view I have just mentioned. I believe that it is very far from the case that any copy typist can do this work.
There may well be some clash between the desirability of freeing the shorthand writers from actually sitting in the court and taking down the evidence and proceedings as they go along, and the necessity to keep them rather longer than they are now kept in the transcription front tape recording to produce a proper
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transcript. I believe that it can take considerably longer to transcribe from a tape recording than it does for the shorthand writer to transcribe a fair copy from his own shorthand notes. If there is any difficulty about this in terms of money, time or staffing, I hope the noble and learned Lord is prepared for these difficulties, and realises that there is this particular problem which may arise. It may be a different one from that we have now, but it may turn out to be serious, and I hope the necessary protection and encouragement which is given to the professional shorthand writer will not be in any way overlooked in this matter.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am obliged to the noble Viscount for what he has said. I have so far received only the Interim Report of Mr. Justice Baker's Committee on Mechanical Recording of Court Proceedings. I have certainly come to no conclusion, and shall not do so until I have seen the Final Report. Certainly whatever is done, the interests of the present court shorthand writers, for whose services we are so much indebted, will be carefully borne in mind.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Witnesses' expenses]:
7.51 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "witness who attends and gives evidence on an appeal under that and insert:
"person properly attending to give evidence on an appeal under the 1907".
The noble and learned Lord said: I should like to take Amendments Nos. 5, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 12 together. Clause 7 at present provides that the Court may order the payment out of local funds of such sums as appear reasonably sufficient to compensate any witness for the expense, trouble or loss of time incurred in his attendance and giving evidence. But, as the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, pointed out during the course of the Second Reading debate, it sometimes happens that persons attending are not called upon to give evidence.

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The effect of the first three of these Amendments is to enable the Court to order the payment of the expenses of such persons.
As to the other three, the paragraph 7(1) of Schedule 1 provides a power, in similar terms to Clause 7, for the Courts-Martial Appeal Court to compensate witnesses for expenses, and so on, for attendance, whether or not in obedience to an order of the Court. The three Amendments, like those I have already referred to, enable the Court to order the payment of the expenses of persons properly attending to give evidence who are not in fact called upon to give evidence when they attend. I beg to move the first of the Amendments.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 24, leave out from ("any") to ("Act") in line 25 and insert the said new words.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move Amendment No. 6.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 26, after ("appeal") insert (", whether or not he gives evidence,").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move Amendment No. 7.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, leave out line 28.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 8 and 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 [Provisions as to Northern Ireland]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This Amendment deletes from Clause 10(2) the words which extend to Northern Ireland those provisions of the Bill which amend or repeal the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1966. At the time when this Bill was drafted it was thought that the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1966 would have been
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in operation by the time this Bill was before Parliament, but the Irish Bill is still before the Parliament of Northern Ireland. I understand it has run into some difficulties, and accordingly it will be necessary for them to come into line with us rather than our aligning with them. That is the object of this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 24, leave out from ("Act") to ("as") in line 25.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 11 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Appeals from and confirmation of findings of courts-martial]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is purely a drafting Amendment. Paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 permits the exercise of the "single judge" powers of the Courts-Martial Appeal Court by any Judge of the Queen's Bench Division, any Lord Commissioner of Justiciary and any Judge of the Supreme Court in Northern Ireland. Paragraph 2 is intended to, and does, permit the exercise of "single judge" powers by a Judge who has not been nominated to be a member of the Court, as well as by one who has. The reference to "the person nominated" is, therefore, inappropriate. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 26, leave out ("the person nominated") and insert ("he").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 25, leave out ("witness who attends and gives") and insert ("person properly attending to give").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 27, after ("appeal") insert ("whether or not he gives evidence,").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, leave out line 29.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Consequential and minor amendments]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to leave out the paragraphs relating to the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1966. The noble and learned Lord said: If I may take this and Amendment 14 together, these again delete from the Bill the Amendments to the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1966, which were intended to bring its provisions relating to appeals from findings of not guilty on the grounds of insanity into line with the corresponding provisions of the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964 as amended by paragraphs 7 and 8 of Schedule 2.
As I said before, the Bill for the Northern Ireland Act is still before the Parliament of Northern Ireland. It had been anticipated that it would be passed in the very near future. It is obviously impossible for that Bill to anticipate the form which the amendments to the Act of 1964 might eventually take, and the most convenient way of keeping the two enactments in line was to let the Northern Ireland Bill proceed and amend it by the Criminal Appeal Bill. Unfortunately, the progress of the Northern Ireland Bill has been retarded, and apparently it will not be passed for a considerable time. Moreover, its passage will not be facilitated if it is still being debated in Belfast while being simultaneously amended at Westminster. It will therefore be more convenient for the Northern Ireland Parliament that the Criminal Appeal Bill should not amend their Bill. The latter can then be amended in Belfast, so as
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to keep the relevant provisions in line with the corresponding provision of the Act of 1964, in whatever form this may emerge after being amended by the Criminal Appeal Bill. Amendments for this purpose will be within the legislative competence of the Parliament of Northern Ireland. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, leave out lines 18 to 28.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Is the retardation of the Northern Ireland Bill such that there is any danger of its not coming into effect at all? I am a little concerned lest, one way or the other, we should fall between two stools, and end up by this Amendment to the existing law not coming into force in Northern Ireland.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I cannot answer that very specifically, hut, as I understand it, there is no prospect of its being dropped or not going through at all. Some difficulty has been run into, the precise nature of which I am afraid I do not know.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Repeals]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, leave out line 41 and 42.—(The Lord Chancellor).
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with Amendments.

REGISTRATION AND CONTROL OF UNLICENSED CLUBS BILL [H.L.]
LORD PARKER OF WADDINGTON: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to empower local authorities in England and Wales to require the registration of buildings used by clubs and kindred bodies for purposes of entertainment, dancing and the playing of games and to confer certain powers of control in

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respect thereof, and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Parker of Waddington).
On Question, Bill read 1a and to be printed.

MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
House adjourned at two minutes past eight o'clock.