Lords Sitting of 24 November 1966

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Chichester), The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

TAXATION REVENUE
LORD REDMAYNE: 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 is the estimated total increase in revenue in a full year arising from changes in taxation since October, 1964, and what proportion of this total is estimated to fall directly on business undertakings; and whether they will publish a list of these changes, showing in each case—

(a) the estimated change in revenue in a full year, and

(b) the estimated change in tax charges falling directly on business undertakings.]

LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I have looked into this matter very carefully, and I am afraid that it is not possible to give the noble Lord an aggregate of the sort for which he asks. Some tax changes have a fairly stable full-year yield which can be estimated, but for others the yield varies widely from year to year. The effect of some is short-lived, and is not concurrent with others introduced later. If the noble Lord will look at Table II in the Financial Statements published with each Budget, he will see that, although full-year yields are given for some tax changes, they are not given for others, and no total figure is given. It follows that I cannot give the noble Lord an answer to the second part of his Question. In addition to the problems of giving aggregates which I have mentioned, this is also because of the radical nature of the changes in the system of direct taxation, the effects of which, on the economy, have not yet been fully worked out.
I apologise to the noble Lord that I have not been able to help him further.
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There are considerable difficulties involved in this matter, but if the noble Lord would wish to have an explanation of those difficulties I am very ready either to see him or to write him a detailed letter.
LORD REDMAYNE: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for a most unsatisfactory Answer? May I ask him whether he is aware that in fact I can get nearly all that I want from the Financial Statements, and that those Statements show that, in fact, of these enormous increases in taxation industry and commerce have borne something like two-thirds, possibly more than two-thirds? I would ask the noble Lord how he reconciles this with the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Party political broadcast last night in which he said that private industry under a Labour Government can and should look for encouragement and will get it? Does this indicate a change of heart on the part of the Government and the Chancellor, or is it simply "double talk" for Party political purposes?
May I ask the noble Lord two specific questions?—and if he cannot answer them now I hope he will see that I get an answer later. What is the estimated out-turn in a full year of corporation tax at 40 per cent. and how does that compare with income tax paid by industry and commerce at the previous rates, allowing for the fact that it was increased by the Government in 1965 by no less a sum than £78 million? Secondly, what is the effect as a result of increased taxation paid of the reduced value of the investment incentives?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I will certainly see that the noble Lord is provided with an answer to those two questions. I think he will agree that we may well have to wait for the full twelve months in order to be able to provide the answer, particularly in regard to corporation tax. I did not have the advantage of seeing the television programme of my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, although my wife tells me that it was a most excellent one.
In regard to the comment the noble Lord made about the burden of taxation falling most heavily on industry, he will be aware that the old income tax rate on

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company profits and the profits tax and income tax was in the region of 56¼ per cent.; whereas, under the corporation tax there is a tax of 40 per cent. on the profits, although there is added tax on dividends when dividends are made. But, clearly, if a company ploughs back its profits into its own organisation, which is what the Government would wish to see, it is infinitely better off than it was under the old system of taxation. However, in regard to the selective employment tax—the noble Lord did not mention this, but I think it was one of the taxes which he has in mind—it is clear that certain industries, particularly the manufacturing industries, will be much better off under this tax than they were in the past.
LORD REDMAYNE: My Lords, may I ask whether the noble Lord is intentionally spurring me to draw his attention to the fact in respect of the selective employment tax that the distributive trades and service industries are paying no less than an increase of £373 million in tax arising out of S.E.T. alone? So far as the Chancellor of the Exchequer's broadcast is concerned, I was asking the noble Lord whether there was any advantage in listening to it.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am quite sure that to the noble Lord, Lord Redmayne, there is a great advantage in listening not only to that particular broadcast but to many others; we can all learn. In regard to S.E.T., it is true that the service industries are severely affected by it, but it is the policy of the Government—and I should have thought it was accepted by most people who appreciate our economic difficulties—that assistance should be given to the manufacturing industries. Therefore, this is one of the problems when one starts to generalise. In this case the manufacturing businesses will be infinitely better off than they were in the past.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, did the Minister mean what he said, that the Government wish companies to plough back their profits in all cases, irrespective of the use the company can make of the profits ploughed back? If so, does he realise that his advice is the direct opposite of a unanimous conclusion of the Royal Commission on Taxation?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, here again we must not generalise, and that is what the noble Lord is asking me to do.
LORD CONESFORD: That is what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, did.
LORD SHEPHERD: No, my Lords, I do not intend to generalise here. But certainly in the case of manufacturing industries, and certain of the service industries, if profits are ploughed back to give increased efficiency by the use of machines then our whole economy will be infinitely better off.

UNITED NATIONS: BRITISH REPRESENTATION
3.8 p.m.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government—

(1) Whether it is their policy to replace the representation at the United Nations of Members of both Houses as full delegates by:

(a) Civil Servant representation on the various Committees with the exception of the Minister in charge; and

(b) A visit by an all-Party political delegation for one week during the autumn session;

(2) Whether they are aware that this will greatly weaken the standing of the United Kingdom representation at the United Nations in the eyes of other delegations.]

THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (LORD BESWICX): My Lords, in addition to the Minister in Charge, Lord Caradon, and the Minister for Disarmament, Lord Chalfont, the United Kingdom delegation to the 21st Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations includes a Member of this House, Lady Gaitskell, who represents Her Majesty's Government in the Third Committee.
Representation at the General Assembly and other organs of the United Nations is undertaken by Ministers or senior officials as the circumstances may demand.

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In addition, an all-Party Parliamentary delegation has recently completed a most successful visit to United Nations Headquarters. Her Majesty's Government consider that this is the most effective way of demonstrating British Parliamentary support for the United Nations, and of emphasising, through the all-Party nature of the delegation, that the organisation has the support of the whole country.
A delegation to the Assembly led by a Minister, and a special Parliamentary delegation, seems to Her Majesty's Government to be the best way to represent Governmental and Parliamentary interests.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that some of us think that to send out a Parliamentary delegation just for one week is nothing like as effective to maintain the status of the British delegation at United Nations as having Members of Parliament permanently there taking charge of the committees? Is the Minister aware that the Government have a majority of 100 in the House of Commons, and is it not a reflection on the capacity of the Labour Members in that House that three men, or three women, cannot be found to go out to represent this country properly at United Nations?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as one who was a Member of Parliament, and also a member of the first delegation to the first General Assembly, I naturally have some sympathy with what the noble Lady says. On the other hand, it is also a widely held view that the present combination of officials and Members of Parliament going out is probably the best way of securing an impact.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, I have sympathy with the questions of the noble Baroness, because delegates are picked if they are "blue-eyed boys, or girls", in the hierarchy on the Front Benches. Nevertheless, I think it is important that the political representation in the United Nations, where we have to take a responsibility, should be by politicians and not by civil servants.
LORD BFSWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord probably did not hear that in my answer I referred to my noble friends
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Lord Caradon, Lord Chalfont and Lady Gaitskell, all of whom, probably, would not be too dissatisfied if we described them as politicians.
LORD HARLECH: My Lords, is thenoble Lord not aware that political experience in one of the Houses of Parliament is, in fact, of enormous benefit to these committees, and that it probably is to the advantage of Members of the House of Commons and of this House that they have served a term on one of the committees of the United Nations? Is the noble Lord also aware that we very much appreciate the efforts of the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, on a particular committee? She has made an outstanding contribution, and I feel that it would be worthwhile for the Government to have another look at this matter to see whether they cannot man their delegation with more politicians.
LORD BESW1CK: Yes, my Lords. As I have said, when the occasion arises politicians do go to the U.N., including Ministers. But certainly I will see that the views which have been expressed from both sides, are conveyed to my right honourable friend.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, can the noble Lord explain why one very distinguished and long-serving Member of your Lordships' House has been struck off the list? I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Crook. Why is he no longer a member of the delegation?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I think it would be invidious if I were to go into details of that kind—indeed, I have no idea. But may I call attention also to the other aspect of my reply—namely, that of the visiting delegation? Although I accept that membership of a delegation is not quite the same as serving upon a committee, nevertheless members of these delegations do sit in on the delegation meetings each morning. They are able to bring to bear the political insight which they acquire in the House, and I do not think their contribution should be overlooked.
LORD WADE: My Lords, as a matter of information, may I ask whether the all-Party delegation includes Members of this House?
LORD BESWICK: The answer to that is, "Yes", my Lords.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HAR WOOD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether sending out an all-Party delegation is not really treating the United Nations as a place for people to go and observe? Surely the object of having delegates—and I endorse every word which my noble friend Lord Harlech has said about the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell—is to treat the United Nations as a world Parliament, in which Parliamentarians sit on committees and work every day. I did it myself at one period. That is the interest they have. Surely, to treat the United Nations as it seems to me the present Government are treating it, as a place where members of delegations go and observe, or take some rather vague part for one week, is to reduce the status of the United Nations and the status of the delegation which represents Her Majesty's Government.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I agree fully with what the noble Baroness has said about the contribution of my noble friend Lady Gaitskell. But I do not agree with what she says about the visiting delegation. The visit has had a two-way effect. First, there are more people in both Houses of Parliament here who know how the United Nations works. Secondly, they do take with them, not just a capacity to observe, but a good deal of Parliamentary experience which is available to the delegation when considering the business before the United Nations.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, may I ask this question? Do the members of a visiting delegation rank as delegates; do they go to committees: do they take part and vote during one week only and then disappear? What is their status as part of the United Kingdom delegation to the United Nations?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the answer is that they are not delegates—this, I agree, rather supports what the noble Baroness has said. They are observers.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, would the noble Lord consider, if there is an advantage in having a delegation of this sort to go out, combining the two types of representation, because I really think that to be a full delegate is absolutely essential for a Parliamentary representative?
LORD BESWICK: Yes, my Lords. As I have already, said the visiting delegation which went out for the first time last year was most successful. And because everyone who has had any connection with the practice has said how successful it was, it is intended to continue it. But this afternoon there have been other expressions of opinion, and I shall certainly see that that opinion is considered by my right honourable friend.

WOMEN'S RIGHTS: UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION
3.16 p.m.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have ratified the United Nations Convention for the political rights of women; and, if not, why not, since the colonial difficulties no longer arise.]
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am glad to announce that as a result of their review of this question in the past year. Her Majesty's Government have decided that, with some reservations, the United Kingdom should accede to this Convention. This will be done in the near future.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords. I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his reply. As I was involved in this matter in 1952, it is rather nice to think that it is coming finally to a proper ending.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, before the noble Lord gets up, may I ask him what are the reservations?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, my noble friend may certainly ask, and I would refer her to the Statement on January 31 where they are mostly detailed. As I think the noble Lady knows, in the first place there were reservations about the position of certain dependent territories. Now most of those dependent territories are no longer dependent, and therefore the reservations relating to what remain of the dependent territories are fairly minor and we feel they can be accepted.

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In the case of the dependent territories another of the reservations will probably relate to the question of equal pay, but we have made some progress on this matter and also on the reservations relating to this country.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, could the noble Lord tell us when the Government are going to face up to equal pay.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I wish I could.

TEACHERS' SALARIES AND THE RATES
3.18 p.m.
LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK: 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 progress they are making with plans to fulfil their 1964 General Election pledge (given in their Manifesto The New Britain) "to transfer the larger part of the cost of teachers' salaries from the rates to the Exchequer"; and whether they will give an assurance that such plans as they may have will be laid before Parliament in time to become effective by 1st April, 1967.]
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, radical reform of local government finance must await the changes in structure which are expected to result from the work of the Royal Commission on Local Government. Meanwhile the Government have decided, through the Local Government Bill now before Parliament, to relieve the rates by steadily increasing the proportion of local authority expenditure met from the Exchequer.
LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK: My Lords, while I thank the noble Baroness for that reply, may I ask her the following supplementaries? Do Her Majesty's Government still stand by the words that were used in public by Mr. Wilson over three years ago, when he said:
"We shall return progressively to a system of specific grants, with first priority for education, notably in the field of teachers'
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salaries, where the Government must assume a higher proportion."?
Secondly, since the total cost of teachers' salaries is now running at about £573 million a year—
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but may I ask him the context of the quotation he has given?
LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK: My Lords, it came from the Socialist Manifesto on Education dated 1963. May I continue the second supplementary? Since the total cost of teachers' salaries is now running at about £573 million a year for England and Wales, with the rates meeting some 40 per cent. of that figure, how do the Government square their undertakings to give early relief and to transfer the larger part of teachers' salaries et cetera, with the actual announced figure of relief for ratepayers for 1967–68, which appears to be a mere £30 million?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, in reply to the first part of the noble Lord's supplementary question, the Government, of course, are not in any way going back on the words in their Manifesto. As I think I indicated, it is simply that they are waiting on the results of this Royal Commission. They have never at any time repudiated this, and there is no change of heart. Actually, the noble Lord's figure was almost correct. It is £600 million; and already, of course, as the noble Lord knows, more than half the cost is met by the Exchequer through the grant system.
If I may also refer the noble Lord to the speech of the Minister when he introduced the Second Reading of the Local Government Bill, he there made reference to the change in the grant in relation to the number of child places. While this does not actually affect teachers' salaries, it does mean that there is a change in the amount of money which will be given by the Central Government to local government.
LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lady for that reply. Arising out of the first part of her answer, did not the noble and learned Lord who sits upon the Woolsack and who speaks with all the authority that comes from that Woolsack

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tell your Lordships' House only yesterday that Royal Commissions were the classic method adopted by people who did not want any real reform?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I shall make no attempt to reply to that, but will merely say that the Royal Commission is expected to report in 1968.

FUTURE BUSINESS
3.22 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, it is not the normal practice to make Business Statements, but it has sometimes been done in order to meet the convenience of the House. The House will be aware that we are faced with two very large Bills on which progress should be made between now and Christmas, and I thought it right, therefore, to indicate to the House the proposals we are making to deal with the Committee stages of the Land Commission Bill and the Companies Bill.
It is proposed that we should take the Land Commission Bill as main Business on Monday the 5th, Tuesday the 6th and Thursday the 8th December. In regard to Monday, November 28, it is suggested that we should start with the Land Commission Bill, then adjourn in order to take the Committee stage of the Armed Forces Bill and then, when that is completed, continue with the Land Commission Bill. It is proposed that we should take the Committee stage of the Companies Bill on Monday the 12th, Tuesday the 13th, Monday the 19th, Tuesday the 20th and Wednesday the 21st December. I hope the House will agree that these important measures should he adequately considered, and that the House will agree to sit on these particular days until 10 o'clock. The dining room will be fully open, and I hope that Peers and their guests will make good use of the accommodation. It is proposed to adjourn the Committee stages in order that noble Lords may enjoy their supper.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, there are two points I should like to make. First, I hope that the noble Lord, when arranging Business for this House, will bear in mind that many Lords on both
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sides of the House have other work to do on Mondays, and that it would be of considerable convenience if major Bills were not taken on Mondays. Minor Bills, which do not require the attendance of large numbers of your Lordships, would be more suitable for Mondays. The noble Lord suggested that we should sit until 10 o'clock on these various nights. I would hope that he is not meaning that too literally, and that if the House makes reasonable progress it will be able to adjourn at a more suitable hour.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I seem to have heard the first part of the noble Earl's comments before. In fact, I think that when we were on the other side we repeatedly made the same comments to him. I appreciate the problems of Mondays, but one of the difficulties, as the noble Earl well knows, is that if I put Scottish Business down on a Monday then great trouble ensues for both of us. We are to a degree limited, particularly as the House does not like sitting on Fridays. But I certainly take the point of the noble Earl and will see if it can be met.
In regard to sitting until 10 o'clock, I think one has to weigh up the pros and cons of sitting, on average, till 8 or 9 o'clock in the evening, which is not very convenient to those taking part, and doing it pretty well every night. I have taken the view—and those whom I have approached seem also to take the view—that it is infinitely better that, when we must sit beyond the normal late hour, we should sit until later than that and make progress. These are two big Bills, and the Companies Bill particularly needs a great deal of examination, so I think we must provide adequate time.
I am quite sure the noble Earl is also aware that after Christmas we are going to have a whole series of major Bills coming from the other place which will need a great deal of examination; and I would hope that at this stage we could make good progress on these Bills, even if we have to suffer a little, and then later on in the year we may be able to relax a little. I think it would be best to make marked progress on these Bills at this stage, but as the noble Earl knows, I am always open to consultation.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, all Chief Whips have great difficulty in fitting in Business, and the noble Lord,

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Lord Shepherd, has our sympathy—moderately, anyway. But would he please once again look at the point which we on this side of the House have made a good many times—that is, that there is quite a lot of the year when no legislation comes up from the other place at all and when we are dealing with nothing but Motions and debates? Then the legislation all comes up at once, and we have this difficulty. Would he please see that more legislation starts in this House, such as the Companies Bill, which I think is a very good new departure?
LORD WOLVERTON: My Lords, in the case of a major Bill of the importance of the Land Commission Bill I think it unsatisfactory that on Monday we are to start dealing with it and then adjourn its consideration in order to deal with the Armed Forces Bill. I cannot see why we cannot have two days for this important Bill. It is not even on the list of Business for Tuesday, but I am told that it is to come in at the end of Business on Thursday after a lot of other important Business. I think it is very unsatisfactory, and I fully agree with my noble Leader on that. In the case of an important Bill like the Land Commission Bill or the Companies Bill (although I think it has been arranged to take the Companies Bill on two consecutive days) I think that, having got your team together working on such a complicated Bill, we ought to go through it, and in any event not sit very late at night, which is very tiring. I hope better arrangements can be made so that we can adjourn at a reasonable time.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord if he has taken into consideration one factor which is very important at this time of the year, and that is fog? If there is a lot of had fog and we have to sit very late at this time of year, noble Lords may not be able to get home at all. Some arrangements should be made to enable them to sleep.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, we on these Benches have put down Amendments to the Armed Forces Bill and the Land Commission Bill. It would be of convenience if the noble Lord could indicate when he expects to adjourn con-
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sideration of the Land Commission Bill to take the Commitee stage of the Armed Forces Bill.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, we have tried to meet the wish of the House to have major Bills introduced in this House. We have done this in the case of the Companies Bill; and therefore this is one of the Bills on which we should make progress. Obviously, this Bill must be considered in another place, and therefore progress should be made. If we fail in that, it is going to make it infinitely more difficult in the future.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Wolverton, the reason we suggested the break-up of the Committee stage on Monday the 28th was not ony to provide some relief to Ministers—in our particular case we have a team of Ministers—but also to help the Opposition, because I know from my own experience, having been in opposition, that to provide opposition for six hours on a difficult Bill produces considerable difficulties. The last Conservative Government helped us by breaking up certain Committee stages, which is what we are suggesting should be done here. Therefore, I hope the noble Lord will reconsider his criticism. I will certainly see what can be done to notify the House on the first and subsequent days how far we should like to go with the Bill. Perhaps we could have discussions on this.
LORD GRIMSTON of WESTBURY: My Lords, as we are on Business, could the noble Lord say when he thinks it is likely that a debate on Rhodesia will be fitted in? I understand the Government are pledged to have a debate in both Houses before any vital decision is taken.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the Statement I have just made was related to two particular Bills and was made for the convenience of the House. I do not think it should be an opportunity to raise other matters which clearly come within the province, in the first instance, of the usual channels, the two Front Benches and the noble Lords of the Liberal Party. I have no information to give the noble Lord in regard to a debate on Rhodesia.

IRISH PEERS
3.32 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the Report from the Committee for Privileges.
LORD REID: My Lords, I beg to move that the Report be now considered.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
LORD REID: My Lords, I have now to move that the Report be agreed to. Your Lordships may remember that last December a Petition was presented by a number of Irish Peers and that Petition was remitted to the Committee for Privileges. Your Lordships will find the Prayer of the Petition on Page XX of the Report. I might read the first four lines. The petitioners pray:
"That your Lordships will declare that the peerage of Ireland has in accordance with the provisions of the Union with Ireland Act 1800 the right to be represented by 28 lords temporal of Ireland elected by the peers of Ireland for life to sit and vote in your Lordships' House with privilege of Parliament…".
Before the Committee met the Lord Chairman of Committees, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, obtained leave of this House not to attend that Committe on the ground that he held an Irish peerage, and two other noble Lords, members of the Committee, did not attend our proceedings, I understand, for the same reason. When the Committee met they were good enough to invite me to take the Chair and I greatly appreciated the honour that was done to me. It is for that reason that I am now seeking approval of this Report.
In accordance with precedent, cases were lodged, and we heard counsel; and I may say that we heard very full and able arguments from Mr. Morris, for the petitioners, and from the Solicitor General. Your Lordships will find a full record of that argument on Pages 1 to 60 of the Committee's Report of the proceedings. May I, in parenthesis, say that I am sorry that we have a difference of pagination, Roman and Arabic, in the Report. It may be that the House will think that in future Reports it might be better to have the page numbers running consecutively. I am sure, however, that this is in accordance with precedent, and it would be only by the wish of the House that the matter should be changed.
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After the argument, and certain deliberations in private, again in accordance with precedent, speeches were prepared by those members of the Committee who sought to do so, and those speeches were circulated in writing. Speeches were, in fact, prepared and circulated by myself, by my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne and by my noble and learned friend Lord Wilberforce. Your Lordships will find those three speeches at the end of the volume, on pages 61 to 63. There was then deliberation, and your Lordships will find recorded on Page xliv the names and opinions of all the members who took part in the proceedings. Thereafter the Report to which I now ask the House to agree was approved by the Committee, nemine dissentiente, and that Report (which I think I should read, because it is very short) is to be found on Page vii.
After stating that the Committee had met and considered the petition, and heard counsel, the Report states:
"That the Committee have come to the following Resolution, nemine dissentiente:
"That it is the opinion of the Committee—
"That by virtue of the provisions of the Union with Ireland Act 1800 twenty-eight Irish Representative Peers sat in this House on the part of Ireland each being elected for life:
"That on the death of an Irish Representative Peer an election of a successor was held in the manner provided by the said Act:
"That no such election has been held since 1919:
"That those Irish Peers who had been so elected continued to sit as Members of the House until their respective deaths and that the last Irish Peer so elected died in 1961:
"That the provisions of the said Act relating to the election of Irish Representative Peers ceased to he effective on the passing of the Irish Free State Agreement Act 1922 and that the right to elect Irish Representative Peers no longer exists:
"That for the reasons stated in the opinions published herewith the Prayer of the Petition should he rejected."
When we came to consider the matter, of course we had to consider the reasons and authority for the sitting of Representative Peers in this House; and on Page 61 I set forth my view as to those reasons. I explained that it had been thought that the main reason was that the machinery for the election of Irish Peers had disappeared with the reorganisation which took place in 1922. But when we came to look into the Act of Union we

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found a different reason. We found that it is stated throughout the Act of Union—which was an Act passed by both the Parliament of Ireland, as it then existed, and the Parliament of Great Britain, as it then existed—the Irish Representative Lords Spiritual and Temporal were to sit "on the part of Ireland."
There were a number of Lords Spiritual who sat "on the part of Ireland" in this House until the Irish dis-establishment in the 'sixties of the last century. There was also provision that the existing members of the House of Lords of the Parliament of Great Britain were to sit in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom "on the part of Great Britain"; and there was not a word (and so far as we could find, not a suggestion) in the Act of Union that the Irish Representative Peers sat as representatives of the Peerage of Ireland, as the petitioners alleged.
But, my Lords, it is right that I should point out that in a further Act of the Irish Parliament, which was passed under authority given in the Act of Union to settle matters of procedure, there were references to Representative Peers sitting as representatives of the Irish Peerage. That Act spoke with two voices. It began by referring to Representative Peers sitting "on the part of Ireland" and then, on two or three occasions, it referred to them as sitting as representing the Peerage of Ireland, and then it reverted to the other view that they sat "on the part of Ireland".
So matters continued until, first, the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which really never came into operation, and then the Irish Free State legislation (there were several Acts) passed in the year 1922 following on the Treaty. Perhaps I may read one short paragraph from my speech on page 66 as explaining what the competing views were and what view I took about them:
"As a result of these changes it appears to me to be clear that Ireland as a whole no longer exists politically. On the other hand, there has been no statutory alteration of the position of the Irish Peerage or the rights of Irish Peers. So if the Irish Representative Peers were elected to represent Ireland I cannot see how there could be an election of a Peer to represent something which no longer exists politically."
I went on to say, a little later:
"On the other hand if I could hold that the Irish Representative Peers sat as representatives
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of the Irish Peerage, I would not find it possible to say that any right of the Irish Peerage to be represented in this House had lapsed or has been repealed."
So it was necessary to determine what was the basis—at least I thought it was; and the number of my colleagues agreed—on which the Representative Peers sat in this House; and I went on to explain why, in my view, it is clear that the basis really was that they sat "on the part of Ireland", and for that reason I myself supported the finding in the Report, which I now ask your Lordships to agree to, that the provisions of the Act relating to the election of Representative Peers ceased to be effective in 1922 and that the right to elect Irish Representative Peers no longer exists. If the House agree with that view, I think they will agree with the conclusion which the Committee drew, that the Petition should be rejected. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Report be agreed to.—(Lord Reid.)
3.43 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, as the representative of the petitioners in your Lordships' House, may I say that we are very disappointed with the findings of the Committee for Privileges. We are also slightly mystified. When facing such distinguished Law Lords, and as I am not a lawyer, obviously I do not want to go into very great intricacies. But may I ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, one or two questions? The noble and learned Lord has based his findings on the fact, as he has told us, that the Irish Peers did not, in his opinion, sit as representatives of the Irish Peerage, because in the 1800 Act of Union and subsequent Acts there are numerous references to Lords Temporal and Spiritual sitting on the part of Ireland in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
I think I am right in saying that if you study the summing-up of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, who was a member of the Committee, you will find that he does not agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, about that. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, said, the 1800 Act, in two places expressly—there may be more—refers to the Irish Representative Peers sitting as representatives of the Irish Peerage. It is on page 64, and I think it was quoted by

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the noble and learned Lord. This is also further confirmed by the Third Report in 1922 on The Dignity of a Peer; by Halsbury's Laws of England; by Jowitt's 1959 Dictionary of English Law; by Lord Maugham and by Lord Greene's Opinion in 1924, to which I intend to return in a moment, and also to a certain extent by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, himself.
My Lords, regarding the meaning of the phrase, "on the part of Ireland", it has occurred to me that suppose instead of three-quarters of Ireland having broken off from the British Crown into a Free State and a subsequent Republic only one small part of Ireland like the County of Cork—always a rather troublesome county—had broken away and declared itself a Free State. According to the reasoning of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, if that had happened the Irish Peerage would in that case have lost their right to sit in your Lordships' House. Even if County Kerry had been engulfed by a tidal wave they would have lost their right. It is very hard to understand that.
There is another point regarding this question of "on the part of Ireland". The noble Earl the Leader of the House is a very good Catholic, and I ask him to imagine the Irish Peers, the Lords Temporal and Spiritual, sitting here in the House of Lords in the early 19th century. I am quite sure that the early 19th century Catholics in Ireland did not agree that the Lords Spiritual sat "on the part of Ireland". They represented the Church of Ireland, but they did not represent Ireland. Here may I say, with the greatest respect, because I am not a lawyer, that I think the Committee have gone rather astray, in that they think that the Irish Peers sitting in your Lordships' House sat here to represent Ireland. The Act of Union of 1800 has never been repealed. It is true enough that three-quarters of Ireland broke away, but there is a quarter of Ireland which still acknowledges the British Crown.
May I quote the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, with regard to the Act of Union? I understand that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, thought that the Act of Union had become obsolescent owing to various political activities. But, on page 73, the
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noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, says:
"I confess to some reluctance to holding that an Act of such constitutional significance as the Union with Ireland Act is subject to the doctrine of implied repeal or of obsolescence."
Therefore, according to the noble and learned Lord's reasoning, the Act of Union is still in existence.
I do not wish to detain your Lordships too long, because I know there is a lot of other Business, but I should like to point out that in the opinion of the petitioners this finding of the Committee for Privileges must mean that Irish Peers are territorial. We have the Berkeley Peerage case of 1858–1862. I always thought that this settled once and for all that there is no such thing as a peerage of tenure. I have always thought that as a peerage is a personal inheritance it does not entitle its holder to represent any territory in Parliament. If that is so. I cannot understand how the Representative Peers of Ireland sat in your Lordships' House as representing any part of Ireland. If this is accepted, then it would appear to be a new departure in law.
Before I conclude, I should like to refer to the Maugham/Greene opinion of July 16, 1924. As your Lordships know, Lord Maugham was a distinguished Lord Chancellor, and Lord Greene a distinguished Master of the Rolls. Their Opinion runs completely contra to the opinion of the Committee for Privileges. Their Opinion holds that the Irish Peerage, notwithstanding the 1922 Free State Act and subsequent Acts, has the right to allocate 28 members of the Irish Peerage to your Lordships' House. If I may quote just three lines of that Opinion, they say:
"This conclusion is in accordance with the well-known principle that a statute is not to be construed as taking away or destroying rights or privileges save by express language or necessary implication."
I apologise to he Committee for Privileges on behalf of the petitioners that we did not lay this Opinion before them. How that happened, I really cannot say; I can only presume that it was due to an oversight on our part.
What I wish to ask—and I am completely in the hands of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, the Lord Chancellor and the House—is whether it would be possible to refer this Opinion back to the Committee for them to study in due

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course. There is a precedent for this in the case of Lady Rhondda's peerage in 1922. This was then referred back for further consideration. But in the case of Lady Rhondda's peerage it was only one peerage, while here we have 70 Peers affected. Are your Lordships going to deny them what is perhaps a last opportunity of assistance?
The Irish Peerage has served the British Crown extremely well, and to-day it comprises many distinguished men. I am sure that the Committee for Privileges and your Lordships will wish to lean over backwards to be just and fair in this matter. I will just ask once again if the Maugham/Greene opinion, which I have here (copies can be made of it, of course), could be referred back to the Committee for Privileges for consideration.
3.58 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I. had not intended to speak on this issue, but in listening to the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, one point struck me, that is the geographic allocation of where the peerage is made from. I do not think the petitioners drew attention to this fact in the Petition, and the fact of 28 Peers being allowed is one that we all know. As long as the Six Counties are part of the Crown and this Kingdom, I think the point the noble Viscount has raised has some semblance. Speaking as somebody who lives in the Kingdom of England and Scotland, I think there are certain people whose ancestors' loyalty to the Crown is suspect, because the Act of Union 1801 was passed in the reign of George III, and earlier on, your Lordships will remember, Mr. Dunning moved a Motion that the power of the Crown was increasing, had increased, and should be reduced. One of the ways in which the King's Prime Minister, Lord North, did this was to promote people in another place to peerages, without having the trouble of fighting further elections, which were a very expensive business in those days, whether for a great territorial magnate or for the Crown.
I can think of people who allowed themselves to be promoted to Peerages in those days. I can think of one of the great Yorkshire families, the Saviles, the head of which allowed himself to be made the Earl of Mexborough in the Peerage of Ireland. The Saviles had nothing to do with Ireland. In Scotland,
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the Chief of the greatest clan family, Macdonald of Armadale, in Skye, Chief of all the Chiefs of that Clan, allowed himself to be made Lord Macdonald of Slate, in Antrim. We all know that Sleat, the castle he lived in, was in Skye. And let us go to Wales. The head of the great Welsh Border family, the Vaughans, territorial chiefs of long antiquity and power, allowed himself to be made Earl of Lisburne in the Kingdom of Ireland. None of these families had territorial connections with Ireland. I think that the point which the noble Viscount made, that these Peerages are not necessarily based on this, has some validity.
I do not want to detain your Lordships. We have heard a lot about this. The point is that there are these families—I have just cited three because they spring to my mind without any preparation at all. I think that if the noble and learned Lord's Committee had had these points put before them, possibly in a wider context, some injustice might be seen to have been done to the descendants of those noblemen who accepted this particular form of peerage out of consideration for the Crown.
4.3 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, if I may speak, not as a Minister but as a member of the Committee, I would say that the Committee sat under the able chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid. We had the benefit of having on the Committee the noble and learned Lords, Lord Wilberforce, Lord Hodson and Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest; the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne; the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury and the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, and others. The Committee listened to the evidence of the petitioners and we had the opportunity of examining all the legislation relating to this matter.
I do not think that there is any doubt that this matter was gone into exhaustively by the Committee. If my memory is right, the Report of the Committee was unanimous. I do not believe that the point that the noble Viscount has just made, brought forward at this late hour, on the opinion of two respected members of the legal profession, would have changed our minds. That is certainly my view. I do not think that we should accept the suggestion of the noble

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Viscount that this matter should be referred again to the Committee. I cannot believe that, in all the circumstances, we should change our minds. I believe that all that has been done has been fair to the petitioners, and I hope that the House will now accept the Report of the Committee.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, as a member of the Committee, I support what has just been said by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. The Committee really did go into all aspects of this question. Every single argument was deployed on both sides. We listened to them all, and we came definitely and unanimously to the conclusion that the Petition could not be accepted, for the simple reason that the entity that is the whole of Ireland, which Irish Representative Peers had been hitherto selected to represent, no longer existed. That was the result of our examination.
It was not merely that we took the view that the machinery for electing Peers had ceased to be operative: it was something much more fundamental than that. And I cannot but feel that if this matter were referred by your Lordships—as they have a perfect right to do—back to the Committee, we should only traverse exactly the same ground. Though I have the utmost sympathy with the noble Viscount and his co-petitioners, I hope that they will accept the verdict of the Committee and allow the matter to be regarded as decided by the House.
LORD REID: My Lords, I have been asked one or two questions. I shall not say any more about the proposal to remit the matter. That has been dealt with by the noble Marquess and the noble Lord. I would only say this: that we did go back to original sources, and we should have again to go back to original sources, because, after all, an opinion, no matter how distinguished may be the holder of the opinion, is only a gloss on the original source.
There was a question about the nature of the Irish Peerage. Your Lordships will remember that until 1782 the Irish Parliament was to some extent subject to the British Government, and I have no doubt that in those days a number of eminent persons in this country were given Irish Peerages when they had little
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connection with Ireland. But from 1782 until 1800 the Parliament of Ireland was entirely independent, and treated with the Parliament of Great Britain on an equal basis. At that time, the Peerage of Ireland was the Peerage of the Kingdom of Ireland. The Peerage of Great Britain and the Peerage of England and the Peerage of Scotland were Peerages of Great Britain. And when the Union came about, the Peerage of Ireland obtained all the privileges of Peers of the United Kingdom, with the single exception that they were not allowed to sit in this House, other than the 28 Representative Peers who were to sit on the part of Ireland. I hope that that explains that matter.
The only other matter is: why do we say that Ireland has ceased to exist as a political entity? Of course, if the County of Kerry had been submerged, or something like that, that would have made a great difference—but it would not have altered the political character of Ireland. I do not think that anybody can look back on the events and legislation of 1922 without saying that they made a fundamental difference, and to my mind these are the differences which make it clear that Ireland no longer exists as a political entity.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, may I ask one question? Surely Ireland exists as a political entity to-day?
LORD REID: My Lords, the point surely is this: that it exists as a form of political entity which is not part of the Commonwealth—namely, as the Republic; and it also exists—in Northern Ireland—as a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There is no one entity to-day which comprises Ireland as Ireland.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I intervened only in order to make the verbal point that Ireland can hardly be said to have come to an end.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, it was on February 3 that the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, moved that this Petition be referred to the Committee for Privileges. On that occasion I pointed out that this was no new claim. I said that the matter was fully considered by the

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Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform in 1962. That Committee had before it memoranda by the official group, by the noble Lord, Lord Dunboyne, and by other noble Lords interested. The Committee expressed themselves as
"not in favour of the revival of any form of representation for the Peerage of Ireland in the House of Lords."
I then said that on that footing they considered that they should be fully eligible to sit in the House of Commons. Accordingly, in the debate in your Lordships' House on the Peerage Bill, in 1963, an Amendment was moved in the sense contended for in the Petition, but was defeated by 90 votes to 8. It was on that footing, that the Irish Peers were not eligible to sit in your Lordships' House, that the Peerage Act made the Irish Peers fully eligible to sit in the House of Commons. Now the matter is raised again.
Later, I said this:
"The petitioners say that, while they have put their claim before, it has never been argued by counsel, as it would be before the Committee for Privileges; nor have their legal rights ever been fully inquired into.
"The Government feel that the claim of the petitioners is one which will probably continue to be raised from time to time unless a full inquiry into the claim is made, and that the Committee for Privileges is the proper body to make that inquiry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 272, col. 574; 3/2/661
Then I said that the Government therefore advised the House to accept the Motion, which the House did.
There have been several lengthy hearings before the Committee for Privileges in which the petitioners were represented by learned counsel. As your Lordships can see, the Committee for Privileges which heard the matter included the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, the noble Earl, Lord St. Aldwyn, the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, the noble Lord, Lord Rea, the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, the noble Lord, Lord Strang, the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hodson. That is to say, it included five noble and learned Lords. I think the
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points which have been raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, have already been answered by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid. If I may so, I fully concur in the Opinions which were delivered, and the Government advise the House to agree to this Report.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL
House in Committee (according to Order).
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

NEW TOWNS BILL
4.13 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): My Lords, this Bill is a great deal simpler and, I hope, less controversial than the last two Bills that I have had the pleasure of introducing in this House. Under the New Towns Act 1955, which was a consolidating measure, the limit of advances of capital from the Consolidated Fund was set out at £550 million. By the end of September of this year advances committed by the Ministers concerned totalled about £535 million, so there is not much left without Parliament's specific authority.
It has been the practice ever since the first New Towns Act 1946 to advance the total money available periodically, so that both Houses can have an opportunity to bring the Government of the day to account and to hear about the prospects and intentions for the future. The 1946 Act itself, it is interesting and, indeed, poignant to remember, provided for a limit of only £50 million. This was an adequate amount in the early days, but now even £550 million is inadequate. Our requirements now are greater because, among other things, of the rising birth rate, of the continuing very high rate of family formation, and all the other social factors of the last third of this century with which we are all so familiar. So

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the Government now ask for the tidy sum of £250 million. The present rate of commitment is about £60 million a year, and within three or four years we expect it to increase to £80 million a year or more. So with this increase the Government will no doubt be coming back to Parliament to raise the limit again in the next three or four years. That is all about Clause 1.
Clause 2 is designed to make the compensation provisions on compulsory purchase in extension areas of New Towns the same as they are in the original areas of New Towns. I will not go into too much detail about this now, because that we can do on Committee stage. The effect of this provision is to take out of compensation paid to landowners development value which has arisen from the initiation and participation of the Government in such a large project as a New Town. It is not designed to affect by a single penny the free market value of the land in question as that value would stand if there were no New Town. Putting it another way, public investment should not lead to the payment in compensation of any development value which it has itself created. A Conservative Government thought that this was true in 1959 when they passed the Town and Country Planning Act of that year, and again in 1961 when they re-enacted it in the Land Compensation Act. But because in those years they were not dealing with large extensions to New Towns, they applied the formula only to the original areas of New Towns. This clause simply carries over to new additions to New Towns the existing provisions which apply to the original areas of New Towns.
Now a word about the relationship between this clause and the proposed land levy. We must distinguish here between increases in the development value caused by the presence of a New Town extension, and increases in development value caused for any other reason. When this Bill and the Land Commission Bill are law, the owner of a site which is being taken for an addition to a New Town will receive full compensation for the existing use value of its site and for all development value not due to the New Town extension. He will pay levy on this development value. He will receive no compensation for development value
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due to the extension of the New Town, and therefore no levy can be charged in this respect. This may sound complicated, but I shall be willing to repeat it in greater detail at Committee stage if noble Lords desire; and I think noble Lords opposite will be hard put to it to find a more just arrangement.
Clause 3 is just a tidying-up clause. Under the original New Towns Act 1946, the Ministers had to submit the accounts of development corporations to the Comptroller and Auditor-General who, in turn, presented them to Parliament as an Appendix to the Minister's accounts of issues from the Consolidated Fund. But development corporations also included their accounts in their annual reports which were laid before Parliament by Ministers. Parliament thus saw the accounts twice, which, interesting though they are, was a waste of time and paper.
When one thinks of the procedure which has to be gone through in this day and age in the foundation of new towns and new cities it is instructive to compare it with what used to be the drill. The Emperor Constantine, when he decided to make the capital of his Empire at Byzantium, proceeded as follows—and I quote Gibbon:
"On foot, with a lance in his hand, the emperor himself led the solemn procession; and directed the line, which was traced as the boundary of the destined capital: till the growing circumference was observed with astonishment by the assistants, who, at length, ventured to observe, that he had already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. 'I shall still advance', replied Constantine, till HI/C, the invisible guide who marches before me, thinks proper to stop.'"
EARL, FERRERS: He must have been a Socialist.
LORD KENNET: It is a far cry from the authoritarian and God-guided founders of an earlier day to our own network of democratic procedure, and I can assure the House that if country landowners, especially, think that successive Ministers of Housing and Local Government are sometimes going far beyond the imaginable bounds of a new town under Divine guidance, this is not the case; they are taking into account the fruits of every hearing, the expressions of every interest, and the needs of every social class. Many times and in many countries, since Byzantium, the odd new town has been founded from scratch and

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designed as a whole, but I think the first coordinated movement towards a whole series of new towns in one country began (and this House may be proud of it) when Lord Reith was appointed the Chairman of a Committee to examine the possibility of doing precisely what we are now doing.
Following quickly upon the deliberations of that Committee the New Towns Act 1946 was passed, which set up the means of planning and building New Towns which we are still using to this day. How much of the history of this exercise is connected with your Lordships' House! I am thinking also of my noble friend Lord Silkin, whose intervention I look forward to hearing in a few moments.
What have we done with the £550 million of Government money provided by that Act and successive Acts? Private enterprise, too, of course has provided quite substantial funds. There are 15 first-generation New Towns: 11 are in England, 3 in Scotland and 1 in Wales. In those towns nearly half a million people live in 130,000 new houses; 750 new factories give jobs to 130,000 people; 284 new schools educate 145,000 children, and 2,500 new shops are in trade. These are impressive figures, but we are moving on. As well as those 15 towns there are now 7 second-generation towns, as they are called, the last of which, Irvine, in Scotland, has been designated this month. Good progress is being made with these and very soon they will require advances from the £250 million which Parliament is now being asked to approve. There are more to come. The Government have approved in principle six large projects, and behind them there are more under consideration or study.
The problem, simply stated, is to provide homes for 20 million more people and to replace all our present and our impending slums by the end of the century. But it is not just a case of setting up a production line: we have to plan for people to he in the right place, to have jobs and shops and schools and hospitals; to have recreation in pleasant and healthy surroundings and, above all, to be able to move freely and safely, without being slaughtered by other people's means of locomotion. Therefore it seemed right to a previous Government to embark upon what are generally termed "regional
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studies". Subsequent Labour Governments have gone much further and have developed it by setting up regional planning councils and boards. Largely from these studies and their consideration have come the six proposals to which I have referred.
The Government announced in February last year that they proposed to go ahead with four New Town projects following upon the South-East Study—a very large New Town (actually more of a new city) in North Buckinghamshire, and large expansions, using the New Towns Act, of the county boroughs of Ipswich and Northampton, and of the City of Peterborough. Each of these four is intended to take 70,000 people from London by 1981—a total of 280,000. There have also been planning studies in South Hampshire and in the Newbury-Swindon area. I am glad to say that in the latter case the Greater London Council, the Berkshire County Council and the Swindon Borough Council are now pursuing the possibility of further expanding Swindon under the Town Development Act. Only last week you will have read that there is to be a study of the possibility of greatly expanding Ashford to take population from London. We told the consultants to take into account the Anglo-French agreement on a Cross-Channel Tunnel.
Let us now look North-West. A report by consultants on the large expansion under the New Towns Act of the county borough of Warrington is being considered by the Government and the local authorities. And there is also the possibility of setting up a very large town indeed (possibly half a million people)—another new city—in the Leyland-Chorley area. In the West Midlands, the Government are considering, and local authorities are being consulted, whether the area of Wellington and Oaken gates, next to Dawley New Town, should be developed as a New Town. No decision on this has yet been taken. In all these New Towns we are anxious that the architecture and planning should be as good as possible. The development corporations normally set up their own chief architect-planners to advise them and to undertake many of their development schemes, and they have large offices. The work they do is magnificent and I think will continue to be so; but there is a need also to bring in private architects to add variety to design

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and to help speed the process. Uniformity, however good, may become boring.
There are in this country architects who are working on the frontiers of design and who are trying to see the house, the street, the quarter, the city in a new way, a way conditioned as much by what we can foretell about the future as by what we know about the past and the present. These men are not "safe", or at least they do not always look it, and for that reason they are not usually to be found at the heart of, New Town construction. I think they should be. I think New Town corporations should increasingly give sectors of their towns to outside architects. They should not take risks with public money, of course, but many of the architects I have spoken of would be no risk in the practical sense. They are just new, unfamiliar. Sometimes they have bad manners: no matter; if they build well, hire them.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, before the noble Lord continues I should like to ask whether he is referring to the architects who design the houses, because it is important to have a landscape architect in as well. When one sees a New Town which has been well laid out, like Crawley, it makes all the difference.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I am urging, through the medium of this House, that new architects should be brought in on all aspects—planning, landscaping and building. So we propose to invest the £250 million almost entirely in the 22 existing New Towns and the six major projects which I have mentioned: North Buckinghamshire, Ipswich, Northampton, Peterborough, Warrington and Layland-Chorley. But there is just a chance that other schemes will firm up in time to draw some of this money. This would, of course, be announced to Parliament in the normal way.
That is where the money is to be spent. The House may wish to know more about how it is to be spent, and the returns. About 80 per cent. of the expenditure on the New Towns has been on housing, and this does not, and should not, produce a significant return. Development corporations can therefore only look to their commercial and industrial development to provide a surplus. They are expected to behave as prudent developers
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and let their properties on ordinary commercial terms. To get a town off the ground and attract essential industrial and commercial development may sometimes require special terms, but, once it is established, a corporation is expected to get current market rents. The average return on completed industrial and commercial development is about 3 per cent. after allowing for interest and depreciation. In a few cases the return is as high as 6 per cent. net. In this field it is fair to claim that the taxpayer is getting value for his money.
The overall position is this. Taking all the English corporations and the Commission for the New Towns together, there was a net surplus on general revenue account of three-quarters of a million pounds in the year ended March 31, 1966, and a cumulative surplus at that date of £3 million. Against this, on sewerage and sewage disposal, which is not a profitable service, the net revenue deficit in the year ended March 31, 1966, was £400,000 and there was a cumulative deficit of £4 million. This gives a net overall cumulative revenue deficit of £1 million. This is a big improvement on the total deficit of nearly £5 million six years ago. When one considers the substantial expenditure on land acquisition, the preparation of plans, the building of roads and the provision of services before any remunerative development can be undertaken, it is not an unsatisfactory position. All but three of the first generation New Towns made a surplus in 1965–66, though some had not by then overtaken past deficiencies.
We cannot, of course, expect surpluses from second generation New Towns for some time to come. They must get into their stride, and they have very heavy initial costs (on plans, staff, essential services) when profit-raising investment has hardly begun. And the third generation towns have yet to start. But we must take into account not only the balance sheets (which I believe will, in time, be healthy enough) but the enormous social, planning and architectural success of our New Towns in Britain. I need not remind the House that these New Towns are world famous. They are, in fact, among the list of achievements for which this country is now best known beyond our shores.

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So, on the report I have given of the past, and the prospectus I have presented for the future, I commend this New Towns Bill for your Lordships' approval. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Kennet.)
4.30 p.m.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I know we are all most grateful to the noble Lord the Parliamentary Secretary for introducing this Bill and for giving us an opportunity of hearing of the progress being made by the New Towns. I remember that on the last occasion a similar Bill appeared, in February, 1964, the position was somewhat reversed, because I was standing at that Dispatch Box asking this House to give a Second Reading to a Bill which requested a mere £150 million, and this time the noble Lord is asking for £250 million. Both sums, however, were designed to last approximately three years.
It is now just about three months short of three years since that other occasion, and, as we have heard, there is only £15 million left in the kitty. Sometimes I wonder, in view of the fact that we are all agreed on the desirability of creating New Towns, and have no intention of stopping that progress, whether it is necessary to ask for the money for a period so short as three years. Of course it provides a special occasion on which we can discuss the progress of New Towns. At the same time, I do not suppose there is any thought in anybody's mind that a much larger sum would not be granted in due course, when and if asked for, for an even longer period. I remember that on that previous occasion the debate really revolved around the particular problem of the New Town of Steven age. This is no longer a controversial point, and I would say that the upshot of that previous debate was that all of us were satisfied, because I got my Bill, the New Towns got their money, and the unanimous opinion of this House meant that an increase of size to Steven age also was virtually granted by virtue of the fact that nothing more was heard about it. I think that is more or less the truth.
Now we see that the impetus of expenditure is increasing, and that is what we should expect. After all, originally
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we had only 15 New Towns; now there are 22. Expenditure has gone up from £60 million a year to £80 million a year, and next year it will be going up at a higher rate. There are a few comments that I should like to make about New Towns in general, and the first is about the size of these towns. We have heard of a new city to be created in North Buckinghamshire, and I believe it is the intention of the Government, if I have read aright what the Parliamentary Secretary said in another place, that New Towns in the future are very likely to be of a size of a quarter of a million, and even, in some cases, more. These are really cities, and not towns, in the ordinary sense of the word. It was originally thought that an ideal size for a New Town was from 50,000 to 70,000. That sort of size makes for a fairly rapid development and also a good community spirit which can be built up without very much difficulty or delay. Whether one will run into difficulties in that respect by trying to create vast new cities I do not know, but I think it is something that must be borne in mind.
This brings me also to make an inquiry about Government policy in regard to expanding towns, because now not only have we New Towns—and, of course, old towns that are developing under a town development scheme, which we are not discussing this afternoon—but we have towns designated for expansion under the New Towns Act; in other words, New Town corporations will be expanding existing towns, and there will be a difficult problem of co-operation and co-ordination between the expanding town new corporation and the existing town local authority.
One might perhaps ask the Government to say whether, on the whole, they favour the expansion of existing towns in the future rather than the creation of entirely new towns. It might be easier, where there are existing amenities, for example, to build a new town on the edge and bring it into the old town as one entity in the long run. The difficulties of coordination and co-operation obviously will be fairly considerable, but it may be that in the long run this would be found to be quicker and possibly less expensive form of development. I wonder whether the noble Lord has any views on that or

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whether his Government have any particular mind on this problem. It is, I think, of considerable interest.
That brings me to the very difficult subject of amenities in general which, very properly, held the main attention during the debate in another place. We know that New Town corporations are able to spend up to £4 per head of population on amenities, and the Parliamentary Secretary in another place said that the Government were considering extending that figure. I personally feel that they will find it necessary to allow the corporations to spend more than£4 per head. I wonder whether the corporations should not have an obligation to spend that money, instead of merely a discretionary permission to do so, because there have been difficulties in building up amenities in these New Towns; we all know that amenities have not appeared as quickly as the people have demanded them and as is desirable. This is something, I am sure, which must be watched in the future.
The Parliamentary Secretary in another place said that he hoped New Town corporations would not, in fact, do everything for the people in the way of amenities, and that the people would help themselves to a large extent. Of course this can be done in respect of community centres and the like, and that is to be encouraged. But there are certain essential amenities which clearly must be provided by either the New Town corporation or the local authority—things like bowling alleys, swimming pools, civic theatres and so on, not to mention the local authority schools. This is a very difficult problem, because it is the local authority which has to find the money for providing schools which are being built by the New Town corporation. Schools do not always appear with the rapidity they should, or in the numbers they should. These matters need a great deal of thought, and I hope the Government will give it to them.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, before the noble Lord finishes on that point, did I understand him to say that New Towns provide educational facilities in the new schools? Surely that is the responsibility of the local education authority, not the New Town development corporation.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I think the noble Lord misunderstood me. What I said was that a local authority has the responsibility of providing schools in a town which a New Town corporation has built. From that stems a certain difficulty requiring thought and closer co-ordination than has been the case in the past. The noble Lord is quite right, of course. I am sorry if he did not understand me correctly.
The question of priorities in the building of New Towns is very important. I noticed (and I do not think it is out of order to quote what was said) that the Parliamentary Secretary said during the Second Reading debate in another place:
"It is the positive policy of the Government to exclude public authority housing from any restrictions. That policy will apply in the new towns, but as is the case with every local authority, individual schemes, such as town centre development and so on, will be looked at on their merits."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 734 (No. 84), col. 1644; 28/10/66.]
It that means anything, it means that the houses and factories will go up with priority, but that the provision of amenities may be allowed to drag, on the grounds of financial stringency. That is all very well in existing towns, as they already have the amenities and it is only a question of renewing what they already have. But a New Town has nothing; and it seems to me we should restrict this sort of development at our peril as well as at great inconvenience to people living in the New Town. I believe that a New Town is an entity which must grow whole, from the ground up, with its amenities, not only its houses and factories. I hope that in the future the New Town corporations and local authorities concerned will be encouraged to go ahead with the provision of amenities and facilities at the same time as the houses and factories go up; otherwise I am afraid that we may not get a satisfactory development or a happy community.
Could the noble Lord say something about the prospect, which I understand is in view, of ensuring that a far higher proportion of unskilled workers will go into the New Towns than is the case at the moment. I believe there is a scheme in view that something like 60 or 70 per cent. of the total population of a New Town should consist of unskilled workers, and that they should go in in this proportion at a fairly early stage. I

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do not know whether that is going to make for an easy or natural development, and perhaps the noble Lord will say something about it. I believe that the ground for this change of emphasis is that these people are among those who are most in need of housing, in London in particular, but if skilled workers are leaving London to start up the factories in the New Towns, as is usually the case, one would imagine that the houses which they vacate will become available for those who are left behind in London. I do not quite see why there is emphasis on the urgency for this, although in the long run it is a situation which we may expect to develop.
Another point I would mention relates to the question of old people's homes. What proportion of old people's homes are being built in the last half a dozen or so New Towns which have been designated, and what will be the figure in the future? During the period when I was in the noble Lord's place, the local authorities in the country as a whole were building something like one-third of their houses for old people. I suspect that the proportion in New Towns is nothing like as high, and I should like to know what the figure is at the moment, and also what it is planned to be in the future. As the New Towns develop, they require elderly people as well, to make a thoroughly balanced and happy community.
That brings me to the point of owner-occupation. I was interested to read in the debate in another place that in the last two years the amount of owner-occupation in the New Towns has gone up from 11 to 28 per cent. That is very satisfactory. I should like to know, if possible (I am afraid I have not given notice of this question), whether that is being done as a result of any regulation or advice given by the Minister, or whether it has come about as a result of the initiative of the New Town corporations themselves. I was also very pleased to read that it is the intention that the extent of owner-occupation in the New Towns should rise as high as 50 per cent.
I will say a word about the industrialised system of building these towns. This matter, again caused a certain stir in another place. One member of the Party opposite criticised the industrial
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system of building, and though he was not exactly called to order, he was somewhat "sat upon" by the Parliamentary Secretary, who said this:
"There will be those who cry out that factory built houses will mar the beauty of towns which are meant to set examples to the rest of the country. I will not waste the time of the House exploding that myth. Industrialised building in its appearance and variety, if it is good, stands second to none."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 734 (No. 84), col. 1581; 28/10/66.]
I think perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary was a little rash in describing this as a "myth". What really matters is his phrase "if it is good". But the fact is that not all industrialised building is good. I have been around sonic of these places, I pass by or through them occasionally, and I have noticed certain houses going up which, quite frankly, are not a credit to the manufacturer, or, to my mind, to the architect.
On the other hand, I admit that there are some fine examples of this type of building. The Parliamentary Secretary in the other place mentioned Peterlee, one of the lesser known New Towns (because perhaps it is rather far away from here), in the County of Durham. As I live in that part of the world, I know it well, and I agree with everything that has been said about Peterlee. But there are exceptions to the rule, and I do not want people to get into the frame of mind of believing that, because something is built by an industrialised system, it is necessarily the right thing or a good thing.
This rather accords with what the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, was saying about bringing in new blood to think about general design layout as a whole. I hope that the noble Lord's Ministry is able to check up on the various systems of industrial building. It is still in its early stages, and I have no doubt that it can produce fine New Towns; but we do not want to put up rather scrappy buildings which are not going to last long and which will very soon look quite horrible. It is worth adding the word of warning that one should not be too complacent about the situation. The House has been told about the increasingly satisfactory financial results which are accruing. I have no doubt that the situation will continue to produce a surplus in the future and that, in the long run, the public will

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get its money back, both in terms of social value and in economic terms.
I should like now to say a few words about the Commission for the New Towns. I understand from what was said in another place that it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to abolish it in the fairly near future. I do not want to say much about that now, except to say that if legislation to that effect is envisaged, it will have to be examined very carefully. There are enormous assets to be considered, and we shall certainly have to watch very carefully how they are going to be disposed of.
On the question of the compensation set out in Clause 2 of the present Bill, I was very interested in what the noble Lord said and spelled out very clearly, because I was a little confused by what happened in another place. Here I would refer to the Parliamentary Secretary's words in another place where he said:
"Full account will, of course, still be taken of values attributable to the original new town because those values would have been established whether or not the area was extended."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 734 (No. 84), col. 1577; 28/10/66.]
Again, in the Committee stage, he said:
"The percentage levy would, under the proposals of the Land Commission Bill, be payable on the element of development value which the owner realised. Since the owner would realise no development value from development or prospects of development in the extension area, no levy would be payable on it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 735 (No. 94), col. 1752; 11/11/66.1]
I am not quite sure whether that accords exactly with what the noble Lord himself said. In the other place, it was given out that the compensation would be based on the amount of the market value. The market value, presumably, would be the existing use value plus the value that came from the existence of a new town nearby—the willing buyer and the willing seller.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, it may save time if I come in at this moment. I hope we shall keep most of these complications till the Committee stage, which is the appropriate time. But I think, as the noble Lord has just outlined it, this is a situation which would apply close to a New Town but not in a designated extension. I believe this is right.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, we may have to deal with that later. I thought
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that if we did it now we should not have to spend too much time on it in the Committee stage. The noble Lord himself said that compensation would be based on existing use value, plus the development value resulting from the new town which was there—not in the extension area but in the new town nearby—and there would be development value to pay on the fact that there was an increase in value coming from the existence of a new town.
There would not be development value from the fact that it was going to be designated an extension area, because there would not be an increase in the price for it. There would be some levy, I take it, on the sale of that land, not as a result of the designation of an extension area but as a result of there being development value pertaining to that land already. This is the sole difference, I think, which seems to have arisen between the two Parliamentary Secretaries. I do not know whether I have explained the point sufficiently, but if not perhaps we shall have it out at Committee stage.
Finally, there is the very difficult problem of the compensation for tenant farmers. I believe that the Government are looking into that, and I am sure that this House, which has so many Members interested in the countryside and in agriculture, would welcome a statement and an assurance that there is a possibility that the tenant farmers may receive much more adequate compensation than they do at the moment, which certainly on all accounts is inadequate. With those comments, which I hope have not been too long, although we only discuss this once every three years, I welcome the Bill and ask my noble friends to give it a Second Reading.
4.55 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: My Lords, before the noble Lord the Parliamentary Secretary replies, I wonder whether I may ask him to elaborate some of the remarks which he made concerning the provision of roads in connection with these new towns. The noble Lord made some reference to the provision of roads, but roads are such a very important problem now in connection with all forms of transport and traffic, particularly in regard to conurbations and congregations of people, whosesoever they may be, to enable them to get from there to other parts of the country, that it is essential

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that we should know what provision the Government are proposing to make with regard to adequate road facilities leading into and out of and through these new towns. I would particularly ask the noble Lord whether it is proposed that there should be built into these new towns urban clearways, pedestrian precincts and the modern forms of development in traffic engineering and town planning.
4.56 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak to and answer one's predecessor but one in the same chair. It is a mingled pleasure and a source of alarm because, of course, one knows that he knows at least as much as, probably more than, one does oneself about the subject. I regret that my noble friend Lord Silkin has been called away. I am sorry to have missed his intervention on this Bill.
I should like to take up as many of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, as I can without further reference and consultation. First of all, there was the point about the populations of new towns and new cities. How big should they be? What is the Government's policy? As I outlined in my speech, we think they should probably be of all sizes; some small, some big. I would say this to those who are alarmed by the great size of the largest we propose. Within the next 33 years, within the next generation, we must house 20 million people more than there are now. Of course, they are not all going into new towns, or even into extensions of old towns, but a very large number of them must do. If we consider how many Londons, how many Birminghams, 20 million represents, and if we consider on the other side that a small town by definition takes up more space—it cuts down the amount of countryside more if we put all those people into towns of 50,000 or 70,000—we realise it would eat up far more countryside than if we put quite a large number of them into towns of 500,000. So our thinking, for the moment at any rate, is to go ahead with schemes of both sizes.
As regard co-operation between the corporation and the existing local authority, when we are dealing with a big
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town expansion of the Peterborough-Ipswich type, this is of course something which we keep a very close eye on. I think one has to admit—in fact, I know that my honourable friends in another place admitted it without mentioning names—that in one or two towns cooperation has been fairly bad. But this is not so with most of them. Most have been jolly good. The aspect which we want to examine most closely and improve most urgently is that the existing local authorities should not adopt a passive attitude to the powerful newcomer, but should tell it what they want and should make proposals to it, especially for the amenities. They should, if you like, take a lead about what amenities are going to be needed in the joint operation which is a big town expansion.
We are naturally also keeping a close eye on the £4 a head provision—whether it should be an obligation on anybody to spend a precise sum or a precise minimum on amenities. But for the moment, and provisionally, I would say that we are against imposing numerical obligations on new town set-ups, whether on the corporation or on the local authority, because we feel that they might hamper their initiatives in deciding together what it is they want to do in the special conditions of the new town. But, having said that, the Government agree fundamentally with the noble Lord that a new town has to grow "whole" from the beginning. I think everybody on all sides admits that the earliest new towns did not grow whole. The housing grew first and the amenities were left behind, and we got the famous "new town blues". But we think that the "new town blues" is a thing of the past, and we are not getting them in the later generations of new towns which are being made to grow more as a whole.
On the question of old people's homes, I would rather, if I may, give the noble Lord a precise answer after I have been able to obtain it. I would rather not give him a rough answer for the moment, because what is being done in this connection is continually changing. On the question of owner-occupation, there is little to add to what my honourable friend said about this in another place. He indicated the present situation, and stated the Government's overall intention about it. Once again, we want to avoid

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laying down the law about any proportion, but the general direction is as it was stated in the House of Commons.
On industrial building, I must, of course, agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, that the key words are "if it is good", and remind the House that the National Building Agency is charged with finding and listing the systems which, in its opinion, are good. I must also say that whether an I.B. estate is good depends not only on the stuff as it conies from the factory but also on how it is screwed together by the architect; and, of course, the qualification "if it is good" applies to a traditional building just as much. We are up against the familiar problem of æsthetic standards in all new building. The noble Lord and I, if we were left in charge of this, could raise them, I am sure we are confident, 100 per cent. within a week, but we should without doubt be shot by an angry populace if we attempted to do that. So all Governments have to tread a difficult path between compulsion, on the one hand, and ugliness, on the other.
On the question of the complications arising on compensation, I would say that this is a matter on which I am not convinced by the noble Lord's speech that there is a discrepancy between what was said in another place and my own formulation just now of this very complex matter. But before confronting the difficult task of providing a formulation which will be yet more simple and yet more unmistakable than any yet provided, I should like to have a chance to tackle the categories again in my own mind, and will undertake either to give it to the noble Lord personally, whenever he likes, or to give it to the full House—and perhaps this would be best—on Third Reading, or on Committee stage if there is an opportunity. It is not realy too complicated. I would say that the degree of complication is nothing like that which the House will be facing in the case of the Land Commission Bill itself.
Then the noble Lord raised the problem of roads. It does not arise under this Bill, and I could not give him specific answers to his factual questions except to say that all the New Towns' roads have throughout been designed according to the best available theories and criteria, including clearways and pedestrian-ways, and
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that the best available criteria are getting better year by year. The New Towns are following the best pattern one can get at this moment, just as the old ones did, and this, in itself, is better.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CRIMINAL LAW BILL [H.L.]
5.4 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.—(Lord Stonham.)
On Queston, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Lord ARCHIBALD in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Abolition of distinction between felony and misdemeanour]:
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: I wish to make one small comment on Clause 1. Under Section 55 of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963, provision is made for specific action in the case of a clergyman who is sentenced to imprisonment on conviction in a criminal court for a felony. This section will undoubtedly be affected by Clause 1 as it stands now, since I think, perhaps by an oversight, this particular Measure has been excluded from the Schedule. I hope, therefore, that the Church of England may consider the effect of this and take an early opportunity to discuss the point with the draftsmen of the Bill, to see how best this quite technical but important point can be dealt with.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): I am most grateful to the right reverend Prelate for pointing this matter out. As he is aware, I have not had any opportunity of considering it, but, as I understand it, under the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure the question of a felony arises, and, if so, an automatic penalty. Clause 1 abolishes the distinction between felony and misdemeanour, and obviously a different situation is

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created. I am not at all sure that there has been an omission from the Schedule. That is something I shall have to go into. Nor am I sure from what the right reverend Prelate has said that the matter could be put right merely by the insertion of another line in the Schedule. It may well be that the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure itself will have to be amended. But I will certainly look into this particular point, and will write to the right reverend Prelate to let him know the position as we see it. That will put him in a position to take whatever action is necessary by the Report stage.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, would consider whether a point of this kind might be dealt with by enlarging the words in Clause 12, subsection (5), which is the general substitution of the word "offence" for the word "felony" where it occurs in Acts of Parliament passed before this Bill. I am not quite sure whether this would cover Measures of the Church of England, but, if it does, it may be that it would be all right. If not, there may be other Measures which ought also to be dealt with under that general provision in Clause 12.
LORD STONHAM: It may well be, as the noble Viscount says, that subsection (5)(a) of Clause 12 will cover the point, but I have not had an opportunity to consider it. I am grat to the noble Viscount for the suggest and will certainly look into it when the question raised by the right reverend Prelate is considered.
Clause I agreed to.
Clause 2:
Arrest without warrant
2.—(1) The powers of summary arrest conferred by the following subsections shall apply to offences for which the sentence is fixed by law or for which a person (not previously convicted) may under or by virtue of any enactment be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of five years, and to attempts to commit any such offence; and in this Act, including any amendment made by this Act in any other enactment, "arrestable offence" means any such offence or attempt.
(2) Any person may arrest without warrant anyone who is, or whom he, with reasonable cause, suspects to be, in the act of committing an arrestable offence.
(5) A constable may arrest without warrant any person who is, or whom he, with reasonable cause, suspects to be, about to commit an arrestable offence.
5.8 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved, in subsection (1), after "years" to insert
"the offences of riot and of making an affray,".
The noble Viscount said: Clause 2 of this Bill institutes the new, more serious form of offence, and, pace my noble friend Lord Conesford, for the moment I will continue to call it an "arrestable" offence. May I say, as a preface to the Amendment, that I still think it a pity that the clause does not do something more comprehensive in trying to set out with precision more of the law on the question of arrest, because, quite apart from the matters which were originally dealt with under the heading "felony", there is a mass of obscure law about who can and who cannot arrest for a breach of the peace and other matters. Indeed, there is statutory provision as well. I think the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, mentioned one of the sections in point during the Second Reading debate. There is a section in the Act of 1851 which allows a constable to arrest without a warrant anybody who is committing an indictable offence by night; and here, of course, is yet another distinction, because indictable offences may or may not be arrestable, and so some of this power is covered by the isions of this Bill and some of it is . The whole thing is in a great muddle.
The most notable omission from Clause 2 is the serious Common Law misdemeanour. It is perfectly true that there has not previously been power to arrest without warrant for misdemeanour; it applied only to a felony. But by the very definition of "arrestable offence" in this clause some of the more serious statutory misdemeanours are being brought within a rule which previously applied only to felonies. I think, therefore, it raises the question of whether or not some of the more serious Common Law misdemeanours should also be brought in. I have chosen in this Amendment two of them. One of them, causing an affray, is a matter not dealt with by any Statute and therefore is of one category; the other that I have put down

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is riot, which is misdemeanour in Common Law and one which has no fixed penalty, so is not within the terminology of Clause 1(1) but is dealt with by Statute. At the moment, there is a statutory offence of rioting, with, I think, a penalty of life imprisonment, under the Riot Act 1714. In the Schedule to the Bill the Riot Act 1714 is repealed, so in future we shall be left with only the Common Law for riot. There are these two categories.
In both the cases I have mentioned I have no doubt that almost always the power to arrest for breach of peace—a constable may do this and so, in certain circumstances, may other citizens—will cover the arrest. That is the prime purpose of Clause 2. But the definition of "arrestable offence" does not end there, because it is also the criterion under Clauses 4 and 5 for the new substituted offence, first of all being an accessory after the fact of felony, and secondly, the combined offence which used to be misprision and compounding. Taking the two Common Law misdemeanours I have chosen simply as examples, is it not worth while to consider whether there may not be a Common Law offence here, and that it would be very useful to have powers to indict and to try, and, if necessary, if the case is proved, to convict people for assisting in the way set out in Clause 4, and. for all I know, sometimes for other Offences under Clause 5? This is not cover the Bill at all. Unless we deal with it at the beginning, the whole matter will go by default.
There are a number of other Common Law offences which could go into this list. I have chosen these two to raise the principle and to ask what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government about these matters. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will be able to tell us about the policy and may also be able to go some way towards including the more serious of these misdemeanours expressly, if necessary, in the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 20, after ("years") insert ("the offences of riot and of making an affray,").—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
5.13 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount, in moving his Amendment, made
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it clear that two offences mentioned in the Amendment are merely selected as examples, but he will appreciate that I must deal with the Amendment as it stands. It would have the effect of making the offence of riot and of making an affray arrestable offences. In our view this is unnecessary, because the power to arrest without warrant for these two offences exists at Common Law, since they involve an act in breach of the peace. Anyone may arrest a person to stop a breach of the peace and this power is preserved in Clause 2(7) which, as the noble Viscount is aware, reads:
"This section shall not affect the operation of any enactment restricting the institution of proceedings for an offence, nor prejudice any power of arrest conferred by law apart from this section."
That is a preservation of existing powers. The fact that the operation of the statutory offence of riot under the Riot Act 1714 is proposed to be abolished by repeal under this Bill has no effect, in our submission, on the Common Law power of arrest in order to stop a breach of the peace.
If we agreed expressly to mention riot and affray in Clause 2 there are two respects in which it would widen the existing Common Law power of arrest. It would widen, first, the power under subsection (3) and subsection (4) to arrest after the event on suspicion of having taken part in it; secondly, the power of a constable under subsection (5) to arrest on reasonable suspicion that the person in question is to start or take part in a riot or affray. In our view, there is no need to widen the existing powers of arrest in relation to these two particular offences. It may be that we should also have that view about the other several offences which the noble Viscount had in mind. But we think the case of a person about to commit one of them is sufficiently provided for by the Common Law power to prevent a breach of the peace.
No doubt the noble Viscount is aware that the law as to both these offences is being considered by the Criminal Law Revision Committee in the tenth reference relating to Common Law misdemeanours generally. But the answer I have to give the noble Viscount's request for our views and for the Government's policy on this particular issue is that it does not appear to us that there is any gap

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in the power of arrest which has to be closed. I hope that the noble Viscount will accept that view, and so agree that his Amendment is unnecessary.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The noble Lord has answered only half the point I made. Perhaps I could try again to explain what I have in mind. At the moment, if you commit an offence against the Riot Act and somebody afterwards assists you, hides you, or does something which is considered as being an accessory after the fact of felony, there can be a prosecution for it, because, under the Riot Act, it is a felony and therefore the ordinary rule about accessory applies. In this Bill the Riot Act is being repealed, and the only thing that is being left in its place to deal with riots, as the noble Lord has said, is the Common Law offence.
I am not worried about the power of arrest: I quite understand that this matter can be dealt with under the breach of the peace provision in Common Law. I am concerned about the effect on Clause 4, because hereafter, if this matter is not dealt with now, and we are left only with the Common Law, there will be no power to deal with cases that were hitherto covered by the charge of being an accessory and there will be no power to deal with people hitherto guilty of misprision or compounding, if such a thing could possibly arise. This is all being swept away. By refusing to redefine "arrestable offence" in Clause 2 you are not only affecting the power of arrest; you are affecting all the subsidiary matters. I think it is necessary, if we are to be left with only the Common Law to cover matters hitherto dealt with by Statute, that some of the subsidiary matters arising out of it should be followed through. The noble Lord has simply not answered my points. I hope that he will give me some satisfaction in this matter.
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount will accept that this Amendment does not of itself cover all the offences about which he is in doubt. These ancillary powers, if I may use that expression, apply, in his view, to other offences, quite apart from riot and making an affray. I had understood that this particular point was fully covered by the present Bill; but I will certainly look at what the noble Viscount has said, and if I find that his
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views on this point are correct, I will certainly so inform him, and see whether we can meet the point at the next stage of the Bill.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am very much obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. I will return to this matter briefly when we discuss the Schedules. There are at least two other offences which would come into this category, and I think that this is a very important matter. But in view of what the noble Lord has said, and the assurance which he has been so good as to give, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD CONESFORD LORD CONESFORD moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "arrestable" and insert "listed". The noble Lord said: I move the first of a series of Amendments in the name of myself and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and the Committee will probably think it convenient that we take with the present Amendment Nos. 4, 6, 8, 11, 17, 19, 21, 24, 30, 32 and 34.
LORD STONHAM: I agree that it would be most convenient to take the Amendments together, but I wonder whether I might suggest that we might, with the agreement of the noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, also include in the general discussion the Amendments down in his name on the same point, in which he suggests different words?
LORD CONESFORD: I had a word with the noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, as I thought it possible that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, would make that suggestion, and we both entirely agreed with what he has just said, that we should take all these Amendments together.
During the Second Reading debate on November 1, I stated my objection to the expression, "arrestable offence". I objected to it on two quite independent grounds. The first was that it was illiterate, or nearly illiterate. That did not mean, of course, that I disputed the existence of the word, but I said that it could not bear the meaning that it was designed to bear in this Bill. My second objection to it was that it was clearly calculated to cause confusion. On both these grounds I was strongly supported

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by the noble and learned Law Lords who spoke on that occasion, Lord Denning and Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, is associated with me in all these Amendments, but I understand there is a possibility that he may not be able to stay throughout this debate.
On the question of illiteracy, I do not think it necessary to add much to what I said on the last occasion, particularly in view of the sympathetic response to the points I made by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. He said:
"…I have as much love of the English language as anybody else, and I do not like arrestable offence'."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 277 (No. 61). col. 562; 1 /11 /66.]
I am quite sure that is true. May I quote, in support of what I am now saying, a couple of sentences from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest? These were his words (col. 550):
"Need we, in a Criminal Law Bill, murder the English language? I endorse to the full all that was said by the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning."
What was said by the noble and learned Lord. Lord Denning, I will refer to a little later in my argument.
The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor. having stated how much he himself objected to the expression, proceeded with his usual skill to say that, though he objected to it, and sympathised with my objection, there were some precedents which he could pray in aid. He gave the example of "indictable" and "bailable". I should perhaps therefore inform the Committee that the term "indictable offence" has been in use for two centuries. It is mentioned in Blackstone's Commentaries and is older than Blackstone. Although I do not wish to go into it, on linguistic grounds it is also less objectionable than "arrestable", wrongly used. I should perhaps mention, in passing. the excellent intervention on this matter by the noble Lord. Lord Airedale, who pointed out that an indictable offence was an offence which could be the subject of an indictment.
"Bailable" was also mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor. "Bailable", in the sense of admitting of bail, is even older. It will be found in Selden's Laws of England in
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1649. So both the examples quoted by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, are very respectable precedents for those two words, but afford no precedent whatever for the use of"arrest-able"in the present connection, because "arrestable" itself is found as early as 1555, from which date it has always been used with the same meaning: "liable to be arrested." It is so used in a passage in Carlyle's French Revolution. So I withdraw nothing that I said before on the subject of the illiteracy of the word as used here, and I say that the two examples used as precedents by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, do not provide a very convincing "fig leaf"(if I may use the expression) for the nakedness of his defence.
Now I come to the further and separate point of the liability of the expression to cause confusion. This appears from a passage in paragraph 12 of the Criminal Law Revision Committee's own Report. I quoted it last time, and perhaps, in case any Member of the Committee has forgotten it, I should quote it again. The Committee said:
"The term will not of course cover offences which are punishable with less than five years' imprisonment but for which there is a statutory power of arrest; but we do not think this will cause any confusion."
I ask the Committee this simple question: What could cause more confusion than the existence of offences for which there is a right to arrest but which are not arrestable offences? I wait with interest to hear the answer to that simple question. For my own part I cannot improve on what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said about the expression "arrestable offence". He said:
"They are ugly words and they are most inaccurate and misleading."
And in the next column, he referred to them as "ugly, hideous and inaccurate". I think that I have said enough to show that "arrestable offence" simply will not do.
The question therefore is what we should put in their place. I have suggested the word "listed", which has the merit of being short and also the merit of avoiding any attempted description of some common characteristic in the offences in question. Frankly, I cannot discover any such common characteristic. The only way to discover what are the offences in question is to look at what is

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said in Clause 2(1), which the Criminal Law Revision Committee describe as containing the definition of the offence. If the public and any student are not to be misled, they must refer to the list contained in that subsection. There is no other way of finding out what are the offences in question.
Should my Amendment be incorporated, it may be desirable at a later stage of the Bill to add in a Schedule a full list of the offences covered, but that is not necessary to make the Amendment viable. The definition is already there, in the subsection to which I am now moving an Amendment. It would be wrong, I think, for me to express my view of the word"heinous "until we have heard the noble Lord, who thinks it a better expression, give his reasons. I can only say that it would not meet the objections of my noble and learned friend and myself. We are seeking to provide an accurate description of these offences, which will enable anybody who wishes to find out what they are to do so. The insertion of any general description such as "heinous" will lead a man to think that he knows which offences are covered. He will know nothing of the sort. It will be quite as misleading as "arrestable", though I agree not so illiterate. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page, 2, line 2, leave out ("arrestable") and insert ("listed").—(Lord Conesford.)
5.34 p.m.
VISCOUNT BARRTNGTON: I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, for suggesting what I think will be for the assistance of your Lordships, that I should be allowed at this point to put my argument for my Amendment—which is to substitute "heinous" for "arrestable"—so that the two may be discussed together. It will probably make it less embarrassing for your Lordships as well as for myself, because never in my worst dreams did I imagine myself, I think, alone in this House attempting to defend, as I shall do, against such a redoubtable advocate—redoubtable?—yes, I think that is the correct word—as the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, the case on the literary side, which of course is only one side of his argument, for the expression "arrestable offence".
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I do not believe it is a waste of time to discuss these points on words. I think that the noble Lord has done a great service in raising this. Like him, I am not happy about the word "arrestable", but for different reasons. I think I should be right in saying that his linguistic objection is formal, and mine substantial; or, to put it less pedantically, I think that the noble Lord was not objecting in that part of his argument to what "arrestable" was trying to say, but was saying that, in his opinion it did not say it. I feel that a better case could be made out by somebody less inadequate than myself than so far has been made out, that it can quite clearly mean in English "an offence for which a person can be arrested".
We are going to take this unprecedented step—entirely rightly, as we have all agreed, but a very large step—of cutting out of English law a distinction to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, movingly referred in our last debate. He moved me, as he always does, when he said:
"…when I see that those two old 'lags', if I may so call them, of felonies and misdemeanours are up for sentence, and sentenced to be outlawed—
that is a beautifully chosen word, because though they may be revived, they are being put out of law—
"I cannot help feeling a passing tribute of a sigh."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 277 (No. 61), col. 545, 1/11/66.]
And he goes on to say:
"These words…are expressive words. They tell the people what they mean."
I am not suggesting that "listed" is not an expressive word. I think that it is a highly colourable word, if that means that it is "capable of being coloured"; but at the moment it is colourless. I am not at all against anything that would tell people, laymen like myself, what is listed and what is not.
But on the question of whether "arrestable" is a legitimate word in itself, I should like to question some of the things the noble Lord, Lord Cones-ford, said. He was, as he always is, an invaluable authority on many questions concerning the English language, but I think that in this case he was also a little authoritarian (if I may use that word) in some of his pronouncements. He produced to-night a new argument that

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it had been used in a different sense to—
LORD CONESFORD: I certainly did not use any new argument to-day. I said that adding "able" to a transitive verb means that it is capable of whatever the verb says in the passive. Thus, "teachable" means "capable of being taught", and "arrestable" means "capable of being arrested". The example I gave to-day is precisely the same as what I said last time. That is the only meaning of the word.
VISCOUNT BARRINGTON: I apologise to the noble Lord. I should have said that he gave to-night an additional reason: because he did not mention the other day that arrestable has existed in this sense since 1500. I was not querying that if "arrest" is a transitive verb, there is not something to be said for the noble Lord's argument, nor that, if it is here used as a verb, it is a transitive verb. No doubt the noble Lord has a good reason for assuming this; that is, assuming that it is a verb and not a noun. But he has not given us a reason. The only other legal words, like "actionable" and "treasonable", which he quoted out of Fowler the other day, are applications of "able" at the end of nouns. This suggests that this is a line worth looking into because it does not have to he a particularly erudite or literary mind which knows that "arrest" is a noun.
I can remember reading, when I was young, in an illiterate periodical, if I recall the words rightly, some statement like, "'Stand back! Technically speaking, you are in irons!' was the curt rejoinder, what time his ears were stunned by the hideous thought 'You are under arrest!' ". "Arrest" there is a noun. It is a common noun. The noble Lord would probably say that in that case it ought to be pronounced "arr'estable"; but I do not know that it ought not. I will not go into that point at greater length, but I think that if it is going to be refused a hearing on that ground, then it should be considered on another.
I would, on the noble Lord's historical view, ask him about the word "questionable", which clearly has two distinct meanings, one of which arose many years after the other. "Questionable", I understand from the dictionary originally
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meant "to question a person". It is also now used in the sense of questioning a point of view. I am, for instance, certainly not questioning the noble Lord, Lord Conesford; I am questioning his statement; and that is done in quite another sense, in that I do not expect an answer from a statement.
If I may expand that a little, when a trustee rather unexpectedly emigrates to South America with all the trust funds, I think most of us would say that his conduct was "questionable" and his motives were "questionable", but whether he is "questionable" himself—meaning by that, of course, whether he could be as well as whether he should be questioned—depends upon whether he can be got back out of the New World into the Old Bailey. I think those are two different senses of the word; and one came much later. The first, the sense in which a person can be questioned, appears, according to the Oxford Dictionary in 1500 or thereabouts; and the second, oddly enough, not until 1806, I believe I am right in saying. In between those dates the word was used for various things like a "questionable place", which did not mean a place of doubtful repute—what democrats might have thought your Lordships' House to be; what it meant was a place where questions could be answered.
I believe that that is the way that words develop in this country. If one wanted to make an artificial adjective out of "arrest", not making it mean "arrestable", no doubt Milton could have done so. I suppose it comes from the French word arrêter—to stop—and if the word "fête" can produce "festive", I suppose the word "arrest" can produce "arrestive". "Arrestive" is indeed in the dictionary, meaning "leading to arrest". I do not believe that "arrestive" however, would be any more acceptable to your Lordships, because I think it is an artificial word. Whereas "arrestable" is not used, I believe there are very few people who would not know at once what it means. I was interested that even the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, himself, perhaps out of courtesy, when he read out the word "punishable" just now did not make any comment on it to the effect that an offence cannot be punishable as well as a person. He may perhaps say that

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in fact you can punish an offence; but I do not think you can punish an offence by death, as is mentioned in this Bill, in Schedule 2 on page 13—
"An offence punishable with death."
It may be that Mark Antony was wrong and the noble Lord is right in saying that the offence dies with the offender, that the evil that men do does not live after them. But if this is so, you are still faced with "offences punishable with imprisonment". I think the noble Lord was quite right not to raise that point, because when he quoted again just now from his earlier speech he did not object to it. It is a hideous thought if what I might call the Conesfordian view is right and "punishable with imprisonment" means that the offence can be imprisoned; because it raises appalling problems for the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. Where are offences imprisoned? How many are imprisoned at present? Are male and female offences imprisoned in the same prison, or are all offences imprisoned in the same cells as these offenders? And, if so, what happens to an offender who has committed many offences? What is the position as to overcrowding? In view of a quite recent incident only two days ago, when luckily an attempt by a convict to escape with the aid of an arrow was foiled, what precautions are taken to see that sexual offenders do not get hold of Cupid's arrows? And so on.
I do not want to be frivolous, but I do not believe that this strict interpretation that "questionable" cannot mean what a man is questionable about, and that "punishable" cannot mean what a man is punishable for, will hold water if we look at it. I will not labour the point further, but I think those things are worth looking at closely. I think that "arrestable" is a useful word; I should say a serviceable word—and "serviceable" undoubtedly comes from the noun; I think it is preferable to a great many other alternatives.
My reason for moving the Amendment is not on grammatical grounds, because I do not think this word means that offences can be arrested and that very few people would suspect that it does. It seems to me—and this is the serious point I want to make—that if we are substituting for a word like "felony", which had rightly
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or wrongly the implication that some offences were more hateful, more dislikeable than others—apart from treason which is still existing—in the middle area, so to speak, between treason and misdemeanours, which are untouched, there ought to be a word which implies that some offences are more dislikeable, more hate able, than others, without the offender necessarily being so.
I suggested the word "heinous" only because no other word has yet been suggested. I do not for a moment suggest that a better one could not be found, but it seems to me to have certain advantages worth considering, even if one does not use it always. First of all, it is a ready-made word. In the Oxford Dictionary you will find it is defined as:
"Odious; highly criminal; infamous; used chiefly of offences and offenders; hence of the accusation or charge."
Secondly, I think it has certain advantages for lawyers, first of all in that it is elastic to some extent, and we must remember that we are here clothing ideas not in fig leaves but in words that we are intended to wear. We also want something that will be able to breed. I can imagine lawyers getting from "heinous" the expression "a hein", corresponding to a felony; but they would not, I think, succeed in getting a word equivalent to "felon" without making themselves ridiculous. If they tried the word"heiner" they would very rightly be pounced upon by the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and, if I may say so, in a subsidiary capacity by myself, pointing out that they had got it the wrong way round, and that it ought to be a "heenee" or a "hinee" or a "haynee"; and I do not think that any of those commends itself to the British public on very good grounds.
It also has the advantage for lawyers that it can be pronounced in three different ways, so that there is a slight legal privilege which some lawyers like to have. Barristers of different views can impart a slightly different flavour by pronouncing it "heenous", as some of your Lordships do—and that is perhaps the high Tory pronunciation, and, I think, the one in the dictionary; or "haynous", as I should incline to do myself; or I can imagine an extreme Left-wing council calling it "hyenous", and raising all sorts of different implications. In this

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way it is a fertile word: it is a word, that everybody knows; it is a word that lawyers use.
I am not saying anything whatever against "listing" offences, because I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, on the idea that it would be excellent if we all knew a bit more about which offences were arrestable and which were not. I think perhaps in the old days of Saxon monosyllables they might have been divided into "stops" and "stop-nots"—after all, "arrest" means "to stop". The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, suggested that you could not arrest an abstraction; but he may by now be thinking about the phrase "arrested development", of which I am perhaps a case. I notice, too, that only the other day a Hungarian farmer performed the surprising feat of arresting an express train by lying on the lines, and when it stopped, as it did, asking for a light for his cigarette. "Arrest" means "stop", and surely when the cry of "Stop thief" goes up it implies to some extent "stop the theft". To help in "arresting" an offence by preventing its going further is a perfectly legitimate sense of the word.
I have talked a good deal too long, and I do not want to press this Amendment. I am putting it up only as a suggestion that it may be dangerous, I think, to take away something which has good and bad points—namely, the idea, which I believe, perhaps old-fashionedly, that some offences are more dislikable than others—without putting something of the kind in its place.
I have been talking about "arrest" as a noun. I only noticed a few minutes before I came here that there is a word in the dictionary "arete", spelt oddly enough with a circumflex accent which has a technical meaning, not the one referring to "the small bones of fishes", but
"A sharp ascending ridge or edge of a mountain"
especially used in Switzerland, now technical with climbers. That seems to me to suggest a slippery slope. I believe we are on a slippery slope if we substitute for a word which, rightly or wrongly, means something we all hate or ought to hate—without hating a person—a word like "arrestable" which is a useful word
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but is something for the convenience of the public and their safety—very easily may become the convenience of the Government. And I do not mean only the present Socialist Government or a past Conservative Government, or the future Liberal Government; but simply a Government. Every Government wants to arrest without too much trouble. And I think that is a dangerous precedent. On these grounds, I suggest "heinous" for your Lordships' consideration.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Before the noble Lord replies, I too would join in suggesting that the word "arrestable" is likely to cause confusion. If the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is inclined to accept "listed", I might have an ulterior motive in supporting it, because I cannot find any other suitable definition of the Common Law misdemeanours which would group them together, the sort which ought to be put in the definition, and those which should not. At least if we had a list we could put on the list the ones we wanted to and not others, and therefore there might be a practical use for having a list in this case.
LORD AIREDALE: I entirely agree. If "arrestable offences" in this clause means any offence for which a person could be arrested, I should be prepared to swallow it, because even though it is illiterate it would be a serviceable expression which would mean something. But since it does not mean that and, as the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, has so ably explained, it adds confusion to illiteracy, I cannot swallow it. Therefore, I support the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Conesford.
5.56 p.m.
Loan STONHAM: When I listened to the Second Reading speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, I knew that at Committee stage I was in for a difficult time on this subject. Now I am absolutely certain of it, because I am asked to contend on the question of literacy with the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and at least by implication on questions of law with the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. Both those things taken together, I should think, are certainly beyond the competence of any Member

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of your Lordships' House. I can therefore only do my best, taking comfort from the fact that though your Lordships are unanimous in agreeing that "arrestable" is wrong, you are by no means unanimous in agreeing what would be the right word.
The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, suggests "listed". The noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, suggests "heinous". It would not make it any more attractive to me if he called it "hi'nous" or pronounced it in any other way. What I have to be concerned about is whether, without addition, it covers what we have in mind and what we have in Clause 2 of the Bill. That is the important thing. I have had other suggestions, such as "specified" and "defined", and no doubt one could think of many other words. But what we have to try to find is a word which, without addition, using only Clause 2 of the Bill, will do the job we want it to do.
I do not claim now, and I did not claim on Second Reading, that "arrestable" is ideal. But I want to explain—and I hope your Lordships will bear with me while I do so—why I think that none of the other suggestions—"listed", "heinous", or others that have been suggested—are as good and do the job so well as "arrestable". The noble Lord, Lord Conesford—and I make no complaint about this—objected to "arrestable" and was proposing "listed". He objected to "arrestable" on the grounds, first, that it was illiterate, that it could not bear the meaning it was design to bear and, secondly, that in his view it was clearly calculated to create confusion. I am sure he will agree with me that the second of those two objections is the more important, but I hope he will bear with me if I deal first of all with the question of literacy. "Listed", despite the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, said he would rely on the clause, certainly conveys to me, and I think would convey to everyone else, that there is a list. There is no list.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Hear, hear!
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount says, "Hear, hear!", but has he considered just what that list would be? He is far more familiar with Arch-
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bold than I am, and therefore he will know that Archbold lists no fewer than seventeen different offences of larceny alone, each carrying a maximum sentence of five years or more. Also listed in Archbold are 26 offences of malicious damage, carrying maximum sentences of five years or more. The list would be very long indeed, and it is not only a list. Many of those offences would require many words to describe them. You would not have to put down a list; you would have to describe them. I submit that most people, wanting to know whether a particular offence attracts the new summary powers of arrest in Clause 2, would find it simpler to look up the Statute creating the offence concerned, or an authoritative textbook.
We establish, first, the point that if you insist that there must be a list it has to be a long list and a very bulky list with a lot of explanations. I do not think it would be anything like as clear or convey anything like as much, to the person or the member of the public who would have to do the arresting as the term "arrestable offence".
LORD CONESFORD: May I put one point to the noble Lord? He will realise that a list in a Schedule, although it may be a possible sequel if somebody advocated it, is not part of the Amendment of my noble and learned friend and myself. We simply propose to introduce "listed" without providing any further list. There is already a list in the subsection to which I am moving this Amendment.
LORD STONHAM: It was perfectly clear—indeed, I acknowledged the fact, almost immediately I started speaking—that the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, was not accepting that a list was necessary.
LORD CONESFORD: A further list.
LORD STONHAM: I agree. And whatever I say I hope your Lordships will understand that I am not maintaining that this is an ideal solution. We want to get something better if we can, but something better has not yet turned up. What I am now doing is to make the case and say why I do not think it possible to accept either Lord Conesford's suggestion of "listed" or the noble Viscount's proposal for "heinous".

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Quite rightly, the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, has said that "arrestable" is illiterate because it is the offender and not the offence which is being arrested. I agree, and as he has reminded us, my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest feared that the use of the expression would be to "murder the English language."
But it is not the case that adjectives consisting of a verb with the addition of "able" are so rare in English law. They are indeed regularly and correctly used with reference to something to be done to the offender and not to the offence. The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, has reminded us that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, almost off the cuff, referred to "indictable" and "bailable" offences. The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, has dealt adequately with those two cases, and I do not want to say anything more about them, but there are other expressions.
Another expression in common use is "extraditable offence". One does not say "extradition crime". According to the New English Dictionary "transportable" means either "capable of being transported" or "involving or liable to transportation". The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, quoted Blackstone with approval, so he will not mind if I use him also, because Blackstone was always thought to write pretty tolerable English. He used the expression,
"…the statute makes it a felony transport" able for seven years".
In 1815, Miss Mitford wrote:
"It does not appear…that he ever committed any hangable or transportable offence".
I have an authority in 1726—Ayliffe, who wrote:
"legacies out of lands are properly suable in Chancery".
Your Lordships may regard these examples just from the 18th and 19th centuries as new-fangled, so I have one from the 15th century, from an Act of the first year of the reign of Henry VII, which provided that in certain circumstances an offence of unlawful hunting was to "be but….trespass finable".
I am beginning to come to the conclusion that Lord Conesford's objections to "arrestable" on pure linguistic,
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or even literary, grounds are unsustainable.
LORD CONESFORD: Before the noble Lord passes on from that point, he carefully explained that he talked about an "extraditable" but not an "extradition" crime. If he will look at Clause 4(6) of the present Bill he will find that"extradition" crime is exactly what he does say.
LORD STONHAM: I am quite aware that we do use the term "extradition crime" on occasion, but the noble Lord is also aware that far more frequently used, and certainly well understood, is the term "extraditable offence". That was the point I was making. We can be too conservative in resisting developments of the English language. One hundred years ago the word "reliable" was being denounced as "an ungrammatical Americanism"—and that was notwithstanding its respectable use by Coleridge. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, himself might have been in trouble in those days because during the course of the Second Reading debate he said that the Criminal Law Revision Committee "realised" that arrestable offences are not all the offences for which it is possible to arrest. This sense of "realise", as meaning to understand clearly, is referred to in the New English Dictionary as:
"In early use, chiefly American, and frequently condemned as such by English writers about the middle of the nineteenth century".
The only substantial objection to "arrestable offence" seems to be the second, as I ventured to suggest to the noble Lord—that "realised" by the Criminal Law Revision Committee—that there are other offences for which a person may be arrested.
The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, quoted with considerable effect two sentences from paragraph 12 of the Report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee. On that I would say that the position with regard to "listed", if his Amendment were accepted, would be exactly the same in that regard as under "arrestable". I say again, we should have liked to find a better expression if we could, but we consider that the use of the expression "arrestable" appears to be justified on the ground that the expression will denote those more serious

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offences which Parliament will have decided will make a person subject to the wide powers of arrest under Clause 2, and should have the other consequences specified in the Bill. In the case of other offences, particular powers of arrest may be given, but they will not usually be as full as those given for arrestable offences. Moreover, the term has already come to be accepted because of its use in the Criminal Law Revision Committee's Report and in the Bill; in the subsequent references to it in legal journals, and the attention which has been focused on it in debates in your Lordships' House. For this we are indeed indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, for their public service.
I would say to the noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, that his proposal seems to have additional disadvantages to those which I have already mentioned in connection with "listed", because "heinous" would not by itself, just as a word, be understood to have the meaning given to it by Clause 2 of the Bill. To give it that meaning one would have to add other words—"a heinous whats-it", or whatever it is. It would need to have other words added to it, whereas we submit that the advantage of "arrestable" is that as it is not in general use for any other purpose, and as people know what "arrest" means, it is likely, in our view, in time to he accepted on its own as having the meaning given to it in Clause 2.
I have done my best to explain our reasons, and certainly I have not lightly rejected these words. We really should like to come to an agreement and even now, at a later stage, if a better proposal could be made, we should be pleased to consider it. We certainly have not at any time thought that this word was absolutely ideal, but it is the best we can suggest. I hope that the noble Lord will now feel able to withdraw his Amendment, and that the noble Viscount will not wish to move his.
LORD MORRIS OF BORTH-Y-GEST: May I be allowed to say just a word at this stage? I think that the Committee should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, for the way in which he has raised this matter, and, if I may respectfully say so, I thought that both grounds on which he advanced this Amendment or this series of Amendments had very
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great force. This, I recognise, is not an easy flatter and nobody has made a suggestion here lightheartedly or in any spirit of desiring to be obstructive. It was, I think, the spontaneous reaction of almost everyone, when reading the wording in this Bill, that the phrase "arrestable offence" was an undesirable phrase, and it was not only undesirable because it rather jarred on the ear but for the second reason given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Conesford, which I still think has great force.
I fully appreciate all that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has said, and I am sure the Committee will be grateful to him for the trouble he has taken to look into this matter. He has cited certain instances of the use of other phrases in the past. I must say, speaking for myself, that as I heard those phrases they did not appeal very much to me. After all, this is a new Bill at the time of a new departure, saying farewell to the distinction between felonies and misdemeanours. Here is a Bill that in many ways is historic; and after all it is the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. I think those who have made suggestions have made them in the hope that it would not be thought that the criticism was merely destructive criticism but that it was criticism that represented a serious point.
I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will be able to give us some assurance that he will look into this matter again and think further, with all the resources at his disposal. As I say, it is the noble Lord's Bill, the words of the Bill are the words that he is sponsoring, and possibly even at this stage he may be able to hold out some hope of being able to offer a suggestion of a happier phrase. I am sure the Committee wishes to co-operate with the noble Lord to achieve progress in this matter. There is no desire to be in any way difficult or obstructive, and certainly I would not lend my support to anything of that nature. I agreed with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Conesford, said were his reasons for bringing forward this Amendment, but it may be possible to get some further suggestion in the future.
6.14 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for his reply to the case that has been made,

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and I say at once that I found it completely unconvincing as a defence of what is in the Bill. As my noble and learned friend points out, it is Lord Stonham's Bill or the Government's Bill. Before I deal with the more serious point, perhaps I might, in courtesy to the noble Viscount who spoke from the Liberal Benches, say that I was not unacquainted with many words ending in "able" where those letters do not follow a transitive verb, but in the case of "arrestable" they do. I had myself mentioned examples in my earlier speech—"actionable", "merchantable", and I think I also gave one that occurred to me not once but several times in the course of this debate, the not unknown word "laughable".
Now to come to the serious point, I think that the linguistic ground I put forward, or what my noble and learned friend referred to on the last occasion as the murder of the English language, is not unimportant. Belonging, as I do, to the legal profession. I hate the idea that a Bill that will universally be thought to mark a historic stage in the development of English law, and therefore to be a product eminently of lawyers, may also be a Bill which murders the English language. I consider that quite important. But the much more important point is the purely practical point, that this expression is misleading. To that there has been really no answer. It is misleading. "Listed" may not be ideal: "specified" is also possible; the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, on the last occasion gave another possible suggestion—I do not wish to adopt but it is a possible solution—"a five-year offence." The possibilities are very many. I think it does not much matter what you call it, provided it is something that refers all concerned to the subsection to find out what is meant. "Arrestable" does not. I agree absolutely with my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. I think this is so important that I shall certainly return to it, if necessary, at a later stage.
My suggestion to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is that he should respect the view, I think the widespread view in this House, that "arrestable offence" simply will not do, and that he should use the enormous resources of his office—I may say that I do not think there is anybody in either House of Parliament who has a
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higher opinion than I have of Parliamentary draftsmen—to consider this matter again; could he allow some of us to get together with his advisers to try to hammer out something better? I think it might be possible. I do not wish to delay the consideration of further Amendments by this Committee at this stage, but I should like to appeal for the co-operation of the Government in producing a better expression, and not leave it to such aged and rusty lawyers as myself to concoct.
LORD STONHAM: The noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, mentioned destructive criticism. I am quite sure Lord Conesford does not think I regarded any criticism he made as destructive. That has not been my view at all. Certainly what he has now said has removed any possible doubt on that score. I am grateful to him for describing this in one sentence as "Lord Stonham's Bill" and in another sentence saying it marks a historic phase in English law. I must deny the first impeachment. As to the appeal the noble Lord has made, I cannot give any undertaking to produce a solution that would achieve something better, but I will give him an assurance that we will certainly try. I cannot at this stage say whether it will be convenient to foregather in the manner he suggested; I should have to consult other people about that. But certainly so far as I am concerned, speaking in my personal capacity, I should be very glad to have the privilege of discussing this with Lord Conesford or perhaps Lord Denning, and indeed, any others who feel that they can make a contribution on this matter. I hope that arising out of that we should be able together to find something which would meet the approval of the Committee.
LORD CONESFORD: Having regard to the friendly speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and also the fact that I know that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has some sympathy with the desire that so many of us have expressed in this matter, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment. Perhaps it may save the time of the Committee if I say that I shall not move the others on the same subject.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT BARRINGTON VISCOUNT BARRINGTON had given Notice of his intention to move, in subsection (1), to leave out "arrestable" and insert "heinous". The noble Viscount said: I shall be very brief. I rise merely to say that I join with the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for his great courtesy. He listened to all that was said, and I hope he did not think it a waste of time. I believed, rightly or wrongly, that I was raising issues which were worth raising. Having aired these matters, I think that we are all clearer in our minds as to the points involved. May I take the opportunity of apologising for the second time to the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, if I gave an entirely false impression as to what he intended in his Amendment? I did not for one moment dispute the fact that "arrest" is a transitive verb. I was merely expressing it as a noun. I do not move the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.23 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to leave out subsection (5). The noble Viscount said: The provisions of subsection (5) of Clause 2 were, I think, the only part of the powers of arrest in this clause which were questioned on Second Reading. I should like to ask for a little more explanation as to how these matters came to be in the Bill and as to Her Majesty's Government's policy upon them. The Bill follows exactly the draft proposed by the Criminal Law Revision Committee, and they justify in paragraph 16 of their Report their reasons for putting these powers into the Bill. However the beginning of the paragraph looks a little ominous, for they say:
"There is some authority that any person may arrest without warrant anybody whom he reasonably suspects of being about to commit a felony."
Not for one moment would I question whether that is a correct statement of law, but when they say that there is some authority for it I wondered what the authority was. If one looks in Halsbury's Laws of England, one finds it is a rather obscure matter, and the reference to the second volume of Hale's Keys of the Crown does not help greatly in elucidating what the powers may be.
Then I find—and this is another of the sections which is to be repealed—that Section 104 of the Larceny Act 1861 says:
"Any Constable or Peace Officer may take into Custody, without warrant, any Person whom he shall find lying or loitering in any Highway, Yard, or other Place, during the night and whom he shall have good Cause to suspect of having committed, or being about to commit, any Felony against this Act…"
If it was necessary in 1861 to legislate to give power to a constable to arrest a person on the grounds of having good cause to suspect him of being about to commit a felony, it seems to me that again it causes some doubt about the previous existence of this offence at Common Law. Therefore, in the first place I should be grateful if the noble Lord could say a little about the origin of this matter. It would also be useful if the noble Lord could say whether or not the Government are satisfied that there is a need to preserve the old Common Law situation. In fact, do the police want to keep it? I do not believe that this was one of the matters on which the Criminal Law Revision Committee were assisted by their two chief constable advisers.
A further tricky question which was mentioned on Second Reading concerned what the police do with a person whom they have arrested on suspicion of being about to commit an arrestable offence. It is said in the Report that they can take him before the magistrate to bind him over. But bind him over for what? He has not committed any offence. They are only suspecting him of being about to commit one. Therefore, in what sense of justice can he be "bound over" for that? Alternatively, it is said that he can be kept in some sort of custody until the danger of his committing an offence has passed. Again, is this fair? In some instances I should think it most unfair to arrest somebody simply because it is suspected that he is going to commit an offence. I feel that the Government ought to state their policy quite clearly on the matter and say whether they are prepared to accept all that may flow from this revised power to arrest. I do not say that it necessarily is wrong, but I should like to hear what the noble Lord has to say, particularly on the point whether or not the police feel that they require the power.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 14, leave out subsection (5).—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his explanation of the point which he has in mind. As I think he is aware, the Criminal Law Revision Committee deliberately confined themselves to considering the effect of the abolition of felony on powers of arrest, and suggested an appropriate way of replacing the existing powers. They said in paragraph 11 that:
"…consideration of powers of arrest in general falls outside our terms of reference".
That is why in subsection (7) of Clause 2 of the Bill we say that it does not necessarily affect any other power of arrest conferred by law. We think that because of the great complexity of the subject this is the right decision.
A work of reference published this year, Devlin's Police Procedure Administration and Organisation, lists 75 different statutory powers of arrest which are exercisable in various circumstances, according to the nature of the particular mischief with which they are intended to cope. This provision—and I know this is what concerns the noble Viscount—caters for circumstances which fall short of an attempt to commit an arrestable offence. We provide that a person in the act of attempting to commit an arrestable offence may be arrested under subsection (2) of this clause, because by subsection (1) an attempt to commit an arrestable offence is in itself an arrestable offence.
I hope that the noble Viscount has moved to leave out subsection (5) only to get the explanation which I am now giving him. The point is that if we omitted this subsection the police would lose a power which they probably already have in relation to felony; and, indeed, we think that the subsection may already narrow the existing law. There is authority for saying that at present any person may arrest without warrant anybody whom he reasonably suspects of being about to commit a felony. But the Criminal Law Revision Committee thought it enough to confer the new power in respect of arrestable offences on constables only, and I think that is right.
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Just before the end of his remarks the noble Viscount seemed to feel that it was not right to stop anyone who a constable thought was going to commit an offence. What is he to do with a man who he thinks is going to set fire to a haystack? He has seen him put the petrol on and the man has just lit a match. Is the constable to wait until the man has actually put the match to the petrol? I think not.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: That, surely, is an attempt. That is not just suspicion. Good gracious me! if you see a man with a can of petrol and a box of matches beside a haystack, that must surely be an attempt and not mere suspicion.
LORD STONHAM: Suppose a man is near a haystack and has not lit the petrol but is just going to light a match. The noble Viscount must accept that there are circumstances in which a police officer has reasonable grounds for suspecting that someone is about to commit or attempt a crime, and in such circumstances, if he has reasonable grounds for that suspicion, we want to give him the powers of arrest. If we accepted the Amendment and deleted this subsection, that would weaken the powers of arrest.
The noble Viscount asked me what would happen if the police arrested a suspect and took him before a court. Presumably the court would ask him to be bound over to be on good behaviour. That is one thing which the court could do with him because, according to the evidence that the police officer will give, he had reason to suspect that the man was about to commit or about to attempt to commit an offence. I think that is quite a reasonable power to give a police officer. and he should not have to wait until the crime has actually been committed. The noble Viscount asked me whether the police have been consulted on this matter. Of course they have been consulted, and we think it would be wrong to handicap the police by the deletion of this subsection, which would certainly happen if we accepted the Amendment. With that explanation, I hope the noble Viscount will agree to withdraw the Amendment.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am greatly obliged to the noble Lord for his explanation of this matter; and,

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indeed, as he thought, it was to get an explanation that I put down this Amendment. I wonder whether the noble Lord could just tell me this. He said that of course the police have been consulted, and that the Government thought it was right to have these powers. But did the police want the powers? Perhaps the Government think it is right, but do the police want them and; lave they, in fact, been using these Common Law powers in the past? Is it because they found that these powers were useful, and have been actually using them, that they now say that they want to go on having them, or is this merely a theoretical exercise in that they may have been there in Common Law and now, for the sake of safety, the Government think it right to keep them? I think this requires explanation.
LORD STONHAM: My explanation, as I endeavoured to convey in my speech, is that the police have the powers and are using the powers. The effect of the Bill as it stands without amendment would be not merely to define but, in our view, perhaps to narrow the powers as compared with existing practice.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am obliged to the noble Lord. Perhaps I may have a word with him afterwards about this matter, because if these powers have been used I think it would be valuable to see whether there are reported cases where the matter has been looked at by the magistrates and what they have done on those occasions. Perhaps, after some research, the noble Lord could tell me of one or two of these cases which I can look at. if he will be so good as to do that, I will certainly for the moment beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:
Use of force in making arrest, etc.
3. A person may use reasonable force in the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders.
6.36 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD VISCOUNT BRENTFORD moved to leave out "reasonable force" and insert "such force as is reasonably necessary". The noble Viscount said: This may at first sight appear to be an insignificant or even trivial Amendment, but I can
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assure your Lordships that that really is not so and that this is a rather fundamental Amendment. Hitherto it has been the law, the practice, the custom and the tradition of this country that a constable or other person is not empower or entitled to use force unless it is necessary. The wording in this clause of the Bill denies that premise altogether and says that a person may use reasonable force.
If, for the moment, we suppose that the word "reasonable" is dispensed with and the clause reads,
"A person may use force in the prevention of crime",
that rather enforces the point which I am seeking to make; that this provision in the Bill introduces for the first time the novel precept that a person is entitled to use force. That would be entirely foreign to the tradition of this country, as it has always been the tradition that a person may use force only if and when force is necessary, and that tradition is what I am seeking to reinstitute by the Amendment which I am moving. If the Amendment were accepted the clause would read:
"A person may use such force as is reasonably necessary in the prevention of crime"
et cetera. I am sure that by this clause the Government do not intend any change in the present practice, but I believe there is a very real and essential change in the effect which it will have.
Equally, it will be beneficial for constables and others, in that if they are limited to the use of reasonable force they may have very great difficulty in arresting a criminal who is seeking to get away and who himself uses force. Under the wording of the clause as it is drawn they are entitled only to use reasonable force. Now what is reasonable force? Obviously, reasonable force can only be force of a moderate character. But, in the circumstances that I have described, it may be necessary, in order to effect an arrest, for the constable to use force of a major character, or to use the maximum degree of force. In the circumstances, that force would be "such force as is reasonably necessary". Therefore I maintain that this Amendment is not only in the tradition of the law in this country, but is also for the benefit of the constables and those others who are seeking to make an arrest. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 25, leave out ("reasonable force") and insert ("such force as is reasonably necessary").—(Viscount Brent ford.)
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount has clearly explained the purpose and effect of his Amendment. It would be to make the clause provide that a person may use such force as is reasonably necessary in the prevention of crime or in effecting or assisting in a lawful arrest, instead of providing, as the present clause does, that a person may use reasonable force for those purposes, which the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, says implies that a person is entitled to use force. I think that sums up his objection, and is the real reason for suggesting an alternative form of words. Indeed, the Law Society made this suggestion last winter in correspondence with the Home Office after the Bill was first introduced in another place, but we advised them then that we preferred the clause to remain as it was drafted. Indeed, it is exactly as it is in the Criminal Law Revision Committee's draft.
In practice, of course, as the noble Viscount has said, the difference in substance between the two forms of words is not very great, but I agree with him that this is not a trivial point. He is quite right that it should be raised and should be carefully considered. I am bound to say at once that neither the noble Viscount's version nor our version would excuse a person who used force when it was not reasonable, or used an unreasonable degree of force. In neither case would that be so—and his Amendment does not get over either of those positions. But the point is that if we accepted the noble Viscount's Amendment then a person who used even reasonable and justifiable force would not be excused unless he could prove that the force was reasonably necessary. There are two things—reasonable and necessary. In the view of my Department, that would place too heavy a burden on a person who acted in a way reasonable in the circumstances at the time.
It is important to bear in mind the kind of case in which Clause 3 would be operating. There is a shout of, "Stop thief!"; you look up and see three men run from a bank and jump into a car and you pick up some heavy object and throw it at the windscreen. Or a man
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discovers a burglar in his house and tackles him by any means that occur to him. In neither case does he know of the existence of this particular provision; nor could he stop to think what his legal rights were. The important thing is that, in our view, the provision as we have it fulfils what is essential—that it should protect anyone who, on the spur of the moment, behaves in a common-sense and public-spirited way. In our view, it would not be right for the provision to give rise to nice, exact questions, argued with hindsight, after the event, in the sedate atmosphere of the law courts, as if whether the action taken was strictly necessary, or as to what alternatives there may have been.
In our opinion it is desirable to have a provision which is very short and simple, and we think that the clause as drafted, with the words as they are in the Bill, is the most suitable for the purpose. In our view—this is in contradiction to what the noble Viscount believes—it has the advantage over his form of words in that we use only one conception, reasonableness, whereas he, instead, uses two conceptions, reasonableness and necessity. For that reason we think it would be unwise to make the change which the noble Viscount suggests.
LORD CONESFORD: I am a little puzzled by the reply. I am afraid that I missed a few words of my noble friend's speech, but I understood the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, to say that even with his clause it would still be necessary, if this is to provide a defence, that it should be reasonably necessary. So the double qualification is there, admittedly, whichever form of words is used, if I have understood the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, correctly.
LORD STONHAM: What I said at that stage in my speech was that in neither case would a person be excused if he used force that was not reasonable, or used an unreasonable degree of force. In the Bill as it stands we are not using the word "necessary".
LORD AIREDALE: I am not at all happy about this. May I cite an imaginary example? Suppose there is a frail old woman who is a well-known shoplifter, and the store detective sees her shoplifting a loaf of bread. The detective knows her quite well: he knows her name, and

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knows where she lives. The only reasonable thing the store detective could do in the circumstances would be to say to her, "Leave the store", and if the old woman thereupon left the store there would be not the slightest reason for the store detective to lay a hand upon her. But suppose the store detective took hold of the old woman and led her out of the store. He could then say, "Under Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1966 I was entitled to do this because that section says that a person may use reasonable force in the prevention of crime, and that is what. I was doing". I do not believe that is intended, and I believe that we must still preserve the necessity for the use of force before it can be excused. I hope that that example will be considered, because I am not happy about this wording.
LORD STONHAM: If I may reply to that point directly, in the case of a frail old woman, or of any other individual, where, according to the noble Lord's description, no force is necessary, then no degree of force could be regarded as reasonable if in fact no force was necessary. I am putting this forward quite seriously. Indeed I think I said something of this kind with regard to this point on Second Reading; but certainly it has been in my mind all the time. In a situation such as the noble Lord has described, where by no stretch of the imagination did the detective have to use force, then he cannot argue, if he has used force, that it was reasonable.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I understand the problem that arises by having a dual criteria—first of all, the reasonableness and, secondly, the necessity. I also understand the problem that has been raised by my noble friend Lord Brentford, that this clause as it now stands can be read in such a way that the reasonableness of the force is not related to the circumstances of the case but is merely an objective judgment of the amount of force in any circumstances.
LORD STONHAM: A reasonable thing to do.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: In order to avoid bringing in the word "necessity", could one say this—and I suggest the noble Lord might consider it:
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"A person may use such force as is in the circumstances reasonable in the prevention of crime".
et cetera. There is then no question of proving any necessity, but one does isolate the reasonableness and bring it to bear only on the circumstances of the case, rather than its being considered generally. I hope that may be a useful suggestion.
LORD STONHAM: I have written that down, and I was just reading it through again:
"A person may use such force as is in the circumstances reasonable…"
I do not think that form is as good as that which we now have in the Bill, although I appreciate the noble Viscount's point. Indeed, it is the whole basis of Lord Brentford's Amendment, and why he has raised it; and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has reiterated it. It is possible, they allege—and obviously it must be possible—to read it in that way. That, I think, would be the only justification for our looking at it again. Of course, I cannot give any undertaking that the form of words suggested by the noble Viscount—or, indeed, any other form of words, including of course, those of the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford—would be regarded as better.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: Might I just ask the noble Lord a further question on this? Can we get from the noble Lord an assurance that, under the words that appear in the Bill at the present time, if there is no necessity to use force, any force whatever is reasonable?
LORD STONHAM: That is directly contrary to the view that I have just expressed in answer to the noble Lord who raised that point. I expressed the view that in a case where no force is necessary, any force used would be unreasonable. That is certainly my view and I think that is what the Bill conveys.
There is one other point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, to which I did not reply. He said that he thought that the clause as it now stood would not protect a person who had to use extreme force because "reasonable" in his view means a moderate degree of force. This is not the case. In a crime of violence, particularly, it might be reasonable to use extreme force or even force leading to

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fatal consequences. For example, supposing a criminal shoots at a policeman. Then it is reasonable, if the policeman is armed, for him to shoot back. So that is another point I could not accept from the noble Viscount. I think we have had a reasonable discussion—
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: In the circumstances.
LORD STONHAM: Without giving any kind of undertaking, I will consider what has been said on this. I want to make it clear that I am not convinced; I still think we are right. I will also consider the words suggested by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and whatever the outcome I will write to noble Lords.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: On the strength of that understanding, for which I am grateful, and in the hope that the noble Lord will realise, in respect of the last reply that he was good enough to give me, that he automatically introduced the necessity element of the two alternatives—one of necessity and the other of reasonableness—and in the hope that, bearing that in mind, he will give favourable consideration to the proposal of my noble friend, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.54 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 14. I am quite sure that noble Lords will welcome the fact that I am giving a very short breather at this moment by moving this Amendment, and will also give a particular welcome to it because this implements a valuable suggestion made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, during the Second Reading debate which I then promised to consider. I can explain it quite shortly. Clause 3 allows the use of reasonable force in preventing crime or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders, as we have already discussed. The Amendment makes it clear that the power to use reasonable force is available in the case of lawful arrest of a suspected offender. I hope that that is clear and that this is acceptable. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 27, at end insert ("or suspected offenders.")—(Lord Stonham.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am quite sure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, will be grateful to the noble Lord for accepting his suggestion.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CONESFORD LORD CONESFORD moved to add to the clause "or in preventing their escape". The noble Lord said: I put down this Amendment, frankly, as an exploratory one. It may be that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has already looked at this sufficiently to know whether this is required; but perhaps I may give him some examples of what I had in mind so that, if he has not fully considered it, he may do so before the next stage.
One set of circumstances is not unconnected with what my noble friend Lord Brentford said on a previous Amendment or, rather, with an example given by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in the course of his replies. I was thinking of the case where a man discovers a burglar in his house who may perhaps be in the act of going through a window to escape. There might be evidence of a very serious crime committed, such as a serious assault on a person in the house or a person being bound up or something like that, and the burglar might be trying to escape. It may be that the words "effecting…the…arrest" (which are already in the clause) would, arguably, be sufficient; but I am not certain whether there are circumstances here where some further words might be required.
The noble Lord will, I think, be familiar—I gather he is so, from what he said in an intervention on the previous Amendment—with the cases where even the infliction of death has been considered excusable in the protection of person or property. A number of cases can be found in paragraphs 2512 and 2513 of Archbold. I think it is desirable that the Minister should carefully consider what, if any, effect this clause, as drafted, has on those decided cases and what effect is desired.
Here is another example, which perhaps leaps more obviously to the mind. Suppose you were passing Wormwood Scrubs on one of the days, or at an hour, when one of the customary escapes was taking place. I suppose on the whole

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the Government would desire the citizen to intervene in some manner. If he were entitled to intervene because he was preventing an escape, I think he might be encouraged to do so; but I rather doubt whether the words already in the clause will in all cases be sufficient to cover the man. I have put down these words provisionally. I have no desire whatever to press them if the noble Lord does not like them. I hope he will think they are worthy of some investigation. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 27, at end insert ("or in preventing their escape.")—(Lord Conesford.)
LORD STONHAM: I am sure that anything the noble Lord puts down is worthy of investigation. With regard to the "customary" escapes from Wormwood Scrubs, I will assure him that if he wants to prevent them he must be inside and not outside. That is from where we are preventing "customary escapes". It will be the exceptional one that is done from outside.
LORD CONESFORD: But if one were passing, what is one expected to do?
LORD STONHAM: We were not exactly sure of the whole of the noble Lord's mind on this. We thought of two examples. There is an offender fleeing from arrest. Then the words that the noble Lord suggests, "or in preventing their escape", are not necessary because the use of force will be for the purpose of effecting the arrest. That is all right.
If you were thinking of a bystander trying to stop a bank robber from making his getaway, the use of force again would be for that purpose and for the purpose of "the prevention of crime", or both, and therefore that is already covered. The case of the bystander or person walking by a prison who sees a chap getting over the wall and uses force to arrest him is again covered because the person would be using reasonable force
"in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest"
of the offender; and he is an offender, and it is lawful to arrest a person who jumps over the prison wall because he is committing an offence. Therefore again it is covered by the clause. Frankly, I would have been prepared, had the noble Lord suggested things which were not covered, to ask whether he would
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withdraw the Amendment and say that we would look at it again; but in this immediate discussion the noble Lord has not suggested anything which is not covered and would therefore justify the Amendment, so that I shall have to leave it to his judgment.
7.1 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: I have certainly no intention of pressing the Amendment, but I hope that the noble Lord will look into the class of cases that I have mentioned in Archbold to see whether he is satisfied with this clause, and the effect that this and other clauses in the Bill have on the authorities there quoted. I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to add to the clause:
"( ) Any rule of law which does not accord with the provisions of the last foregoing subsection shall cease to have effect."
The noble Viscount said: It is only necessary to say a few words about this Amendment. When on Second Reading I asked the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor whether the Common Law rules in this matter were superseded by this Bill, he said, as I understood his answer, that they were not. The Criminal Law Revision Committee describe this matter in Paragraphs 20 to 23, and they make the point that the authorities on the Common Law side are very obscure. The last thing we want is for somebody who has misused the powers, which we think are right, to seek to use, or resurrect from the dead, in order to protect himself some extraordinary Common Law rule which is of the greatest obscurity. If there are these immense obscurities I suggest that it is better to make quite sure that the Bill provides the only proper way to deal with the matter, and there should be no other rule still in existence.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 27, at end insert the said subsection.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount reminded us that he raised this point on Second Reading, and by his Amendment he wishes to make clear that Clause 3 supersedes the Common Law. It says no more, in effect, than that the clause overrides any rule inconsistent with it, and leaves open to argument that the present law remains operative on any

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point where it gives wider protection than the clause to a person using force. Our view is that the clause as it stands has the effect of replacing the existing law and that it would be unnecessary to add words saying so. But having said that, we have no objection in principle, if the Committee feel that it should be done, to considering before Report whether a suitable Amendment can be drafted; but in our view it would have the effect only of saying again what we believe the clause says already.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: As I understand it, the noble Lord thinks that the clause itself supersedes the Common Law and would like it to do so. My Amendment, as is usual with all Amendments drafted by myself, does not have the right effect, and for that I beg forgiveness. Nevertheless, when one looks at Clause 2(7) which expressly deals with and preserves Common Law rules I think there may be a distinction which might be drawn when Clause 3 is silent on the matter. I should therefore be very grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, would look at this point again and make sure that this argument cannot arise. It would be so easy to get the right form of words and the whole thing would then be settled. If the noble Lord will do that. I shall be very happy to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD STONHAM: I am quite willing to do that.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4:
Penalties for assisting offenders
4.—
(3) A person committing an offence under subsection (1) above with intent to impede another person's apprehension or prosecution shall on conviction on indictment be liable to imprisonment according to the gravity of the other person's offence, as follows:—
(a) if that offence is one for which the sentence is fixed by law, he shall be liable to imprisonment for not more than ten years;
(7) For the purposes of section 33 of the Larceny Act 1916 and of any other enactment relating to receivers or receiving a person shall he treated as receiving property if he dishonestly undertakes or assists in its reten-
432
tion, removal, disposal or realisation by or for the benefit of another person or if he arranges so to do.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD VISCOUNT BRENTFORD moved, in subsection (3), to leave out "with intent to impede another person's apprehension or prosecution". The noble Viscount said: This is really a drafting Amendment. In Clause 4(3) we read:
"A person committing an offence under subsection (1)"—
of Clause 4—
"with intent to impede another person's apprehension or prosecution—."
and so on. If we turn to Clause 4(1) to see what is the offence to which subsection (3) refers, we see that the offence is that a person
"without lawful authority or reasonable excuse…with intent to impede his apprehension or prosecution…"
The necessity for the offence being with intent to impede the apprehension or prosecution is already in Clause 4(1). Therefore it is quite unnecessary for it to be repeated again in subsection (3). Purely on that drafting point I seek to delete those words.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 42, leave out ("with intent to impede another person's apprehension or prosecution").—[Viscount Brentford.]
LORI) STONHAM: As the noble Viscount has said this is a drafting Amendment, but unfortunately it is not an acceptable one. I remember that on Second Reading he referred to the words that he now seeks to leave out as "otiose and unnecessary". They are unnecessary only in the sense that to leave them out would not change the effect of subsection (3). But they are far from otiose because they make subsection (3) easier to follow, which is something usually welcome in Acts of Parliament.
If the words were omitted as the noble Viscount wishes, the subsection would read:
"A person committing an offence under subsection (1) above shall on conviction on indictment he liable to imprisonment according to the gravity of the other person's offence as follows…"
Then, as the noble Viscount says, to see who is the "other person" it is necessary to go back to the beginning of subsection (1). The point is that the words refer to "a person" in the first line of the subsection, and not to "any other person"

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in the second line, as it might seem at first sight, but for the words which we have put in and which the noble Viscount wants to leave out. The words we want to leave in show at once who the "other person" is. Therefore, with all respect to the point about drafting, we think that the words are necessary and not otiose; and unless the noble Viscount objects too strongly, which I hope that he will not, we should like to leave them in the clause.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: With that explanation, with which I do not agree from either the beginning, the middle or the end of it (I think, with all respect to the noble Lord, it is one of the weakest explanations I have ever had the privilege of listening to), I will, with the leave of the Committee withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.10 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD VISCOUNT BRENTFORD moved, in subsection (7), to leave out "receivers or receiving" and insert "the offence of receiving as therein defined". The noble Viscount said: This is a more serious Amendment than the last one. The difficulty about this clause is that it creates a specific offence under Section 33 of the Larceny Act 1916. It introduces these vague and undefined words "receivers or receiving". We are exceedingly anxious lest these words should be misconstrued, because they are not defined anywhere at all. The word"receiver" is not subject to legal definition. If one looks up the index of Halsbury, one finds that it is used in a number of contexts of a non-criminal character as well as contexts of a criminal character. Apart from that, it is a word which is commonly used in the English language in a non-legal context. We feel that it is desirable that this should be more clearly defined, and suggest that it can be adequately and simply defined by the proposal in the Amendment which I am now moving—namely, to delete the vague words "receivers or receiving" and to insert in lieu "the offence of receiving as therein defined", which means as defined in Section 33 of the Larceny Act 1916. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 35, leave out ("receivers or receiving") and insert ("the offence of receiving as therein defined").—(Viscount Brentford.)
LORD STONHAM: Clause 4(7) provides that the extended meaning of receiving is to apply for the purposes of Section 33 of the Larceny Act 1916 and also for those of "any other enactment relating to receivers or receiving". The noble Viscount's Amendment would substitute for the words "receivers or receiving" the words "the offence of receiving as therein defined". In our view, this would limit the subsection in a way which would take away part of its purpose. For Section 33 of the 1916 Act, although it contains the principal offence of receiving, does not create the only offence of this kind. It applies to receiving stolen property and property obtained in any other way amounting to a felony or misdemeanour with knowledge that the property was stolen or so obtained. The words "or any other enactment relating to receivers or receiving" will cover, first, enactments which create other offences of receiving and, secondly, enactments containing ancillary provisions relating to the offences.
The most important of the other offences of receiving is that created by Section 54 of the Post Office Act 1953, of receiving stolen mail bags and postal packets, but there is also a summary offence under Section 97 of the Larceny Act 1861, of receiving property got by a summary offence under that Act. An example of an enactment containing ancillary provisions relating to receiving ((ii) above) is the provision in Section 38 of the Pawnbrokers Act 1872 that, if a pawnbroker is convicted of receiving stolen goods knowing them to be stolen, the court may direct that his licence shall cease to have effect.
I appreciate that the noble Viscount may feel that the expression "other enactments relating to receivers or receiving" is too vague. The Law Society indeed expressed that view in correspondence they had with my Department, but, unfortunately, they did not respond to an invitation we addressed to them to mention any enactments in which they thought there can be any doubt whether the clause would apply.
It seems to the Government that although different words might have been used, the words that the noble Viscount wishes to change, since they stand in juxtaposition to the reference to the main

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offence of receiving contrary to Section 33 of the 1916 Act, show clearly that the reference is to offences consisting of receiving property stolen or come by otherwise unlawfully. If the language is to be altered, the Amendment would have to go wider than the noble Viscount proposes, because this Amendment would leave out of account the enactments creating other offences of receiving, although it would cover ancillary provisions, such as that in the Pawnbrokers Act so far as they apply to the offence under Section 33 of the 1916 Act. It appears to the Government that it would be a pity to complicate the Bill in order to define the offences in what would seem perhaps unnecessary detail, especially as the subsection is intended to be temporary only and to be repealed by the Theft Bill, annexed to the Criminal Law Revision Committee's Eighth Report, if that Bill is accepted by Parliament. That is my view. I can see the noble Viscount's intention, but it seems obvious to us that the Amendment does not go so far as he would wish it to go in doing what he seeks to achieve. For that reason, he might like to think about it again.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: I was interested in what the noble Lord said with regard to this being a temporary provision, subject to the revision of the law as a result of the Report of the Law Revision Committee. On Second Reading, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that a complete revision of the law on theft was to take place and that the Committee said in their Report that these paragraphs—I understood him to be referring to the paragraphs in this Bill—were part of what is going to be the new code of law, if accepted by Parliament. If that is so, then there will not be any revision of this Bill by a subsequent Bill, and what we are doing is seeking to legislate in anticipation of what is going to be the law when another Bill is introduced. I think this is a dangerous line to pursue.
Having said that, I should like to have an opportunity of giving closer attention to what the noble Lord has said than was possible while he was actually talking; and in that anticipation, and with the possibility that I may come back to this
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on a later stage, I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD VISCOUNT BRENTFORD moved, in subsection (7), after the first "if" to insert:
"knowing it to have been stolen or obtained in any way whatsoever in circumstances which prior to the enactment of this Act would have amounted to a felony and misdemeanour".
The noble Viscount said: I was tempted to put this Amendment down because of what the noble Lord in charge of the Bill said on Second Reading, when he was paraphrasing this particular clause and he came to the words in line 37:
"shall be treated as receiving property if he dishonestly undertakes or assists in its retention".
The noble Lord said:
"if knowing the property to be stolen he undertakes or assists in its retention…
That is exactly the purport of what I desire to see in the Bill: that instead of this rather vague and ambiguous word "dishonestly", we should have the words, "knowing that the property was stolen": because if the word "dishonestly" is retained, it is wide enough to include the disposition of property even though it was not stolen or was not unlawfully obtained. We therefore consider that the old and perhaps rather more traditional words, "knowing the property to have been stolen or unlawfully obtained", are better than the admittedly briefer but vaguer word "dishonestly". I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 36, after ("if") insert the said words.—(Viscount Brentford.)
LORD STONHAM: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for that explanation, but I am bound to tell him that in our view the Amendment is unnecessary and does not wholly fit the present law. We think it is unnecessary because the offence under subsection (1) of Section 33 of the Larceny Act depends on the receiver knowing that the property was stolen or obtained in one of the ways mentioned. Subsection (7) of Clause 4 in the present Bill merely extends the idea of receiving without altering the other ingredients of the offences, in particular, without altering the requirement as to the receiver's knowledge of the way in

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which the property was obtained. Further, the Amendment would not fit the important offence under subsection (4) of section 33,consisting of receiving in England property obtained abroad in circumstances which would have amounted to a felony or misdemeanour if the property had been obtained in England.
We do not think it would be an appropriate reform to make it necessary to consider whether an obtaining which took place after the commencement of the Act would have amounted to an offence under the present law. For this reason, I cannot accept the Amendment, and I hope that, with the explanation I have given, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw it.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: Again, I think this is something that I should like to think about, because I still do not see why "dishonestly" is going to meet the point any better than the words which I recommend, and in my view it is wide and vague. Perhaps I may be permitted the opportunity of considering the matter and possibly coming back to it again at a later stage. But for the time being I will withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question: Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: May I call the attention of the noble Lord at this stage to a matter which I mentioned on Second Reading—namely, the marginal note to this particular clause. The marginal note says:
"Penalties for assisting offenders."
and the clause itself goes on to create all sorts of offences and, by so doing, to create offenders. I should like to draw the attention of the noble Lord in charge of the Bill to the fact that the marginal note is totally irrelevant, completely misleading and ought to be amended.
LORD STONHAM: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for that vigorous presentation, and I will certainly look at what he says.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Penalties for concealing offences or giving false information]:
7.25 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to leave out subsection (1) and insert—
"(1) Where a person has committed an arrestable offence, any other person who, knowing or believing that the offence or some other arrestable offence has been committed—

(a) conceals or procures the concealment of, or

(b) accepts or agrees to accept any consideration for not disclosing any information relating to

that offence, or that other offence, as the case may be, shall he liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for not more than two years:
Provided that, in a case falling within paragraph (b) of this subsection it shall not be an offence to accept or agree to accept such consideration as constitutes:—

(i) the making good of loss or injury caused by the offence, or

(ii) the making of reasonable compensation for that loss or injury."

The noble Viscount said: This is a most important Amendment and I am sorry it should have come up at this time of the evening, when the Committee is so thin and when none of the noble and learned Law Lords is here. It was, as your Lordships will probably remember, raised by both the noble and learned Lords, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest and Lord Denning, in the Second Reading debate. Clause 5 is a sort of omnibus substitute for two sorts of offences that at present exist in Common Law. The first is misprision, and the second compounding a felony. The Criminal Law Revision Committee's Report described misprision as:
"concealing or procuring the concealment of a felony known to have been committed",
and compounding as:
"an agreement not to prosecute a felony in consideration of the return of the goods or other award."
The Committee decided to do away with both those long standing offences and to replace them by a very narrow offence that is newly created by Clause 5(1). Various noble Lords asked whether this was acceptable policy.
I should like the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, to explain why it is that the Government are satisfied that the old offence of misprision of felony is no

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longer necessary. I know that it has had a chequered history, but the last time that it came before your Lordships' House sitting in its Judicial capacity was in the case of The Queen v.Sykes. This was referred to on Second Reading as well. This was a most serious case, where arms had been stolen from a United States Air Force base in Norfolk and were in process of transmission to the I.R.A. in Ireland. The accused in the case had had nothing to do with the original offence, but he knew that the arms had been stolen and he was, I believe, acting as a go-between between the people who had the arms and possibly the I.R.A. or their agents.
The interesting thing about that case, when you read it, is this: that the prosecution thought about and rejected the idea of charging Sykes with being an accessory after the fact of felony, because, I have no doubt, they felt that the facts would not justify such a charge. He was charged with a variety of other offences, but in the end the only one that stuck was the offence of misprision of felony, and it was upheld in your Lordships' House that this was an extant offence, and his conviction was also upheld. Here was a most serious crime which had been found out and on which the offender had been convicted; but apparently there was no other way of dealing with it.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, also quoted other cases, one I think from Australia, and a recent one where this old crime of misprision of felony had been usefully employed. Now that it is to be abolished, there is nothing in Clause 5 to take its place. Clause 4 is no help in the type of case exemplified by Sykes, because there is little difference between the offence created by Clause 4 and the old offence of accessory after the fact. I do not think the facts of the Sykes case would have come within Clause 4 either. What is the Government's justification for abandoning this offence? Are they satisfied that there are already powers elsewhere to deal with these offenders? Are the police so satisfied? Can the noble Lord tell me that?
I have also in my Amendment, as well as trying to restore the old offence of misprision of felony, kept what the Criminal Law Revision Committee recommended
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for compounding. I believe that they can be put together quite well. But I would suggest, also, that the way in which I have drafted the Amendment—though I am sure it will be said to be defective—has at least one advantage: that by putting in the proviso that the acts there set out are not an offence it clarifies the position about what the civil law can do on these matters. This was another point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. I should have thought that it was a good idea to make it perfectly clear that not only was it a defence to be able to say what the Bill now says, but to set out quite clearly that that sort of knowledge is not an offence at all. I am perfectly certain that this is not a matter which can rest here to-day. I will not press this Amendment, for obvious reasons, but if the noble Lord. Lord Stonham, can explain the Government's position on this matter he will be doing a great service indeed.
Could I say one thing? So far as misprision of felony is concerned, there was some doubt in the Committee's mind about the effect that the retention of this crime would have upon the liability of relatives. Under my Amendment the matter is subject to the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, as indeed are offences under Clause 4, where the same problem arises. I do not believe, therefore, that there should be any greater difficulty here than under Clause 4. Furthermore, in case anybody should object that this would lead to petty and ridiculous prosecutions on occasions which are not at all justifiable, not only have we the Director of Public Prosecutions to prevent this, but we must remember what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goddard, said on one of these cases, that nowadays the law is administered with dignity and common sense. I do not think it is a matter to be feared. I look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has to say, and I am sure that what he says will be most carefully studied by noble and learned Lords who are most interested in this matter. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 39, leave out subsection (1) and insert the said new subsection.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his careful explanation of his Amendment and of its effects. So far as we can see—and no doubt he will agree—the only substantial effect of the Amendment would be to add to subsection (1) of Clause 5 an offence of knowingly concealing or procuring the concealment of an arrestable offence. As he made clear, this would be intended to cover the loss, as it were, of misprision of felony. As the noble Viscount knows, the exact extent of the offence of misprision is obscure, but it seems certain that it applies in some cases to mere disclosure. The Criminal Law Revision Committee reviewed the law on misprision in consequence of the abolition of felony. The elements of that offence, and of compounding, which they thought it desirable to retain, are covered by the existing subsection (1) of Clause 5, which makes it an offence to accept a consideration for concealing information about an arrestable offence. The conduct covered by the offence of misprision of felony might in some cases be covered by subsection (1) of Clause 4, which makes it an offence to do any act with intent to impede the apprehension or arrest of a person who has committed an arrestable offence, and it covers such conduct as hiding the offender or concealing evidence of the crime.
The noble Viscount mentioned the case of Sykes. In our view, Sykes would be caught on a charge of receiving under subsection (7) of Clause 4 in the Bill which says that:
"For purposes of section 33 of the Larceny Act 1916 and of any other enactment relating to receivers or receiving a person shall he treated as receiving property if he dishonestly undertakes or assists in its retention, removal, disposal or realisation by or for the benefit of another person or if he arranges so to do."
Therefore, had this Bill been law Sykes would have been in a different position. In our view the Amendment the noble Viscount has proposed to some extent duplicates subsection (1) of Clause 4, as well as subsection (1) of Clause 5 as it stands.
The aspect of the offence of misprision at which the noble Viscount's Amendment is aimed—that is, that part of it which is not being replaced by the Bill—seems to relate to the withholding of information from the police. I think that
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is what he is mainly concerned about. When the Criminal Law Revision Committee considered this, they thought there were not enough grounds to retain this as an offence. That is found in paragraphs 37 to 42 of their Report. They said there were obviously objections to making a person criminally liable for not reporting to the police any minor offence of which he may happen to know, and with that view the Government agree.
There is one point of drafting. Although, as the noble Viscount knows, I never make any point of drafting in objecting to an Amendment I think I should point it out. The new subsection which is proposed in the Amendment would give rise to difficulties of interpretation, because it is not clear how paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1) of the Amendment would fit together. The proviso to the subsection provides a special defence for cases falling within paragraph (b): that is, cases where a person has accepted a consideration for not disclosing information relating to an offence. Yet an offence under paragraph (b) would apparently also be an offence under paragraph (a) to which the proviso does not apply.
This is a comparatively minor point, but because the noble Viscount is dealing with questions of principle and importance I thought he would want me to point it out. The answer is that we consider—and in this we agree with the Criminal Law Revision Committee—that in subsection (1) of Clause 4 and in subsection (1) of Clause 5 the points that the noble Viscount has in mind are covered, and the side case that he mentioned which caused concern would be caught by subsection (7) of Clause 4.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am very much obliged to the noble Lord for that answer, which I think is most constructive, and certainly adds in a helpful way a great deal to what has previously been said on this subject. I am particularly grateful for the explanation, which I had not thought of, of the way in which a Sykes type of case could now he dealt with. I hope the noble Lord has looked at the other cases which were referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning—I fear that I have notmyself—and has made perfectly certain that, where misprision has hitherto

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filled a gap in the criminal law, there will equally be coverage of that gap under the provisions of the Bill. I will continue my researches into this subject, and if I am still not happy, or if other noble Lords are not happy, we will pursue it at the next stage of the Bill. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD STONHAM: I can assure the noble Viscount that I have looked at these cases. I had a note to mention them, but I did not want to make my speech too long.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Trial of offences]:
7.38 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to add to subsection (5):
"Provided that nothing in this subsection shall preclude the Court of Appeal from the exercise of its powers under section 5 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1907."
The noble Viscount said: This, again, is an Amendment to draw attention to a point rather than to achieve any precise wording. I think the point is probably all right, but I should like an assurance from the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. Under Section 5 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1907, the Court of Appeal has power to substitute the conviction on one count for a conviction which had been given on another count, and to sentence the offender accordingly. This probably applies only where there was a plea of not guilty, followed by trial. Therefore it is probably not concerned with the circumstances set out in subsection (5) of Clause 6, which I believe supposes that there has been no trial but a plea of guilty which was dealt with immediately by the court. If that is so, then I am sure that no Amendment is necessary, but I should be grateful if the noble Lord would confirm that there will be no prejudice to the powers of the Court of Appeal under subsection (5) of the 1907 Act, because I believe it is a useful safeguard when an offender might be in danger of getting away on a technicality. We do not wish to do anything in this Bill to stop that sort of remedy from being applied. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 26, at end insert the said proviso.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I think I can give the noble Viscount the assurance for which he asks, but I should like to do so in some detail and then he can come back if my reply is not sufficiently complete. The Amendment proposes that nothing in subsection (5) of Clause 6 should preclude the Court of Appeal from exercising any of its powers under Section 5 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1907. In our view the Amendment is unnecessary because nothing in Clause 6(5) could have this effect.
Clause 6(5) provides that, where a person charged with one offence pleads guilty to a lesser offence included in that charge, and his plea is accepted, so that he is not dealt with for the offence charged, his conviction of the lesser offence resulting from his plea of "guilty" shall operate as an acquittal of the offence charged. Section 5 of the 1907 Act, I am advised, deals with entirely different situations. Subsection (1) relates to a case where a person has been convicted on more than one count in an indictment and the Court of Appeal consider that he was wrongly convicted on one but rightly convicted on another. The subsection enables the Court to pass the appropriate sentence.
Subsections (2) and (3) relate to verdicts of the jury, whereas subsection (5) of Clause 6 is concerned only with cases where there is a plea of guilty and no question of a verdict of a jury arises. I hope that meets the point raised by the noble Viscount.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Again I am grateful to the noble Lord. This appears to be a point which caused some disquiet in certain quarters where criminal law has some importance and is studied. Those fears appear to be allayed, and therefore I beg to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clauses 7 and 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Pardon]:
7.42 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE LORD AIREDALE moved after "but a pardon" to insert "or exoneration". The noble Lord said: I think the Minister will recognise in this Amendment an

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old hobby-horse of mine which I have smuggled into the Chamber not for the first time. This clause deals with the granting of a pardon under the Royal Prerogative, and I think it is quite accepted that the effect of a pardon under the Royal Prerogative is not of "pardon" in the sense in which we use that word normally nowadays, meaning "forgiveness", but rather "exoneration", whereby the person pardoned is put in the position of never having been accused of the offence at all.
Why do we therefore use this rather misleading expression "pardon" in this sense? I believe it is for an historical reason. I think I am right in saying that before the beginning of the last century our ancestors thought it unwise publicly to admit the possibility that there could be a miscarriage of justice, because they thought that such a public admission would undermine the authority of the courts and undermine the administration of justice, but of course they knew in their hearts that sometimes a miscarriage of justice had occurred and so they employed this fiction of granting the convicted person a pardon under the Royal Prerogative so that it could be said, "The decision of the court stands but the offender is pardoned".
We have grown up since those days. We now publicly admit that occasionally a miscarriage of justice occurs, and we do not think any less well of the courts for that. We recognise that the courts, being human institutions, can err, just as humanity in any field in which it operates can err. So why must we cling to this expression "pardon" when what we really mean is "exoneration"?
It may be said that most people understand that a pardon under the Royal Prerogative operates as exoneration. I daresay they do, but I am quite sure there are some people who do not understand this; perhaps humble people—the boy who delivers the milk to the offender who has been pardoned may not understand that this does not mean that the man has been convicted and forgiven. A person receiving a pardon is surely entitled to know that everybody who is acquainted with him—humble people in his village and so on—completely understands what has happened, and if exoneration is what has happened then exoneration should be published. Admittedly "exoneration" is rather a
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long word and the milkman's boy may not understand what it means, but he can look it up and find out. At least let him not be misled by the use of the word "pardon".
I believe this matter has been under consideration in the Home Office for about the last sixty years, but apparently no Home Secretary so far has plucked up enough courage to recommend to Her Majesty an exoneration under the Royal Prerogative rather than a pardon. It looks as though Home Secretaries are waiting for Parliamentary approval before they will take this step. If we introduce the word "exoneration" into this clause in the place that I have suggested, that will surely denote Parliamentary approval for the use of this word, and it will embolden Home Secretaries in the future to recommend exoneration where now they recommend pardon; and I believe this will be nothing but a good thing. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 17, after ("pardon") insert ("or exoneration").—(Lord Airedale.)
LORD STONHAM: I suspect if it be true that successive Home Secretaries for the last sixty years have had this problem put to them and have lacked the courage to enact the alteration their experience must be very much like mine, because as the noble Lord is aware he and I had discussions on this point outside the Chamber many months ago, before there was any possibility of this Bill coming into existence, and no doubt like the Home Secretaries in the last six decades I found the argument appealing, as indeed I have found it again now. However, when we look at the matter both historically and legally the proposal loses its appeal, unless of course the whole case, as perhaps the noble Lord will say, rests on a choice of words, or rather the meaning that most people attach to two different words. I think this is a case, as is said in Alice, of, "Words are going to mean what I say they will mean".
I want to put the position as we see it, and that is that strictly a pardon done under the Great Seal has the effect of wiping out the offence entirely, and in this Bill the purpose of Clause 9 is to provide that the grant of a pardon by the simpler method under the sign manual shall have the same full effect as a pardon under

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the Great Seal. In other words, it wipes out the offence entirely. Clause 9 replaces an existing provision in Section 13 of the Criminal Law Act 1827 which is to the like effect and relates to pardon in the case of felony.
I know that it is not an answer to the noble Lord's case, because, unless he is too polite, he can tell me I am merely repeating what has been said for a great many years. But I thought it right I should emphasise that the use of the Great Seal or the alternative method proposed in Clause9 does have the effect of wiping out the offence entirely. The word "pardon", as the noble Lord has said, in modern everyday use means forgiveness for a wrong done, and it is therefore inappropriate in cases where the person concerned is altogether cleared of all blame. But in Clause 9 we are using the term "pardon" in its existing legal sense which extends to any wiping out of a conviction under the Prerogative of Mercy, and we suggest it would be inappropriate to amend the clause by the addition of the words "or exoneration", which would suggest that a pardon did not amount to exoneration, and "exoneration" had a legal meaning where none exists.
The point I am making is that a pardon does amount to exoneration and to add the word "exoneration" would imply that a pardon does not. Although I am aware of the force of the arguments put forward by the noble Lord and the meaning attributed to words, it is the case that a pardon granted under the Great Seal is taken and accepted as, and is in fact, a complete exoneration, a complete wiping out. Therefore, it would certainly be unnecessary, and we think would weaken the present position, if we added the words "or exoneration".
LORD AIREDALE: I am grateful to the Minister for having taken so much trouble over this and answering me so fully, and it may well be that this clause of this Bill is not the place in which to effect this piece of law reform. But I think the Minister has sympathy with the view that this piece of reform needs carrying out some time somewhere. I will of course withdraw this Amendment now, but in view of the thinness of the Committee at the present time I will not undertake not to put the Amendment
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down again on Report, because this is a matter which I feel should command the attention of noble Lords. However, the hour is late, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clauses 10 to 14 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Lists of Offences falling, or not falling, within jurisdiction of quarter sessions]:
LORD STONHAM: This is a drafting Amendment which leaves out an unnecessary reference to Section 16 of the Malicious Damage Act 1861. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 6, leave out ("sections 16 and") and insert ("section").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 7, leave out ("crops and stacks") and insert ("stacks of corn etc.").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to leave out from the offences excluded from jurisdiction of all courts of quarter sessions: "Bigamy and offences against the marriage laws". The noble Viscount said: This is another absurdity which I hope the noble Lord will help to clear up. In paragraph 76 of their Report the Committee talk about the jurisdiction of Quarter Sessions and they say that the Quarter Sessions Act 1842, will require amendment. They say:
"Moreover, the law as to the jurisdiction of quarter sessions is complicated, in particular by the fact that courts when presided over by legally qualified chairmen have wider jurisdiction than other courts, and has to be sought in a good many Acts in addition to the 1842 Act."—
How right they are!—
"It will therefore be convenient to restate the law completely in the Bill. This will make it easier to find out quickly whether an offence is within the jurisdiction of quarter sessions."
Let us see how easy and quick it is. Let us see whether bigamy is within the jurisdiction of quarter sessions or not, and let us see whether an attempt to

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commit an offence under Section 6 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 is within the jurisdiction of quarter sessions or not. You start off with List A, Division II, in Schedule 1, and you find, under paragraph 6(a), that bigamy is within the jurisdiction of quarter sessions; and so, under paragraph 6(b), is an attempt under Section 6 of the 1956 Act. So you think "Good; jurisdiction in quarter sessions is there." Then, if you turn over the page and look at List B, you find included under the heading "Offences excluded (subject to List A) from jurisdiction of all courts of quarter sessions" bigamy and attempts to commit offences under Section 6 of the 1956 Act. There are others. I chose those two at random.
Is the situation this: that List A, Division I, contains a list of offences which can be tried by all courts of quarter sessions whether or not they have legally qualified chairmen; that List A, Division II, contains some offences which can be tried by quarter sessions with legally qualified chairmen or by assizes, and List B some offences which can be tried only by assizes? If that is so, ought we not for the sake of clarity to have four lists: first of all, the ones for quarter sessions without qualified chairmen; secondly, the ones for quarter sessions with qualified chairmen but not also triable by assizes; thirdly, offences triable either by assizes or quarter sessions with qualified chairmen; and fourthly, offences which can be tried only by assizes? If that were done, I think it would provide clarity and quickness and ease. But I feel that the particular method adopted does not add to the clarity of the law. I should be obliged to the noble Lord if he would confirm whether I have got it right, and secondly, whether we might not improve it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 20, leave out line 20.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount is absolutely right. Under the existing law only quarter sessions with legally qualified chairmen have power to try these offences. Clause 8 and Schedule I are intended to preserve the existing law, and we achieve this only if the offences are included both in List A and in List B. If we took them out of List B (which I know the noble Viscount does
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not wish to do), it would have the effect of enabling all courts of quarter sessions to try the offences under Clause 8 of the Bill as it now stands, and that would be a change in the law for which there is no justification—or, if there is, it has not been advanced. We certainly think it would be undesirable to make changes in jurisdiction pending the work of the new Royal Commission on Assizes and Quarter Sessions.
We have reached the point where we are in complete agreement. I now come to the point as to what to do about it. The noble Viscount almost said that this was a bit of a mess; that they are in both lists, and you have to look at one and see whether it is in the other, and then make up your mind. I confess that I myself had no difficulty, but I am a layman and a simple kind of fellow, and perhaps would not have found the same difficulty as would the more erudite. I confess that I did not find the noble Viscount's other suggestion very attractive, but he put it rather quickly. May I leave it that I will read it tomorrow and let him know if I see any value in it? So far, at least, it seems to me that the way we suggest here, with a List A and a List B and with some appearing in both, is the better way to do it and it does not take very long to find out which is which.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am grateful to the noble Lord. My defence in this case is that it was someone who was a great deal more erudite than I who drew this to my attention and who was finding enormous difficulty in following it. I suggested four lists. I am sure that the OFFICIAL REPORT will have taken down the contents I suggested for each, and I should like to leave it to the noble Lord to consider. I beg leave at this stage to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 42, which is a drafting Amendment to preserve the present rule of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, that an attempt to procure the commission by a man of an act of gross indecency with another man is triable by a court of quarter sessions with a legally qualified chairman but not by other courts of quarter sessions. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 25, at end insert ("and attempts to procure the commission by a man of an act of gross indecency with another man.").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: Amendment No. 43 is a drafting Amendment to preserve the present rule that endeavouring to conceal the birth of a child is triable by a court of quarter sessions with a legally qualified chairman, but not by other courts of quarter sessions. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 6, at end insert—
("( ) Offences against section 60 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (1861 c. 100) (endeavouring to conceal birth of child).").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Supplementary Amendments]:
9. Section 4 of the Forfeiture Act 1870 (which allows a court on a person's conviction for felony to award compensation not exceeding £100 for loss of property occasioned by the felony) shall have effect as if the references to felony included any offence tried on indictment, as if the reference to loss of property included damage to property, and as if the reference to £100 were a reference to £400; and section 34 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952 (which confers the same powers on a magistrates' court) shall have effect accordingly, but with the substitution for the word "felony" of the words "an indictable offence".
8.3 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved, in paragraph 9, after "£400" to insert
"and the words 'upon the application of any person aggrieved' shall cease to have effect."
The noble Viscount said: This is a suggestion which was put forward on Second Reading by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. The limit up to which the court can give compensation upon the conviction of any person under Section 4 of the Forfeiture Act 1870 has been amended, but the noble and learned Lord pointed out that the court can award this sum in compensation only upon the application of a person aggrieved. He suggested that there might be cases where the person aggrieved was not there or did not know that he had to
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apply or did not know that he could apply, and that thereby this extremely condign penalty was not being used. This may well be so, because many a person pleads guilty at quarter sessions and all that happens is that the prosecution presents the facts of the case, the policeman and/or the probation officer is called to tell the court what is known about the prisoner, and no witnesses, let alone the person aggrieved, are there at all. In those circumstances, which are very common, there will be nobody to make application for the award of the compensation. But, the person is being convicted and that would be the time to do it.
There may be cases where a person ought to come and apply, but if one leaves out these words in the Act, that does not mean to say that the court will inevitably and always give an award under this section, even if somebody does not apply. I think they would have sufficient sense to choose the right occasion and to exercise their power accordingly. There seems to be a restriction here, and I should like to know whether the noble Lord thinks that it now could be removed.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 17, after ("£400") insert the said words.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I recall the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, raising this matter on Second Reading, and I am grateful to the noble Viscount for bringing it forward again. As he made clear, the argument for the Amendment is the requirement that the person aggrieved should have made an application and that that is an unnecessary obstacle to the exercise of the court power as it may be inconvenient for that person to be present or represented in court. In simple cases I agree that it might sometimes be an advantage to do away with the requirement, but on the whole it seems to us better that we should not do so.
First, the person aggrieved may be unwilling that the criminal court should decide, in his absence and without his being able to argue the question, whether he is entitled to compensation as a result of the offence and the amount of the compensation which should be awarded. These may be quite difficult questions. Secondly, an order by a criminal court may have repercussions on the right of

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the person aggrieved to take proceedings for damages for the wrong. Whether a person who accepted an order in his favour in the sense of acquiescing in it or accepting payment would be held to have waived his civil rights may be a difficult question. In any event, he might be embarrassed in the civil proceedings by a decision by the criminal court as to the amount of compensation which should be ordered. He might also be embarrassed, in a case where the loss or damage was caused by joint offenders, by a decision that each should pay part of the compensation. In civil proceedings all could be made liable for the whole amount, and the victim could enforce a judgment against any of them to the full amount, provided that he was not compensated twice over.
If the requirement that the person aggrieved should have made application were to be abolished, it would seem necessary or at least desirable to include a provision as to the effect of an order on the civil rights of the person aggrieved. We feel that this would complicate the Bill. It is true that the exercise of the power under Section 11(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 1948 to make an order, in conjunction with a probation order or a discharge, that the offender should pay damages or compensation for loss, does not require an application by the person aggrieved. But the law as to compensation in criminal cases is in need of review, and it seems better to defer the question of going beyond the amendments to the 1870 Act which the Bill proposes until this review is undertaken. I hope that the noble Viscount will feel that we have gone carefully into this matter and that the advice which I have given is correct.
LORD AIREDALE: I feel sure that if the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, were here the first question he would now ask would be: when may we expect that the promised review will be forthcoming? If it is going to be forthcoming and something is to be done in what we call "the near future", no doubt the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, may be satisfied about it, but unless by the next stage of the Bill we can have something fairly forthcoming from the Minister as to the
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timetable for this promised review, I hope that this matter will be raised again.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I have another idea, which might be a halfway house. The section says:
"It shall be lawful for any such court, if it shall think fit, upon the application of any person aggrieved, and immediately after the conviction of any person for felony, to make an award…".
I see the difficulty the noble Lord has pointed out about the prejudice to the person's rights, but why cannot we take out the words "and immediately after the conviction…? This could be done by Amendment at a later stage. If at the stage of the conviction, the court sent a notice, if it felt like it, to the person who it knew had been harmed by the crime, saying, "If you apply we will give attention to the idea of giving you certain compensation in this matter", and, at the same time as the conviction was being given to the accused, told him that they had this in mind, then there would be a stop-gap measure until this review comes along. The immediacy would not then remain in the law, and I think we might have something which is at any rate saisfactory for the moment and would not involve anything very fundamental in the way of change. Would the noble Lord look at that before the next stage of the Bill?
LORD STONHAM: Most certainly; I shall be very glad to do so. With regard to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale—a very pertinent point—I assure him that the Government recognise the need to review the question of compensation in the context of a wider review of the question of reparation by offenders generally. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has been giving urgent consideration to how such a review might best be undertaken, and he hopes very shortly to be in a position to make an announcement on the subject.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD STONHAM: This Amendment is consequential on the provisions in the Bill relating to alternative verdicts. I will deploy the case if noble Lords wish it, but if not I will move the Amendment formally.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 3, at end insert—
("(2) For section 241(5) of the Road Traffic Act 1960 (which provides in effect that the requirements of section 241(2) as to notice of intended prosecution shall not prevent a person's conviction of reckless or dangerous driving under the provision made by section 2 of the Act for alternative convictions of that offence or other charges) there shall be substituted:—
'(5) Where a person is prosecuted on indictment for an offence to which this section does not apply, subsection (2) of this section shall not be taken to prejudice any power of the jury on the charge for that offence, if they find him not guilty of it, to find him guilty of an offence against subsection (1) of section 2 of this Act.' ").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: This is a technical Amendment concerning the choice of court to try an indictable offence committed outside England and Wales. It is quite a complicated affair, which I know the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and I fully understand. I hope, therefore, that he will agree if I move this Amendment also formally.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 23, leave out ("the United Kingdom"), and insert ("England and Wales").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Repeals (General)]:
Part I: Repeals of Obsolete or Unnecessary Enactments.
8.13 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to delete from the enactments to be repealed: Chapter 25 of the Statute of Westminster the First. The noble Viscount said: I am now in danger of becoming extremely unpopular, but I hope that the Committee will bear with me. I shall be as quick as I can on this collection of Amendments in Schedule 3, but, believe me, your Lordships will not have, listening to me, a third of the tedium that I had going through these matters and trying to find out what was involved. So at least I can plead that as some sort of mitigation.
I did not know, when I put down Amendments 47, 48, 50 and 51 that the Law Commission were going to report last Tuesday. But they did, and I also gather,
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from paragraph 8 of their Report, that these repeals which relate to champerty and maintenance were put in Part I of this Schedule on their own recommendation. This now appears to be the case, and of course the whole matter now makes sense, in that the Commission have also published a draft clause which abolishes the Common Law offences of champerty, and maintenance as well. That being so, the matter has some completeness. Before that was done, of course, it was ridiculous to abolish the statutory provisions which set out these two ancient offences while at the same time leaving the Common Law offence untouched.
I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, this question. If at the Report stage I put down an Amendment to put into the Bill the first subsection of the draft clause now suggested by the Law Commission, so that we may complete the criminal part of the repeal of maintenance and champerty, will he be in a position to give some consideration to that course? If so, we may then be able to give rather rapid implementation to the Law Commission's views. It may be necessary to think a little about it, but an Amendment at that stage would at any rate give us the opportunity. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 34, leave out ("25").—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount is referring to subsection (1)(a) in the draft clause of the Report of the Law Commission. The position, as he is aware, is that the Report was published only on Tuesday. We have not had time fully to consider the matter, but we are giving immediate and urgent consideration to this Report, and certainly have in mind the possibility of implementing it in this Bill. It would therefore be our hope that we could make progress. I am not in a position—I hope the noble Viscount will understand this—to make a firm commitment on this to-night, but I hope it will be possible to do what he asks so that the implementing of this Report, or such part of it as the Government are prepared to accept, does not have to await separate legislation.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am obliged to the noble Lord. If that is the way in which we can try to deal

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with maintenance and champerty, I shall be quite content. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to delete from the proposed repeals: Article 14 of the Great Charter, and the whole of the Acts of Statutum de Conspirator bus; Champerty and Maintenance. The noble Viscount said: I am afraid that I have to say a word on this, because although three of the ancient Statutes to which this repeal refers deal with maintenance and champerty, one of them does not and that is Chapter 14 of Magna Carta. It is all very well for people to try to clear up ancient and probably obsolete law, but, at any rate on the first occasion when this Bill is discussed in Committee, we ought to know why the Government want to repeal a part of Magna Carta.
It is a perfectly harmless part of Magna Carta. I do not suppose it has any effect whatsoever, because it deals with amercements, which are not the same, I understand, as fines, but were somewhat similar when they were available. Incidentally, it says that
"Earls and Barons shall not be amerced by their Peers and after the manner of their offence",
and I feel that this is a matter which your Lordships should take very seriously indeed. If the noble Lord wants to repeal Chapter 14 of Magna Carta, will he tell us why? I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 36, leave out from beginning to end of line 43.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I think the noble Viscount is quite right. It would have been wrong for two reasons not to discuss this matter thoroughly and have a full explanation; first, for the obvious one of history, which he mentioned; and, secondly, because I have a perfectly good explanation, which is this. As the noble Viscount is aware, this repeal is not directly connected with the abolition of felony, but derives from the general review of existing enactments about punishment and the possible impact on them of the provisions of the Bill. In addition to the provisions mentioned in the earlier part of Schedule 3, we have the one deal-
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ing generally with the power to fine a person convicted on indictment.
Article 14 of Magna Carta is wholly concerned with the now wholly obsolete penalty called "amercement". The term "amercement" was sometimes loosely used to cover any pecuniary penalty including a fine, but the Article deals only with amercements in the strict sense. This was a pecuniary penalty exacted in mediæval times, and later on a variety of occasions when a person was for one reason or another "in mercy". That is the derivation of the term.
Whereas a fine was always discretionary and imposed by the court (perhaps originally by way of commutation of the liability to imprisonment), an amercement was in general automatic, but the amount was or ought to have been assessed by a jury or its equivalent, as provided for by this Article of Magna Carta, reaffirming the Common Law. But I understand the Article soon came to be disregarded in the case of Peers, for whom there appears to have been a fixed tariff of £100 for an Earl and 100 marks for a Baron—though different authorities gave different tariffs. Amercements were the appropriate penalty for a number of usually trivial offences, mostly dealt with in local courts now obsolete, such as the sheriff's tourn, as well as for things that do not now rank as offences. For instance, an unsuccessful plaintiff in a civil action was "in mercy for his false claim": and, in view of the fixed tariff for Peers, Coke in his Note on this Article of Magna Carta recommends that when a nobleman is plaintiff it is policy rather to discontinue the action than to be non-suited.
This, of course, is now of historical interest only, since amercements have entirely disappeared out of the law; and though the provisions of this Article of Magna Carta (that an amercement should be proportionate to the fault, and should leave a freeman with his freehold, a merchant with his merchandise and a villain with his wainage; and the amercement on a clergyman be based on his lay property and not on his ecclesiastical property) were no doubt wholesome in their time, it is pointless to keep them on the Statute Book as operative law. For that reason, we propose to delete Article 14.
LORD AIREDALE: May I ask the Minister just this question? What does he suppose the British people would say if his noble friend Lord Shackleton were to come before Parliament with a proposal to scrap Nelson's flagship on the ground that it is not a very satisfactory warship at the present time?
LORD STONHAM: I think they would be very annoyed and would defeat it; but, then, Nelson's flagship is a working model. This section of Magna Carta is not.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think we should consider the weighty words uttered by the noble Lord. It occurs to me that we have got on extremely well for a very long time with Article 14 of Magna Carta, and I really do not see why we should not go on getting on very well with it. I would suggest that the Home Office should have a heart and should leave out this repeal, because I honestly believe this is the sort of thing which really does not make any difference one way or the other. However, I will consider it, and I might put the Amendment down again. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.42 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to leave out The Statute of Northampton. The noble Viscount said: This is a matter of another incredibly ancient Act, called the Statute of Northampton. The only reason I raise it is that, ancient though it may be, it was used in 1903 to effect the conviction of a gentleman who had had rather too much to drink in Bangor and went around the streets letting off a revolver to the peril of the populace. It appears that there was nothing else with which they could charge him, so they went back to the Statute of Northampton of 1328 and convicted him or riding in the street armed to the peril of the population. His counsel could say nothing in his defence except that it was a very old Statute; but, again, it shows the efficacy of these Statutes. I should like to know whether the noble Lord is perfectly satisfied that there is still not some life in it yet before we finally repeal it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 44, leave out from beginning to end of line 45.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: As the noble Viscount is aware, the Criminal Law Revision Committee looked at a number of ancient Statutes, and, as he will know—in fact his next following Amendment deals with it—they decided it would be advisable to repeal the Riot Act of 1714. Equally they saw no more reason to continue the Statute of Northampton, which, as I think the noble Viscount said, dates from 1328. As he said, though the case he mentioned was not quite that of a man riding about on the cobbles in armour, this Act makes it an offence punishable with life imprisonment to wear armour or display force except in the areas and at the times appointed for holding tournaments—that is, the medieval equivalent of military manæuvres. This proposed repeal is in part connected with the general consideration of the Statute Law about riots, but it also derives in part, like the repeals dealing with champerty and maintenance, from the effect on existing statutory misdemeanours of the provisions of the Bill about arrest in Clause 2, maximum punishment in subsection (1) of Clause 7 and jurisdiction of quarter sessions in subsection (1) of Clause 8.
The Act was used as recently as 1903—I thought that was a delightful touch, because 1903 was the year in which I was born, and to hear the year in which I was born now referred to as being recent gives me some pleasure—when it was decided to prosecute a man for firing a revolver in the street; but he was also charged and convicted, in respect of that same conduct, of an offence at Common Law; and the carrying of firearms and other weapons, of course, is now dealt with by more recent Acts. The Statute of Northampton can only be used for any modern purpose by stretching its terms, and then only for mischiefs that are covered by other provisions of the law. For that reason, we thought there was no case at all for retaining it.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am much obliged to the noble Lord. That is, I think, a very satisfactory explanation; but he will agree that when these old Statutes are revived and appear

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to be the only way of dealing with a matter then it is certainly worth while making quite sure they are redundant. I am grateful to him for his explanation. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved in Part I to delete "The Treason Act 1543". The noble Viscount said: This is an important matter, I think, and it relates to the Treason Act 1543. Surprisingly enough, treason, when it is corn-mined overseas, is still tried under the Treason Act 1351. That was so in the cases of Lynch, Casement and Joyce. But the important matter is that in the report of the Casement trial (or, rather, in one of the appeals in that case)—and, whatever one may think of the case, that is not the point here—in Volume 1 of King's Bench Reports 1917, I found what the Attorney General and the Solicitor General said about the Treason Act 1543. They said that, according to the old authorities, until that Act was passed there was great doubt as to how and where high treason committed overseas could be tried, and that it was not until that Act was passed that the matter was clarified. I was more alarmed still to find that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reading, the then Lord Chief Justice, said in his Judgment:
"It is by virtue of this Act",
and other Statutes that followed it,
"that this court has jurisdiction in the matter".
Now, it is all very well to repeal the Treason Act 1543, but are we certain that the Bill replaces it with something that gives the court jurisdiction? There is a provision in the Bill about treason which comes at the end, but it deals with procedure only and not with venue; and, as I understand it, what the court was saying was that the Treason Act 1543 gave jurisdiction as to venue. I should like an explanation of this point, because I believe that, rare though these dreadful cases are, we must be perfectly certain that the law is properly equipped to deal with them and that we are not repealing something which is essential to the whole of cur process. I beg to move
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 24, leave out line 24.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I agree that this is an important matter which should be discussed, and again I recall that this is a matter which the noble Viscount referred to on Second Reading, when he mentioned the Lynch case. Of course, until 1925 we had to rely on the Treason Act; it was used in such cases. But Section 11 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925 gave us the general provision that a person charged with any indictable offence may be proceeded against, indicted, tried and punished in any county or place in which he has been apprehended or is in custody on a charge for the offence or has appeared in answer to a summons for the offence.
Many Acts besides the Treason Act 1543 deal with the trial of offences committed outside the country. They are mainly concerned with offences committed on the high seas but also with offences on land by persons in Crown Service, murder by British subjects, and other cases. They came under consideration in connection with the Bill because many are in terms of felony; and because of special difficulties in connection with piracy, which is often referred to as if it were a class of offence distinct from felonies or misdemeanours. It is all bound up with the question of whether offences committed within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty and originally triable according to the rules of the Civil Law and not the rules of the Common Law could, properly speaking, be felonies at all, a felony being a concept of the Common Law.
These difficulties are no longer material for any purpose, but they are reflected in the language of the old Acts. They make it virtually impossible to tidy them up. Unless, therefore, they are still genuinely needed, in our view the right course is to get rid of them. Any Act making things done abroad criminal under our law must be kept; but, since the passing of the Criminal Justice Act 1925, the Acts dealing specially with the place and manner of trial of these offences, beginning with the Admiralty Jurisdiction Act 1391 and including the Treason Act 1543, have had no substantial effect.
Such effect as they have is reproduced in subsection (2) of paragraph 15 of Schedule 2 to the Bill. As a result of

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this, some dozen Acts or more can be repealed in whole or part, instead of their having to be laboriously amended in a way which, for the reasons I have given, will be difficult if not impossible. I do not say that there is any special need to repeal the Treason Act; but equally there is no need to keep it. To make it the one exception from the general rule of the repeal of old Acts dealing with the trial of offences committed abroad would be pointless and would lead to confusion.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: It is a little alarming when one finds in the most up-to-date versions of Archbold that this is the Act which regulates all the procedure in treason trials when these acts were committed overseas and that this is going to be repealed. I should like to study what the noble Lord has said, particularly his complicated reference to Schedule 2 which I cannot take in at speed. For the moment, therefore, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to delete from the enactments repealed The Prison (Escape) Act 1742. The noble Viscount said: I beg to move Amendment No. 53. This goes back to the point I was making earlier about Common Law offences. The reference here is to the Prison (Escape) Act 1742. Section 3 provides that it is an offence for any person to aid or assist any prisoner to attempt to make his escape from the custody of any constable or anybody else who has lawful charge of him in order to carry him off to gaol—in other words, for somebody to try to rescue a prisoner on his way to prison. There is another offence which is created by the Prison Act 1952, Section 39, as amended by the Criminal Justice Act of 1961 in the Fourth Schedule, about assisting somebody to escape, but I think that is only an escape from prison and not on the way there. If I am right about that, there is going to be repealed one of the statutory offences which would be, I think, either that of an accessory to an escape or something of that nature. I think we should then be left with the Common Law offence only. If that were so, then whereas the 1742 Act made a felony of this offence subject to seven
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years' imprisonment, we shall now have to deal with such cases by Common Law.
The effect of subsection (1) of Clause 2 will be that this will cease to be an arrestable offence and there will therefore no longer be any possibility of charging anybody under Clause 4 with being what was previously an accessory to this felony. This is one of the two or three most important cases where we are doing away with what previously was available to the police in the form of charging people with being accessories after the fact of felony. I want to know that the noble Lord and his Department have fully discussed this matter and are absolutely certain that in doing away with the statutory offence, which carried more than five years' imprisonment, they are not depriving the police of powers to deal with accessories under Clause 4; because this is the important matter I want to raise on this and a few other cases later on. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 56, leave out from beginning to end of line 57.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I confess I have not viewed this with anything like the seriousness which the noble Viscount attaches to it. I will certainly look carefully at what he has said. Section 3 of the 1742 Act is the only operative section now in force; it makes it a felony, punishable by seven years' imprisonment, to help a prisoner unsuccessfully attempting to escape when taken to gaol on a warrant of commitment for treason or felony. Apart from the 1742 Act, aiding and abetting an unsuccessful escape in these circumstances would be a Common Law misdemeanour, as I believe the noble Viscount appreciates. I am quite sure that the original purpose of the Act was to secure a sentence of transportation; but this has now become converted into a sentence of imprisonment.
In our view, the Act—or the section of it which still is left—is pointless and will become even more so with the abolition of felony, particularly if it were left to apply only to aiding unsuccessful escapes by those committed on a charge of treason. This is another of the cases where the Criminal Law Revision Committee preferred outright repeal of what they regarded as an unnecessary enactment rather than its adaptation to make

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it fit the abolition of felony. Having said that, and having been advised that that is right, I will certainly read what the noble Viscount has said to see if we can take that view and to see if it is necessary to do anything. If not, I will tell him so.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think there is a point here because, if I may say so, the matter with which the noble Lord was, I think, supplied as an answer to this Amendment does not in any way cover the point I was making. At the moment, I believe that the public are worried about escapes from prison and attempts to get people out of custody. Here we have what will, if left alone, be an arrestable offence; and, because of one of the provisions at the end of the Bill, it will not apply just to treason because felonies are converted to offences by an amendment by this to this Bill. There it would be; and there would be the possibility of getting accessories under it, which will not otherwise obtain if we simply leave it to Common Law. I believe that this point may have been overlooked. I should be grateful if the noble Lord would consider it. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.40 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This Amendment, to delete the repeal of what remains of the Rescue Act 1821, is on the same point, but in this case I think it is worse, because we are here dealing with rescue. The repeal proposed includes Section 1 of the Rescue Act 1821. That again, although it is a most unsatisfactory section, provides in some circumstances for a term of imprisonment for somebody who tries to rescue, or does rescue, a prisoner from prison, and a term which would in fact result in the need for an arrestable offence. If we repeal this, we have only the Common Law on which to fall back, so again it would no the possible to charge anybody with being an accessory after the fact of what is now a felony under this Act, because a Common Law offence would not be an arrestable offence. Clause 4 will not apply. I believe this to be another important matter which should be considered as a matter of policy, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 37, leave out from beginning to end of line 38.—(Viscount Colville of Calross.)
LORD STONHAM: Again, and even more on this occasion, my advice is quite other than that of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. Section 1 of the Rescue Act (although I understand it is still referred to in some textbooks) has been inoperative since 1827. When it was operative it provided for a penalty of seven years' transportation for people guilty of rescuing from custody a person charged with, or committed for, felony.
As I understand it, the section had effect only where the rescuer, on being convicted of felony for the rescue, was entitled to benefit of clergy and therefore liable only to a year's imprisonment which could, under the Act of Elizabeth, be imposed on felons claiming the benefit of clergy. This was abolished generally in 1827 and the Act was repealed at the same time. Since then Section 1 of the Rescue Act of 1821 could not operate, except perhaps where the rescuer was a Peer. It is possible that Peers remained entitled to the benefit of clergy, at least for some purposes, as late as the year 1841. They were then deprived of it by the Felony Act 1841. So, unless my information is wrong, this section has been dead for virtually 140 years, and there would be no case against its repeal. I will certainly look at what the noble Viscount has said and let him know if I find that I am wrong.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I thank the noble Lord. If he looks at the latest edition of Archbold, paragraphs 3443 and 3444, he will find the Statute set out there, and although I have the greatest confidence in the information given to the noble Lord, I also have confidence in the editors of that most notable book. If they say that under the heading of "Rescue" there are only this Act and the Common Law, I am inclined to pay some attention to it and think that the matter ought to be checked again. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This Amendment, to delete the repeal of Section 61 of the Juries Act 1825, goes with Amendment No. 57 and concerns the offence of embracery, which has been put

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in statutory form by Section 61 of the Juries Act 1825. It is intended to repeal the whole thing and leave it to the Common Law. This has a strange effect, because if the Juries Act were to remain in force another provision of this Bill would have the effect (since there is no set penalty for this offence in the Act) of imposing a penalty with a maximum of two years. If the offence under this Act is repealed, it reverts to Common Law and there is no limit whatever on the penalty. I do not know whether there is any great merit in having a penalty of more than two years, but at any rate that is the effect of the law as it now is under the Statute and under the Bill; and, so far as I know, the only reason why the repeal was included was because of the reference to criminal information which I propose to leave out by my Amendment No. 57. This is a matter which again I believe the Law Commission are going to look at, as they say in their latest Report. Would it not be better to take out this repeal and leave it for another occasion when the Law Commission have considered it? We could deal then with embracery as a whole. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 39, leave out line 39.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount is, I am sure, aware that his proposal would be out of keeping with the general line taken by the Committee at page 57 of their Report. They prefer to recommend a straight repeal, rather than an adaptation under the enactment, which in their view was unnecessary; and the reason why the Bill put forward by the Criminal Law Committee did nothing about Section 61 of the Juries Act 1825 is that the reference in it to criminal information was not drawn to their attention. The reference came to light in connection with the Law Commission's proposals to which effect is given by Part II of the Bill to repeal Section 3 of the Maintenance and Embracery Act 1540, both sections being concerned with the offence of embracery or the corruption of jurors.
But whereas Section 3 of the 1540 Act creates an offence which is not triable summarily, Section 61 of the 1825 Act is a mere saving for the prosecution of embracery at Common Law. This saving
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can have been wanted in the 1825 Act only out of an abundance of caution to make it clear that the Common Law offence was unaffected by the abolition in Section 60 of that Act of the old writ of attaint against jurors for the giving of a false verdict. The saving, strictly speaking, was always unnecessary, and in our view has become doubly pointless since the repeal of Section 60 of the Statute Law Revision Act in 1888. For the present Bill to make a partial repeal of Section 61 of the 1825 Act would suggest that this Parliament still thought that Section 61 had some value. In our view the only possible procedure is to repeal the section outright.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: It will, as I say, have the effect of taking off any limit of penalty; and so long as the noble Lord is satisfied with that situation, so be it. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 3: Part III [Other General Repeals]:
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This is the last Amendment I propose to move. It relates to the proposed repeal of the Riot Act 1714. Here, again, is one of those cases where we are proposing to repeal the only statutory offence dealing with this matter. The Riot Act lays down a penalty of life imprisonment, I believe as it now is, after amendments of the law. Therefore, as it stands it would be an arrestable offence under the provisions of Clause 2(1). Accordingly, if there is a riot and people assist the rioters afterwards, they could be accessories and charged as such. If this Act is repealed, we shall be left with the Common Law and there cannot be accessories, because under Common Law it is not an arrestable offence. This is another case which I hope the noble Lord will look at and make sure that it is satisfactory. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 22, line 18, leave out from beginning to end of line 19.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount mentioned this Act earlier when we were discussing another Amendment. Our view is that we have taken the right decision. The Riot Act makes it a felony,

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as the noble Viscount said, punishable by life imprisonment, for twelve or more persons to remain tumultuously assembled for an hour after the reading of the statutory proclamation under the Act—popularly called "Reading the Riot Act". Those who are guilty of an offence under this Act are already guilty, before the reading of the proclamation and before the expiration of the following hour, of a Common Law misdemeanour carrying the same maximum punishment. The only effect of preserving the Act is to preserve two identical offences, of which one can and the other—the offence under the Riot Act—cannot he prosecuted at quarter sessions, because it carries a statutory punishment of life imprisonment. The Act includes a provision to require everyone to assist in dispersing a riot and to indemnify those called upon to do so for injury caused by the use of force for the purpose.
This provision has proved more embarrassing than otherwise, since it only reproduces the Common Law, which led to the belief that steps cannot be taken to disperse a riot before the reading of the Riot Act. It is not thought that the Act is ever relied upon these days, but it places an obligation on justices of the peace, sheriffs and mayors to read the Riot Act whenever there is occasion to do so, and in theory they can be prosecuted for neglecting this obligation. Indeed, the Lord Mayor of London was prosecuted in 1781 for failing to read the Riot Act at the time of the Gordon Riots. The fact is that the Act ceased to be wanted with the establishment of modern police forces, and it has become doubly pointless with the abolition of felony. However affectionate and historical a regard we may have for the Riot Act, it has no point to-day and in our view serves no useful purpose. We should prefer it to remain a memory and that the only person to "read the Riot Act" would be a wrathful wife to a recalcitrant husband.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I hear the Chief Whip murmuring that it should go into Standing Orders instead—that might be very suitable. I think the noble Lord has made one mistake. He suggested that the Common Law offence
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carries a penalty similar to that imposed by Statute. My information is that the Common Law offence carries only a penalty of an unlimited fine or imprisonment, and therefore it would not be an arrestable offence, as it would if the penalty had been life imprisonment. Therefore I think that what I am saying about accessories applies; and whatever other considerations may apply I think that we ought to look at it on the basis of whether we ought not to retain the offence in order to keep its arrestable character, so as to be able to deal, if necessary, with accessories afterwards. If the noble Lord would look at it again, I should be much obliged.
LORD STONHAM: I will look at it again, though it is unlikely that I will change my mind. I think the noble Viscount understandably misunderstood something I said. What I said was that those guilty of an offence under the Act are already guilty, before the reading of the proclamation and before the expiration of the following hour, of a Common Law misdemeanour, carrying the same maximum punishment. I think he interpreted that as punishable with life imprisonment. I was referring to the Riot Act and the subsequent Common Law misdemeanour.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This is another complicated matter and I should like to study it again. Could I say at this stage how grateful I am to the noble Lord for his half of our dialogue for the last hour or so? He has been most helpful in clearing up these extremely obscure matters, and I am sure that I and anybody else interested in the Bill will be grateful for his assistance on it. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Schedule 3 shall be agreed to?
LORD AIREDALE: The noble Viscount has gone through this Schedule with a fine tooth comb, and if there are to be no fruits of his labour when we come to Report, then the Home Office will have done their whole work magnificently. But I have a puckish,

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secret hope that Homer will be found to have nodded just once or twice.
On Question, Schedule 3 agreed to. Schedule 4 agreed to.
House resumed. Bill reported with Amendments.

LAND REGISTRATION BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with an Amendment: the said Amendment considered, and agreed to.
BRIGHTON CORPORATION BILL
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.

HOVE CORPORATION BILL
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
House adjourned at four minutes before nine o'clock