§ 3.53 p.m.
§ Report stage resumed.
§ LORD DERWENTMy Lords, I should like to make one comment first, if I may, and deal with what Lord Stonham said, and then go on to the Amendment itself. The comment I should like to make is that I resent the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Willis, has sent round a letter, at Government expense evidently, saying that I am opposed to this Bill. I have never opposed this Bill at any time, and I resent very strongly that this has been done. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, says that it is the usual practice. I have made inquiries and, so far as we know, it was most unusual on 382 a Private Member's Bill until this Government came into office.
May I deal next with what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said. The right reverend Prelate was going to call the Home Office—in fact he has called them—cautious and pusillanimous. I was going to call them timorous and weak-kneed. But I do not think I will call them that, because I particularly understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, on subsections (3), (4) and (5). I would remind him that the noble Earl the Leader of the House has promised the right reverend Prelate and myself, if we can get an Amendment in proper order except for its drafting—and these are largely drafting questions—that the Government would give us all the help they could in getting it right. But may I deal with subsections (3), (4) and (5)?
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to interrupt? I am fully aware of the promise given by my noble Leader, and indeed I am honestly of the feeling that that promise has been met. We have done all we could.
§ LORD DERWENTI do not for one moment suggest that the promise has not been kept, but I was going to suggest that we might come back to the noble Lord for further help. That is why I was reminding him of the promise. The principal instrument in his somewhat un-neutral speech, I thought, was the question that the Secretary of State should be able to introduce Orders for Affirmative Resolution. We are not told what are the criteria on which he should make out an Order. This is partly a question of drafting.
This Amendment is based on the Report of the Crathorne Committee. What the Crathorne Committee in fact said was that there should be relaxation over all kinds of entertainments, provided that no undue disturbance was caused to other people on a Sunday, and provided that no undue extra employment was made. If we can get these two criteria into these subsections at a later stage, then I do not think the Home Secretary would have to work very hard in making up his mind whether to put down an Order. No Home Secretary in his senses (and I think we must presume that all Home Secretaries are in their senses) would introduce 383 such an Order unless there had been something in the nature of a public outcry—not necessarily regarding an existing sport or entertainment, but none of us knows what will arise in the future. Therefore, if your Lordships accept this new clause, as I hope you will, I suggest that perhaps the Government or ourselves—preferably the Government—can amend this on the next stage of the Bill.
I do not accept, I am afraid, that the courts would find any difficulty in interpreting subsection (2). The subsection reads:
In this section 'spectacle' means any game of Association Football or Rugby Football played internationally"—that is, between countries—or by professionals or any cricket Test Match or any additional spectacle specified by an order …".If that wording is really doubtful, I shall again ask for the Government's help in making it comprehensible, but I really cannot see any difficulty, and I think this is really making a mountain out of a molehill.
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, may I interrupt again? Certainly the Government's offer to help with drafting holds good until the Bill is through, and if the noble Lord and the right reverend Prelate want help with further Amendments it will be given. But this is not a Government Bill; it is a Private Member's Bill, and it would not be appropriate for the Government to produce an Amendment on Third Reading to amend the noble Lord's Amendment, presuming that the House carried it.
§ LORD DERWENTMy Lords, I quite take the point. Perhaps I am pressing the noble Lord a little bit hard on this question of help. But what I would suggest that the House should do to-day, if it is agreeable, is this. Bearing in mind that the second part of this new clause, dealing with the Home Secretary, will have to be amended, I agree, on Third Reading, if your Lordships agree to the new clause to-day I would suggest that to-day is the day when we ought to come to a final decision on whether the main principle of the clause is acceptable or not to the House. That, I think, should happen to-day. I think I may on behalf of the right reverend Prelate—he has nodded to 384 me—and myself give an undertaking that, if your Lordships agree to the new clause in principle, we shall put down an Amendment on Third Reading dealing with subsections (3), (4) and (5). Your Lordships will then be able to accept this or not on the Third Reading. I think I saw the noble Lord, Lord Willis, also nod to me. I do not think he wants to leave the main principle of the clause hanging over any longer, either. So I hope that your Lordships will agree to that course.
Now may I very briefly again remind your Lordships what the Crathorne Report was recommending? First of all, the Crathorne Committee, composed of very different kinds of people, were unanimous. There was no Minority Report; the Report was unanimous. As I have already stated, they thought there ought to be a great relaxation on entertainment, sport and so on, on a Sunday, compared with the present Sunday observance laws—I entirely agree with that—provided that there was no undue disturbance to other people who wish to spend Sunday reasonably quietly, and provided that this does not cause a great deal of extra employment. They made certain recommendations.
On the Committee stage I put down an Amendment which, after much discussion, I agreed would not have worked satisfactorily, but even that did not go quite so far as the Crathorne Report recommendations. Owing to the debate which took place on the Committee stage the right reverend Prelate and I have made another attempt to carry out what was behind the Report of the Crathorne Committee, and I have Lord Crathorne's permission to say that although this is much less stringent than the Committee recommended, he is in entire agreement with the principle behind this Amendment.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Willis, is going to resist this Amendment. I only hope he will not use the two arguments which, although I do not remember the actual words I used, I insinuated on Committee stage were pretty far-fetched. The first point he had to meet was that of disturbance. It is because of disturbance that we have chosen these particular games. They draw extra large crowds and, as we know to our cost, in professional football the main noise and disturbance does not take place inside the ground but going home afterwards. The argument put forward by the noble Lord, 385 Lord Willis, was that it was better to have all the noise in one place, such as a football stadium, because otherwise it would be spread all over the country. In other words, presumably every individual on a football ground who was making the sort of noise one does make at a football match would make individually exactly the same noise if he was walking through a country wood.
§ LORD WILLISMy Lords, I think the noble Lord has quoted my phrasing slightly incorrectly. I think he is now, if I may say so, putting up rather a distorted argument.
§ LORD DERWENTMy Lords, that was indeed the gist of the noble Lord's argument. He went at some length into the question of spreading the noise about the countryside. But the noise inside a football ground does not exist outside. People may talk outside, they may even shout, but a lot of them are quite quiet.
His other argument concerned employment. I am sure it was good Socialism, but I found it faintly repugnant. I will quote his actual words, if I can find them. He said, in effect, that because many people have to work at the present time on a Sunday there is no reason why a lot more should not be made to work. I cannot find his actual words, at the moment but I will come back to that point. He then went on to say that there was going to be a lot of extra employment, but that we lived in that kind of society and it was something which, while one wanted to control it, we had to face. My Lords, why should we have to face it? If something is happening unnecessarily on a Sunday, causing disturbance to other people, why should we have to face the added problem of extra employment? It is not just the people on the ground but also extra catering staff, extra transport staff and, above all, extra police—particularly when dealing with football crowds. Those were the recommendations of the Crathorne Report and I suggest that as far as possible we should try to keep to them. Therefore, subject to saying that if your Lordships accept this Amendment there must be a further Amendment on Third Reading, I hope to-day your Lordships will agree to this new clause.
§ LORD SOPERMy Lords, I rise to say that, with some regret, I find myself in a different camp from that of my right reverend friend on this Amendment. I will leave my noble friend Lord Willis to deal with his own reminiscences of what he said and the actual facts of the debate to which your Lordships listened some time ago. I am not concerned with the practicability of this Amendment, although, as a matter of fact, I think my noble friend Lord Stonham made a completely unanswerable case that the Amendment as it stands is impracticable. I am concerned with the principle of it, to which, with all due deference, I suggest my right reverend friend did not advert.
I will describe what I think to be the legitimate Christian position. As the right reverend Prelate said, we do not wish to compel people to go to church—that would be perfectly stupid, as well as quite impracticable— but the desire we have is that as many people as possible should be free on Sunday from the kind of occupation to which they are addicted, or not addicted, during the week, so that they may pursue their own form of relaxation. I quite see that at some point it would be deleterious to that general proposition if in fact many who wanted to enjoy Sunday in that way were compelled by a widespread practice of commercial spectacles and events to go to work. But what is more important in the judgment of some of us is that we should present a picture of the Christian faith which is realistic and does not cause such confusion in the public mind that very often contempt is the result, and not understanding.
I cannot see how we can defend the idea of Sunday as a different day merely by talking in terms of the number of people who, on one Sunday or another, will be occupied in the watching or the profession of sport. This is the old argument that the illegitimate baby is to be defended on the ground that it is a very small one. The argument does not commend itself to me and I do not think it will to the vast proportion of the community which has at least some affection for the Christian faith but regards our claims as being in many respects obdurate and in many respects unrealistic. If there is to be a reclamation of the true prestige of the Christian faith—and I speak unashamedly of that—then this 387 Amendment will do nothing but create more confusion in the minds of those who will say, "What is the difference in principle between a Celtic Rangers match and an international match?"
What is the difference in principle? I suggest noble Lords will find that there is no difference in principle. Therefore although there are many ways in which I believe this actual law will, in the long run, have to be amended by the pressure of events, I think now to disable it by creating a further impracticable and unrealistic and unprincipled Amendment will do nothing but cause further distress among those who are endeavouring to present a coherent Christian pattern, and further confusion among those who want to enjoy the kind of life in which they believe this particular Bill will give them aid and support.
LORD HAWKEMy Lords, I suggest that the correct thing to do is first of all to pass this Amendment and then for the noble Lord, Lord Soper, to put down another Amendment on Third Reading to alter the text in the way he wants. I am personally very much in sympathy with his arguments. I do not think this Amendment goes far enough. For instance, I have heard it suggested that this Bill will be the salvation of county cricket, but I think that is far from being the case. Forty years ago county cricket was a bright and brilliant game, which it was a great pleasure to watch. To-day it is dreary in the extreme, and the reasons for this are not far to seek: all the rules have been changed. That is not just my opinion; it is the opinion put to me in the last conversation I had with my old school colleague, Douglas Jardine, before he died, and very few men knew more about cricket than he did. The rules have put a premium on a certain type of bowling, a certain type of fielding and catching; and even, my Lords, people bowl to catch the man off bat and pad. One cannot imagine a more ignominious game than that. Sunday playing will give it a slight financial shot in the arm, but it will not bring any nearer the reform it needs, so we shall find that a dreary spectacle will go on and people will live in a fools' paradise, thinking that this Bill is going to cure their ills.
388 If the right reverend Prelate and my noble friend Lord Derwent had stuck to their guns and tried to make the line of division professional, I think it would have been all to the good. I know that it is extremely easy for a Government spokesman to poke fun at anybody who tries to draw a line; I have done it myself. But it is necessary to draw a line somewhere. I do not think anyone should take too much notice of it. Every conceivable decision in life involves a line having to be drawn somewhere and one can poke fun at the narrow cases on each side. I think the right thing is to pass this Amendment now, and the noble Lord, Lord Soper, can produce a stronger one on the next round.
§ 4.12 p.m.
§ LORD CONESFORDMy Lords, I wonder whether the matter is quite so simple as my noble friend has just suggested. It seems to me that, when we are altering the criminal law, we ought to introduce some certainty into our alteration, whatever it may be. I have a great deal of sympathy with what my noble friend Lord Derwent tells me is his object: to avoid events which would cause a great many people to have to work on Sunday who would not otherwise have to do so. If that purpose appeared anywhere in this clause as drafted I should have a good deal of sympathy with it, and should understand the view of my noble friend Lord Hawke, that all that was needed was tidying up. But I honestly cannot see that the new clause as drafted embodies any ascertainable principle whatever. I have much faith in the purpose declared by my noble friend Lord Derwent, and, if I may say so, by another friend, the right reverend Prelate; but they really have not embodied any statement of that purpose in the clause which they are asking the House to accept. Subsection (2) was the subject of a good deal of comment by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, some of which I thought had great force, but I shall not say another word about that.
What I wish to concentrate on is subsection (3). Subsection (3) does not seem to me to introduce a matter which is mere detail that we can subsequently clear up by an Amendment on Third Reading. It seems to me to be doing something which this House, I think, has not done before and which I am quite 389 certain, on legal principle, this House ought not to do; namely, to say that, in effect, this Bill can be wholly transformed by subordinate legislation for which no principle of any kind is laid down. That seems to me, with respect, to be a point of substance. If this Amendment is now pressed to a division I cannot possibly support it, though whether I vote against it or abstain I have not yet quite made up my mind. I am convinced that we cannot cheerfully adopt this Amendment at this stage in the hope that an Amendment on Third Reading may make the thing all right. To adopt that course, I think, would he for this House to act almost irresponsibly.
I wonder whether an alternative course could he considered. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has assured my noble friend that the help of the Home Office or Parliamentary draftsman (I forget how he put it) would still be available. My suggestion would be that my noble friend should make use of that continuing offer to try to carry out the principle which he and the right reverend Prelate support; namely, that we should not give sanction to events which would cause a great deal of employment and so forth on Sunday. Could they not use the offer of the Home Office to try to get an adequate Amendment drafted to carry out that object? I cannot say whether the House on Third Reading would accept or reject such an Amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Willis, might still be against it; others might be for it. But at least we should be voting one way or the other on an Amendment that was legally respectable. While I have the utmost respect for the ideas that underlie the Amendment of the right reverend Prelate and my noble friend in their own minds, I do not believe that the legal principles, or lack of legal principles, embodied in the Amendment as drafted arc such that this House could support them.
§ LORD WILLISMy Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Cones-ford, for that penetrating analysis of the Amendment. It seems to me that there arc two issues here, and the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, I feel, really put his finger on them. There is the issue of whether the Amendment is properly and legally drafted, and has sufficient criteria or prin- 390 ciple in it to substantiate what it is trying to do; and there is the general issue of principle which is embodied in the Amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, has argued that this afternoon we ought to get the opinion of the House on the general principle, and if the House is in favour of the general principle then I, as sponsor of the Bill, shall of course be only too delighted to discuss with the sponsors of this particular Amendment how to get it right when it is embodied in the Bill. I have been rather patient and have waited a long time for people to he available for this Report stage, and I should like this afternoon finally to settle the issue of the principle, if that is the wish of the House. I regret very much indeed, with the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, the state of the rules of cricket, and I suggest that after this Sunday Entertainments Bill has been passed we might perhaps jointly sponsor a Private Member's Bill to improve cricket; but this is not the issue of this particular Bill.
Before I deal with one or two of the arguments—and I do not intend to delay your Lordships long—I ought perhaps to apologise for the letter to which reference has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, and the right reverend Prelate. The letter was indeed sent out in my name. It was a mistake that it went to non-members of the Labour Party in the House, and a mistake for which I apologise. I apologise even more humbly for the actual wording of the letter. I should be the very first to admit that, far from being opponents of the Bill, both the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, have supported it all along in general broad principle. They have been most helpful and considerate about it, and have opposed it only on particular issues, such as that set out in the Amendment that we are discussing. I take entire responsibility for the letter, and I hope that they and the House will accept my apologies.
I would now turn to the arguments that were used by the right reverend Prelate in moving this Amendment. And, if I may say so respectfully, he did so with great wit and perception, and with a brave effort to meet what he himself has said was not so much a need as a 391 feeling that he had about Sunday afternoons. I think the most revealing statement that he made was towards the end of his speech, when he spoke of the Amendment in itself as not having a logical basis, as being illogical. I think that on this hinges the argument about this particular Amendment. It is a quixotic, untidy and well-meaning Amendment, and one which, I think, would, in effect, do more harm than good. It reminds me about the old story about the bikini: that it is attractive at first sight, but provides little cover, and there is not much that can hold it up.
I was glad that the right reverend Prelate said that there was not a Christian purpose behind the Amendment—that this was something that Crathorne came out strongly against in his Report—and that in fact the Christian Church does not believe in the effectiveness of legislation to drive people into church. But if that argument is removed you come down to the one big basic argument which was used by the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, and by the right reverend Prelate, about noise and disturbance on Sunday afternoon. But this really will not do. In effect, what does this Amendment say? It says that something is bad because it is popular. It says to the population, "You can do what you like after two o'clock on Sunday afternoon, but you cannot do what you like, or, at least, you cannot do what you like best, and that is to follow the most popular sports." That really is the height of illogicality.
My noble friend Lord Stonham dealt most effectively with some of the main illogicalities; but you could sit down for ten minutes and make out a tremendous list. It bristles with more illogicalities than a porcupine bristles with its bristles. For example, on a Sunday afternoon you might well have a fantastic attendance at the final of the Gillette Cup in cricket—just as big as you may get at a Test Match, or, which is most unlikely, if Lancashire were pressing Yorkshire for the championship, and it was the last but one match with only a few points in the balance. I can imagine that you could get almost as big an attendance at a Lancashire versus Yorkshire match.
§ LORD DERWENTThe noble Lord really ought to keep it within the bounds of possibility.
§ LORD WILLISPerhaps I might move a further Amendment, to delete "Lancashire" and substitute "Middlesex" or "Kent".
The Amateur Cup Final, which was played on Saturday at Wembley, attracted, I understand, an attendance of something like 75,000. That is not caught by this Amendment. We have already mentioned "rugger". A university match, or a match between two great club sides on a Sunday afternoon might attract equally large crowds. So it is in fact illogical to create this kind of apartheid in a sport, and to say that some things may take place and some may not, and that the things you like most of all, dear British public, are the very things that you are precluded from watching or doing on a Sunday afternoon.
It is not so stupid to talk about spreading noise. Let us take the argument that Sunday has to be a different day. Well, it is a different day. I think we shall all accept this. What makes it particularly different? I think two, or perhaps, three factors. The first is that it is a day on which church-going is available to the vast majority of the population who wish to attend church. Secondly, it is a day when the vast majority of the population do not work; it is a day of leisure. Thirdly, as a result of centuries of tradition and so on, a certain atmosphere has grown up around Sunday, partly connected with the fact that it is a day of leisure, which makes it a family day also. Here we get the point about Sunday lunch, and Dad taking the kids fishing or rowing on the lake, and so on.
These are three qualities of Sunday. Nobody is going to suggest that Association football matches on a Sunday afternoon are going to ruin this particular picture. On the contrary, not a great many more people are going to work, organising a match between Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal than would work organising a cricket match between Surrey and Middlesex. That is the first point to be made. Secondly, it does not seem to be any less Sunday-like, Sabbath-like or family-like for Dad to take his son to watch Tottenham Hotspur play football than to take his son fishing or 393 driving in the car, as he does now. So it is not going to affect the actual character of Sunday all that much. It is going to make a change, as I said on the Committee stage and on Second Reading of the Bill. But we have to face the fact that Sunday is already changing, and this legislation is in itself almost a catching-up operation.
So far as noise is concerned, I recognise that this is not an illogical argument. The point is that now opportunities for entertainment are limited, and the few avenues that are open are overcrowded. One thing that is overcrowded on Sundays is our roads. As I said on Second Reading, I know somebody who has bought a flat in London to use at weekends because his country cottage is so noisy with traffic at weekends. This is not such an exaggeration as one might imagine, and the argument that I used about spreading the load of noise is precisely that: that if 50,000 people are going to Wembley to watch soccer, they are going, perhaps, in a thousand cars, which means that there are a thousand cars less on the Brighton Road and a thousand cars less on the other roads heading for the coast. There is no less number of cars, certainly, but at least the total is spread around a little. I do not say that that is a strong argument, but it is certainly a logical argument; and it is right.
Finally, if I may briefly come back to this question of principle, I believe that we should decide here to-day the general principle that is embodied in the Amendment. We should make up our minds about that, and the rest can follow, if necessary, on Third Reading next week. Certainly my own feeling on this question is that if the House itself cannot decide, because, as we have heard, the actual basis of the Amendment is illogical and arises from a feeling which I respect but which is not in itself logical, then I do not think it is fair, or reasonable, to ask the Home Secretary or the Government to decide. I ask the House in this case to be bold. Do not create new problems or complicate something that is already clear and simple.
Ever since I introduced this Bill I have been astonished at the comparative lack of opposition to it. I have had opposition on various aspects but, by and large, there has been a great change of public opinion, 394 a great moving forward, even since the Crathorne Report was published, and there is a desire to have done with this problem. I think that to "pussy-foot" around in the way this Amendment does, with small things which complicate the issue, is wrong. Let us get it clear and simple. Let us be bold. Let us recognise that not all the results will be liked by everybody; but, by and large, the division has been drawn, and this is a division which will please and be in the interests of the vast majority of people.
§ 4.30 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTERMy Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Willis, that we have got to come to the crunch over this, and come to a decision on the main point. In relation to this question of the help of the Parliamentary draftsmen, I should like to say that it was made quite clear to us by the noble Earl the Leader of the House that the help of the draftsmen would be available, once the House had expressed itself in favour of this Amendment or something like it. It was equally clear that the help of the draftsmen would not be available until the House had expressed its mind. I think that that was a perfectly reasonable point of view and I do not feel any desire to quarrel with it, but it means that we cannot avoid coming to our own decision on the main substance of the Amendment.
With regard to some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, may I first say that we are glad to have him back with us; but if I may say so he must get back into practice a little so far as his argumentative powers are concerned. He did not exactly try to confuse the House, but he spoke in such a way as might easily confuse your Lordships. At a certain point in the negotiations we gave the clearest possible indication as to the principles on which this Amendment was to be based. We wrote into it the words, "events which, owing to the scale of the employment or disturbance caused, would be not deemed to be in the national interest". We were told by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that that was quite impossible, and that we must define exactly the things that were to be allowed and the things that were to be forbidden. We then asked whether it would be helpful if we said, "Events deemed not to be 395 in the public interest"? We were told: "No, the only thing that is any good is an actual definition". So we gave a definition as well as we could of the things which we felt were undesirable at present.
We are now told by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that we ought to have written a moral essay on the philosophical principles on which we arrived at these particular decisions. I am not in the least confused or disturbed by the criticism made by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. I myself felt that there was great force in what the noble Lord, Lord Willis, said, that this really is a catching-up operation. It is an attempt to mould the law so as to bring it into line with general feeling at the present time.
Whatever ambiguities there may be about our Amendment, one thing is clear. If this Amendment is not passed, we open the door for Sunday afternoon to be exactly like Saturday afternoon, with a whole range of football matches going on all through the winter and very large sporting events of another kind in the summer. It is not that I think any of these things are wrong or immoral, or anything of that kind at all. But one thing is perfectly clear, that is, that the Bill takes Sunday and moulds it into a pattern so that it is virtually indistinguishable from Saturday, and therefore acts as a militant force against all those individual, personal and family activities which are liable to be ruled out by a very large, strong commercial organisation such as professional football or even Test cricket. So, unlike the
§ noble Earl, Lord Howe, who was able to turn each of his runs into a practice run and say that after all we would not have a real contest, I am afraid that I cannot let your Lordships off so lightly. We shall be ready, if the Amendment is passed, to make any helpful proposals or to co-operate with those who make them to correct any little faults or errors that there still may be in the drafting of this Amendment.
§ As for the powers of the Home Secretary, it seems to me that a great deal of difficulty is being made over this. If these powers are so utterly distasteful then the Home Secretary has a simple answer: he does not use them. He is given power to use them only if he wants to do so. Supposing somebody proposes introducing bull-fighting on Sunday afternoon. Here is a measure that would enable him to deal with that. If he wants bull-fighting and says, "This is popular; people must have what they want": therefore he does not use the power. I am sorry, but I must put your Lordships to the trouble of asking you to divide on this Amendment. Nowadays, it is generally thought that all the older traditions of our country and its religious principles are everywhere on the defensive. We may not be the strength which we once were, but that which we are we are, and let us put it to the test this afternoon.
§ 4.40 p.m.
§ On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 5) shall be agreed to?
§ Their Lordships divided: Contents, 33; Not-Contents, 79.
397| CONTENTS | ||
| Aberdare, L. | Falkland, V. | Merthyr, L. |
| Aberdeen and Temair, M. | Ferrers, E. | Milverton, L. |
| Airedale, L. | Fortescue, E. | Mountgarret, V. |
| Alport, L. | Fraser of North Cape, L. | Rea, L. |
| Blackford, L. | Grimston of Westbury, L. | Reith, L. |
| Craigavon, V. | Hawke, L. | St. Albans, L. Bp. |
| Denham, L. | Horsbrugh, Bs. | Sandford, L. |
| Derwent, L. [Teller.] | Hylton-Foster, Bs. | Sinha, L. |
| Drumalbyn, L. | Iddesleigh, E. | Somers, L. |
| Dudley, L. | Ironside, L. | Strange of Knokin, Bs. |
| Effingham, E. | Leicester, L. Bp. [Teller.] | Thurlow, L. |
| NOT-CONTENTS | ||
| Ailwyn, L. | Beswick, L. | Burton of Coventry, Bs. |
| Amulree, L. | Blyton, L. | Byers, L. |
| Archibald, L. | Bowden, L. | Caccia, L. |
| Auckland, L. | Bowles, L. | Carrington, L. |
| Bessborough, E. | Brockway, L. | Champion, L. |
| Chorley, L. | Hurcomb, L. | Rusholme, L. |
| Clwyd, L. | Inchyra, L. | St. Davids, V. |
| Conesford, L. | Jackson of Burnley, L. | St. Oswald, L. |
| Daventry, V. | Kinnoull, E. | Serota, Bs. |
| Dundee, E. | Lindgren, L. [Teller.] | Shepherd, L. |
| Ebbisham, L. | Lucas of Chilworth, L. | Silkin, L. |
| Faringdon, L. | MacAndrew, L. | Simey, L. |
| Feversham, L. | McCorquodale of Newton, L. | Soper, L. |
| Foley, L. | Mancroft, L. | Sorensen, L. |
| Gaitskell, Bs. | Meston, L. | Southwark, L. Bp. |
| Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.) | Mitchison, L. | Stonham, L. |
| Goschen, V. | Moyle, L. | Strabolgi, L. |
| Greenway, L. | Nugent of Guildford, L. | Strang, L. |
| Hacking, L. | Pargiter, L. | Summerskill, Bs. |
| Hall, V. | Peddie, L. | Swaythling, L. |
| Harlech, L. | Phillips, Bs. | Taylor of Mansfield, L. |
| Harvey of Tasburgh, L. | Plummer, Bs. | Vivian, L. |
| Henderson, L. | Popplewell, L. | Walston, L. |
| Hereford, V. | Raglan, L. | Willis, L. [Teller.] |
| Hill of Luton, L. | Ritchie-Calder, L. | Wise, L. |
| Howe, E. | Royle, L. | Ypres, E. |
| Hunt, L. |
Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.