Lords Sitting of 18 December 1967

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Truro.

HUMAN RIGHTS CONVENTIONS
2.35 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: 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 how many of the nineteen Conventions arising from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights they have ratified and signed; and if, in view of the inauguration of Human Rights Year on December 10 last, they will urgently consider the ratification and signing of the remaining Conventions.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD CHALFONT): My Lords, I take it that the noble Lord is referring to the nineteen Conventions listed in United Nations Reference Paper No. 6 of June, 1967. Of these the United Kingdom is party to ten. In addition we intend to accede to the Genocide Convention as soon as the necessary domestic legislation has been enacted, and we have signed the Convention on Racial Discrimination. Our position on this instrument, as well as on the International Covenants on Human Rights and the Convention on Consent to Marriage, is being considered and we hope to announce our decisions during Human Rights Year. The principal obstacle to ratification of the International Labour Organisation Conventions on Equal Remuneration and Discrimination in Employment and Occupation is the position regarding equal pay for equal work. Only seven countries have ratified the Convention on the Right of Correction since its adoption in 1952. In view of the terms of this instrument we do not propose to ratify it.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, in thanking my noble friend for that very
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full reply, may I ask him this question? In view of the fact that the United Nations has asked that these Conventions should be ratified before Human Rights Year, 1968, and that they particularly mention nine Conventions, four of which the Government have not signed—the two on racial discrimination, one on equal pay for equal work and one on freedom of association—will the Government seriously consider the latter Conventions during Human Rights Year?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, of course we will give close attention to these Conventions, especially with the coming Human Rights Year in view. I have answered some of the noble Lord's specific points in my original Answer, and I think he will agree that our record in this matter of signing and ratifying Human Rights Conventions is very good. Indeed, according to my latest information only seven countries in the world are party to more of these Human Rights Conventions than we are.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I assure my noble friend that I appreciate that? In relation to the Convention on racial discrimination, why have the Government only signed this and not ratified it? And in view of the Government's declaration that they will be introducing a Bill regarding discrimination in employment, what is the reason for not ratifying the Convention dealing with racial discrimination in employment and occupation?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, so far as this important Convention on racial discrimination is concerned, we did, as my noble friend will know, sign it on November 11, 1966, and the question of ratification will be considered further in the light of the Government's eventual decisions on the new domestic legislation, on race relations. This will, of course, bear very much on the subject matter of the Convention, and we cannot proceed further with the question of ratification until we are clearer as to the likely nature of our own law and practice in this particular field. The Convention itself, as my noble friend will be aware, has not yet entered into force.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, in view of the fact that every year at Labour Party Conferences a resolution

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demanding equal pay is supported unanimously, and this has continued for at least fifty years, why is it that when the Labour Party is now in government with a majority of a hundred it continues to exploit the work of industrial women workers by denying them the rate for the job? There is nothing to laugh at; you ought to be ashamed.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am not ashamed. I am not laughing at the noble Baroness's question or at the spirit behind it. I can assure her I take it very seriously. I was merely reacting to what appeared to be the general reaction of the House to the noble Baroness's question. If there was any suggestion in my manner that I did not take her question seriously, I deeply apologise. So far as the substance of the question is concerned, the noble Baroness will know that we are committed to the principle of equal pay, but present economic circumstances rule out immediate steps to its full implementation.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, could the noble Lord say when economic circumstances are likely in the next fifty years to enable the Government to bring in equal pay?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I cannot answer that question.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that we are rather tired of hearing about principles being accepted, and then finding that nothing is done about their implementation? Could my noble friend tell the House how many countries have ratified the Convention on equal pay; or, alternatively, how many are in the disgraceful position of ourselves in not having done so?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, without notice, I cannot answer specifically the noble Baroness's question, but in the United Nations Reference Paper No. 6 of June, 1967, which is available, the
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noble Baroness will be able to discover exactly who has signed and who has ratified each of these Conventions.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I have just been given the information that 54 nations have signed this Convention. If that is correct, how many nations would not have done so?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am afraid I am not in a position at this moment, without all the documents in front of me, to do that kind of arithmetic. If the noble Baroness is right and 54 nations have signed and ratified, then Reference Paper No. 6, to which I made reference, w ill tell her exactly those countries which have not ratified. I do not have the information in front of me.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, are Her Majesty's Government aware that we males are extremely reluctant to have our pay and salaries reduced to the level of the females?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the answer he has given is precisely the same as that given by the Tories for the last thirteen years? If it is possible for 54 countries to find it economically possible to give equal pay, why is it that Great Britain, with a Labour Government, fails to do so?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, the question of equal pay obviously arouses passions and sincere feelings. I can only say again that the Government are committed to the principle of equal pay. I know that this does not satisfy certain of my noble friends. I can only say that the economic situations of other Governments do not have any great and immediate relevance to our own economic situation. This is a principle to which we are committed, and my noble friends know that; and I hope that in due course we shall be able to translate this principle into action. But it is not for me to say—I am afraid I cannot say at the moment—exactly when that will be.

SIERRA LEONE ELECTION AND COMMONWEALTH SECRETARIAT
2.44 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: 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 will use their influence to secure consideration by the Commonwealth Secretariat of the Report of the Committee headed by Mr. Justice Dove-Edwin into the circumstance of the last General Election in Sierra Leone.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, the Report to which my noble friend refers is concerned purely with the internal affairs of Sierra Leone and it would not therefore be appropriate for Her Majesty's Government to attempt to secure consideration of it by any outside body.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it is not a fact that this Report decided that the Opposition Party, led by Mr. Stevens, had won the Election, and that the Government had committed gross malpractices? While I appreciate that this is an Internal matter, may I ask my noble friend whether he will consider this new suggestion: that if the Commonwealth is to be regarded as a significant political entity it should follow the example of the Council of Europe in appointing a Commission to which, when liberties are infringed or democratic rights are abused, there might be a right of appeal?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, that is a suggestion to which I should like to give consideration. But I am sure my noble friend will be the first to agree that internal practice in any country is very much, and should remain, the responsibility of the Government and people of that country, and it would be highly dangerous if we were to move into a field when, unilaterally, we should intervene or question what might have occurred, particularly in a Commonwealth country.
LORD BROCKWAY: Yes. But my noble friend will appreciate that my proposal
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was that representations should be made to the Commonwealth Secretariat which represents all Commonwealth Governments. Is he aware that I was not suggesting that the British Government should intervene; but that the Commonwealth should follow the Council of Europe in appointing such a Commission?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the Question on the Order Paper is whether Her Majesty's Government would use their influence "to secure consideration". I replied to it. I must say that I question whether the Commonwealth Secretariat is a body which could inquire into what an independent member of the Commonwealth has been involved in. But I will certainly look at the point my noble friend has made, although, frankly, I must say that I wonder whether the Secretariat is in a position to act in the way suggested.

ATTENDANCE CENTRES FOR OFFENDERS
2.47 p.m.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: 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 how many attendance centres for offenders there are in England and Wales; and how many of the centres are for the 17 to 20 year old age group.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, the number of attendance centres in England and Wales is 63, of which two are for the 17 to 20 year old age group.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend the Minister for his reply, may I ask him whether it is envisaged having more centres for the 17 to 20 year old age group, bearing in mind that the present two in London and Manchester are adequate for those two areas? May I also remind him that many courts find it difficult to deal with breaches of probation in the age group 17 to 20 because there are not attendance centres to which those concerned can be sent? May I ask

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him whether he envisages an increase in the number of attendance centres for that age group?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, like my noble friend I am in favour of the idea of attendance centres or, indeed, of other forms of non-custodial treatment for young offenders; but in regard to the two centres which we have opened at Greenwich and Manchester the trouble is not staff but lack of clients. So far as the provision of more centres is concerned, this must await the views of the sub-committee of the Advisory Council on the Penal System, over which my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger presides, which is considering non-custodial treatment.
With regard to junior centres, it is difficult to see whether there is any more scope for further centres because, as my noble friend knows, these centres involve group activities and there would not be enough attenders living within reasonable travelling distance to support centres in less populous areas.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, in the event of this matter being considered afresh, could it be borne in mind that it might perhaps be useful if the work at the attendance centres could be extended over the weekend and directed to some activity which would be in the community's interest?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I express my regrets to my noble friend if I did not make myself quite clear. It is not a question of considering this matter afresh. This matter, among others, is being actively considered by my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger. We await with considerable interest any suggestions or proposals which are made by that sub-committee and no doubt shall act upon them. With regard to the particular point about weekend attendance centres, my noble friend will be aware that in many cases the attendance is on Saturday, but I am sure that the point he has proposed will be considered by the sub-committee and we shall be very interested to learn their views.

ST. KITTS GOVERNMENT: ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stand, in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they agree with the statement of the Chief Justice of the West Indian Associated States in November of this year deploring the fact that the Government of St. Kitts had introduced a resolution in the House of Assembly expressing lack of confidence in the administration of justice, in the midst of a series of trials of persons accused upon charges alleged to be concerned with an attempt to overthrow the existing Government; whether they are aware that the resolution and subsequent debate followed immediately upon verdicts of acquittal by the jury in the first two of three trials; and whether they have made any protest to the Government of St. Kitts against the arbitrary denial of ordinary civil rights of defence to accused persons in St. Kitts and the use of arbitrary orders of deportation, and if not why not.]
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the matters referred to in the resolution of the House of Assembly and in the statement of the Chief Justice and the civil rights of defence of accused persons are all matters relating to the administration of justice in the Associated State of St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla. Her Majesty's Government have no responsibility for the administration of justice in the State.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for the trouble he has taken to evade the Question which I was trying to ask him, may I ask a supplementary question? It is a fact that Her Majesty's Government are at present subsidising the Government of St. Kitts to the extent of something like £1 million West Indian dollars a year? And if that is correct, and if the stories which are circulating from one end of the West Indies to the other about the gross subversion of civil liberties in that country are correct, does it not present to the world a picture of the British Government openly subsidising the subversion of civil liberties in a former Colony?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I did not evade the Question; I answered the Question. The noble Lord, if he doubts it, has only to read the West Indies Act 1967. Her Majesty's Government have no responsibility for the internal proceedings of the State of St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla. We give aid to that territory, but that is what we undertook to do, and I am quite sure that in time that country will make progress and that much of the point of criticism in the noble Lord's Question will have disappeared.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, with due respect, may I ask a further supplementary question? Am I to understand that the principle is that the British Government, in giving subsidiary aid to a former Colony, does not consider itself in any way concerned with the way that Colony is administrated, and that, however badly it may controvert all our principles, we shall continue to supply aid in that form?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have undertaken to give aid and assistance to the state of St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla, as we have given aid to many other countries. The problems to which the noble Lord refers are difficult ones. If the noble Lord will look at all the information which is available, he will see that many of the problems arise from both sides of the political spectrum in that country. I think it would be wrong, particularly at this stage when there is a Parliamentary mission out in that part of the world seeking reconciliation, for this matter to be pursued.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government whether the present embarrassment of Her Majesty's Government would not have been considerably eased if they had taken the same line in the beginning with the Republic of South Africa as they are now taking with St. Kitts?
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, will my noble friend not confirm that it is the principle of Her Majesty's Government to grant-aid not only Commonwealth but also non-Commonwealth countries, with no intention of interfering, either by any grant-aiding or withholding of aid, in the internal affairs of such countries?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the purpose of aid by this country over many years has been to grant-aid and to give assistance to the people of that country.

B.E.A. AIRCRAFT REPLACEMENTS
2.55 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question of which I have given Private Notice.
[The Question was as follows:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the decision not to support the development of the BAC 2–11 aircraft requested as first choice by B.E.A., they are willing to give the Corporation a written direction under the appropriate Act for purchase of the Trident 3B or some other less suitable type; and further, how Her Majesty's Government propose now to implement the pledge of ensuring that D.E.A. can operate as a fully commercial undertaking with the fleet it requires."
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, The first step is for B.E.A. to consider the future composition of their fleet in the light of the Government's decision to support the development of the Trident 3B but not that of the BAC 2–11, and to approve the purchase of the Trident 3B by B.E.A. should the Corporation so decide. Section 13 of the Air Corporations Act, 1967 provides the statutory basis for settling the lines of B.E.A.'s investment with the approval of the Board of Trade. The implementation of the Government's pledge to B.E.A. of August 2, 1966, which still stands, must depend on the type and number of aircraft finally decided on.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, this is a serious decision which penalises the economic efficiency of B.E.A. While I accept that there is a balance of considerations in the decision, as is made clear in the Second Report of the Committee on Nationalised Industries, are the Government now not making B.E.A. travel "second-class" economically, and should we not debate this very grave step, both in its general implications to national policy on a wider front than B.E.A. and also in its particular application? I have one further question. Are not the Government putting

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B.E.A. in the corner, denying first the Boeing aircraft, secondly the 2–11, and facing B.E.A. with no alternative to the Trident 3B? If that is so, would it not be fair for the Government to indicate to B.E.A. that they expect B.E.A. to order the Trident, and so take from the shoulders of B.E.A. the responsibility of being forced to use something which is not the most suitable for the purpose required and an aircraft which, the Government themselves admit, has slender prospects of any export orders?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I can well understand the noble Lord's feelings about this matter, but I am sure that he would not wish to over-emphasise the difficulties faced by B.E.A. If they decide to buy the Trident 3B, they will be buying an aircraft with fine passenger appeal, whose running costs will be at least equal to, and probably superior to, those of the Boeing 727 which they originally wanted to buy. So far as a debate is concerned, we would be very ready to consider through the usual channels the possibility of a debate, though I should have thought that it would be better to allow the Corporation time to consider the implications of the Government's decision.
As for the noble Lord's last question about putting B.E.A. "in a corner", I would point out that the Corporation are entitled to the freedom to make their own decision as to the equipment they would like to buy. But I am sure that the House would agree that Her Majesty's Government must be free to decide, particularly in the present economic situation, whether they have to find something like £120 million in order to finance the development of a particular aircraft.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the noble Lord has said on two occasions, "If B.E.A. decide to buy the Hawker Trident". What I am not quite clear about is: what other alternative is possible for them?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, that is not for me to say. This is a matter for the Corporation. All I am saying is that Her Majesty's Government could not agree to the lines of investment which would be involved if the BAC 2–11 were purchased. Secondly, as I have already made clear, Her Majesty's Government cannot in the present situation
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agree to the financing of the BAC 2–11, which would require something like £120 million of public money.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I quite understand the noble Lord's reasons. But he keeps saying: "If B.E.A. decide to buy the Trident", and what I am asking is: what else can they do?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as I am sure the noble Lord will know, as he follows these matters very closely, B.E.A. have already decided to buy—in fact they are now being made—a number of BAC 1–11 500 series. There is also a possibility in the further future, if the European airbus comes along, that B.E.A. may decide to use the equipment which they have now and which they have already ordered.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he can say to what extent the decision of the Government, in forcing this decision on B.E.A., has been governed by their desire to enter into joint commitments with other European countries to build a European aircraft, instead of allowing B.E.A. to use British aircraft?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as the noble Lord will know, the Select Committee, which went into this question very closely, advised that if in future this country were to build a large new civil aircraft, it should only do so if there was European agreement as to the specifications, and European agreement as to the financing of it. Undoubtedly, this policy was at the back of the minds of Her Majestys Government when they came to the present decision. But as I have said, the overwhelming factor in all this is the necessity of finding, if they were going in for the BAC 2–11, something like £120 million.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord two supplementary questions arising from his answer? Can he tell us whether, given this decision, the British airframe industry will now be taking the design lead in any major commercial project? Secondly, can he give an assurance that the Government have not abandoned possible support for the Rolls-Royce RB 2–11 engine?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the RB 2–11 project is not affected by this

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decision, although of course it would have been a fine thing had there been a British airframe into which the engine could have gone. The company have announced that the RB 2–11 will be developed, and there are good export prospects. So far as the noble Earl's first question is concerned, the design lead of another European project ought to be taken this time by Britain.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, surely the noble Lord does not mean the European airbus, the design lead for which has been taken by Sud-Aviation?
LORD BESWICK: No, my Lords. I had that in mind. That, of course, has been taken by the French, and in the event of a further European project the design lead should be taken by this country. No doubt this point was in mind when the Minister said that we were already considering the possibility of a design study of a mini-airbus.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, could the noble Lord tell us what stage of development the RB 2–11 has reached so far, and if necessary whether the Government will give a further development contract to assist export orders? Secondly, what difference was there, in fact, between the proposed operating costs of the Trident 3B and of the BAC 2–11?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I cannot give the actual figures, but undoubtedly the noble Earl is right in thinking that the 2–11 would have been the better aircraft of the two. There is absolutely no doubt about that. That is why B.E.A. wanted to buy the BAC 2–11. So far as the RB 2–11, the engine, is concerned, I cannot, without notice, say anything about Government support of that.

THE ECONOMIC SITUATION
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, at a convenient moment after half-past three my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making a statement on the economic situation.

PONIES BILL [H.L.]
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to improve conditions under which ponies are exported to prohibit or restrict the export of certain ponies; and for purposes connected therewith. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Silkin.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

CONSUMER PROTECTION BILL [H.L.]
3.6 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be in Committee (on Recommitment) read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Brown.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, would it be convenient, on this Motion, to ask what are the intentions of the Government on this Bill? I think it might be for the convenience of all of your Lordships if the Government were to say what are their intentions in regard to the handling of the Bill. I have seen the note on the Order Paper that it is proposed to adjourn the Committee stage at 7 o'clock.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, perhaps I may answer that question. The intention was to reach Clause 17, with the exception of Clause 11 about which it was said that special arrangements would be made. We further hope that it will be possible to reach Clause 17 by about 7 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I take it from that that if we have not reached Clause 17 by 7 p.m., the Government would like us to go on after that?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I think the best thing to do is to see how we get on. Certainly, if we are nearing the end and it is getting near 7 o'clock, I should have thought we could go on for a few minutes.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AILWYN in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Prohibition of false trade descriptions]:
THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD BROWN): The object of the first Amendment on the Marshalled List in my name is to make it clear beyond all doubt that Clauses 2 to 6 of this Bill are to have effect solely for the purpose of the Bill, and that they do not in any way affect the law of contract or the normal meaning of terms when used elsewhere than in this Bill. Some of your Lordships have been doubtful whether the Bill as it stands is clear enough about this matter, particularly with reference to Clause 6. We did not share these doubts, but we have redrafted Clause 1(2)—which is the key to the matter—in order to make assurance double sure and to remove the fears which have been expressed. I hope your Lordships will therefore accept the Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 11, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
("(2) Sections 2 to 6 of this Act shall have effect for the purposes of this section and for the interpretation of expressions used in this section, wherever they occur in this Act.")—(Lord Brown.)
LORD DRUMALBYNhad given Notice of his intention to move, as an Amendment to the Amendment, in line 2, after "effect" to insert "only". The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Amendment to the Amendment is to make certain that Clauses 2 to 6 would have effect, as the noble Lord has put it, solely in relation to Clause 1 or in conjunction with Clause 1. Since the noble Lord has assured us of that, and if he can assure us that the word "only" would not help, and indeed is unnecessary, then I shall not need to move the Amendment.
LORD BROWN: Quite briefly, I can assure the noble Lord that the word "only" is indeed unnecessary.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am much obliged.
LORD AIREDALE: It is one thing for the Minister to be satisfied that this word is unnecessary, but this is a Bill which will have to be read and understood by
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magistrates. I should have thought that, to make it abundantly clear, there was every reason for including the word "only", as the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has suggested. It can only make the matter more abundantly clear to the magistrates who have to read and interpret the Act. I hope, therefore, that the Amendment will be moved and accepted.
LORD BROWN: This is really a matter of drafting convention. As the Bill stands, the purport is clear. Moreover, the addition would be inconsistent with drafting practice. If your Lordships were to look at the interpretation section of any modern Act, you would see that it contains some such words as,
"In this Act the following expressions have the following meanings …"
I do not think there is any case where the words are,
"In this Act, and only in this Act, the following expressions have the following meanings …".
Such additional words would be quite unnecessary; and the addition of the word "only" is equally unnecessary in the present case. What would be asked for in this Amendment is the inclusion of the word "only" in a manner which would imply that it had really been left out in thousands of other places. I ask your Lordships to accept the convention of drafting which lies behind this point, and I therefore ask the noble Lord not to move his Amendment.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I would readily have acceded to that request, but I am going to ask the noble Lord to do one more thing. If my recollection serves me aright, the words, "the effect and only effect" appear in Scottish legislation. Will he consult the Scottish and the English draftsmen to make certain that we get the same interpretation in Scotland as we expect to get in England?
LORD BROWN: Yes, I will consult upon that matter, and if there is doubt about it I will communicate with the noble Lord.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am much obliged to the noble Lord. In that case, I do not move the Amendment.
3.13 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 1, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD DRUMALBYN: May I put some points on Clause 1? The first is that I think we must be clear what we are talking about in this Bill, and I should like to refer to the word "goods" in this clause. It says:
"applies a fake trade description to any goods …",
and so forth. There is a definition of "goods"; or, at any rate, Clause 37, at line 36 on page 19, refers to "goods" as including,
"ships and aircraft, things attached to land and growing crops".
I am not quite clear why one has to distinguish between things attached to the land and growing crops. I should have thought that growing crops were attached to the land until they were detached, and then, presumably, they would not be growing any more. In any case, I should have thought that growing crops were "things". So I should not have thought there was any doubt that they were "things attached to land". However, I put that point to start with.
But I think an even more important point is whether "goods" includes houses. I should like to know whether the house agent and the speculative builder are covered by Clauses 1 to 6 or by Clause 13, or by both. What is meant by "accommodation" in Clause 13? How is accommodation consisting of houses or flats to be distinguished from accommodation in houses or flats? I well remember in another place the late Sir Winston Churchill chanting, "Units of accommodation! Units of accommodation! Sweet units of accommodation!"; so I do not think there is any doubt that "accommodation" includes houses, and I think it would be awkward if we had houses and accommodation in houses covered by two separate parts of the Bill. If different rules were to apply to these two ways of supplying or providing accommodation I think we should be in trouble. Incidentally, the distinction between "supplying" and "providing" seems artificial, and would need definition for the purposes of this Bill. In the Concise Oxford Dictionary, "Provide" is given as meaning, inter alia,
"supply, furnish",
and "Supply" is given as meaning,
"furnish, provide".
We must know what we are legislating about, and I hope the noble Lord will be
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able to tell us what is the difference between "supplying" and "providing", and what is meant by "goods" and by "accommodation" in this context.
May I again refer the noble Lord to what he said at the earlier stage of this Bill, when I asked him what the position was, so far as concerns applying false trade descriptions to any goods, of people who act on television—I think they are known as presenters; that is, the people who actually sponsor (if you like to put it that way), who are paid to sponsor, particular goods—and, secondly, of journalists who write about goods, not in the way of advertising at all but merely in the course of their business, the business of the newspapers. As the clause is drafted, it seems to me they would be covered, because there is no doubt that a newspaper is a business and there is no doubt that a journalist is employed by his newspaper. The noble Lord kindly agreed to consider this matter at a previous stage, and we should like to know what the results of his consideration are.
LORD CAWLEY: I think I can assist the noble Lord on the question of the word "goods". We have had the Trade Marks Act, which of course deals with goods, since 1887, and it is quite clear what are goods under that Act. I think that the definition of "goods" in this Bill, under Clause 37, merely extends the definition of "goods" to things which are not goods under the Trade Marks Act—that is,
"ships and aircraft, things attached to land and growing crops".
These would not be goods under the Trade Marks Act. I can assure the noble Lord that houses are not goods under the, Trade Marks Act, either. I do not consider that any further definition of the word "goods" is needed, as it has a perfectly well-known meaning in law.
LORD BROWN: The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has made a number of very important comments. First of all, I confirm that houses do not fall within the ambit of the word "goods". That means that in one sense they do not fall within the ambit of this Bill except in so far as goods are supplied within houses.
LORD DRUMALBYN: The noble Lord means in so far as accommodation is supplied in houses, does he not?
LORD BROWN: No. You could supply baths, and such like, inside houses. Of course, the question of the provision of faulty houses comes within the ambit of the civil law, and that provision is in no way removed; but when drafting this Bill it seemed doubtful whether one ought to bring too much within the ambit of the criminal law, and this Bill does not cover houses in that respect. The noble Lord asked about the difference between the words "supply" and "provide". I may have to take exact legal advice on this, but I am under the impression that "supply" is a reference to the handing over of goods whereas "provide" is a reference to the provision of accommodation, and so on, as under Clause 13 of the Bill. That is the way in which the meanings of the two words come out. The latter word, "provide", does not refer to the sale of concrete articles which are exchanged for money.
The noble Lord has asked me to make my comments on the question of actors, and so on, speaking on television. When Clause 1 was previously considered in Committee I undertook to look into this matter. I am advised that if an actor or other person employed to present a product in a television commercial says, in the course of doing so, something about, let us say, the strength of the product, and that statement is in fact false, he is in such a case a mere mouthpiece of the advertiser and would not be held to apply the false trade description to the product. The person who applies the description in such circumstances is the person who puts the words into the actor's mouth; that is to say, in the normal case, the person whose goods are being advertised.
The noble Lord also raised the question of journalists writing about goods; and this question was raised by other noble Lords in regard to editorials, and so on. I was asked whether trade description which appears in bona fide editorial matter; that is to say, something which is not a disguised advertisement—and I stress that—is a description used in the course of trade or business. The answer must depend on the circumstances in which the trade description is used. If in a news item it is stated, for example, that Christie's are to-day selling a picture by Rembrandt, the use of the trade description is not, in the context, use in
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the course of a trade or business. Where, however, it is part of the business of the proprietor of a newspaper or periodical to describe goods—as in the case, for example, where national newspapers include a weekly column describing new gadgets on the market—the use of a trade description in such a column might be in the course of a trade or business.
However, if such a comment described a coat of an identifiable brand and said that it was all wool when it was not, the newspaper might be guilty of an offence; but it would have the defence provided under Clause 23(1). In the special case where the newspaper makes it its business to describe goods in an identifiable manner, then it must do so accurately. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that we should catch the man who makes it his business to describe goods and who does so inaccurately. Apart from this, noble Lords can be assured that genuine editorial matter which applies trade descriptions to goods would not result in prosecution for applying a false description, and still less a conviction.
Perhaps noble Lords will be still further assured on this matter (which I know they take as one of great importance) if I point out that under the Merchandise Marks Act 1887 it has always been an offence to apply a false trade description to goods; and a person is deemed to apply a trade description if he uses it in a manner calculated to lead to the belief that the goods in connection with which it is used are described by the description. The original Merchandise Marks Act is very broad indeed.
The Bill we are now discussing does not differ from the existing law except to the extent that the offence in this Bill is in terms somewhat narrower, in that it applies only to the application of a false trade description in the course of a trade or business. So we have narrowed down the possibility of conviction by this Bill rather than, as may be the impression, widened it. Futhermore, the 1887 Act, which is indeed very wide, has not given rise to any difficulty as regards the use of a trade description in bona fide editorial matter. I hope these comments will reassure the Committee.
LORD HAWKE: The noble Lord was not in very good voice for the first part of his speech, and I am afraid that the

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precise method by which houses are kept out of the Bill eluded me. I know he said that the Bill does not deal with houses, but I did not hear how he kept them out. Clearly, houses are attached to land, and houses can be prefabricated houses which you can buy by looking at a catalogue and ordering them. You can also order a caravan in the same way. Are caravans which are attached to land "goods" or not? Are caravans also excluded? Is there some method by which anything in which people live is automatically excluded from the Bill?
LORD BROWN: I am informed that it is simply a convention of the law established by precedent that the term "goods" does not include houses. There is no doubt about this. It has not been held to include houses. I take it that caravans are included in the term "goods" because, although they are things in which people live, they are not houses.
LORD HAWKE: Some houses of the modern sort are prefabricated and ordered by post from the factory. Is that a caravan or a house? This is a very important point.
LORD BROWN: I have little doubt that it is a house. The term "house" does not specify how it is to be built. The fact that it is prefabricated does not render it less likely to be deserving of the term "house".
LORD AUCKLAND: I understand the noble Lord's explanation, but for one thing. With the law as it stands, houses are not included. Whether this is a good thing is open to question; but one must accept that that is the law. But one sees frequently a description of a house as a "superior, architecturally designed house". All houses are designed by an architect; but if a house is not covered by the two years National Housebuilders' guarantee, is it nevertheless not putting the consumer—that is to say, the purchaser—in a very difficult situation if he has no redress under this clause?
LORD DRUMALBYN: It might be convenient if the noble Lord were to answer all the points together. The noble Lord has put us in a certain amount of difficulty in this, because, on the one hand, he has argued that houses have never been considered as goods. He has
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not pointed to any definition in law where they are expressly distinguished from goods. On the other hand, he has told us—and I noted his words—that we should catch a person who makes it his business to describe goods and does it inaccurately. He then went on to tell us that in all the long history of the 1887 Act this has never been done. I fail to see the distinction between the two. If the term "goods" has never been considered as covering houses, how is it that misdescription has never been applied to journalists? I must tell the noble Lord that journalists would be absolutely horrified with what he has said; because I think it goes far beyond what he imagines it does. This is not just a question of a column of gadgets; it is a question of describing goods in editorial matter.
I must ask him to look at this point again. It seems to me to be most extraordinary that a journalist should be taken to court for the crime of misdescription of goods because he is inaccurate in the description of those goods, when in fact he has no advertising function and is merely carrying on his work as a journalist. I am certain that if the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, were here this afternoon the Minister would have had an absolute tornado from behind him on this matter. I hope he will consider the matter again. I think it extremely unsatisfactory. I am prepared to agree that a house is not a thing attached to land, if that is good in law; but I am certain that all journalists would rise up in horror at the idea that they are liable to be taken to court for attaching a false trade description to goods about which they happen to be writing in their column.
LORD STRABOLGI: I should like to endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has just said. I listened carefully to the explanation of my noble friend Lord Brown, but I am still not clear about one or two points. As I understood my noble friend, he said that if this is a spasmodic description, which is used from time to time, it will not be liable; but if the newspaper or magazine ran a regular, or weekly, column it would be. I cannot understand the difference between the two. In fact, as is well known, practically every newspaper runs a weekly—sometimes it is more than once a week—woman's page where they have very full descriptions of goods.

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There are of course two limbs to this. The first is, whether the newspaper should be culpable for description of goods: that we are dealing with under this clause, and I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has raised it. There is also a question which I suggest we should defer until we come to Clause 9, or possibly Clause 37, under which the Board of Trade would have the right to force a newspaper or magazine to include additional information in the whole context of Clause 9 which relates to advertising. But I suggest that we should defer discussion on that point. I think we should have a further explanation from my noble friend, Lord Brown, about the accuracy of this matter of Press descriptions with which we are dealing at the moment, and which is by no means clear. There are, of course, sponsored supplements which I should think would come within the category of advertising. But there are descriptions which are news coverage and result from journalists' examining goods and obtaining information about them. Whether they publish any description of the goods and how they describe them is left entirely to the journalists. I hope that my noble friend will let us know rather more than he has at present about what the Government have in mind.
3.30 p.m.
LORD BROWN: Here there are really two matters. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, went from houses to journalists in a manner which I am sure was quite cogent; but I got a little confused, and I will deal with them as two separate issues. To me the connection between them is not quite clear. First, I am unwilling to give a legal precedent for the exclusion of houses from the term "goods". I am sure that they are excluded, and if noble Lords would like me at the later stage of the Bill to give them legal evidence in support of this information which I have been given, I will do so. But I can assure your Lordships that that is the case. I do not wish to confuse the Committee in any way. Houses, as such, are not included in the Bill. A misdescription of them would not be caught under the provisions of the Bill. Of course, proceedings could be taken under the law of contract,
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under the civil law; but we have not included houses in this Bill. If the Committee desired that this should be done, that would be a different matter, and we should have to debate it.
Regarding newspapers and periodicals which include a column specifically concerned with providing a public service by describing goods, I would say that the proprietors are in business in doing that, and if they are stupidly careless or inaccurate, or fail to take account of the standing of the law with regard to the way they should use descriptions, they will be caught under this Bill. I am a little incredulous about some of the attitudes which have been expressed. Why should a journalist, whose business it is to give this service to the public, be allowed to do it inaccurately, or be protected from the effects of so doing that other people suffer if they misdescribed their goods? Why should a journalist, whose business it is to describe goods in such a way, get off scot-free in such circumstances? I see no ground for suggesting that he should be left in an extremely protected position. If he is writing editorial matter which is not part of this specific service of describing goods, and he ventures into a description of goods, he would be all right; I am assured of that. But if he is in business writing a special column, describing goods in an identifiable manner by the use of trade names or by using the name of the supplier, and he does so inaccurately, he should be stopped, and this Bill will stop him.
LORD AUCKLAND: Surely the Board of Trade would have the remedy of the Press Council, which could step in if there were a gross inaccuracy. The Board of Trade could take action through the Council. Surely the Press Council has fairly wide discretionary terms.
LORD DRUMALBYN: May I ask a further question? I am sorry that I did not make myself clear. I think that a deduction may be made from the fact that apparently (I say "apparently" after what the noble Lord, Lord Brown, has said) there have been no prosecutions of journalists under the Merchandise Marks Acts for eighty years. The presumption is that this could be the case only because it was not possible to bring a prosecution. I cannot believe that if it had been possible

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to prosecute a journalist under the old Acts for misdescribing goods, that would not have happened. Therefore it follows that this Bill must be making a change in the law with respect to journalists and we are entitled to question that change in the law. I warn the noble Lord that he must look into this matter much more carefully if he intends a change in the law, because it is so extremely difficult to draw the line.
Why should one draw the line, to start with, between misdescribing goods and misdescribing any other kind of news? And then what an enormous difficulty you can get into! If a journalist reports news wrongly, it may have an effect on business decisions and may cause people a considerable loss. But he is to be taken to court for misdescribing goods, where perhaps the loss is much less than might be caused by the misreporting of news. I see little logic in that and it seems to me that the Government ale embarking on a very dangerous course. Surely the right course is to make clear that so long as the journalist had no financial or other interest in what he misdescribed, but acted in good faith, he ought not to be liable under this Bill. I suggest that the noble Lord should study this point further.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: I hope that my noble friend, Lord Brown, will look at this matter again, because it seems a very strange interpretation of this Bill to say that its provisions apply to editorial matter in the newspapers or any other publication. After all, the governing words are:
"Any person who, in the course of a trade or business, … applies a false trade description to any goods …"
It does not say a person who misdescribes the goods. That undoubtedly would be the case where there was a misdescription by a journalist writing an article. The words here, and they are the words which have been derived from the original Act, are, "applies a false trade description to any goods." Clearly, in its origin this was intended to relate to dealing with the actual goods and not a description of them published as editorial matter. This is strengthened by the next part of the clause which says:
"supplies or offers to supply any goods to which a false trade description is applied".
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This clearly covers the case of a person who is selling goods or offering them for sale, but surely it does not apply to a person who has no interest whatsoever in the goods and is merely writing an article in a journal or newspaper telling the public what he has seen when he went to an exhibition or something of that kind.
LORD CAWLEY: I feel that the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, may be right on this point. At the beginning of Clause 1, the words "trade or business" are used. The courts might easily interpret it as meaning trade or business in the goods, and not carrying on trade or business as a newspaper proprietor. I think that here there is a grave doubt.
LORD BROWN: I think the point is being missed, and I hope that I shall not appear to be obstinate. We are not concerned with journalists. That word has been used by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, as if I all have said referred to the normal course of journalism. We are concerned with people whose trade or business it is to describe goods. One would not normally refer to them, except in the broadest sense, as journalists, although they could be said to fall within the ambit of the term. We must focus on the point that only when it is their trade or business may they be caught up by the provisions in this Bill.
May I also add that if it were to be proven that prosecutions against journalists were not possible under the Merchandise Marks Act, to which reference has been made, then equally it would not be possible to proceed against journalists under this Bill. There is no question about that, This Bill has not broadened the attack on these "describing journalists" or whatever phrase you like to use; it has narrowed the attack on them. I am advised that this is so, and I am quite convinced of it personally. I think we are getting quite unnecessarily alarmed about this matter.
I put it to the Committee where we have these men who make their living by describing goods, as a service to the public—and whose function it is to look at the goods, examine them closely and become technical experts, if you like—and the public are going to buy the magazines because they expect to find an accurate

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description of the goods—and when these men, even with deliberation, describe them falsely, are we going to say that we cannot attack them under this Bill, although we will attack any manufacturer or retailer who does so? I think that that argument is very weak. I defend my position.
I wonder whether at this stage it would be appropriate, in order that the House may hear a Statement from my noble friend the Leader of the House on the economic situation, for me to move that the House do now resume.
Moved, accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

THE ECONOMIC SITUATION: SOUTH AFRICA ARMS EXPORTS BAN
3.41 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, with permission of the House I should like to repeat a Statement on the economic position which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is making in another place. The Statement is as follows:
"I feel it right before the House rises for the Recess to make a full statement of the Government's intentions about the way in which we are now engaged in deciding on the measures necessary to ensure that industry, trade, agriculture, indeed the country as a whole, take full advantage of the opportunity presented by devaluation.
"The Government have made clear that, in order to achieve a progressive and massive swing in our balance of payments over the next two years, a substantial diversion of resources will be needed to exports, to import replacement and to investment.
"The Statement of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary on November 20 outlined the first package of measures directed to this end.
"The Government have made clear that progressively up to the Budget, and indeed at any time afterwards, when this becomes necessary, steps will be taken to ensure that home demand, including Government expenditure, is not allowed to develop to a point where the necessary shift of resources to the
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priority purposes of earning a payments surplus is for one moment endangered.
"As my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made clear the intention is to ensure beyond all doubt that as exports, import-saving and investment build up, the resources will be available to meet them.
"It is our intention to maintain economic growth and rising employment, taking progressively the measures needed to shift the emphasis from a consumer-led expansion to an export-led expansion. At the same time it will be the determination of Her Majesty's Government not to allow that steady expansion, as it develops over the next year and into 1969, to degenerate into a situation of inflation and excessive pressure on resources and capacity.
"As the policy develops through the period of the Estimates, the Budget and subsequently, it will mean reductions in the growth of personal expenditure and reductions in the growth of public expenditure. On personal expenditure, the success of the Government's prices and incomes policy is of crucial importance. While I cannot anticipate my right honourable friend's Budget statement or any other measures which may be needed to restrain consumption, the severity of such restraint will clearly depend on the co-operation which the Government receive in implementing their prices and incomes policy.
"So far as public expenditure is concerned, the House will be aware, through long experience, that expenditure programmes take several years to mature and that decisions taken at any moment of time may have little impact on immediate Estimates. But decisions taken now can in certain spending areas have a growing effect in the second year and a decisive effect in the third and subsequent years, provided that the decisions are taken now.
"The examination of spending programmes which this involves is being tackled in a mood of urgency. While I should have liked to give the House all the necessary details before the Recess, honourable Members will I think agree, in view of the important nature of the expenditure areas to be

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considered, that it would be wrong to press on with over-hasty decisions without considering all the implications. Full details will be given to the House and the decisions which have to be taken will be taken in time to govern the 1968–69 Estimates, as well as subsequent Estimates.
"But I should tell the House this.
"First, we are not approaching this expenditure review, whether in respect of home or overseas expenditure, on the basis of candle-ends or simply on the basis of minor administrative economies, though we shall not of course neglect any opportunities here. Neither are we looking for prospects of under-spending or the shifting of expenditure from one financial year to another. We are bringing under stringent review all major areas of policy, both at home and overseas, where substantial expenditure is involved.
"Secondly, no area of expenditure can be regarded as sacrosanct for the purposes of the searching examination we are making; no spending commitment, whether inherited three years ago or incurred since.
"Thirdly, it will cover local government expenditure as well as Central Government expenditure.
"Fourthly, as I have made clear, the review will cover defence and overseas expenditure as well as home civil expenditure.
"The review as a whole is being related to what is essential in expenditure here at home and to what is appropriate at a time when we have been, and are, reassessing Britain's role in the world. This must involve overseas policy. In this connection the Government have completed their examination of the question of the supply of defence equipment to South Africa and have decided that their policy on this matter—namely, to conform to the Security Council resolution of June 18, 1964—remains unchanged.
"I should add that I have the authority of the whole Cabinet categorically to repudiate as inaccurate reported statements about the position taken by the Cabinet as a whole, by a Cabinet Committee which met a week earlier, and also about the position
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taken by the Prime Minister and other individual Ministers.
"When next month the House is given the results of our examination of all the expenditure programmes—and indeed throughout the further development of all our policies—I intend to ensure that the totality of decisions taken will be fair as between citizen and citizen; that while everyone must bear burdens, the burdens will be fairly shared; and that, while established assumptions and traditional spending commitments will have to be called in question and in appropriate cases sacrificed, the questioning and the sacrifices equally will be fairly borne.
"At the end of the day the Government will be responsible for achieving a fair balance, whether of economic or political sacrifice, and submitting it to this House. They will then call on the House to take its full responsibility in endorsing it."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement being made by the Prime Minister.
3.47 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, we must thank the noble Earl the Leader of the House for repeating this extraordinary Statement. Wherever we sit in this House, all of us have made it clear that our first interest is the state of the economy and the strength of our currency, for the national wellbeing of all of us and of our country is involved. But I believe that this Statement will have precisely the opposite effect to that intended. This is so transparently a device to try to obscure the issue of arms to South Africa by wrapping it up in an economic Statement.
This economic Statement, which incidentally we were told was not going to come until after Christmas except in an emergency (we were told that last week by the Leader of another place), really says nothing. It makes no definite economic proposals and takes no decisions save one—that is, that we are forgoing the large export order to South Africa. May I ask the noble Earl, in passing, what value can he place on that export order? I do not believe that this Statement is the right way to restore confidence. It may paper over the cracks in the Labour Party, but devices of this kind are in the long run very damaging to the country.
BARONESS ASQUITH OF YARNBURY: My Lords, I shall not attempt to comment, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has done, on the long and complex economic statement which preceded the statement we were all waiting to hear—namely, that on the embargo of arms to South Africa. I rise, on behalf of my noble friends who sit on these Benches, to say with what wholehearted relief we have heard that statement. I am not attempting to speak for noble Lords below the gangway, but speaking, as I say, only for those who sit on these Benches. We heard with wholehearted relief that this country intends to stand by its pledged word, given at the United Nations in June. 1964, and also to uphold its long tradition of the challenge to human rights wherever they are in danger. We should like to congratulate the Prime Minister on his victory over those elements, whether in his own Party or outside it, who have attempted to persuade him to devalue our pledged word and our great tradition in defence of human rights.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for putting into those words her strong moral support for the line that we have taken in regard to arms for South Africa. I do not think it would be right (I must say this as she used a certain expression) to talk of enemies inside the Government; nor, except in a purely political sense, of enemies outside. There have been difficult problems here, and I do not think one need apologise that it has taken us a little time and some argument to make up our minds. In that respect we have no reason to feel inferior to those who make up their minds more easily. I am grateful for the general line the noble Baroness has taken, knowing what confidence her words on any large moral or political question command not only here, but so widely.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was not able to agree with the noble Baroness and felt bound to disparage this Statement. I think when he has had time to read it more carefully—I realise that he has had only a moment or so—he will consider that it is of real economic importance. The noble Lord shakes his head; but the matters are not exactly where they were left on November
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20. Therefore I hope that, on reflection, he will feel that he was somewhat hasty.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I did ask the noble Earl a question about the value of the order from South Africa. Could he answer that?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, there was an inquiry but I am not sure that the full extent of the inquiry has been published.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, surely the Government must know what they have refused. Surely the House is entitled to know what the Government have decided not to export.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, the Government certainly know what it amounts to, and I can say that it was an order which would have run over ten years. Whether the precise amount has been or will be published I am not certain at the moment. I can easily let the noble Lord know.
3.54 p.m.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware—I think he must be—of the protests which have been made at the United Nations over many months past by the noble Lord, Lord Caradon, who is Her Majesty's representative there, in which he has pointed out "the prejudice, discrimination and double-talk" (these are his words) which go on in the framing of United Nations resolutions? Only last week he had to protest at the resolution on Gibraltar, described by him as "a disgrace, partial, misguided and contrary to the principles of the U.N.". How much longer, I would ask the noble Earl, are they going to allow resolutions passed under this sort of background as a cover for the sabotaging of British exports at a time when we are fighting for our lives in the export field?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, the resolution which was passed on June 18, 1964—I will read it, in case the noble Lord has not got it in mind—ran as follows:
"That the Security Council reaffirms its call upon all States to cease forthwith the sale and shipment to South Africa of arms, ammunition of all types, military vehicles and equipment and materials for the manufacture and maintenance of arms and ammunition in South Africa."

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May I point out to the noble Lord that this resolution was passed in June, 1964, before the present Government came in, and is one for which the United Kingdom actually voted?
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, I am aware of that; and if the noble Lord would like to join me in declaring that it was a great mistake to give that vote, I will come with him. But will he also remember that at that time it was pointed out that we were not going to use that vote to prevent arms for the defence of South Africa from being exported from this country. It is the noble Earl's Government who have refused these exports worth hundreds of millions of pounds. So do not let him try to get away with it by blaming the Tories for refusing these exports. They did not.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I was not blaming the Tories. I do not think it is valuable to cast blame in serious matters of this kind. I was pointing out that this was a resolution, in the terms I have mentioned, which was carried by the United Nations in June, 1964; that we voted for it, and we in this Government intend to honour our word.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, can the noble Earl say whether France voted for this 1964 resolution; and if France did not vote for it, does the noble Earl not feel that, in effect, we are making France a present of an order of £200 million?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I do not work out my equations of international morality in quite that way. On the subject of France, I think we can all take a good deal of instruction and inspiration from the noble Baroness, Lady Asquith of Yarnbury, in view of some of the things she has been saying over the weekend. The answer to the noble Lord's question is that France, Czechoslovakia, and the U.S.S.R. abstained.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether he realises that the Statement which he has read out will increase the cynicism with which people in this country regard politicians in general, and the Government in particular? Would he say what element in
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the economic content to which he has referred in the Statement is new. And would he say when there will be a Statement by the Government filling in the details promised in the Statement that we have just heard in regard to the action the Government intend to take, quite apart from the vague prophecies which the Statement appears to propound?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, if the noble Lord will allow me to say so, I often find myself more in agreement with him than do some of his colleagues. Therefore I am sorry to receive this statement of his about increasing cynicism in regard to the present Government. He asked me what is new. It indicates a new approach, a new expenditure review; and it does in that sense go further than the Statement of November 20, in which £400 million worth of cuts were indicated. The noble Lord wants to know what it does, and I tell him that it takes us beyond the Statement of November 20. I am sorry that he should talk about cynicism. I do not think that helps anybody.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, while we naturally support the Government—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh!
LORD OGMORE: What is wrong with that? I said that "we"—I am talking about the Liberals—support the Government in carrying out the pledged word of the Government of the day. I cannot understand the Opposition objecting to the Government's carrying out something which they entered into. I think that the cynicism is on the Conservative Benches. But I want to ask one question that I think is important. What steps are the Government going to take to make sure that other countries who also either voted for or did not vote against this resolution will carry out their obligations, too? Are we going to be left as the only people who carry out our pledged word, or are we going to see that others do the same.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, it would be wrong to suggest that most other countries are breaking the revolution, but, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, three countries abstained; and they might not feel the same degree of obligation. I sympathise with the noble Lord's point

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of view, and if he has any suggestions for persuading these other countries to behave correctly, Her Majesty's Government will be glad to receive them. But we are not omnipotent in matters of this kind.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House two questions? Is it the policy and intention of Her Majesty's Government that the South African Government should not be able to defend their country against external aggression? If that is not the object, can he say what purpose of morality is served by the South African Government's having to obtain supplies from other countries? The second question is this. Can he say what effect this decision will have on the fate of Simonstown?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I cannot answer the second question, because no one could answer it at this moment. But, as regards the first question—I am not quite sure whether the noble Lord was here when I made my Statement—
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I am afraid that I was coming across from another place. I apologise for that. I thought that the Statement made here was the same as that made there.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: The noble Lord and I are very old friends, and he is a much-respected Member of the House, but I deprecate the course of hearing Statements there, picking up some supplementaries, and bringing them here.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, arising out of the noble Earl's reply, in which two points were particularly made—that no policies would be sacrosanct and exports particularly were to be given support—may I ask this question? Is he aware that in the National Export Council, whose expenses are borne to the extent of 50 per cent. by Her Majesty's Government, the Central Council Chairman, and the President and Chairman and the whole of the Committee of the Southern African Area have all made representations to the appropriate Ministers as to the dangers that may be attracted to our civilian exports to our third biggest customer by this decision? Secondly, has he noted that the dollar
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premium, by which foreign financial interests are accustomed to measure the strength or weakness of sterling, has already again, since devaluation, risen to 32 per cent., and therefore presents a sad picture of the measurement of the effect of the Government's policies on sterling in the money markets of the world?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, with great respect to the noble Lord, I do not think that the last point arises to-day, certainly not in the form of a question. If we have an economics debate, he would no doubt wish to bring those points forward. If the noble Lord asks me whether I am aware that certain gentlemen helping this country a great deal in regard to exports might have come to a different decision, I am ready to believe that it is so. This is not an easy question, because the economic arguments lie in one direction and the moral and political arguments lie in another. A balance has to be struck by the Government of the day, and not by any particular group of businessmen, however patriotic.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, since the noble Earl implied that my questions were prompted by something I heard in another place, may I say that neither of the questions I asked was raised at any time while I was there?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am quite ready to believe it. I just wondered whether the custom of Members listening to a Statement there and then putting questions here would help this House.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl two questions? I was a little surprised to hear what he had to say about the Simonstown Agreement. I should have thought that the Government would have weighed very carefully this decision which they have just made about arms to South Africa and the repercussions of that on the Simonstown Base and the Simonstown Agreement. Would he not agree with me that the closure of the Suez Canal has greatly enhanced the importance of the Base and, indeed, of the Agreement? Secondly, I think I heard aright that the Statement said that the Government were bringing under stringent review all major areas of policy at home and abroad. Only a few months

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ago we were told that the long-continuing process of review of defence policy was at an end. May I take it that the Statement means that this review of defence policy is once again to be re-reviewed?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, as regards Simonstown, I hope I did not give the noble Earl the impression that this matter has been dealt with lightly. Those most directly concerned have weighed it up very carefully. But I am not in a position this afternoon to make a forecast of the effect, if any, on the situation there. But I should not like to give the impression that one did not treat it as a serious matter. The short answer to the last point of the noble Earl's question is, I believe, contained in the Statement, which he will see when he has more time to study it. All forms of expenditure will come under careful review.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, the short answer then is, Yes?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, if the noble Earl likes to frame a question and then to answer it, he may do so. I prefer to fall back on words in the Statement, which I think will be more enlightening.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, may I say that we are heartily glad that the Government have stuck to their principles on the question of arms to South Africa? May I ask the noble Earl whether he can assure the House that, as a result of the further defence review, further cuts of outmoded defence commitments and expenditure will be made, so that this country has a foreign policy which it can afford and which is based on morality?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said. I know how deeply this goes to the heart of the Labour Party and what it stands for, and to the hearts of many people, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Asquith of Yarnbury, and others in no way connected with the Labour Party. About defence, I can only repeat what I said to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe. Everything will be reviewed. I should not like to give the impression that, without this further review, we are landed with a lot of outmoded equipment which is inefficient.
LORD OAKSHOTT: My Lords, will the noble Earl accept that there is no monopoly anywhere of moral feeling and moral principles? Many of us feel that, particularly in the context of this South African problem. None the less, is he aware that, hand in hand with growing prosperity of the Republic, the material wellbeing of the African population has shown, and continues to show, marked improvement? Therefore, both in their interests and in view of our own economic plight, surely there is everything to be said for pursuing all markets, even defence markets—though perhaps on a selective basis—in order to broaden our trade with them and expand the volume of it in both directions.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord is entitled to put that point of view, but obviously the Government do not consider that, on balance, it prevails. I quite agree that when we are talking about South Africa we must think about all the people in South Africa and consider the effect on them. But, weighing everything up, we do not consider that a step in complete defiance of the United Nations would be calculated to improve relations between white and black people in the long run in arty part of the world.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, may I put a very short question? How does the Prime Minister expect a growth in the economy and soaring export trade, with bank rate at 8 per cent., the most crushing taxation of any country in the world, and apparently, as we have heard, a trade policy tied to the political ideologies of the Socialist Party?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, the noble Viscount will not expect a Socialist to answer that, because he will feel that a policy which is tied to Socialist principles has an ultimate and obvious condemnation, while I, of course, take pride in it.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, in applying the extra squeeze now forecast, will the Government bear in mind the necessity for a greatly increased rate of production investment in this country, particularly, for example, in power stations and communications, which are vital for expansion of production in future? Will they also bear in mind that, unless some

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protection can be given to the right to work and to produce, we shall have a permanent excess of demand over supply and the squeeze will be entirely frustrated?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that the very sensible points he has just brought forward will be borne very carefully in mind.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, may I apologise to the noble Earl for interrupting him? But arising out of the earlier question, on which I misunderstood him, may I ask whether there is any precedent for a general financial Statement being made just before the Recess, without an opportunity for a general discussion?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I should hesitate to answer that question offhand, but I should be very surprised if there were not precedents.

CONSUMER PROTECTION BILL [H.L.]
4.10 p.m.
Committee stage resumed.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: I have listened carefully to what has been said about Clause 1, and I am amazed that journalists are included. It never occurred to me that "in the course of a trade or business" would penalise journalists. Can my noble friend enlighten me on this point? If someone writes a weekly column in a paper, perhaps on consumer matters, and they misdirect the public, will they be guilty of an offence under this Bill? I should have thought that if a journalist were to write incorrectly about merchandise the manufacturer concerned would be able to take action against him, irrespective of this Bill.
LORD HAWKE: I think the noble Lord said rather lightheartedly that journalists would be included in this, but I feel sure there would be an awful outcry in the country if that were so. For instance, from time to time I read a journal called Which. Will it be possible to hold the writer of every article in that
1300
estimable journal responsible, and to bring a criminal action against him, if he makes a slip in recommending or not recommending some particular item? I think it is grossly unfair.
LORD BROWN: I am surprised at the course this debate has taken. Perhaps I may repeat what I have already said, that is, that the use of the word "journalist" in this general sense is somewhat misleading. If someone calls himself a journalist and earns his living by providing the service of describing goods in a column of a newspaper or a periodical, and he identifies goods precisely, and misdescribes them, thereby misleading the public into buying those goods, in this particular case only he is liable for prosecution under this Bill. May I remind the Committee once more that in the past he has been liable under the Merchandise Marks Act, and that therefore this Bill does not increase the danger in which the journalist stands. On the contrary, it is restricting that danger to the writer who earns his living in the course of his trade or business by describing goods in an identifiable form. It seems to me to be absolutely justified. If we are to protect the public against wholesalers, manufacturers, retailers and people who write advertisements, why should we go out of our way to protect the category I have described, who may possibly mislead the public for their own gain? I think this is quite justified, and I am surprised that nobody has risen to support the point of view I am putting forward.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: Before the noble Lord sits down, may I refer to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke? I see a distinction between a journalist who writes a column on consumer affairs in a newspaper or periodical, and one who writes in a journal like Which, in which journalists write articles after tests of merchandise have been made.
LORD STRABOLGI: Before my noble friend replies, may I ask a question about the point with regard to defences? A journalist can only describe facts which are based on information he has been given, and his interpretation of that information. In a way he is rather like the advertising agent. There is a specific

1301
defence for advertising agents in Clause 24, whereas there is no defence for journalists, who need it even more than the advertising agents who are working more closely with their clients. The journalist is merely writing up news that he is given, and if in future he is going to be culpable I think it is essential that there should be some defence open to him which, so far as I can see, is not in the Bill at present.
LORD BROWN: I am afraid I cannot refer the noble Lord to chapter and verse offhand, but in so far as the journalist is indulging in a trade or practice he is misapplying descriptions of goods. If somebody does this inadvertently there is no reason to suppose that the normal defence is not open to him. With regard to the point raised by my noble friend Lady Burton of Coventry, I imagine that the particular journal she mentioned would be the last deliberately to misdescribe goods, or perhaps even to do it inadvertently, but if that journal were guilty of the criminal offence of misdescribing goods and misleading the public they would come within the ambit of this provision.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: I am sorry, that was not quite the point. I must be stupid. In fact I am agreeing with that. I was merely saying to my noble friend that while I did not agree that a journalist with a weekly column on consumer affairs should come within this provision, I think the matter is different in so far as the magazine Which is concerned.
LORD DRUMALBYN: The noble Lords has been harrassed from all sides on the motion that Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill, and I think he will have been impressed with the fact that there is a considerable amount of feeling, and a great deal of doubt, about the effect of this clause as it now stands. It may be that new means of presenting news are now arising, which he would like to check, but the noble Lord went on to say that this is the one and only narrow group that will be caught. There I think he is entering into the realms of prophecy.
LORD BROWN: May I interrupt the noble Lord? I want to emphasise that I am advised that it is this narrow group which, in the course of carrying out their special form of journalism, are engaged in
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trade or business. That is the only way in which a journalist can be fitted into this category. This is the core of the statements I have been making. The noble Lord is now questioning the validity of this means of defining journalists who would come within the ambit of the Bill.
LORD DRUMALBYN: We have all taken note of the Government's intention in this matter. I am only saying that I think the intention will have to be looked at much more carefully. As the law evolves and is interpreted the intentions are often falsified. Therefore, I think it is necessary that we should look at this carefully between now and the next stage of the Bill. I would only add that we are bound to take the view that if the law is not being changed it seems extraordinary that no prosecutions have been brought by the Board of Trade or anybody else on this issue under the old Act. Either the law is being changed in this Bill in order to catch a particular group, or it is not being changed, and one wonders why no actions have been brought under this heading, and by the same token one wonders whether they ever would be.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [False trade description]:
4.20 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE LORD AIREDALE moved, in subsection (1), to leave out the first "is" and insert "means". The noble Lord said: I hope I shall not be told that this Amendment has been rendered unnecessary by the first Amendment which was accepted this afternoon. My objection to subsection (1) of Clause 3, which this Amendment seeks to amend, is that this very short subsection, which is only a line and a half long, is a statement of fact, and as a statement of fact is quite manifestly untrue. I venture to suggest to your Lordships that if you placed this particular subsection before any intelligent schoolchild and said, "What is the matter it?" the child would say, "It is a statement of fact and it is manifestly untrue."
One would at least expect the Government to be consistent throughout a Bill. This clause deals with false trade descriptions and this subsection defines

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them, but when you come to Clause 13 you get a kindred topic, false statements as to services, and you would suppose that the same formula would be used in the definition of false statements as to services as in false trade descriptions. You would therefore suppose that in Clause 13 you would find the definition thus: "'false' is false to a material degree" in the same way that this subsection says,
"A false trade description is a trade description which is false to a material degree".
But not at all. When you get to subsection (4) of Clause 13 you find, quite correctly and properly—and I congratulate Her Majesty's Government for it—the words:
"In this section 'false' means false to a material degree."
And in my submission it is only by using the word "means" that you can cure the manifest falsity which is contained in subsection (1) of Clause 3 which I now seek to amend. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, was kind enough to support this Amendment when I moved it the other day with what I thought was one of the shortest and strongest speeches in favour of an Amendment I have ever heard. I trust the Government are not going to perpetuate and immortalise a short subsection which is manifestly untrue, and I hope this Amendment will be accepted. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 9, leave out ("is") and insert ("means").—(Lord Airedale.)
LORD BROWN: The noble Lord is really digging himself in very deep here by referring to the Government's wording as "Gilbertian", "totally untrue". "obvious to a child", and so on. I hope he has not dug himself in so deep that he will be unable to extricate himself, because I say, with all sincerity, that he is wrong. When the clause was previously debated the noble Lord put down a similar Amendment and I promised to consider it further. I have now done so and I see no grounds for accepting the Amendment. The wording of Clause 13(4) to which he alluded was held up as a desirable model. It says: "'false' means false to a material degree". We are here giving a special meaning to an
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adjective which refers to a property of things. To say instead "'false' is false to a material degree" would be torturing the English language, and no doubt the noble Lord agrees. But in Clause 3(1) we are dealing with a different kettle of fish altogether. We are not, as in Clause 13(4) giving a restricted meaning to an adjective, but instead defining a concept. The concept is "false trade description". In its expanded form the sentence would have read: "A false trade description is defined as a trade description which is false to a material degree". That is what you can infer from the word "is"; just as instead of saying "A motor cycle is defined as a two wheeled vehicle" et cetera, one says, "A motor cycle is a two-wheeled vehicle".
LORD AIREDALE: That statement is true.
LORD BROWN: Definitions, with respect, are never true or false; they are what you choose to make of them. Particularly where we say "for the purposes of this Act", you have to remember you have to infer for each of those statements the words "for the purposes of this Act"; and for the purposes of this Act we are defining so and so to mean so and so. That is what these definitions are concerned with. We are not concerned with truth, because we are giving a meaning to a concept. You cannot say whether this is a true or an untrue meaning.
LORD AIREDALE: Before giving meaning to a concept, why do you not use the word "means"?
LORD BROWN: If you were to cause my example to read: "A motor cycle means a two-wheeled vehicle", you would be torturing the English language. Therefore, for the same reason you do not say in this clause which we are debating: "A false trade description means a trade description which is false to a material degree"; you say "is"; and it is on those grounds that I defend the wording as it stands. I suggest, with respect to the noble Lord, that in referring to Clause 13(4) he has failed to distinguish the difference between this and the clause we are debating. In the former, Clause 13(4), we are referring to an adjective. In the latter, we are referring to a phrase which is a

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concept we are seeking to define. I do not agree with the Amendment, and I hope the noble Lord will withdraw it.
LORD REA: Does the Minister suggest that when a trade description is false in only a small degree it is not false?
LORD BROWN: The expanded form of that is that: "For the purposes of this Act a false trade description is defined as a trade description which is false to a material degree". If you want to get all those words in every time you utter them, I suppose that would be possible, but this convention shortens it by leaving out "For the purposes of this Act" every time, and in this convention instead of putting in "is defined as" you put in "is". If the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, were consistent, he would have to go through the Bill and in a number of other places put in "means" instead of "is". But he has not suggested that he has taken this particular example and seeks to amend it in a way inconsistent with the way in which these documents are normally written, and he is pressing the case very strongly. I beg him to reconsider this matter.
LORD DRUMALBYN: The noble Lord has plainly been converted to a view with which he was as not entirely identified or did not give the impression of being identified at an earlier stage. One need not go too far, but the mere fact is that this statement on the face of it is ridiculous, and it seems to me that if it is possible, even at the cost of a few more words, to avoid the ridiculous we should do so.
LORD BROWN: I refute completely the suggestion that it is ridiculous. It would be ridiculous if you put in the word suggested by the Amendment. The only reason why noble Lords opposite cannot see how ridiculous it is is that they have been looking at it too long. If I set out to find the meaning of the term "motor cycle", and said "motor cycle means a two wheeled vehicle" you would say that is had English. Simply because you see it in this context for so long you think it is wrong.
LORD CAWLEY: The first part of this subsection has been in the Merchandise Marks Act since 1887 and appears
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to be all right, and I do not think we ought to tamper with it.
LORD AIREDALE: The example of the motor cycle is a true statement, and the statement I seek to amend is untrue. That is the difference between us. Of course, I listened very hard to the Minister I always do, and he puts his arguments so charmingly one cannot help listening to them. I am sorry he thinks I was so hopelessly dug in that I could not extricate myself. I am sorry he thinks that in order to be consistent I ought to amend the Bill in a number of other places. I have not myself found the other places, and the Minister has not specified them, so I do not know what other Amendments would follow from this one. I cannot deal with that point. It appears that there is overwhelming sympathy on this side of the Committee for the Amendment that I have put down, and I regret that I cannot withdraw it.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4:
Applying a trade description to goods
4.—(1) A person applies a trade description to goods if he—

(a) affixes or annexes it to or in any manner marks it on or incorporates it with—

(i) the goods themselves, or

(ii) anything in, on or with which the goods are supplied: or

(b) places the goods in, on or with anything which the trade description has been affixed or annexed to, marked on or incorporated with, or places any such thing with the goods; or

(c) uses the trade description in any manner likely to be taken as referring to the goods.

4.31 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (1)(c), after "uses" to insert "or authorises the use of". The noble Lord said: This is an important clause, because it deals with the manner of applying a trade description. Paragraph (c) covers all ways of referring to goods other than those in paragraphs (a) or (b); that is to say, other than affixing or annexing the description to the goods, or placing the goods in anything to which the trade description has been affixed. I suppose the words "uses the trade description" covers using it by letter,

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tender, circular, catalogue, and by advertisement and the rest.
In most of these cases the user will be the person supplying, or offering to supply, the goods. But in advertisements where the advertiser employs the services of an advertising agency, the advertising agency acts as a principal, not as an agent. It follows, therefore, that it is the agency and not the advertiser who is the person who, as the clause is drafted, "uses the trade description" in the advertisement which he himself has prepared and handed to the medium. Yet it is the advertiser, in my view, who ought to carry the ultimate responsibility; and I should have thought that he at least must be brought under the scope of the clause as the person authorising the use of the trade description.
We are here dealing with false trade descriptions of goods. It is for the advertiser to tell the advertising agency about the goods, their composition, their function, capabilities, strength, performance, accuracy, origin and all the rest of it. It is for him to see that the advertising agency does not tell the public what is untrue about his goods. The responsibility for trade description is therefore his, even if he chooses to give the advertising agent a free hand. Of course he will act on the advice of the advertising agency in matters in which the advertising agent is expert, just as the noble Lord acts on the advice of his civil servants in matters where they are expert. But the responsibility rests with the noble Lord, just as it rests on a person who acts on the advice of his solicitor. The responsibility still rests with him.
We on this side are anxious that the Bill should put the responsibility where it belongs in the case of advertisements as elsewhere. This Amendment does not wholly do this, but at least in the case of advertising it avoids the primary responsisibility being laid where it does not belong. So I urge the noble Lord strongly to have this put right in the Bill, and either to accept this Amendment or otherwise to introduce an Amendment at the next stage, which will lay the primary responsibility firmly on the advertiser, which is where I am certain it ought to lie. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 36, after ("uses") insert the said new words.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
4.35 p.m.
LORD BROWN: I have every sympathy with the purpose of this Amendment. If a manufacturer approves "copy" incorporating a false trade description which his advertising agent has produced, or supplies his advertising agent with false information and thereby causes the advertising agent to produce and place "copy" which uses a false trade description, the manufacturer must not escape and the advertising agent must not be brought to book on a matter which is not his responsibility. I am advised that this Amendment is really unnecessary for the purpose. It is unnecessary because the manufacturer will plainly be responsible for the use of the false trade description and may therefore be prosecuted and convicted for applying a false trade description. It will be a matter of discovery at the time.
If the manufacturer supplies his advertising agent with false information, the advertising agent is amply protected either under Clause 23 or Clause 24. But it is a matter of inquiry. When something like a false trading description appears in an advertisement, one has to look into the circumstances; and I imagine that in a large percentage of cases the manufacturer will have authorised the copy. There may be a few cases, as I pointed out to your Lordships in the previous debate, where the advertising agent has accepted and carries full responsibility. These are unusual cases, but they do occur. But in every other case the manufacturer, having approved, will automatically be brought to book. I am advised that there is no need to put this into the Bill at all; that it is clear in the legal sense as it stands. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will accept that assurance and will withdraw his Amendment.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am most grateful for the noble Lord's assurance on the effect of the Bill. I am perfectly prepared to accept what he says. The only point I want to emphasise strongly is that when he comes to give guidance to the enforcement authorities he should make certain that the matter is properly investigated, and that in the normal way

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the blame should and will, lie on the advertiser. What I am most anxious about is that the enforcement authority will not take the easy way out by prosecuting anybody other than the advertiser where investigation would show that the advertiser is really to blame. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
4.39 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: At the last stage of this Bill we had quite a long argument on the question of oral statements being included in the terms of the Bill and rendering the stator liable to a criminal prosecution if he made a wrong description. The Government's real argument was that they wanted oral statements to rank the same as written statements, and they said that unless they put it in the Bill in this particular way there was some doubt whether the Bill would in fact cover that particular aspect. They said that they saw no real difference between written and oral statements.
I really cannot agree with that concept. A written statement by a retailer has probably been compiled with due thought and has been authorised by higher authority—the manager perhaps—and the spoken statement may have been rash or reckless and made in the course of casual conversation with the shopper by, as I pointed out on the last occasion, somebody who may be a school-leaver, as are many of the retail shop people. I feel this is quite an unfair burden to put on the retailer.
There is another aspect of this matter which is rather dangerous, since this leaves the door open to all sorts of abuse. By threatening prosecutions and the like people can, perhaps not blackmail, but put pressure on retailers for whom they have acquired some sort of dislike. It would be easy to lead on some inexperienced girl or boy to make a statement which is probably not justifiable. I should have thought it quite adequate to leave the remedy in the Misrepresentation Act, which does not make it a criminal act, but lays down that if a person makes misrepresentation he is liable for damages and the cancellation of the contract. I think that is as far as one ought
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to go in respect of oral statements, and I hope that by the next stage of the Bill the Government will give consideration to that view. I feel certain that as the Bill is drafted at present a very onerous burden is put upon the retailer.
LORD CAWLEY: I do not know whether I ought to make a personal statement. I think I misled the House on Amendment No. 3. I have now been shown the Merchandise Marks Act 1887, and I see that the word "means" is used in that Act and not "is".
LORD BROWN: I am afraid that the Government are unrepentant about this oral statement, but I think with sense. I assure the noble Lord that we have not in mind a vast wave of prosecutions against shop assistants who innocently marginally mislead their customers. What we have in mind is that the Board of Trade and the authorities who prosecute have in the past had experience of these matters in other fields. The Companies Act springs to my mind immediately, and I remember our feelings in watching disaster creeping up when a number of innocent people were insuring their motor cars. We knew trouble was coming and were trying to find a way to stop it, but we found that we had not the powers. It is feelings of this sort which affect me and others in the Government to-day. We want this provision to stop very nasty forms of abuse. There will be a tendency, when we put ourselves in a position to avoid false descriptions by dealing with people who use the written word, to push them into the use of the oral word in place of the written word—we shall shift the seat of the crime. We want this Bill to take prosecutions in order to deal with some particularly nasty acts of deception which are occasionally perpetrated on the British public. I think that it would be dangerous to take this provision out of the Bill and that we should rue it in years to come.
Noble Lords are quite right to take the argument to the extreme in order to test it and to see how it would impinge on the simple shop assistant who perhaps does not quite know his business. But that is not the person we are after. As prosecuting authority, we have not time to deal with the inadvertent statement which might be misleading. In regard to this clause we are after the criminals,

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and I hope that that reassures the noble Lord.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: It would reassure me so far as the Board of Trade and the prosecuting authorities are concerned, but it does not deal in the least with the private prosecution. There is no guarantee whatever that the private prosecution will not be brought against a shop assistant on the most petty excuse or as the result of the most petty misdescription. It is not enough for the noble Lord to say what is intended by the authorities. He should bear the other point in mind.
LORD HAWKE: It is the private prosecution and the threat of the private prosecution—this is a blackmailer's clause.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: I am sure we do not want a long debate on this subject which was dealt with during the Committee stage. I should like to support the Government wholeheartedly on this matter. In fact retailers, who are reliable people, have very good training schemes for their shop assistants, and they give them every opportunity to learn how to deal with the public. It is true that some are better than others, but a reliable, honest retailer, large or small, will see to it that those who work for him know something about what they are doing. They will give a description as accurately as they can, and if they do not know they will probably say, "We do not know". As the noble Lord, Lord Brown, has said, this clause is designed to beat the unscrupulous person who, knowing that he cannot mislead on paper in an advertisement, thinks that he can get round it by allowing people to say things which are not true or which are only partially true, but things which would mislead the public. It is most important that we should have this provision in the Bill. I very much hope that the Government will stick to their guns, for it is a matter of major protection for the public.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5:
Trade descriptions used in advertisements
5.—(1) The following provisions of this section shall have effect with respect to a trade description used in an advertisement in relation to any class of goods.
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN moved, in subsection (1), to leave out from "effect" to the second "in" and insert:
"where in an advertisement a trade description is used".
The noble Lord said: With permission, I should like to discuss this Amendment together with Amendments No. 7 and 8. Their purpose is to clarify the method of identifying the goods to which a trade description is applied in an advertisement. First, they shift the emphasis in the clause to the use of a trade description in relation to a class of goods. As the Bill stands, subsection (3) refers to the question whether the goods are of the class to which the advertisement relates. Subsection (1) already makes it clear that it is the trade description in the advertisement which is at the heart of the matter. But we thought that it would make the clause easier to follow if subsections (1) and (3) were redrafted so as to emphasise the point all the way through.
This has enabled us to dispose of the concept of "associating" the advertisement with the goods which has troubled some of your Lordships. Instead, we propose that the relevant test should be whether, in all the circumstances, it is likely or unlikely that a person to whom the goods are supplied would think of them as belonging to the class in relation to which the trade description is used in the advertisement. The words "likely or unlikely" are important. They make it clear that this is not a subjective test. Goods are not to be taken to belong to a class just because an unreasonable or dissatisfied person has thought of the goods as belonging to that class. What the court is required to do is to have regard to the form and content of the advertisement, to the time, place, manner and frequency of its publication, and to all other matters making it likely or unlikely that a person to whom the goods are supplied would think of the goods as belonging to the class in relation to which the trade description is used. This is an objective test, and I think that it is a reasonable one. Finally, I think that these Amendments should remove all fears that where an advertisement refers to more than one item a trade description applying to a particular item might be taken as applying to all the goods

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covered by the advertisement. The question is quite clearly whether goods are of a class to which the trade description—and not the advertisement—relates. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 5, leave out from ("effect") to ("in") in line 6 and insert ("where in an advertisement a trade description is used").—(Lord Brown.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am not certain the clause will work, but I am certain that the noble Lord's Amendments will make it more likely to work. They represent a decided improvement on the drafting, and I should like to thank the noble Lord for the consideration which has been given to this matter.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.50 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE LORD AIREDALE moved, in subsection (2), to leave out paragraphs (a) and (b), and to insert instead:
"for the purpose of determining whether an offence has been committed—

(a) under paragraph (a) of section 1(1) of this Act; and

(b) where the goods are supplied or offered to be supplied by a person publishing or displaying the advertisement, also under paragraph (b) of the said section 1(1)."

The noble Lord said: This Amendment is put forward as a purely drafting matter, to make subsection (2) of Clause 5 easier to understand. There are 11 words which are common to paragraphs (a) and (b) of this subsection, and the purpose of this Amendment is to take those words out of paragraphs (a) and (b) and to put them in front of paragraph (a), thus making paragraphs (a) and (b) easier to understand.
The other day when I put forward a very similar Amendment, objection was taken to it by the Minister. I will not go into the arguments, because it is rather a technical and difficult matter to follow, but it occurred to me that I could cure the apparent defect in my earlier Amendment by adding the one word "also", and I have done this in the new paragraph (b) of my Amendment. With respect, I think I have now succeeded in putting forward a satisfactory draft Amendment which will have the effect of making the two paragraphs more easily understood. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, was kind enough to support me very strongly the other day.
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I am pleased to see him in his place again to-day, and I hope that this Amendment will now have the blessing of the Committee. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, leave out lines 10 to 17 and insert the said new words.—(Lord Airedale.)
LORD BROWN: This, above all, is the Amendment which I hoped would not reappear, even in its amended form, this afternoon. Your Lordships will remember that on the last occasion when this was debated I pointed out to the noble Lord, with respect, that lack of the word "also" meant that the Amendment did not quite carry out his intention; and he has now amended it. But that was not the chief ground of my appeal that he should accept the opportunity, which I held out, of meeting my own legal advisers and discussing the matter with them to see whether they could convince the noble Lord that their drafting was best, or vice versa, and I hoped to be able to shift the responsibility for debate in that way. I am still going to suggest that we do this. We could have a very substantial debate in the House this afternoon, most of which I should completely fail to understand because this is a very obscure point. But may I appeal to the noble Lord to accept my suggestion to meet my legal advisers and, in the light of the possibility of doing that, to withdraw his Amendment? I should be pleased if he would accommodate me in this way, and save us from a rather arduous and wordy debate.
LORD AIREDALE: I could not possibly fail to respond to an appeal of that kind, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN: I think I have discussed Amendment No. 7 with No. 5, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 19, after ("which") insert ("a trade description used in").—(Lord Brown.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN: I beg to move Amendment No. 8.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 23, leave out from ("would") to end of line 24 and insert ("think of the

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goods as belonging to the class in relation to which the trade description is used in the advertisement").—(Lord Brown.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6 [Offer to supply]:
4.54 p.m.
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN moved, to leave out "sale" and to insert "supply". The noble Lord said: It would be convenient if your Lordships would take Amendments 9, 10 and 11 together. It may be helpful if I begin by reading the clause as it would be if these Amendments were accepted. It would read as follows:
"A person exposing goods for supply or having goods in his possession for supply shall be deemed to offer them for supply".
This is a purely drafting Amendment. Clause 6, as originally drafted, dealt first with the ordinary case—that is, sale—and then with the other less obvious forms of supply: supply by way of hire-purchase; supply in return for trading stamps, and so on. It was hoped that this approach would be regarded as a welcome departure from what I may describe as the somewhat legalistic drafting techniques which have been so often criticised in the past. However, it was apparent from the debate which we had on this clause at an earlier stage that the perhaps somewhat unfamiliar formulation of this clause was causing confusion and difficulty. Your Lordships will recollect a very long debate over the use of the word "similarly" in the clause. It has therefore been redrafted in terms of supply alone. I hope this will dispose of the criticisms which have been made of the drafting of this clause, and that these Amendments will be accepted. I beg to move Amendment No. 9.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 25, leave out ("sale") and insert ("supply").—(Lord Brown.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: We are grateful to the noble Lord for having introduced these three Amendments. I recognise that the Government were rather pleased with their drafting of Clause 6 before the Amendments. The real trouble, of course, and where we got into difficulty on the earlier stage of this Bill, was that many of us on this side of the House felt that Clause 6 was not limited only to
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this Bill as it stood. I think that is one of the reasons why we criticised it so much. We were concerned about that, and in so far as the noble Lord has moved his first Amendment to Clause I we are less concerned with that aspect of it. But I still think it is probably wise to retain the term "supply" in this clause as the noble Lord has now moved it, rather than divide it up into sale and other methods of supply. I think that possibly the noble Lord overestimated the strength of opinion on this, because of our feeling that there was a danger, if we left this clause as dealing with exposing goods for sale and having in possession for sale, that it would be taken as being of much wider application than was intended. From that point of view, it is an improvement to use the same word, "supply", as appears in Clause 1.
LORD CAWLEY: I am sorry to be the nigger in the woodpile, but I think there is a slight error in Amendment No. 11, because the clause says that exposing goods for supply, and so on, shall be deemed to be offering them for supply. Having got to that stage, you try to find whether the words "to offer them for supply" occur anywhere else in the Bill, and they do not. Clause 1 says
"supplies or offers to supply any goods".
It would be quite easy to put that right by an Amendment to leave out from "offer" to the end of line 28, and to insert "to supply them". That would get the wording in line with Clause 1, with which it is not in line at present.
LORD AIREDALE: We have a situation after the devil's own heart here. The Merchandise Marks Act 1887 said, "If you do this you shall be guilty of an offence". But after the noble Lord, who was the Minister in charge of the Consumer Protection Bill of two years ago, had gone out of his way to say how splendidly the Act of 1887 had worked for eighty years in this respect, the Government of to-day come forward and say, "No, we will not legislate in this straightforward way. We will not say, 'If you do this you shall be guilty of an offence'; we will say, 'If you do this you shall be deemed to have done that'." And although this clause does not say so, it is true that there is another clause which says, "If you do that you shall be guilty of an offence", so that it follows

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that, if you do this, you are guilty of an offence.
Now the Government come forward and say, "No, we did not really mean that. We did not mean to say, 'If you do this you shall be deemed to have done that'. What we meant to say was that if you do something else you shall be deemed to have done something else still". Then the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, rises to his feet and says, "You have not really got it quite right yet. It is really something quite different still, which the Government have not thought of, which ought to be deemed to be something quite different still".
Why cannot we go back to the 1887 Act, which was perfectly straightforward, and say: "If you do this, you shall be guilty of an offence"? It can be done perfectly easily by taking the operative words in Clause 6 and putting them in paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of Clause 1. If that is done, any person reading Clause 1 will know what the offence is, and it will not be necessary to bear Clause 1 in mind until Clause 6 is reached and one finds all this "deeming". As I say, this is a situation after the devil's own heart. Will Her Majesty's Government have second thoughts, and will they go back to the practice of 1887 and legislate in a direct way? This is criminal legislation, and it should be worded in the good, old, straightforward way so that people can understand what the offences are.
LORD BROWN: In a way, there is something peculiarly unfair about being in charge of this Bill in this House. I am speaking jocularly, of course, but here I am being assailed by lawyers right, left and centre, about the words of other lawyers who drafted this Bill; and I myself am not a lawyer. That seems to me to come within the definition of unfairness. However, I can bear it. With regard to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, he may or may not be right: I have not been able to follow him with sufficient clarity to be able either to agree or to disagree with him. If he wants to follow his particular point, I suggest he puts down an Amendment at a later stage.
With regard to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, he was good
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enough to make the point to me earlier in writing. All I can say is that, on the face of it, I must agree with him; and, without undertaking to accept his precise words (because lawyers will have to look at them and decide whether they really do fit), I will undertake to introduce an Amendment at the next stage which will give effect to the sense of what he is trying to get at. So I thank him for the comment he has made. It may be helpful to the Bill.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN: I beg to move Amendment No. 10.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 26, leave out first ("sale") and insert ("supply").—(Lord Brown.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN: I beg to move Amendment No. 11.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 26, leave out from second ("for") to end of line 28 and insert ("supply").—(Lord Brown.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
5.4 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 6, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD DRUMALBYN: I do not want to appear ungrateful for what the noble Lord has done in the way of amending this clause, but I am still not entirely happy about it. The purpose of the clause, of course, is to amplify the expression "supply" in Clause 1. Neither the original clause nor the Government Amendments achieve this purpose without leaving the ambiguity of the phrase,
"having goods in his possession for supply".
Discussion in Committee has shown the difficulty of the phrase. It all turns on the intention of the seller. Obviously, he makes or he buys goods for eventual sale, but he may not have checked them; or, having checked them, he may have found them wrongly labelled and requiring an alteration. The single point of agreement in the discussion was that the seller should not be in jeopardy if he had goods in his possession but, for one reason or another, did not at that time have the intention of selling them; that is to say, he had not decided whether the goods were fit for sale.

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Both the noble Lord, Lord Brown, and the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, quoted the case of Ben Worsley v. Harvey. With all respect, and speaking as one who also is not a lawyer, I suggest that this case should not be taken as a binding precedent for the following reasons. First of all, it was based wholly on the Weights and Measures Act 1963, and was decided on circumstances falling wholly within that Act. The goods were adjudged to be not in possession for sale for the purposes of Section 22(2) of the Weights and Measures Act. That was specifically stated in the judgment. The provision under which the prosecution was brought, Section 22(2), specifically limits its effect to that Act. The subsection is limited to prepacked goods, and it may be argued that the judgment could be applied only to prepacked goods.
The goods were in the possession of a manufacturer for sale to wholesalers, retailers or others, not necessarily direct to the public. The manufacturer was in a position—indeed, he was under a duty—to do something to the goods, to check-weigh them, before despatching them. The position might be quite otherwise if the goods were in the possession of a retailer. In the particular circumstances of that case the defendant had instituted a procedure of checking, had employed a supervisor and clearly displayed a warning notice. The goods were not for sale until these precautions had been satisfied. That is what the decision found.
Then, again, if the words "supply" are substituted for "sale", as they have been, there is an additional reason why the so-called precedent could not be rebutted. It makes it easier still because the wording has now changed. Whether or not the Worsley case is acceptable as a precedent, a case decided under one Statute should not be prayed in aid as a reason for not removing uncertainty in a Bill of a different nature. The clause should put the issue beyond all doubt by clearly stating that the intention of the seller in relation to the goods must be proved. Whatever may apply in the rest of the Bill, in this clause what is material is the intention of the seller, and nothing else.
LORD BROWN: I have one or two notes here that I must read out because
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I gave undertakings to the Committee about the attention we would give to one or two matters. I will deal with these before answering the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, on the points he has just made. When the clause was debated previously the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, raised the question of "dummy" packs. As I understand it, he had in mind the bottles which one sometimes sees in the windows of chemists' shops which apparently contain scent but in fact contain coloured water. Other examples were quoted, including what appeared to be bars of chocolate in a sweet-shop window but were in reality chocolate wrappers put around blocks of wood. These "dummy" packs are not exposed for sale or in the retailer's possession for sale. He has no intention whatsoever of selling them. They are in his possession solely for display purposes; and I can assure the Committee that there is no cause for thinking that Clause 6 would put the retailer at risk because he had such "dummies" in his window.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Is that right?—because the words now are not "for sale", but "for supply".
LORD BROWN: I am sorry; I withdraw the word "sale". I should have used the word "supply", because we have passed the Amendment. But what I have said is still correct, because it is not his intention to supply these things. They are for the retailer's own use, simply on display.
I also undertook, when this clause was last debated, to amend it in such a way that it would not present unfortunate obstacles to those conducting market research, and so forth. We are still considering that matter. It has not proved easy, but we intend to deal with it if we possibly can. I give your Lordships the further assurance that, if possible, we will deal with it at Report stage; if not, it will be dealt with in another place. But it is not proving an easy matter on which to draft.
The noble Lord has raised the question of the need to clarify this clause so that the intention of the person exposing goods for supply should be the turning point of a prosecution. The noble Lord has cast some doubt on the relevance to this point of the Worsley case decision.

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All I can inform the Committee is that I am assured that the Worsley case, in the opinion of those who advise me, would stand in good stead in the event of a prosecution, where it was clear that the defence was that a person was not offering goods for supply, but was intending to test them. I would direct the Committee's attention to the fact that a person who exposes goods with the intention of supplying really does imply an intention. I did not emphasise this point sufficiently when I last took up this matter, but this is one of the two respects in which this clause makes it clear that one is dealing with people who have the intention.
The second point at which this becomes clear is when the clause says, "in his possession for supply". That is an expression of intention. The question of whether he had the intention of supplying them or whether there was no such intention because he was going to inspect them must be a matter for the courts to decide. You cannot decide this necessarily by simply observing the situation. It may have to be tried before a court. In the Worsley case, it was clear that if it had been recognised by the first court that the baker had the intention of inspecting these loaves, clearly the case should never have been brought before the court. What was clear is that they doubted whether his statements that he had the intention were sincere. The case turned on the sincerity of his statements rather than on the question of the facts of the case. With these comments, I hope the Committee will feel satisfied.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I do not know that this question of intention is quite as straightforward as the noble Lord may have suggested. It would appear from what he has said that it is for the prosecution to prove what was the intention of the person who had the goods in his possession. They have to prove that he intended them for supply. I am sure that this is a very difficult thing to do. It may be that you can do it only by putting the person concerned in the witness box and allowing his evidence to cause the Bench to doubt what he says.
LORD BROWN: May I interrupt the noble Viscount? I think I am right in saying that it is for the defendant to prove that he had not the intention of supplying.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: That is quite plainly not the case. If the noble Lord says that the clause as it stands contains the offence; if he says that the words "for supply" bring in the question of intent on the part of the person who has the goods; then in order to prove the offence it is for the prosecution to prove that person's intention. I have looked at Clause 23, which is the defence clause. It is quite plain that neither under a proper offering for supply nor under one of Lord Airedale's "something else" (which is a deemed offer to supply under Clause 6) is there any statutory defence which relates to intention. Indeed, I do not know whether it has been sufficiently discussed on which side the burden should be. From what the noble Lord has said I should have thought that it follows plainly that at the moment the Government intend the prosecution to prove the intention of the defendant. This is very difficult. If that is really what they mean, then I think they ought to consider the practicality of it a little further before being content with the way the clause is drafted.
LORD STRABOLGI: Before leaving this clause may I say how grateful I am to my noble friend Lord Brown for going into the matter and for explaining the position about dummy packs. I think the Amendments that he has proposed are a great improvement on the original clause. I am a little concerned that the Government may not be able to bring in an Amendment to deal with marketing samples before the Bill leaves this House. This matter was raised on a previous occasion and received a great deal of attention. I think it unlikely that the Committee will be able to conclude this stage of the Bill before Christmas. The Government therefore have until after the Recess—and I should have thought this was ample time—to bring in an Amendment to deal with this problem. Otherwise, they would be asking this House to pass a Bill which is not yet complete. Could my noble friend give me an assurance that the Government wilt at least try to draft an Amendment for presentation to this House before the Bill receives a Third Reading?
LORD BROWN: I will certainly give the assurance that we shall make every endeavour to do so. There is the question of the sort of practices which lie within

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the meaning of the term "market research" which requires a little exploration to make sure that the drafting of the clause to exclude these practices is correct. We will do our best. I am sure that noble Lords would rather have a skilled Amendment to the clause which deals with the point raised, than have us hurry it and get it wrong. We shall do our best.
On the matter which the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, raised, he has put me in a quandary. The whole question of the burden of proving that the person had the intention of offering to supply is one that I should like to consider further. If the Committee will pass the clause as it stands, I promise I will discuss it. I have been advised that it is a soundly-drafted legal clause up to this stage, but there is some doubt in my mind. I will discuss it with my legal advisers. If I am satisfied I shall say no more about it. If they have taken note of this conversation and are uneasy, we shall do something about it.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
5.17 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, after Clause 6, to insert the following new clause:
Interpretation of "to a material degree" for the purpose of sections 1 to 6
" . In determining for the purposes of sections 1 to 6 of this Act whether the degree to which a trade description or other indication is false is material, regard shall be had to the likelihood or otherwise that a reasonable person would be deceived by the trade description or indication into purchasing goods to which the trade description or indication is applied."
The noble Lord said: At an earlier stage I put down an Amendment to attempt to define, under the interpretation clause, the phrase "to a material degree". Apart from raising other objections, the noble Lord pointed out some defects in the drafting of that Amendment. At any rate we have had another shot at its drafting because we think an important principle is involved. The noble Lord said on December 5:
"If the Amendment were accepted the prosecution would have to prove that every false trade description was such as to be 'likely to induce a purchase of goods'."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, col. 650.]
I believe that the prosecution should have to prove that point. We believe that
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people should not be prosecuted unless the enforcing authority considers it can prove that. The Molony Committee itself gave this as the criteria in paragraph 634 of their Report. They said:
"To support a charge under present law, the trade description applied must be false or misleading in a material respect as regards the goods to which it is applied'; that is to say, broadly, the error must be of such substance that it could fairly be regarded as capable of inducing a purchase. We would not interfere with this limitation."
I should have thought that it would be wholly wrong to expose a trader to the risk of prosecutions of a trivial character where there is no likelihood of any reasonable person being deceived into making a purchase. The object of the Bill must be to protect people from harm or loss incurred as a result of being deceived. There could be no other justification for invoking the criminal law in these circumstances. I should have thought there would be no more difficulty in proving that a false description is likely to deceive people into making a purchase than in proving that people are likely to think of goods as being covered by a trade description in an advertisement. Both are matters of judgment and opinion. In neither case will it be necessary to prove that any particular person has been deceived or has thought of the goods as being covered by a trade description in an advertisement.
The noble Lord made a particular point of the phrase "likely or unlikely" and the objectivity of the test. The same objectivity of test exists in this definition, or at any rate is intended to do, and if it does not I am sure it could be made to. I thought the noble Lord showed a little confusion of thought when he said, at col. 650:
"The ordinary test will apply, of whether the degree of falsity would be likely to be material to the average buyer in the circumstances, to the reasonable man."
The point is he used the word "buyer". It is only when a person is in the market for goods of the type in question that he can be influenced by the trade description or the indication that is false. If he is influenced only to the extent of making further inquiries and his loss is limited to the expenditure of time and trouble and, say, 4d. for a stamp, there is certainly no reason for a criminal prosecution. He is just "shopping around", to use a common phrase. It is

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only if the use of a trade description is likely to cause a loss, and if a person would be justifiably disappointed with the goods after purchasing them and not before because of the trade description, that the criminal process should be begun.
If we are to maintain respect for the law and those enforcing it we must not turn people into criminals by fiddling and finicky prosecutions. What is important is that this Bill should not appear to be motivated by prejudice against trade or commerce by which the nation lives. I invite the Government to demonstrate that they are not hostile to the trading community, by accepting this Amendment, at least in principle, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 6, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD BROWN: This Amendment seeks to achieve the same purpose as an Amendment put down to Clause 37 and withdrawn at my request by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, and the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, on a previous occasion. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is still anxious to do something to give the court guidance as to the meaning of the words "material degree". This Amendment is free from one of the objections I raised to the previous Amendment, in that the prosecution is no longer required in each case to prove that the trade description was such as was likely to induce a purchase of goods. Even in its amended form, however, I am sorry that I cannot advise your Lordships to accept the Amendment.
As I said on the previous occasion, we must leave it to the courts to decide on the facts of each case whether a false trade description is false to a material degree. I have no doubt that in an appropriate case a court would have regard to the likelihood mentioned in the Amendment, but I am convinced that it is both unnecessary and unwise to attempt to give guidance on the interpretation of basic words like "to a material degree". I say "unnecessary" because I do not believe a court would have any difficulty with the clause as it stands; and I say "unwise" because, although I recognise that the noble Lords have framed their Amendment in terms of guidance rather than definition,
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it might, in the light of past experience of such attempts to guide the courts, turn out that by concentrating on one aspect of interpretation they had unwittingly had some undesirable limiting effect on the interpretation generally.
May I add an example? Suppose one gets this sort of concentration on the issue which the Amendment is designed to bring about, one might get advertisements which said, "Fine English table" when, in point of fact, it was Danish. It would be difficult for some courts to rule that this had influenced people to buy the goods, when if the advertisement had contained the correct description they might not have done so, because Danish furniture has a very enviable reputation, as we know. The reference to English furniture might not have influenced people to buy at all, yet it would obviously be a degree of falsity which, in given circumstances, might be extremely offensive, say, to manufacturers of English furniture. One could go on hypothesising examples like that quite extensively. I do not think this is a vital point, but we should not like to see the clause prejudiced in a way which at a later stage in its administration we might regret deeply, because we had given way to this Amendment. We do not think the courts would be in difficulty over this matter, and we believe it tends to narrow the effect of the clause too much to one particular sort of misleading statement. So I would ask the noble Lord to consider withdrawing the Amendment.
LORD AUCKLAND: I ask the Government to look at this matter again, because one of the purposes of this Bill is to catch the really unscrupulous person: for example, the man who would deliberately try to deceive a busy harassed housewife shopping at a multiple store in a large city. Unless there is some Amendment to this clause an enormous burden will be put on the courts because there will be all kinds of prosecutions. Whether or not the average person minds particularly whether they buy English or Danish furniture—which was the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Brown—is a matter of opinion. Many people, if they were buying furniture, would ask, "Is it made in England?" if they wanted English furniture. Therefore, whether or not the word "reasonable" may be quite

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the right word is something which could be re-examined. But as it is drawn at present, the powers conferred by Clause 6 are pretty wide, and I think that some kind of compromise, such as that which my noble friend has proposed, needs thinking about seriously.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: On this matter I sympathise with the purpose of the Amendment, but I find myself in agreement with the Government. It seems to me unnecessary, and I think it is also attempting to lay down directions for a court. I should have thought that the first thing a court which had to decide whether or not a description was false to a material degree would ask themselves would be, "What effect has this misleading or false information had on a prospective buyer?". And I should not have thought a case would have come before a court without that question being asked. Therefore I agree with the Government that this Amendment is unnecessary.
LORD CAWLEY: I appreciate the virtues of this Amendment, but as one who would most likely have to interpret it I would rather not have it. I think the words "to a material degree", by themselves, are quite enough to guide a court.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clauses 7 and 8 agreed to.
Clause 9:
Information etc. to be given in advertisements
9.—(1) Where it appears to the Board of Trade necessary or expedient in the interest of persons to whom any goods are to be supplied that advertisements of the goods should contain or refer to any information (whether or not amounting to or including a trade description) or instruction relating to the goods the Board may, subject to the provisions of this Act, by order impose requirements as to the inclusion of that information or instruction, or of an indication of the means by which it may be obtained, in advertisements of the goods or any such description of such advertisements as may be specified in the order.
(2) An order under this section may specify the form and manner in which any such information, instruction or indication is to be included in advertisements of any description and may make different provision for different circumstances.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (1), after "expedient" to insert "for the purposes of health and safety".
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The noble Lord said: This point was raised—it was almost the principal point—in an Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, at an earlier stage.
LORD STRABOLGI: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, but it was not at an earlier stage; it was on the previous Bill.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I thought it was the first Committee stage, but we need not argue about that. In any case, whether it was on the previous Bill or not, the point is exactly the same. The question is: for what purposes do the Government want the powers to make regulations requiring information or instructions relating to goods to be in advertisements? One can see easily why they may require powers for health and safety purposes, at least so far as information is concerned—I have subsequent Amendments dealing with instructions. It is a good deal more difficult to see for what other purpose they would be likely to require such powers.
I do not know whether the noble Lord is able to give examples of other purposes for which he would like such powers. For my part, I should be ready to give them, for the very good reason that, by and large, it is for the advertiser himself to decide the kind of information that he wants to get over to the public—except possibly in the sphere of health and safety, where there may be need in the public interest for information to be given in advertisements. It is difficult to see in what other circumstances it may be required. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 30, after ("expedient") insert ("for the purposes of health and safety").(Lord Drumalbyn.)
5.32 p.m.
LORD BROWN: I think we ought to be clear that this Amendment would limit the power of the Board of Trade to require information or instructions to be given in advertisements to cases where the information was required in the interests of health and safety. I explained at an earlier stage that we cannot accept this, although I agree that these are matters in relation to which this power is likely to be needed. There is no doubt that this is an important area where this Clause is required.

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Noble Lords have tended to forget mail-order advertisements, where the consumer needs to have essential information before buying goods in writing. This is the outstanding case. If this Amendment were accepted, there would be no power to limit abuse by mail-order concerns, which are selling a growing proportion of consumer goods. I am not suggesting that these firms do this. This has been a reputable and honest way of dealing so far, but we do not want to be without this power. Suppose an advertiser puts in his catalogue "Chippendale-type furniture" and the buyer discovers that the furniture is made of softwood. People who are buying from the catalogue think that because the furniture is described as "Chippendale-type", this implies that it is made of hardwood. And there are other instances where in the description of goods there should be information that makes quite clear to the consumer what he is buying. We would rather be left with this power and not have it confined simply to health and safety.
LORD HAWKE: The "Chippendale-type" furniture, which the noble Lord quoted, is a singularly bad example. Surely this was a clear misdescription, which would certainly be caught under the Bill. Can the noble Lord name a similar proviso that the Board of Trade would want to have put on goods that would not be caught elsewhere under the Bill under the title of misdescription? I cannot think of one.
LORD BROWN: The noble Lord suggests that my example is a singularly bad one. Perhaps I did not make myself quite clear. I referred to an increasing practice in the furniture trade to describe furniture in this way. I am sorry if I have referred only to the furniture trade, but I did so because it is a trade with which, as a member of the Furniture Development Council, I have been associated. I have listened to furniture manufacturers saying that they were alive to the wholesale abuses in the industry, particularly before the war, by the sale of "matchstick" furniture, and furniture of the poorest possible sort, to people who had to spend a lot of capital to acquire it; and the manufacturers said they welcomed the regulations which came in soon after the war to stop this. That example has always impressed me.
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But practices start in a trade; and, of course, bad money drives out good. If this Amendment were accepted, we should be left without an opportunity of putting this right by simple means.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, had put down this Amendment as a means of obtaining information. It seems to me to be a limiting Amendment. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could give me an example of the type of information for which the Board of Trade might ask. At the moment I cannot think of one. It seems to me that the noble Lord is afraid that if the Board of Trade are given these powers outside the field of health and safety, they may ask for something which would not be desirable.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: It seems to me that one of the advertisements that ought to be caught by this clause is the one containing false descriptions by travel agencies. I gave some examples at Committee stage, when I made a long speech about this. Sometimes travel brochures describe amenities which may be there in the future but which are not there now. I think it would be a pity if this clause were restricted only to health and safety. I have referred only to travel agencies, but of course there are other aspects. We want to be sure that any kind of misleading of the public is covered by this Bill; otherwise it is no good having a Consumer Protection Bill.
LORD AUCKLAND: Perhaps I may say a word on this point, because I was the author of the original Amendment at the earlier Committee stage. This is more a matter of criteria than of facts. When withdrawing this Amendment on the last occasion, I admitted that we should not make health and safety the only criteria. I accept what my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood said about travel agencies.
LORD BROWN: I wonder if I could help. The clause, of course, refers to goods and not to services.
LORD AUCKLAND: I take the noble Lord's point, but we have discussed wide matters on this clause. The thing here is that health and safety carry much wider interpretations than perhaps the

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Government may think. At the last stage the noble Lord, Lord Brown, mentioned those who would be deceived by advertisements of certain kinds, which is a very salient point. These people can be subject to nervous breakdowns, and so on, which would, at any rate, speaking strictly in the medical sense, be covered by "health", although from the literal point of view "health" must mean accidents, as well as safety in accidents. In other words, if one bought, say, a perfume or an aerosol which was wrongly described, and one squirted it and had an accident to one's eyes, without having been warned on the container that it was dangerous to use, then quite clearly the Amendment here would cover it. But as it is drawn at present the clause is really much too wide. Therefore, some kind of criterion had to be put in.
One of the problems is that if advertisements are to contain all kinds of descriptions and instructions, it will defeat the whole purpose of the Bill, because people will not bother to read a lot of what is in them. Therefore, I still think that the substance of this Amendment is quite reasonable, because health and safety must surely be the main criterion for any kind of advertisement. I hope that the Government will not entirely rule this Amendment out of court. Possibly between us we can bring in a more suitable type of Amendment, and at the same time deal to some extent with the too-wide powers which the Bill now gives.
LORD STRABOLGI: Before my noble friend replies, I should like to support what my noble friend Lady Burton of Coventry said about obtaining information from the Government about their intention under this clause. We have had very full descriptions of Clause 9 on both the previous Bill and the present one. In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, may I say that I had an Amendment about safety on the previous Bill, but I did not put it down on this Bill because I was reassured by what my noble friend Lord Brown said on Second Reading; that is to say, that the Government intend to interpret these powers very sensibly, and also to consult with all the organisations concerned. That, as I say, has reassured me considerably.
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But during the previous Bill, and also during the discussions on this Bill, we have never had what one would call an exact case of what the Government have in mind. We have heard a lot about furniture, and this and that, but what I think we should have at this stage is an indication of the kind of goods that the Government have in mind on which they wish to put these extra descriptions. They have refused to exclude from the class of advertisements, for example, television or cinema commercials; they have refused to exclude advertisements which relate only to the title of the goods or the name of the manufacturer. They have insisted on having these full powers, and now I think they should tell the Committee what they have in mind, and why they require the powers.
5.44 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I was going to keep my question for the next Amendment or for the question that the clause stand part, but in view of what the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has said, I think it might be as well if I put in my word now. The difficulty that I foresee, even if the noble Lord redrafts the clause as he is proposing to in Amendments Nos. 14 and 17, by bringing in "description of advertisement" earlier, is that you are going to have two imponderables. You will have a large number of different types of advertisement to one or more of which the order relates; you will have a large number of different types of goods to one or more of which the order will relate if the advertisement relates to that type of goods.
Where are we going to get any sort of collection by which people can know whether they are covered or not? Let me take a simple case. The Government might say, to use the noble Lord's example for convenience, that any advertisement of furniture must not say it is Chippendale type if it is made of softwood. That is all very well for a mail order or an advertisement put out by furniture manufacturers, but it is not any good if I am selling my Chippendale type softwood chair and advertising in the personal column of a newspaper in East Anglia. How would I know that that transaction must have in it some statutory form of wording showing that it is not Chippendale type at all.

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Unless the noble Lord is willing to say that in practice the Board of Trade will use its powers only in fairly prescribed circumstances, I cannot see how we shall be able to administer the law. The whole thing will become so wide and entirely unenforceable that the clause will become complete nonsense unless the noble Lord does what his noble friend says and tells us. It will be chaos. There are sometimes three volumes of Statutory Instruments, each three or four inches thick, published by the Government every year. Is the private citizen to go through them every year to see whether an advertisement in the local newspaper for a secondhand lawn mower has to have some description of the colour of the box into which the grass goes? As I say, the position will be quite chaotic.
LORD HAWKE: I hope the noble Lord, Lord Brown, will listen to my noble friend, because this clause is really absolute nonsense. The Board of Trade, who live in an ivory tower anyway, are grabbing for themselves the largest possible powers that they think they can possibly want to deal with all sorts of imaginary abuses. As my noble friend has said, in practice it will be quite impossible to administer the clause. If they have to administer the clause, the Government will have to recruit many more than the extra 40,000 civil servants that they have already recruited, and we shall have a state of affairs where there will be one sort of scrutineer for every shopper in the country. If we want a clause of this kind, we must try to make it as simple as possible, and the proper measures are all provided in Clause 1: that we prosecute a person for making a false description.
LORD BROWN: This is argument reductio ad absurdrun.The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, talks about selling Chippendale furniture. I am not sure whether he was talking about selling his own Chippendale furniture, or some citizen selling his Chippendale furniture. But the Bill is concerned with people in the course of their trade or business, not with individuals; it is concerned with traders, not private persons. I used sometimes to spend my time cursing lawyers when I was in business because there were lots of regulations with which one had to be familiar.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This is not so, with great respect. This is an entirely separate offence. The offence is created under the regulation. I entirely appreciate what the noble Lord has said, that the false trade description can only be in the course of a trade or business, but here we have an absolute offence. The advertisement has to be in a specific form if it is not an offence. It does not say anything in this clause about the advertisement being in the course of trade or business. The Board of Trade is prepared to apply these criteria to any advertisement, whether in the course of trade or business or not—unless the noble Lord can show something in the clause to the contrary.
LORD BROWN: I shall now have to make quite certain, although I am virtually certain already. Perhaps we may proceed on the hypothesis that I am right. If I am not, I will certainly communicate with the noble Viscount. In business we are used to having to deal with a very large number of regulations governing a variety of things, because these are necessary in a complex modern society; and these orders would have to go back to the manufacturer, largely, to ensure they are implemented in his advertisements.
I think it is necessary that the Board of Trade should have these powers. After all, when one gives a Government Department discretion to make orders one is not necessarily giving anything very frightening. We have made enough of them in our time, and almost 99·9 per cent. recurring, do not have the evil effects the noble Lord seemed to think. That is because Government officials use them with discretion. Ministers are worried about them when they are going through; they have been the subject of consultation, and eventually they have to go in the form of an order before Parliament itself. This is a real limitation on the sort of madness which one envisages might happen if these powers were granted. If not, all sorts of situations will arise in the future which are reprehensible, which hurt people and which cause them to spend money which they can ill afford—because sometimes they are not rich people—on goods, on the assumption that they are one thing when in fact they are another, and we

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shall not be able to do anything about it.
LORD HAWKE: May I interrupt the noble Lord? The noble Lord says that we shall not be able to do anything about it. A man may be fined or put in prison under Clause 1.
LORD BROWN: If he is discovered. But this deals with mail-order catalogues and other forms of advertisement, and we shall have to spot them singly, one by one; and we shall not be able to deal with a lot of them. It would be much easier to make an order. I do not want to go on with my defence. I must let it rest. I want to see the clause remain as it is, and I must resist this Amendment. I am very sorry.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I would point out that the noble Lord is about to amend his own clause, so he can hardly say that he wishes it to remain as it is. But we are here dealing with a very essential matter of trading. We have to ask ourselves what exactly we expect the Government to do in this sphere. Of course, the purpose of advertising—and we are dealing here with advertising—is to draw attention to the goods, and to give information about them. It is all part of the selling process. What information is required to sell the goods is a matter for the person who is attempting to sell them. What information a person requires before he buys the goods is a matter for him; and so long as no false information is given to lead him to deduce something wrongly, it is difficult to see why the Government should take powers to require information to be given—unless, as I have said, it is something vital to the health or safety of the person concerned. This is the whole purpose of this Amendment.
I sympathise with the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, in being dissatisfied with the answer he has been given. I am bound to say that the advertisement industry as a whole is far from satisfied at the moment because of the experience it is having in another area. I am inclined to believe that the Board of Trade will be reasonable in its requirements in this matter. Unfortunately, another Ministry at this very time is drafting regulations which by all accounts will be very much less reasonable and which have made the
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whole of the advertising industry—and indeed all those who have to deal with food manufacture—very dubious indeed about this kind of power.
To my mind, the right way for industries to decide the way in which information should be given is through a voluntary system. I think it is right that they should get together and decide themselves what information should be given in what circumstances. But, as my noble friend says, as soon as it comes to giving powers as to the kinds of media affected by the regulations, and the goods affected, and to dividing all this up in this way, an enormous complication arises. If, on the other hand, you take the broadest powers, it is quite obvious you are doing something which is quite unnecessary and quite absurd, because you will be laying on advertisers an obligation to give all kinds of information which is not applicable to their particular goods. It is for that reason that we want the Government to think out in advance what they want the powers for. We say that, as a first step—it may be necessary later on to have further legislation; indeed, there will be further legislation—they should limit the powers they want to take to the specific objectives of health or safety. I may have been wrong to say "health and safety"—the Amendment should perhaps have read "health or safety".
I do not want the noble Lord to think that he has heard the end of this matter, because we firmly believe that it is not right to give these immense powers to the Government, merely on the understanding that they will not be used very often and only where it is absolutely essential. Everybody knows that Governments are subject all the time to all kinds of pressures to do things where there is a marginal benefit to be gained. But as things are made more and more complicated, more and more difficulties arise. The more information required, the more false information will be given. Make no mistake about that: it is bound to be so. And there are more chances of making mistakes and errors in information given.
I beg the Government to limit what they require under this clause to what they really need. I am not going to press the matter further now, but I ask them to think further about it. We do not want to pass legislation that is not

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going to be implemented at all because it is so very wide that no one dare touch it. This has happened in the past. Let us have legislation that is specific as to the information to be given, the cases that have to be dealt with; and then it will be implemented and some good will be done. I beg the Government to reconsider this.
LORD AUCKLAND: May I intervene before the noble Lord withdraws? The noble Lord, Lord Brown, mentioned mail orders. Can he specifically mention any mail-order advertisements which might be regarded as false and which do not have some direct or indirect bearing on health or safety?—because, surely there must be very few.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I have been looking again at the point which the noble Lord, Lord Brown, made, about this applying only to goods supplied in the course of trade or business. It is very noticeable, because that expression is found in Clause 7 and Clause 8. Clause 8 says that anybody
"who, in the course of any trade or business, supplies or offers to supply"
goods in contravention of the order is guilty of an offence. But the words do not appear in Clause 9. If the noble Lord is saying that these orders are to be limited to advertisements put out by people in the course of trade or business, that certainly takes away some of my doubts. But I do not think the clause says so. We could easily put it in after the word "supplied" in line 31. I hope that the noble Lord will consider this point, because I think that, on the drafting, the clause is open to exactly the interpretation I made.
LORD BROWN: I will certainly take note of the point. One of the ways of dealing with it is this. When we come to the next Amendment you will see that we propose to describe the type of advertisement to which the order applies, and we could exclude all the advertisements put in by private people, or all those not put in in the course of trade or business. This may be the way to do it. I have a note here from which I see that my advisers agree with the noble Viscount that the wording is a little lame as it stands. It is nice to be able to concede a point.
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I will not re-state the case I have already put forward on the Amendment we are considering. I have listened to the other side and I have a great deal of sympathy with it, but I think that if we were to accept this Amendment we should live to regret it, because society is becoming more complex every day and all sorts of new devices are being invented by crooks to "do people down". We are not concerned only with health and safety but also with the economy.
LORD AUCKLAND: But surely health and safety are the main bases of the economy?
LORD BROWN: It all depends where you stand. If you have plenty of money, health and safety are the most important factors; but if you are hard up the economy is important. There are too many people calling at doors or sending round misleading advertisements, and I think we ought to have the power to deal with some of these people. That is why I am advising the Committee not to accept this Amendment.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I think we shall have to look at this further, but in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.2 p.m.
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN moved, in subsection (1), after the first "that", to insert "any description of". The noble Lord said: With this Amendment I should like to discuss also Amendment No. 17. Subsection (1) of this clause, as at present drafted, would enable the Board of Trade to make an order requiring all advertisements of the designated goods to contain or refer to information or instructions. Some of your Lordships have pointed out that there are some sorts of advertisement—a give-away pencil or a neon sign, for example—which could not in practice be required to comply with such an order, and have proposed that there should be specific exemptions in the Bill to cover such cases.
We have made it clear that we have no intention of using this proposed power to impose unreasonable requirements and that there are adequate safeguards in the Bill, such as the obligation to consult with interested bodies, to ensure that we

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do not make a mistake. We have, nevertheless, considered whether it would be right to restrict the power by exempting some descriptions of advertisement from the scope of the clause altogether. We have concluded that it would not, bearing in mind that the circumstances in which the power might need to be used are at this stage hypothetical. The earlier debate on an Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, which sought to exclude certain kinds of advertisements containing only one statement or slogan, illustrated the difficulties of trying to define in advance those descriptions which might be exempted.
However, we put forward these Amendments as a practical contribution to overcoming the objections that I have referred to. If they are adopted, they will make it clear that the Board of Trade must not make a blanket order covering all descriptions of advertisement in respect of any classs of goods. If and when the Board wanted to make an order under the clause they would have to specify in it those descriptions of advertisement which were to be covered; and the consultation and publication requirements of Clause 35 would ensure that all interested parties had an opportunity of pointing out anything impossible or unreasonable about the proposed coverage. I think that this is a sensible compromise and I hope your Lordships will accept it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 31, after ("that") insert ("any description of").—(Lord Brown.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: This is certainly an Amendment that we welcome. As I said earlier, it would be a great mistake to keep the wide scope of the clause as drafted. As I understand it, under the clause as at present drafted one would have to exclude particular kinds of advertisements if one did not want them to be covered, whereas under the clause as it would be amended one would have to specify the particular descriptions which are to be covered. If that is so we regard this as being a great improvement, and would certainly not wish to oppose it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "or instruction",
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where that word first occurs. The noble Lord said: I said earlier that I thought there might be cases where it would be desirable to require information to be given in advertisements but that I did not see that there was much scope for giving instruction, or for instructions relating to a group of goods. I think "instruction" is the word here. Even in the "tell-tag" which my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood is launching, instruction is not contained. There is a reference to where the instruction can be obtained but it is not actually on the "tell-tag", and if it is not on the "tell-tag" I should have thought it even less appropriate that it should be in advertisements.
I understand the point that was made earlier in regard to mail order, but if that is what is required then surely there should be a specific provision dealing with the mail order, so that where someone is invited to purchase directly by mail order he may be able to see the instructions relating to those goods and so judge whether the goods are appropriate for him to buy. In the general way I should have thought it quite inappropriate that one should attempt to give instructions in the ordinary type of advertisement. This is a case where one wants to specify categories separately, and I should like to see "instruction" taken out of the generality, and then, if any special instruction is required for mail order, it should be dealt with separately. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 33, leave out ("or instruction").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD BROWN: It seems to me that if it is necessary to get a certain piece of information across to consumers in advertisements, it might sometimes be most easily expressed in the form of an instruction. But on reflection I must admit that by using a different form of words, possibly longer and clumsier, the essential point could be expressed as information. For example—and I quote this merely by way of illustration, and not as a case we have particularly in mind—if it were thought expedient to ensure that mail-order advertisements of garments should forewarn customers whether or not the garments were washable or cleanable, it would in some cases be sufficient to say, "Dry-clean only". That is, I should

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say, an instruction. Another way of putting it would be "Not washable but may be dry-cleaned", which is information. In short, we do not feel that there is a clear distinction here between information and instruction, or that the Amendments would prevent us from achieving the essential purposes for which we seek these powers. It is on these grounds—and I do not want to deceive the noble Lord into thinking that we do not propose to seek on occasions that information be supplied—that we are happy to accept this Amendment.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am much obliged to the noble Lord.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN: I beg to move Amendment No. 16.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 35, leave out ("or instruction").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BROWN: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 37, leave out from ("in") to ("as") in line 38 and insert ("such description of advertisements of the goods").—(Lord Brown.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
6.10 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "form and". The noble Lord said: I am doubtful whether it is necessary to include the words "form and" for almost the same reasons as the noble Lord was giving when talking about "instruction" and "information". I am quite certain that it would be sufficient to specify the manner in which such information, instruction or indication is to be included, and I think if we only said "manner" the Government would be less tempted to go into the minutest detail as to the size of print in which it should be printed or the relationship of that size of print to the size of the name of the manufacturer, or any other information given in the advertisement. An advertisement is made up in a quite different way from a label, and I doubt whether it would be appropriate to prescribe the form in which the information should be given. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 39, leave out ("form and").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD BROWN: In one sense I have a great deal of sympathy with this Amendment, but I do not want your Lordships to accept it. I was really horrified by the example quoted, I think by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. I do not want to get myself into trouble by apparent implications of criticism of other Government Departments during the course of this debate. What was significant about the example was that it had not yet been through the process of consultation and had not yet been discussed by Parliament.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I did not quite hear what the noble Lord said.
LORD BROWN: The example that Lord Strabolgi gave—and I admit it was a horrible one—was a 200-word sentence specifying which types should be used, and so on. This example had not, in the form read to us, passed through the stages of consultation with those involved in the trade, nor had it gone before Parliament. I fully expect that that particular Order will not survive in the original form in which it was quoted to us. There is a danger that people can become stupid about a matter of this sort. But, on the other hand, if we are not able on some occasions to state the size of lettering to be used, then we probably are not able to bring about the effect which is desirable, particularly in the matters of health and safety. I would remind your Lordships of the example I quoted of the mercury battery which I picked off my own desk and which had on it in very small letters, "Do not throw on a fire because it will explode" I could not read those words without glasses; I could scarcely read them with them. If you cannot specify the size of the letters, in some cases you may be endangering life.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Of course we are not talking about Clause 8, but Clause 9. We have not excluded form and manner in regard to the marking of goods. We are trying to exclude it in the matter of advertisements, in Clause 9, which is a very different thing.
LORD BROWN: Yes, I admit that I was arguing about Clause 8. Nevertheless, this does bear on Clause 9, although not as forcibly, I confess. Nevertheless,

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if one wants recommendations with regard to safety put into advertisements, if it is considered necessary to protect children and so on, and you end up by making an Order and then find the information is stuck away in the corner so that people ignore it or cannot read it, you have not achieved very much. It would be unwise to omit these words because it might defeat the whole purpose of giving power to the Board of Trade to specify in advertisements contents that deal with health and safety. These are the things am particularly concerned about. I therefore recommend your Lordships not to accept the Amendment.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am sorry the noble Lord cannot accept this Amendment. As I indicated, there may be some occasions on which it might be desirable in special forms of advertisement to specify the form. But if you specify the form of every information you give in advertisements you will ossify the advertisement, make it very rigid with regard to the layout and all the rest, if you have to build the whole thing round a Board of Trade Regulation as to the form in which it should be. I hope the noble Lord will not very often find it necessary to specify the form, and I am sure that in his consultations, consultations that the Bill requires him to have, it would be a good thing in each case to consider whether there should be information required in advertisements. I hope that he will also consult as to the form and manner in which it should be given and not leave this out of consideration, because it is extremely important. If you once start interfering with the conception of an advertisement, the general layout, then I think you will destroy the whole vitality of advertising. I hope the noble Lord will take this into consideration. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 40, leave out ("instruction").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved to add to the clause:
"( ) An order made under this section shall not relate to any advertisement which refers
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only to the name or names of any goods, the name and address of the person supplying or offering to supply those goods, or any combination thereof, with or without an illustration."
The noble Lord said: The noble Lord has already said that he would deprecate any such addition to the clause as this, but he has also said that he would not expect to cover by regulations any such case as is covered by this Amendment. This is a question of balance as to whether you put a thing in or not. All I can say to the noble Lord is that it would give a good deal of encouragement to those who have misgivings about this clause if he were at least to accept this very small limitation, which is not a limitation at all on his powers because he certainly is not going to require this. He will, if I may venture to say so, give more confidence that he is not going to do so if he accepts the Amendment than if he merely says it is not his intention to do so. For my part, I accept his intention, but I would be much happier if he were to accept the Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 46, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD STRABOLGI: From this side of the House I should like to support this Amendment, and I hope that the Government will accept it. We have had a very full discussion and the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has put forward with great force the reasons for it. I think it is an Amendment that merits every consideration.
LORD AIREDALE: I should like to say from these Benches that I agree entirely with what has been said.
LORD BROWN: Noble Lords are putting these matters so charmingly that I feel inclined to give way on some Amendments when I should not. I cannot, however, recommend your Lordships to accept this one. I thought we had met the point when we undertook to specify, in making Orders, the description of advertisements and goods to which they were to apply. I do not want to see this clause further limited. I know that the advertising interests—on whose behalf some noble Lords are probably speaking in this House—are honest people, but one has to recognise that penalties of the sort in this Bill are not

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provided for the reputable end of industries of that sort. Is anybody in this House going to uphold the view that there is no possibility of a picture of goods being used in a manner which could be seriously misleading, or that there is no possibility in the future of this type of advertisement needing to become the subject of an order in order to prevent that from happening on the grounds of safety and health?
LORD DRUMALBYN: Do not let us confuse the issue here. If an illustration were seriously misleading then it would be caught under Clause 3. You could not require that information should be given in a way that would not be seriously misleading in an illustration. That is just not possible. If the illustration is going to be misleading it is going to be caught under Clause 3. If I may make the illustration, this is really a red herring.
LORD BROWN: I am interested in the noble Lord's argument. I have been looking at it in a different way. I think I should undertake to have a further look at this Amendment, if the noble Lord will withdraw it. I have been assuming that one would be able to attack a seriously misleading series of advertisements which contain nothing more than pictures. But of course one can get the individual conviction. I will undertake to have another look at the matter.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.21 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 9, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD STRABOLGI: Before we leave Clause 9 I wonder whether I might ask my noble friend about descriptions in the Press in regard to goods. This was a matter on which we had some discussion under Clause 1, where it deals with false descriptions. This is a different aspect; it is the other leg of it. Under this clause the Government are requiring certain information to be given. On the December 5 Committee stage of the Bill I referred to this, and I am afraid there was a misprint in Hansard, so I should
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like to quote the correct passage. It is quite short, it says:
"I imagine that the Government might find themselves in the position of wishing to impose certain orders on advertising, on show cards and so on, but finding that goods were also being described, equally fully, in these supplements and women's pages."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5/12/67, col. 651.]
I am afraid the word "fully" became "falsely".
On that day we had a fairly full discussion about the false description of goods in newspapers, and I should like now to approach it from the other point of view. Under this clause the Government are intending to impose certain requirements on advertising of all kinds. I should like to know whether they intend to oblige the Press and the magazines to include the same information in their editorial comment. This is a most important point. In other words, we ought to have from the Government an explanation of exactly what they mean by "an advertisement".
LORD BROWN: The short answer is, "No". We have no intention whatever of imposing these orders on newspapers' editorial comment. The intention is to confine these orders to advertisements which are paid for by manufacturers and others to promote the sale of their goods. We have no intention of enforcing the Orders even on the special category of people who, in the course of their trade or business, write columns describing goods, because that is not specifically an advertisement in the meaning which is commonly given to the word. These words will apply to advertisements as we understand them, a means of selling goods paid for by those who wish to sell them.
LORD STRABOLGI: I am grateful to my noble friend.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 10 agreed to.
Clause 11 [False or misleading indications as to price of goods]:
LORD BROWN: I beg to move that the consideration of Amendment No. 20, together with Clause 11 itself, be postponed until after Clause 17.
Moved, That the consideration of Amendment No. 20, together with Clause 11, be postponed until after Clause 17.—(Lord Brown.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: That will not be to-day, surely.
LORD BROWN: No.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am obliged.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Clause 12:
False representations as to royal approval or award, etc.
12.—(1) If any person, in the course of any trade or business, gives, by whatever means, any false indication, direct or indirect, that any goods or services supplied by him or any methods adopted by him are, or are of a kind, supplied to or approved by Her Majesty, any member of the Royal Family, any Government department or any local authority, he shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be guilty of an offence.
6.27 p.m.
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "or are of a kind". The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 21, I ask the permission of the Committee also to discuss Amendments Nos. 22, 23, 24 and 25. Taken together they represent a substantial revision of Clause 12, which had been made in the light of your Lordships' comments when we last discussed the matter. Subsection (1) was originally intended to deal with a special type of case, namely, fake claims that goods or services or methods were supplied to or approved by Royalty or central or local government bodies and that they therefore possessed a special cachet because the patrons in question would have satisfied themselves as to the soundness of the supplier and of what he had to offer. Your Lordships have, however, questioned the logic of limiting this provision to those persons or bodies. Similar claims with respect to other persons may equally carry weight (though this is of course not true of all other persons): and indeed the Bill already covers such claims in some measure, in other clauses.
We accept that there is something in this argument and these Amendments represent what we think might be done. In the first place, we think that false claims concerning Her Majesty and other members of the Royal Family are in a very special category and should be treated separately and a little more comprehensively than other claims. We propose, therefore, that subsections (1) and
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(2) of Clause 12 should deal exclusively with claims of this sort. Secondly, we propose that the Bill should be extended to cover false claims that goods or services are of a kind supplied to or approved by any person—and this would include Government Departments and local authorities and, indeed, Her Majesty and members of the Royal Family. This is in regard to supply. To effect this change, the new subsection (3) would deal with false claims that goods or services are of a kind supplied to any person. Fake claims, as opposed to false claims, concerning the approval of goods or services by any persons are dealt with elsewhere in the Bill. Those concerning services would be covered by our proposed Amendment to Clause 13(1)(iv); and those concerning approval of a type of goods are already covered by Clause 2(1)(g). These Amendments should go a long way towards meeting your Lordships' suggestions and I hope you will be able to accept them. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 10, leave out ("or are of a kind").—(Lord Brown.)
LORD CAWLEY: We are most grateful for this Amendment. There is one point we should like to be clear about. When the noble Lord talks about "fake claims", does he mean claims in regard to supply to defunct or imaginary bodies or persons?
LORD BROWN: Yes.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am not absolutely clear of the effect of taking out the words "or are of a kind". Does this mean that it would be all right, and that it would not be an offence for someone to say that he has supplied similar goods to Her Majesty? I am not quite clear what the effect is of the leaving out of these words.
LORD BROWN: The effect is to confine subsections (1) and (2) of the clause as amended to persons claiming in regard to goods which they are supplying to others, that the goods were approved by the Royal Family or members thereof. The new subsection (3) would catch claims to supply not only to other persons but also to the Royal Family. So one is, as it were, dividing the offence into two parts. The new subsection (3) will cover both offences for everybody; subsections

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(1) and (2) will refer to only the particular type of offence which is constituted by making false claims as to the approval of the Royal Family of the goods which are sought to be sold. I am afraid that is a complicated statement, but I hope that I have made myself clear.
LORD AIREDALE: There is one point which occurs to me. I was pleased to hear the Minister say specifically that a Government Department is "a person" for this purpose. I think it is reasonably well known that a limited company is "a person" and that a public corporation, such as the British Transport Commission, is "a person", but I should have thought that it was perhaps not well known that a Government Department was "a person". I was not sure myself, until the Minister said it, that a Government Department was "a person". If this may not be generally known, might there not be something to be said for keeping the words "any Government Department" in the clause as they originally are, and then go on to say "or any other person", or something to make it abundantly clear to all concerned that a Government Department is "a person"? It is undoubtedly a common practice to advertise that particular goods are "as supplied to the Ministry of Transport", or whoever it may be.
LORD BROWN: I am certainly prepared to think about it. I shall have to take advice.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN: I beg to move Amendment No. 22.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 11, after ("Majesty") insert ("or").—(Lord Brown.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BROWN: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 11, leave out from ("Family") to ("he") in line 12.—(Lord Brown.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BROWN: I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 19, at end insert—
("(3) If any person, in the course of any trade or business, gives, by whatever means, any false indication, direct or indirect, that
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any goods or services supplied by him are of a kind supplied to any person he shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be guilty of an offence.")—(Lord Brown.)
Clause 12, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 13 [False or misleading statements as to services, etc.]:
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN: I beg to move Amendment No. 25.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 33, after ("examination") insert ("approval").—(Lord Brown.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
6.34 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (4), to leave out "'false' means fake to a material degree and". The noble Lord said: Perhaps I should take this Amendment and the next together, since this is a paving Amendment for Amendment No. 27. I deliberately moved the previous Amendment relating to goods where we sought to define the terms "to a material degree" in one way, and I am now moving this in another way to try it out. It would have been as easy to have said:
"deceived into acceptance of the services, facilities or accommodation offered",
but I have deliberately moved this in a wider way. I want to impress on the Government that the test should be that a person is deceived into doing something to his own detriment or loss. I do not think I need to make the argument all over again, because the case is the same, except that here I have made it wider. It may be that this is a better formula than the other, particularly in the case of services, but I feel that one should explore this and I hope that the Government will be able to comment on the wider scope of this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 6, leave out from ("section") to ("services") in line 7.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD BROWN: I do not want to add insult to injury, but the noble Lord knows my objections to the narrowing of the definition, and I have already said a good deal about this on the previous Amendment. However, this particular Amendment is perhaps not so good as the previous one, since it uses the term "material" in the course of an attempt to

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define "material degree". This is a drafting fault, and it is worth drawing attention to the fact that one cannot use in the definition a word one is trying to define.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes you can. Look at the definition of "false trade description".
LORD BROWN: Yes, that is quite right; it sounds right. But in point of fact, if I went into the matter I think I could convince your Lordships that there are some words that can be used in this way and others that cannot. As the word "material" is the governing word of the thing which it is sought to define, to use the word "material" in this particular way would not, with respect, be cogent. I do not want to stress this, but I mention it in case the Amendment comes up again. It would be unfortunate if one had to make this drafting criticism on a future occasion. I am saying that, for the reasons already given, on which I have expressed my objections to this attempt to define the meaning of the term "to a material degree", I ask your Lordships not to accept this Amendment.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am sorry that the noble Lord has taken this point, but from what he says it looks as if he rather expects us to try again and perhaps get it a little nearer right next time, when I trust he will be able to deal with the substance of the matter. As the hour is getting late, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, whether Clause 13, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD DRUMALBYN: I should like to say a word on this clause. We are here setting out on an entirely new course, and it is not entirely clear to us what is covered. I must ask the noble Lord in this instance to tell us what "accommodation" means. Am I right in thinking that it means accommodation in buildings, and not accommodation consisting of buildings? They are two quite separate things. Perhaps he could also deal with the more general point of the difference between prefabricated houses and houses built by other means.
LORD BROWN: Accommodation is really a reference to every form (I must
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be careful, as I have just accused the noble Lord of using the same word as that in the term to be defined) of shelter, that does not consist of selling a person a house. In other words, it refers to hotel rooms, rooms in houses which are let, flats, and so on; but it does not cover the actual sale of a house to a person. The term "goods" does not cover houses, and for this reason houses do not come within the ambit of the Bill.
The question has been asked, and it has been asked again by the noble Lord: as houses do not come within the meaning of the term "goods", do prefabricated houses come within the meaning of the term "goods". The answer is: No; because they are still houses, and that has been a convention of the law for some time. Indeed, it surprised me to learn that houses were not "goods". I cannot for the life of me see why they are not, but that has been the law for some time.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: They are realty, not goods.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clauses 14 to 16 agreed to.
Clause 17 [Penalty for offences]:
6.41 p.m.
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN moved to leave out subsection (2). The noble Lord said: This Amendment would delete from Clause 17 the discretionary power of a court to order forfeiture of goods belonging to a person convicted of an offence under this Bill, being goods in relation to which or by means of which the offence was committed. After considering the points made during our earlier debate on the Amendment moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, to restrict the power of forfeiture, we have come to the conclusion that the right course is to do away with it altogether.
The present subsection (2) reproduces in substance the provisions of Section 2(3)(iii) of the Merchandise Marks Act 1887. When that Act was passed it dealt with offences such as forging trade marks, and as the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, pointed out, the power to confiscate things by means of which an offence was committed was directed to such things as the dies used to apply a forged mark. Under the present Bill

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there would be little scope for the use of such a power. Indeed, we feel that the whole idea of forfeiture—even of the goods in relation to which an offence is proved—is somewhat out of date in this context.
If it is considered as a means of removing wrongly marked goods from the market, it is not very effective for the purpose. It applies only to those goods in relation to which the case has been proved, which in most cases would mean the small number of articles actually before the court. The real security against a convicted trader again offering for sale the wrongly-marked goods is that he will have attracted the attention of the enforcement authorities to himself: every time he repeats the act for which he was convicted—for instance, offering to supply goods to which a false trade description is applied—he commits a fresh offence: and if he is convicted again he will face very serious penalties. This prospect is, I think, a sufficient deterrent. If forfeiture is regarded as an additional penalty, it is, I suggest, both unnecessary and unfair in principle. The penalties provided by subsection (1) of this clause are perfectly adequate.
For these reasons, we think that the power to order forfeiture is of insufficient value to warrant redefining it in the restricted form that would be desirable in order to allay fears that it might have a much wider appliction under the Bill than it has under the present Act. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will agree to accept this Amendment to omit the provision entirely. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 8, leave out subsection (2).—(Lord Brown.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think that we on this side of the House shall be very glad to welcome this Amendment. It is also a very quick result for the noble Lord to be able to lay before the Committee so soon after the matter was discussed last time, and I think we should thank him for that as well. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard will be delighted with the result that his debate has now brought about. It seems to me that on the substance of this matter the noble Lord is right. Moreover, it will not mean that there is no power whatever, because when we come on to the redraft of Clause 27 (I do not think we shall be dealing with it to-day) we shall find a more limited power for a different purpose which, combined with what the noble Lord has said about the penalties and ensuing appearances in court if the sane man insists upon doing the same thing, will provide adequate penalties, and adequate deterrents against a repetition of an offence if the man commits it once. I would therefore agree with the noble Lord and commend this Amendment to the Committee.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 17, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed.

TEACHERS SUPERANNUATION (SCOTLAND) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
House adjourned at fourteen minutes before seven o'clock.