Lords Sitting of 19 December 1967

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Truro):
The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Lord Baillieu—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

STERLING ASSETS OF BRITISH VISITORS FROM RHODESIA
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what restrictions, if any, there are on the use, by British citizens residing in Rhodesia, of money which they have in Great Britain to pay their expenses when visiting this country.]
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, residents of Rhodesia who visit this country, whether or not they are British citizens, are allowed access to their sterling assets to meet their living expenses here and those of their families. There is no limitation on such drawings from funds in an ordinary Rhodesian sterling account. If the assets are on a suspense account the amount that may be drawn for this purpose is limited to £10 per person per week. Suspense accounts are those in which are placed sums due to residents of Rhodesia but in general withheld from them under the current sanctions policy—for example, dividends on United Kingdom securities. Drawing on such funds is only permitted exceptionally, in order to relieve severe hardship.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, would the noble Lord say what, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, this country gains as a result of this restrictive imposition, which places an obstacle in the way of British citizens living in Rhodesia visiting this country, and creates feelings of deep resentment among those who still regard this country
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—and there are many of them—as home, and also weakens their desire for the continuation of these ties which hitherto have bound us together?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I agree with 80 per cent, of what the noble Lord says. I quite appreciate that there is deep resentment, and I suggest to the noble Lord that the best way to express that resentment is by bringing pressure to bear on Rhodesia's present régime to return to a constitutional Government.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, does the noble Lord really consider that in this country to-day £10 a week is adequate to keep anyone in the conditions such as he expects to receive in his own home?
LORD BESWICK: No, not necessarily. But then again, a resident of Rhodesia who feels that £10 is insufficient can buy sterling from a bank in Rhodesia with Rhodesian pounds.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: I would say to the noble Lord—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order, order!
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, I would say to the noble Lord—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, it is all right. I will deal with the Question. I am going to ask a question, and if the noble Earl would only contain himself at times it would be much better for dealing with the business of the House. What I want to say is this. I hold in my hands and I am asking the noble Lord whether this is a fact or not—a letter from a bank which says that the limit which is allowed is £10.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): Will the noble Lord give way or not?
LORD STRATHCLYDE: No, I will not give way. I am asking the question. I have asked it of the noble Lord sitting on the right of the Leader of the House. Having asked my question, I will wait for his reply.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: There was no question.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, with all the good will in the world, I do not quite understand the question now being put to me.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, what I put to the noble Lord was whether he is aware of the fact that I hold in my hand a letter from the bank which says that they are allowed to advance only £10 a week for a person from Rhodesia visiting this country from his own funds in the bank here.
LORD BESWICK: Yes, my Lords; I am aware that the noble Lord has a document in his hand, and it appears to bear out what I have already said; namely, that if the person has a sterling account in this country he can draw from it to meet his full living expenses. If, however, there is only a suspense account he can draw only up to £10 per week. If the noble Lord says that in some cases this would involve hardship, I say to him, in all sincerity, that the purpose of sanctions is inevitably to impose anything up to hardship in order to bring home to the people of Rhodesia that it is essential to get back to constitutional rule.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, is the noble Lord really saying that a British woman who has left money in this country before she has gone to reside with her husband in Rhodesia is to be deprived of the use of her own money when she comes back here, because it is thought that a British woman could influence opinion in Rhodesia to return to lawful rule—something which I should desire as much as anyone else? Is this not pressing sanctions far too far?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I really do not believe that the noble and learned Viscount has done me the courtesy of listening to what I have just said.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I did.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, taking that particular case, of a woman who, as the noble Viscount says, has money in this country and then goes to marry someone in Rhodesia, if that money is hers, and was here before I.D.I., she is able to draw upon it to meet her full living expenses while here.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, will the noble Lord look at that again because that woman's money has been
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placed in a suspense account, and I thought he said that in a suspense account it could not be drawn upon.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, it is difficult, across the Floor of the House, to deal with a particular case. If the noble Viscount will let me have details I will look into it. But I am saying that if we are dealing with a person who has accumulated a sum of money in this country and then gone out to Rhodesia, that amount, if it had been accumulated before I.D.I., would be in a sterling account, and she could draw upon it to meet her full living expenses.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, the question I put to the noble Lord was: if she left money here in an account, would she be able to draw on it? Where money is left here, would it be placed in a suspense account?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I really think that it would be better to have full details. If that money was here prior to I.D.I. it would be in a sterling account and she could draw from it.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, in view of the attitude taken by the noble Lord (I am not thinking of myself but of the Office of Leader of the House), may I say that we in this House depend on a degree of informal cooperation, and I think that if a noble Lord will not give way to the Leader of the House it is bound to make life here most difficult.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, does not this Answer, in effect, make any inhabitant of Rhodesia, regardless of his or her views, a sort of pariah in this country? Is this likely to bring them to closer co-operation, for which we all hope?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am answering on behalf of the Treasury a particular Question about the transfer of certain moneys. If the noble Earl wishes to widen this into a debate on sanctions, I must say that I think it would be better done on another occasion.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask the Government a perfectly simple question on the situation? Supposing I happen to be living in Rhodesia and have funds here, and I have a debt here to a British citizen, and supposing I write a

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cheque on my funds here in favour of that citizen will that cheque be met or will it be barred by Government regulation?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, a hypothetical question is always a difficult one to answer, and I feel that I ought not to answer that one.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government even begin to realise that the policy they have been pursuing vis-à-vis Rhodesia is only making support for the Smith régime even more than it was at the outset of U.D.I.? When are they going to realise that fact and abandon this policy which is simply causing hatred to mount in Rhodesia against this country?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I would repeat what I have said before in this House: that if only the noble Lord and his noble friends would bring to bear on the Smith régime half the pressure which they try to bring to bear on the Government of this country, we should probably achieve some results.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: That shows that the noble Lord does not understand the position at all.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, is the effect of what the noble Lord has said that a British citizen, a person of British nationality, who in certain circumstances wishes to draw her own money from a British bank can be forbidden to do so?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I really think that the noble Marquess should look at what I have said. If, when he has read what I have said, there is any point of clarification that I can make, I shall be very happy to pursue it with him further.

WEST IRIAN DEVELOPMENT FUND
2.41 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have received a copy of the Report of the Consultant Mission to the Development Fund for West Irian, administered by the United Nations as a Trust Fund; whether they will place a copy of the Report in the Library of this House; and what action they are taking in the Security Council to ensure that the recommendations of the Report are carried out.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, this Report has not been published. I shall arrange for a copy to be placed in the Library when it is received. I understand that the Report will be a purely economic one relating to the best uses to which the West Irian Fund could be put. As such, it is not a matter which falls to be considered by the Security Council.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that Answer, and also for agreeing to put this interesting Report in the Library so that noble Lords can read it. May I ask him what he means by saying that it is only an economic Report? Is it not a fact that the economic situation of the poor people of West Irian is most serious, and that this Report in fact suggests a very interesting way of helping them in their difficulties? May I also ask how it can be that the Security Council has no responsibility, since the Report was made to the Secretariat, and in particular to Mr. Owen, who is a very highly esteemed and accomplished member of the international Secretariat?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, no member of the present Government would suggest that something which is only economic is not of some importance to the people of this country or any other. What I was seeking to indicate was that it did not come appropriately, so I am advised, within the field of the Security Council. I do not wish to go wider than

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the Question, but we are hoping for a more happy development of relationships with Indonesia in seeing Indonesia fulfil under the Charter the obligations to West Irian. If the noble Lord would like to pursue the matter further, I am sure he will put down a further Question.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, where is West Irian?
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, before the noble Lord satisfies the astonishing ignorance of his noble friend, may I ask him how it is that the Security Council is no longer responsible for what the Secretariat does, since the Secretary-General is dealing with this matter? And is it not a fact that the Secretary-General is answerable to the Security Council, of which this Government is a Permanent Member?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I can only say to the noble Lord that I think it highly unlikely that any matter referred to in the Report of the Consultant Mission will be such as to justify its consideration by the Security Council. I would not rule out that if there were important matters consideration could be given, but it is not, I fear, for us to judge this matter. It is the responsibility of the Secretary-General. To my noble friend Lord Mitchison, I would say that he is perhaps too young to remember that West Irian was at one time New Guinea.

MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH GRANTS
2.45 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—

(a) the amount of Government grants to the Medical Research Council and the Scientific Research Council for the five years ending March 31, 1968, and the amount of the grants for 1968–69;

(b) how many university students, graduating in the summer of 1967, had their applications to these two Councils for research grants rejected owing to the lack of money.]

LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, with your permission I will have the full figures circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT; but between 1963–64 and 1967–68 Government grants-in-aid to the Medical Research Council rose from £7,033,000 to £14,232,000. In the case of the Science Research Council, which came into being on April 1, 1965, the rise has been from £28,253,000 in 1965–66 to £36,584,000 in 1967–68. The amounts of the grants-in-aid for the Councils in 1968–69 are not yet available.
As regards the second part of the noble Lord's Question, if, as I assume to be the case, it refers to postgraduate research studentships, the answer is, none. There were 268 eligible applicants for the 238 Medical Research Council awards offered, and 2,284 for 1,994 Science Research Council awards. Thus 30 and 290 candidates respectively with the minimum qualifications were not awarded research studentships in 1967. This was because there was a surplus of eligible candidates over the number of research training awards deemed necessary.
The full figures referred to were as follows:
Total Government Grants-in-aid:
Medical Research Council:

£

1963–64

7,033,000

1964–65

8,753,000

1965–66

10,280,000

1966–67

11,885,000

1967–68

14,232,000

Science Research Council:

£

1965–66

28,253,000

1966–67

33,919,000

1967–68

36,584,000

LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for his reply, may I ask him whether the fact that graduates who are disappointed at not getting research grants and who apply to universities abroad seem to be able to obtain them, will be taken into account in assessing the grants in future, so that we can retain in this country those graduates and their ability?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I think the noble Lord is jumping too quickly to conclusions. I take it that he has read the Swann Report where some consideration was given to the appropriate numbers, and in certain cases to the possible desirability of people not

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doing further research work which might divert them from going into industry. It is a very complicated subject, and I think that it would be better if the noble Lord were to study my reply and perhaps refresh his mind on the Swann Report. This is a complicated subject, but it has been accepted that there should be some element of competition in regard to some of these grants.

DANGEROUS DRUGS: CONTROL OF METHEDRINE
2.47 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, having regard to recent newspaper reports concerning the drug methedrine, they are intending to specify this drug in the Regulations about to be made under Section 1(i)(b) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1967.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, this is not possible under existing legislation. The only drugs which may be specified in the Regulations to be made under Section 1(1)(b) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1967 are those specified in Part I of the Schedule of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1965. This does not include the amphetamine group of drugs, such as methedrine. Methedrine is, however, one of the amphetamine group of drugs subject to control under the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act 1964 and the Poisons Rules 1966. It may not be imported into the United Kingdom except under licence given by the Secretary of State or sold by retail except on a doctor's or dentist's prescription. Unauthorised possession is an offence.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, is the noble Lord satisfied that he has the powers under the Acts which he has quoted to deal with the possibility that the "junky" doctors who are at the moment treating heroin addicts will not be able to switch them on to methedrine when the regulations under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1967 are brought into effect? Will he be able to deal with this possibility?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, as the noble Lord is aware, paragraph 12 of the Schedule to the Dangerous Drugs Act 1965 deals with narcotics. The drug with which he is concerned is not a narcotic and therefore cannot come under that Act. With regard to our interest in the matter, as your Lordships will be aware methedrine is an amphetamine; it has a limited therapeutic use as a treatment for depression, but it induces tolerance and, if taken as a habit, progressively larger doses are required to produce the same effects. Heavy dosage has been known to produce delusions of persecution and hallucinations, and misuse can lead to temporary mental illness requiring hospital treatment. Our difficulty is that prescribing a drug for addicts is entirely a medical matter within the judgment of individual doctors. What we are doing is to see that our inspectors under the Act are watching this matter very closely, and if the noble Lord has any information which would enable us to clarify the Press statements in this matter I shall be very glad to receive it.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that Press statements have caused a good deal of concern, and that they appear to indicate that the provisions which we enacted during the summer may well be capable of being circumvented by the rather more disreputable elements in the medical profession, who are determined to circumvent them? Would he not agree, therefore, that it is probably very much better for the medical profession, as it would have been right at the beginning, to deal with this and kindred matters by seeking to discipline their own doctors?—because seems to me that whatever we do here they will find some way of getting round it.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, in any profession there is always a minority of practitioners who seek to circumvent the law. However much I might agree with the noble Lord in principle, in this case the question of discipline is a matter for the medical profession, and since, apparently, they were unable to agree to do what he suggests we have had to introduce legislation. At the moment the only law by which we can deal with methedrine is the 1964 Act, but this is a new menace about which we do not yet have enough

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information. We are seeking more information urgently, and when we know the extent of the problem we shall endeavour to deal with it.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, in cases where the nationals of another country import or deal or traffic habitually in these drugs, could there be some provision made in the Dangerous Drugs Act for their deportation for such habitual offences?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, there is no difficulty about that. The 1964 Act provides against such importation which would be entirely unauthorised, and provides penalties on summary conviction of a fine of up to £200 and/or imprisonment up to six months, and, for an indictable offence, of an unlimited tine and imprisonment up to two years. That is not our problem. Our problem is that some of it gets in, or even leaks out from home sources. Any possession is an offence, but we have to catch the people first. Also, as the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, suggested, there is the difficulty of this very tiny minority of practitioners who are seeking to circumvent, or indeed to anticipate, the 1967 Act which will be dealing with heroin and cocaine.

CIVIL EVIDENCE BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to amend the law of evidence in relation to civil proceedings, and in respect of the privilege against self-incrimination to make corresponding amendments in relation to statutory powers of inspection or investigation. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

THEFT BILL [H.L.]
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to revise the law of England and Wales as to theft and similar or associated offences, and in connection therewith to make provision as to criminal proceedings by one party to a marriage against the other, and to make
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certain amendments extending beyond England and Wales in the Post Office Act 1953 and other enactments; and for other 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 Stonham.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

RAW COTTON COMMISSION (CANCELLATION OF LIABILITIES) ORDER 1967
2.55 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF PUBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS (LORD WINTERBOTTOM): My Lords, I beg to move that the Raw Cotton Commission (Cancellation of Liabilities) Order 1967 be approved. As your Lordships are no doubt aware, the Cotton (Centralised Buying) Act 1947 established a Commission for the centralised buying, selling and distribution of raw cotton. The Act transferred to the Commission all property rights and liabilities in raw cotton and other contracts relating to trading in and dealing with raw cotton vested in the Board of Trade immediately before the establishment of the Commission. The Act also made provision for periodical advances to be made by the Board to the Commission for the purpose of meeting outgoings chargeable to the Commission's revenue and capital accounts.
In 1954 the Cotton Act amended the functions of the Commission principally by withdrawing its monopoly status, and provided for its dissolution if at any time the Board of Trade and the Minister of Materials were satisfied that it would be in the public interest to do so. The functions of the Minister of Materials under the 1954 Act have since been transferred to the Board of Trade. In exercise of this power the Raw Cotton Commission (Dissolution) Order 1954 was made after approval by Parliament, and on September 1, 1954, the Commission went into liquidation. The winding up has been handled by a liquidator appointed by the Board of Trade and the Minister of Materials empowered to exercise the remaining functions of the Commission during the winding-up period.

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The liquidator took over a net deficit of £7,035,502. The losses incurred
by the Raw Cotton Commission were discussed by the House during the debate on the Cotton Bill in 1954. During the winding-up period a further deficit of £1,233,094 was incurred. The major part of this additional deficit is attributable to the development premiums amounting to £808,029 paid on Nigerian cotton imported during 1955 and 1956 as part of the negotiated cancellation of the agreement with the Nigerian Produce Marketing Company Limited. The liquidation has been delayed by certain outstanding claims, but these have recently been settled. All assets have been realised and no further income can be expected to reduce the outstanding liabilities to the Board of Trade.
It is therefore now possible to proceed with the formalities required to complete the liquidation of the Commission, including the presentation of the liquidator's final account, which under Article 13(2) of the Dissolution Order must be laid before Parliament by the President of the Board of Trade. Before this can be done the outstanding liabilities to the Board must be cancelled. Section 4(6) of the 1954 Act provides for the cancellation, with the consent of the Treasury, by Order of liabilities in respect of both initial and periodical advances. Section 5(1) of the Act provides that power conferred by the Act to make Orders shall be exercisable by Statutory Instrument and shall be invoked only if a draft of the Order has been laid before Parliament and approved by Resolution of each House. The draft has been so laid. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Raw Cotton Commission (Cancellation of Liabilities) Order 1967, laid before the House on December 5, be approved.—(Lord Winter-bottom.)
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, on behalf of noble Lords in this House, for his clear explanation of this draft Order. But I do not think we should allow the draft to pass your Lordships' House without just looking back for a moment at what is in fact a sorry little epitaph to a largely forgotten episode of the last time the Labour Government were in office.
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The Liverpool and Manchester Cotton Exchanges had to be closed down during the war because of war-time conditions, and after the war was over they were anxious to get going in business again and to provide the service to the cotton industry which they had provided with such exemplary efficiency for nearly a hundred years. The 1945 Government, however, had other ideas. They believed that there should be a monopoly-buyer of raw cotton, and that it would accord not only with their principles but also with their belief in the ultimate efficiency of the cotton industry, if cotton buying were nationalised. Hence the Cotton (Centralised Buying) Act, which passed through your Lordships' House some twenty years ago. That Act established a single, monopoly buyer, and it was claimed for this buyer that it would enable prices to be stabilised to the spinners; that they would be protected from fluctuations in world markets; and that the speculator, with his profits, would be eliminated.
This state of affairs continued, with ever-growing losses on the part of the Commission when it had been set up once the Act was passed, until a Conservative Government came into office in 1951. We inherited the Raw Cotton Commission; and the Act of 1954, to which the noble Lord has referred, removed the monopoly buying powers of the Commission and forced the Commission—by then a very cumbrous, bureaucratic institution—to compete with the recreated, though much smaller, Liverpool and Manchester Cotton Exchanges. It became quite clear that in the more free world commodity conditions which prevailed in the early 1950s there could no longer be a place for a monopoly or nationalised buyer of raw cotton, and it fell to the Conservative Government to dispose of the Raw Cotton Commission, which it did by means of the winding up Order and other details so clearly enunciated by the noble Lord. Now we come to the end of the sorry story: a net cost to the taxpayer of over £8 million in a Socialist experiment started twenty years ago. My Lords, will they never learn?
3.2 p.m.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, if there was anybody present who did not know any more than that, it would sound very good, but I can tell the House that what

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the noble Lord has been saying is absolute and utter nonsense. If Lord Chandos were here—he was a: very distinguished Member of the other place, and held the high rank of President of the Board of Trade—he would confirm what I have to say about what the noble Lord has said, because it is on record that Lord Chandos said that it was a total impossibility ever again to resurrect a terminal exchange for cotton. That was because of the contraction which had taken place, and the fact that for a terminal exchange the contracts for cotton bought against futures, totalling a minimum of a million bales, had to be delivered against futures as and when required. Lord Chandos would verify that if he were here, because I am merely quoting what he said. That was at a time when the Conservatives were responsible.
The Raw Cotton Commission came in at a time when it was absolutely necessary for that type of control to be maintained. It saved the Lancashire trade then because of its ability to buy cotton all round the world. If it had not been for the Raw Cotton Commission it would not have been possible, for instance, to sustain the utility schemes which were so important during the war, when the ordinary folk of this country, with the price controls that existed at the time, were able to buy goods at a reasonable price. In many ways I wish we had some of those price controls now. People knew what they were buying and that the prices which were being charged were reasonable and fair. That is what the Raw Cotton Commission did. If the noble Lord wants any more information, I can give him chapter and verse for an hour.
What I should like to ask is this. The Conservative Administration in a transaction with the Nigerians took on an indebtedness against the resources of the Raw Cotton Commission which landed us with a deficit of somewhere in the region of £600,000 or £700,000. How much debt was incurred under Sections 14 and 15 of the Cotton Centralised Buying Act 1947, under which the Raw Cotton Commission traded, after the 1954 Cancellation Order? How much debt has been incurred under Sections 14 and 15 since the Order which provided for the dissolution; and does the winding up
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in total take place on January 1, 1968, like the cancellation of this £8 million debt?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am certain the House is grateful to both noble Lords for their sermons on the virtues of private enterprise and on the success of the Cotton Commission during the period when the raw material markets of the world were destroyed and distorted by a major war. I think that even the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale, with his fervent belief in the virtues of private enterprise, would agree that in the difficult period immediately after the war private enterprise would not have served this country as well as the system which we introduced. But, of course, historians will comment upon this when we are passed away. All we have to do is to close a chapter. The noble Lord described it as "a sorry episode". Whether or not the stabilisation of a basic raw material at the cost of something under 1 per cent. of the total gross dealings of the Cotton Commission is a matter for complaint, I should not like to argue to-day. I personally believe that the nation as a whole benefited by this action, and did so also particularly during the difficult period of the Korean War, when the cotton markets of the world were once again stabilised.
But times change and things get better. The world markets settled down, and at a time considered appropriate by the Government of noble Lords opposite the Cotton Commission was wound up. The main business of winding up was completed by 1957; and, as my noble friend has pointed out, substantial losses were incurred during the period of liquidation—not because of the operation of the Cotton Commission but during its period of liquidation; for ten years, in fact. However, the business of liquidation has dragged on because of very minor court cases which had to be finally settled. After this long period, settlement has been achieved, and the Raw Cotton Commission (Cancellation of Liabilities) Order has to be agreed by this House so that we can finally close this chapter. I hope that, with my explanation, noble Lords will agree to this course of action.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CIVIL DEFENCE (PUBLIC PROTECTION) (WARNINGS) (REVOCATION) REGULATIONS, 1967
3.8 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that the Civil Defence (Public Protection) (Warnings) (Revocation) Regulations, 1967, a draft of which was laid before this House on November 28, be approved. I have two Civil Defence Orders to submit to your Lordships this afternoon, and I hope it will meet your Lordships' convenience if I deal with them in one speech and then deal, again in one go, with any questions or comments your Lordships may wish to make. The purpose of the first Order is to revoke the Civil Defence (Public Protection) (Warnings) Regulations, 1951. The 1951 Regulations conferred on police authorities in London and on certain local authorities elsewhere in England and Wales, principally county councils and county borough councils, functions in connection with local arrangements for the provision of a system of warning the public by siren of hostile attack, and for operating that system in the event of war.
The warning system contemplated by the 1951 Regulations was virtually a continuation of the system used in the Second World War which had been a local authority function. The threat of attack has changed and the responsibility for giving additional warnings of a kind not contemplated when the 1951 Regulations were drafted, that of warning the public of the approach of radioactive fallout, is now one of the principal tasks of the warning system, for which the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation is responsible. Technical advances in the system of relaying messages have enabled an attack warning to be distributed from one centre to the whole country within a matter of half a minute. We have recognised that with the development of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation the exercise of local authority discretion in the provision of a warning system is no longer appropriate. Accordingly the responsibility for providing a public warning system in England and Wales has been assumed by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary under Section 1 of the Civil Defence Act 1948.
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The Regulations we are now considering revoke the functions previously conferred on police and local authorities which are no longer applicable, though the police authorities continue to carry out certain functions for the testing, care and maintenance of sirens and their control equipment on an agency basis. Expenditure incurred by the police authorities on an agency basis is fully reimbursed.
My Lords, the second Order that I submit for your approval is the Civil Defence (Grant) (Amendment) Regulations 1967. In these Regulations the substantial amendment is contained in Regulation 1(b), and with your Lordships' permission, I should like to deal with this first. My noble friend Lord Bowles made a Statement to the House on December 14 last year about local authority Civil Defence, and he referred to the decision to reorganise the Civil Defence Corps. This reorganisation has been going forward during the past months. The main task of the reorganised Corps in an emergency will be to help to man local authority controls, which are an integral part of the Government control system. The purpose of the control system, initially, is to direct life-saving operations, and subsequently to provide a framework of civil administration to marshal and coordinate the use of available resources to the best advantage of the community.
Before the reorganisation, the Corps was divided into five specialist sections—Headquarters, Warden, Rescue, Welfare, Ambulance and First Aid—and each section had its own training. In the reorganised Corps, with the emphasis on control and co-ordination, specialist sections have been abolished. Much of the training is now common to all members, but those who have completed the recruit stage of training will be concerned with two or more specialised activities so as to provide for flexibility in their use in an emergency, whether they are on either the active or reserve strengths. These changes in training arrangements raise problems about claims by local authorities for grant on training expenditure.
Under the Grant Regulations of 1953, relating to England and Wales, expenditure on training is completely reimbursed for those Civil Defence preparations mentioned in the Schedule to these Regulations. All other training expenditure

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(and this is the greater part) is grant-aided at the rate of 75 per cent. To take one example of the activities mentioned in the Schedule, expenses on training in connection with the preparations for billeting, care of the homeless and emergency feeding is completely reimbursed. This training has been undertaken hitherto by the Welfare section of the Corps, and local authorities had no difficulty in identifying and isolating this expenditure for the purpose of their claims.
The new training arrangements and the abolition of sections, however, make it impracticable for local authorities to isolate expenditure on the training of the individual member for particular activities. We have therefore decided, in consultation with the local authority associations, that all expenditure incurred in training members of the Corps should be treated alike for grant purposes and grant-aided at the rate of 75 per cent.
Regulation 1(b) of the Draft Regulations makes provision for this. Paragraph 6 of the Schedule to the 1953 Regulations prescribes certain expenses that will not qualify for complete reimbursement, but for grant of 75 per cent. Regulation 1(b) of the present Draft Regulations adds expenses for training members of the Corps to paragraph 6 of the Schedule. Regulation 1(a) is a drafting Amendment relating to the first Order which I mentioned this afternoon and have already explained. It means that paragraph 3
of the Schedule to the 1953 Grant Regulations no longer apply. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Civil Defence (Public Protection) (Warnings) (Revocation) Regulations. 1967, laid before the House on 28th November, be approved.—(Lord Stonham.)
3.17 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord for his exposition of these two Orders. I am sure the House will welcome the news of these developments, particularly that of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation which, as we have heard, permits of this warning to be relayed rapidly throughout the whole Kingdom in 30 seconds. In this connection, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether Scotland is covered; and,
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if so, how. He mentioned that the Order that is being amended referred to the police in London and the local authorities in England and Wales, but as its title is the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation, obviously Scotland also is involved. Perhaps he could tell us whether other Regulations are to be laid or whether, for some reason which is not quite clear to me, Scotland does not need to have her Regulation amended.
The second point on which I think we need assurance is the bringing into force of this centralised system of warnings and I am sure we all agree that this is necessary for the sort of threats that we now face which still permits local warnings to be issued as well. We cannot envisage exactly the situations that we shall have to face and we ought to have flexibility. Thirdly, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he could now say—and that I think we ought to have this before we give our approval to this Order—how he envisages that the public will be attuned to the warnings that this system is going to issue. As I understand it, the "Red" warning is a siren, the one with which we are all familiar. But if we hear a siren now, we assume that an ambulance is on its way or that a fire brigade is being activated. But if we heard a maroon, which is the "Black" warning, I do not think many people would know what it meant or what they ought to do about it.
There is a process of attuning the public to these warnings in advance which must be completed before this system will become operative. What, for instance, would be done if we found ourselves in the sort of situation the Americans faced during the Cuba emergency? What preliminary steps will bring all this up to a high degree of readiness?—for we are not going to get a declaration of war. These are the points which occur to me as perhaps needing a little further explanation before we give our approval to these Orders, which otherwise I am sure we all welcome.
3.20 p.m.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: My Lords, I do not think that this is a generalised discussion on Civil Defence, but I hope that your Lordships will excuse me if I put this point. Is it possible to place more emphasis on Civil

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Defence in rural areas which are unlikely to come under direct attack and to have more arrangements for the reception of refugees in these areas? Should such a thing happen in the area where I live, we are likely to be flooded with refugees, and I do not think there are many arrangements for dealing with them or doing anything about them at present.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am most grateful for the welcome given to these Orders and for the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford. On the question of Scotland, as might have been expected, the case is somewhat different, not in relation to the warnings but in relation to the legislative position. In Scotland separate warning regulations were not made in 1951; therefore, in effect, we do not have to "unmake" them. When arrangements for public warnings were changed in 1961 responsibility for providing a public warning system in Scotland was then assumed by the Secretary of State for Scotland, as it was assumed in 1961 in England and Wales by the Secretary of State for the Home Office. But where in Scotland they are a little ahead of us is that the Civil Defence Public Protection (Scotland) Regulations of 1949 were revoked by the Civil Defence Public Protection (Scotland) Regulations 1967. My Lords, it is obvious that Scotland stands where she did; and may she ever do so!
The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, asked me two other questions, one about flexibility. There are two warnings. One is the so-called four-minute warning, which is a siren—the intermittent kind of siren with which we are all familiar. The difference, as compared with the last war, is that it will be operated centrally and communicated almost instantly—I said within 30 seconds—to 24,000 different warning points throughout the country. That is one form of noise. The second form of warning will be communicated from 22,000 different points. They are comprised in the 24,000 that I mentioned. The additional number in the first category include those at industrial establishments which are so large that they need more than one siren so that everybody shall hear the warning. The second form of warning is for radioactive fallout which, of course, can come only after an attack.
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In answer to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, I would say that the great strength of this warning system is its flexibility after an attack. The fall-out warnings can be ejected (if I may use that expression) by the national authority into 250 carrier control points installed in major police stations throughout the country; and from each carrier control point warning messages can be distributed simultaneously to warning points in the carrier area. There are, approximately, 22,000 of these established at Royal Observer Corps posts, police, fire and coastguard stations and, where necessary, in certain private and industrial premises.
Each warning point is equipped with a radiac survey meter and the event of a breakdown in the communication system the warning point operator would sound a warning when fall-out registered on the survey meter reached 0·3 rõntgens per hour; and warning of the actual fallout would be sounded by maroon. First deliveries of these have now been taken and distribution is beginning early next year. They will be set off literally by pressing a button. In addition, fall-out warnings will be given by the B.B.C.'s war-time broadcasting system, and we expect these may be picked up by transistor radios.
I do not think there is any question whatever that this is the best system would could be devised. It will be virtually instantaneous; it will be nationwide and it will be effective, providing—and this brings me to the noble Lord's second question—that the public understands what it means. Obviously, if the warnings were sounded in the next five minutes the public certainly would not know what was meant.
The noble Lord asked how I envisaged that the public would be tuned to the warnings which will be issued. My Lords, if there is anywhere in the world a "Doctor Strangelove" character who could "poop off" a nuclear attack without any kind of warning whatever, there is no kind of warning which would be effective against it. Under present conditions we are not contemplating, that more dangers are likely to arise in the foreseeable future; nevertheless, we agree that they could arise, and that is what we are preparing for. It is envisaged that if this danger were likely to come

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about there would be a period of international tension, during which the Government of the day would decide at some point that an emergency situation had arisen; and they would then declare a state of emergency.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, instanced the United States/Cuba crisis. It is the case that the British Government then had to take a decision whether or not they would declare a state of emergency, and they decided not to do so. If, on the other hand, circumstances arose whereby it appeared to the Government of the day that this danger might occur within the space of a few days, and they then decided to declare a state of emergency, all the organs for conveying information to the public, constant broadcasts, leaflet distribution and films (which of course are all ready; all these things are ready) would be used.
It might be asked, "Why do you not do it, now?" I think the reasons are obvious. Why create panic now when there is no need at all for panic? What I can say to your Lordships is that if this dire emergency should arise, we are ready to give the answer. I can only hope that this nation will always be ready to give the answer and to maintain a constant state of preparedness.
Only one other question was asked me, by the noble Lord, Lord Belhaven. He referred to the position in rural areas. My Lords, we have to stop thinking about A.R.P. in 1938, or we shall be in a hopeless position to meet the emergencies of the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s if they come. It would be the intention of Her Majesty's Government to provide the Government of the day with an option to evacuate priority classes—mothers and children—but it is not intended that evacution would be for long distances, because that would be wholly impracticable, but for shorter distances of 20 to 30 miles from the great centres of population. Of course we should have to make some call on the assistance which could be given by the less populous areas, including rural areas, and preparations of that kind have been and are being made. All the considerations that the noble Lord put forward are being taken into consideration.
LORD FRASER OF NORTH CAPE: My Lords, could the noble Lord say
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whether all these warnings take place at immediate notice?
LORD STONHAM: We have 1,560 Royal Observer Corps posts in the country and they could be manned within a lime varying from half on hour to a few hours.
LORD FRASER OF NORTH CAPE: My Lords, I thought that it was four minutes' notice.
LORD STONHAM: The time I gave is after the declaration of emergency is made by the Government. The noble and gallant Lord must differentiate between that position and the four-minute warning, which is the four minutes' notice that the whole nation would have of the fact that nuclear bombs were actually on the way.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CIVIL DEFENCE (GRANT) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 1967
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that these Regulations be approved.
Moved, That the Draft Civil Defence (Grant) (Amendment) Regulations 1967, laid before the House on 28th November, be approved.—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SUMMER TIME (No. 2) ORDER 1967
3.34 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Summer Time (No. 2) Order 1967 be made in the form of the draft laid before the House on November 28. Your Lordships will recall that on July 18 I drew your attention to the fact that the Summer Time Order 1967 provided for Summer Time next year to commence on the Isle of Man on April 7, as distinct from the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands, where it will commence on Febrary 18. This provision was made at the request of the Isle of Man Government, and although it appeared at first sight a little unusual we felt, and your Lordships agreed, that it was for the Government and the people of the Isle of Man to judge

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what was in their own best interests. But the Isle of Man Government, having given the matter further thought, have now asked that this amending Order be made so that the date of commencement of Summer Time in the Isle of Man in 1968 should coincide with that elsewhere in the British Isles.
I am sure that your Lordships will agree that this change is generally to the advantage of the public, both on the Island and in the United Kingdom. Your Lordships will be aware that this particular subject is one on which the Tynwald is competent to legislate, but as a matter of convenience it has been left to our Legislation and the purpose of this amending Order is solely to provide for the changed view of the Isle of Man Government on the date from which Summer Time should operate in the Island in 1968. The Order has no effect of any kind in the United Kingdom, and I commend it to the House for the purpose of giving effect to the changed view of the Isle of Man on this matter.
Moved, That an humble address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Summer Time (No. 2) Order 1967 be made in the form of the draft laid before the House on November 28.—(Lord Stonham.)
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, I am raising this point now because I feel that I might be out of order if I raised it after this Order had been agreed to. I am concerned about the fact that on these Orders my two noble friends have made, in all, five speeches and there has been a certain amount of debate on each of the Orders. For my sins, I am a member of the Special Orders Committee. One day last week we spent hours of our time on these very same Orders. We asked the civil servants in attendance the sort of questions that have been asked in the House this afternoon. As a result of our deliberations, we decided that none of these Orders and Regulations required the special attention of the House.
I am wondering at this moment what "special attention of the House" can be if it is not what we have been giving these Orders this afternoon. My concern is whether, as a Special Orders Committee, we are not wasting our time. Or are we so appointed on purpose, that we
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might be found something to do which eventually the House considers afterwards? It seems to me that either one or the other is a complete waste of time. Either the Special Orders Committee is a waste of time, or the House is wasting its time in reconsidering what the Committee have already done. I should be very grateful (I see that the Lord Chairman of Committees is in his place) for some clarification of this matter, so that we may know, as a Committee, just where we are.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, for my sins I was once a member of the Special Orders Committee, and it is a dreadful warning to my noble friend because he sees where it has landed me now. But I think that he is on a somewhat different point. The Special Orders Committee looks at new Orders to see whether there is something unusual or special about them legislation-wise. In my submission it would be wholly wrong if, after the Special Orders Committee had done their work and made their Report, whatever form the Report took, any Member of your Lordships' House were thereby to be precluded from expressing a point of view on a matter of policy—which is not, with respect, a matter for the Special Orders Committee—or from asking proper questions, such as both noble Lords asked in respect of the Orders which I have moved. I hope that when my noble friend considers that point he will agree that neither the Special Orders Committee nor your Lordships' House have been wasting their time on this.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, before this goes any further I would ask the Minister to confirm what I had understood: that this Order will be reviewed again in a year's time. I come from a part of the country which has been condemned to almost perpetual night for half a year, and it is by no means welcome.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the Order I am now moving applies only to the Isle of Man, and so far as it comes within the competence of the Isle of Man Government I cannot speak for them. On the draft Summer Time Order which I moved back in July, that will be effective from February 18 of next year until October 27 of next year, and two hours before that Order expires the British

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Standard Time Act comes into operation. This is permanent legislation and I can give no undertaking that the matter is going to be reviewed in a year's time. But I can remind your Lordships that, in response to a speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, I did say that we should be considering the effect of this legislation, and that if we found we had been wrong about it, we might come back with other proposals. But in no sense of the word have I given any kind of undertaking that this is subject to annual review, or anything like it.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, before passing on, I should like to add a word to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Royle. I do not think that the Minister quite understood the point that he was making. I do not think that he wanted to deprive the House as a whole of being able to discuss these matters. He was looking for some way by which time might not be wasted. We go on very late nowadays, often through wasting a little time. Would it not be possible for the points considered and approved by the Special Orders Committee to be put down in a memorandum which could be circulated with the Papers, so that we could know where we are? We really do not know what the points are which the Special Orders Committee have been discussing. If we could have a note of them, we should be in a much better position to deal with the matter on the Floor of the House.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, am I wrong in thinking that the primary task of the Special Orders Committee is to see that the Orders are properly laid; that is to say, that they are within the powers of the Act of Parliament on which they are founded?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I have tried to be as helpful as possible in this matter, but I hope your Lordships will agree that this subject is not before the House. I would ask your Lordships to consider the Orders which we now have under consideration. I am quite sure, however, that what has been said will be fully noted and considered in the proper quarter.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, the noble Lord has given us some doubts on the matter, because now it would appear
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that the Special Orders Committee have not been doing their work properly. I do not know the rules on this subject, but I am wondering whether the matter could be referred back to the Committee so that they could really get to work on it and come again. I should like an answer to that question, if I could have one.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, may I be permitted to say something about the duties of the Special Orders Committee? The Special Orders Committee have to report to your Lordships on every affirmative Order. They certainly have to decide whether the Order is infra vires. They also have to recommend whether or not a Special Order raises an issue of policy or principle and, therefore, would require the special attention of your Lordships. The Committee consider an Order, with the assistance of professionals, and report one way or the other. But, of course, the recommendations of the Special Orders Committee are purely advisory, and it is for your Lordships to decide whether or not that advice is to be accepted. The Special Orders Committee will continue with their work, so long as your Lordships feel that that work is worth while, whether or not the recommendations that they make to your Lordships are acceptable.
On Question, Motion agreed to: The said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

BROADCASTING
3.43 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I beg to move that the First Report from the Select Committee on Broadcasting be now considered.
Moved, That the Report be now considered.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now agreed to. I should like to say, briefly, one or two things about the Report. It is limited solely to the closed-circuit television and radio broadcasting experiment for which the House gave authority during the course of the last Session. The Committee's recommendations concerning

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broadcasting in the long term will be included in their Final Report, which will be laid after the experiment has taken place in February.
The details of the experiment itself are set out in paragraphs 2 to 6 of the Report. There are two stages. Stage one will take place in the week beginning February 5, 1968. During the course of that week our proceedings will be transmitted, both in television and sound, to rooms in this part of the Palace of Westminster, where they will be seen and heard on monitors and radio sets. In the following week arrangements have been made for the edited programmes prepared from the broadcast material obtained the previous week to be played back to the House. A description of the composition of these programmes will be found in paragraph 4 of the Report.
As the Report states, the purpose of the experiment is to give both the House and the broadcasters—and I emphasise the importance attached to this experiment by the broadcasters—an impression of how the proceedings in the Chamber will appear in sound and on television when broadcast. The Committee believe that this experiment will provide valuable information which will be indispensable for the assessment of the prospects of Parliamentary broadcasting in the long term. But the conditions during the experiment will not be the same as those that would obtain if permanent public broadcasting were to take place. If the House were to be permanently equipped for television the dislocation would be minimal, because miniature remote-controlled cameras would be used. However, for the experiment it will be necessary to use conventional manned cameras, which will take up a considerable amount of space in the Chamber. The Committee ask the House to bear in mind these special circumstances when considering Parliamentary broadcasting in the long term.
Paragraph 6 of the Report records the undertakings given by the broadcasters that they will not broadcast publicly any of the material obtained without the express permission of the House, and also that they will retain a sound and visual record of the experiment, at least until the House has come to a final decision on public broadcasting. Paragraph
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7 recommends that arrangements should be made for Members of the House of Commons to see and hear the broadcast material. If the House approves, facilities will be provided for this purpose at the Commons end of the Palace of Westminster. Paragraph 8 contains a recommendation that similar facilities should be made available to the Parliamentary Press.
Paragraph 9 deals with accommodation. The House will note that the Moses Room is being made available for the fortnight in question for Members of the House to see the continuous transmission and the edited television programmes. The Lord Great Chamberlain has kindly agreed to the Queen's Ante-Room being made available to Members of the House for the radio part of the experiment. Committee Room No. 4 has been set aside for the Press.
Paragraph 10 deals with the question of Press photography in the Chamber. It has been suggested in evidence to the Committee that a decision in favour of televising the proceedings of the House would have implications for Press photography. The Committee are not at this stage making any recommendations on the desirability of still photography in the Chamber, but they are of the opinion that the experiment would provide a useful opportunity to the House to estimate the effect that such photography would have on the physical conditions of the Chamber, and also to see examples of the photographs taken. Undertakings have been given that none of these photographs would be published.
In conclusion, I should like once again to take the opportunity of expressing the gratitude of the Committee to the British Broadcasting Corporation and to Independent Television for the great help that they have given us. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Report be now agreed to.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, it is appreciated that this is a Report of an interim nature, dealing not with major policy issues but with the detailed arrangements for the experiment that is to take place at the beginning of February. I therefore suggest that there is little your Lordships need do at this stage except to express further thanks to the Committee for the careful work that

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they have done, and to look forward, all of us, to our experiences on February 6, 7 and 8. I would only inquire, bearing in mind the statement in the Report that it is assumed that one of the three days on which recording will take place will be occupied by a debate of major interest, whether that debate is contemplated as being the debate on British sport, which we are to have on February 7, or the debate arranged on the following day for the Second Reading of the Street Offences Bill.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has expressed gratitude to the Committee and its Chairman, and I am sure the whole House would like to join with him in those expressions of gratitude. The arrangements set out in this Report are quite clear. The proper convenience of the House has been consulted, and it seems to me that the experiment will be a most useful one. Again, I should like to say that our thanks to all those who have put in so much hard work should be recorded.
LORD WADE: My Lords, I should like to join in thanking the Committee for producing this Report, which I welcome. There is just one point I wish to raise. I hope it is not outside the confines of the debate on this Report; I note that this is limited to the consideration of the closed-circuit experiment. But, looking a little further ahead, it is going to be very important that any radio or television reporting of the proceedings should provide a balanced and objective summary, so far as that is humanly possible. I think all noble Lords will agree that it will not be primarily concerned with entertainment. I think it was on the general debate on this question as to whether the proceedings of the House should be televised that the noble Earl, Lord Derby, contended that we were going to enter into "showbiz", but I am quite sure that if we were to attempt to do that we should be hopelessly outshone by the profession; and that would not be the intention.
It seems to me that the editing will require a very experienced team. "Today in Parliament" has a high reputation, and that has been created over a period of years. This closed-circuit experiment will no doubt bring to light
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some of the technical problems, but I do not think it can answer the extent to which we can provide that experienced team which will have to be built up over a period of time; and I think it important to point that out. I am in favour of televising our proceedings, but I think it will require a very great skill in doing it really well, and I am not sure that the closed-circuit experiment can provide the whole answer to that problem.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I should like first of all to answer the very interesting point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wade. The problem of editing our debates if publicly broadcast is not, of course, a problem included in this Report. But I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Wade, that it is a problem that will be dealt with in our final report. We attach just as much importance to this matter as he does, and we have already been considering very carefully both the method and the system of editing debates in this House, and the method and system which have already been proposed in the Report published by another place. So this is a matter that is very closely under the consideration of the Committee, and it will be dealt with fully in our final report.
My Lords, I would only add that I am delighted that so many Members of the Television Committee are present this afternoon, because they will appreciate as much as I did the very kind words the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, my noble friend Lord Beswick and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Wade, said in speaking of the Committee, and they will feel as pleased as I do that the House regards their work as being of very substantial value.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PROVISIONAL COLLECTION OF TAXES BILL [H.L.]
House in Committee (on Recommitment).
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

CAPITAL ALLOWANCES BILL [H.L.]
House in Committee (on Recommitment).
House resumed: Bill reported without further amendment; Report received.

LEGITIMATION (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
3.57 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Legitimation (Scotland) Bill, has consented to place her interest so far as it is concerned on behalf of the Crown at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Bill read 3a.
Clause 1 [Requirements and effect of legitimation]:
LORD SALTOUN LORD SALTOUN moved to add to the clause:
"( ) For the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared that nothing in this section affects or shall affect the succession to any peerage or dignity except a peerage of Scotland or a baronetcy of Nova Scotia."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Iddesleigh has asked me to move this Amendment which stands in his name, which I hereby do. The underlying reason for this Amendment is largely in order that your Lordships may know what law we are at present making, because at the moment it is, I am afraid, far from clear. This Bill makes the law of Scotland diverge more than it does from the law of England and extends these rules of legitimation to cover questions of peerage. The question I want to get resolved, and which I think all of your Lordships ought to have resolved, is this. The new rules of legitimation will no doubt apply to peerages of Scotland. The question is whether they will also apply to the peerages of England, and, still more, to peerages created after the year 1707.
The point is this. A Scotsman residing in Scotland, or an Englishman who resides in Scotland, and who legitimises an heir under this Bill, and legitimises an
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heir (for the purposes of argument) whom he would not have been able to legitimise but for the passage of this Bill, falls heir to an English peerage or to a United Kingdom peerage or to a British peerage. The question is: does he receive a writ to that peerage? There is a difference in these cases. In Scotland, to a Scottish peerage it is quite understood, but the whole of the English peerages ended in 1707, and one had what the insurance companies call a "closed fund". The same applies to Scottish peerages, though not to Irish peerages. A United Kingdom peerage has its remainder defined by the Crown to heirs lawfully begotten, and presumably legitimated. But Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, and if a man falls heir to anything in Scotland under the law of Scotland, he surely should fall heir to something which affects the whole United Kingdom. In moving this Amendment I am in fact asking for information, and I should like to know what is the effect of the new rules about legitimation on peerages of the United Kingdom, and British peerages, and indeed of English peerages. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 13, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Saltoun.)
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR: My Lords, I should like to add a few words to what my noble friend has just said. I happen to be a baronet of Nova Scotia, which is not always understood in England. In the course of the years of my ancestry we have also achieved a United Kingdom peerage, which was first given as a matter of convenience to my great-grandfather, who was a Member of this House and was at the same time Prime Minister, so it would have been very awkward if he had had only a Scottish peerage. This is one of those cases where I feel that a great deal of difficulty may arise. But I will say no more, except to support what my noble friend Lord Saltoun has already made so clear.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I find myself somewhat affected in this case, living as I do in Scotland, and having English peerages. My Barony of Stourton, for instance, which is a Barony
by Letters Patent existing, as opposed to the Baronies by Writ, is specifically created by the Crown

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to the heirs lawfully begotten in the male line, and we must realise that this Scottish Legitimation Bill is definitely altering the patent of this Barony created by Letters Patent by Henry VI. I think we ought to be sure that what we are doing here is to alter the Royal Letters Patent.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I must apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, if I appeared to be anxious to deprive him of the opportunity of throwing fresh light on this matter. An interval having elapsed, I thought that he was not going to move the Amendment and that we were going to proceed.
I do not agree with the noble Lord in his basic remark that the purpose of this Bill is to make the law of Scotland differ from the law of England in relation to peerages. This is incidental. The purpose of this Bill is to remove a barrier to the legitimation of children in Scotland which does not exist in England: to remove an unnecessary stigma which is continuing in Scotland, although in England the justice of removing this barrier was recognised a number of years earlier. That is the primary purpose of the Bill, and there would have been no doubts about that at all if the noble Lord had not felt it necessary on Committee stage to move an Amendment concerning the incidental effect on peerages. But the subsequent discussion on Committee, at Report and now on Third Reading would have persuaded anyone who had ventured into the House that it was a Bill for the purpose of altering the succession rights to the peerage, and that the rights of other individuals were only incidental. I should like to make it perfectly clear what is the primary reason for the Bill and why the Government are not disposed to accept this Amendment.
The effect of this Amendment is to declare that the succession to all peerages or dignities—except those of purely Scottish origin—is not to be affected by the provisions of Clause 1 of the Bill. If it were accepted, then all persons legitimated under the law of Scotland in future would be prevented from succeeding, for example, to titles created after the Union of the Parliaments in 1707. As the Amendment is drafted the exclusion would apply both to persons of the class who may be legitimated under the law at present and to those of the class,
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the bar to whose legitimation is being removed by the provisions of the Bill.
That is the first point to which I wish to draw your Lordships' attention; namely, that the persons who can succeed to titles at the present time, as the law on legitimation now stands, would be debarred from succession if this Amendment were to be accepted. I greatly regret the illness of the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, which prevents him from being here to-day to move his Amendment, but he was kind enough to write to me about the matter and I read his letter with great care. I wrote to him, giving him the reasons why the Government would not be able to accept the Amendment.
Perhaps I should say first of all, as I have said before (I think this is now the third time of saying it), that we are not seeking in this Bill to alter the rights to which legitimated persons are entitled under the existing law. On the contrary, our intention is, and the Bill was framed to ensure, that persons legitimated under it will have the same rights as those enjoyed by persons legitimated before it reaches the Statute Book. This is because we are working on the basis that it is not anything which the legitimated person has done which makes a distinction between them, and therefore there should be no distinction in the results. This is equally the intention in relation to rights to succession to titles and dignities as it is in relation to other rights, Provisions about rights which appear in the Bill in Clause 3, for instance, are for clarification, rather than alteration, of existing law.
As your Lordships know, however, the Bill does amend existing law in quite another respect; that is, it provides for the legitimation of children whose parents were not free to marry when they were conceived or born and who under existing law are barred from legitimation. This is the extent to which we are coming into line with the more advanced position in England and Wales. When I received the noble Earl's letter I was not certain whether he was seeking, for the purposes of succession to titles, to discriminate between legitimated persons who could be legitimated under the present law and persons whose legitimation would be made possible for the first time by the Bill. In my reply I told the

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noble Earl that the Government could not accept any Amendment which made a distinction between the two classes of legitimated persons, but even if the purpose of the Amendment is not to seek to discriminate in the way I have mentioned, and his Amendment is designed merely to clarify the existing law, I am afraid that I am still unable to accept it, because I do not think it is by any means clear that that is what its effect would be.
It is common ground between the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, and myself that his Amendment would not alter the rules of succession to purely Scottish titles and dignities. Indeed in this respect his Amendment would not exclude the new class of legitimated persons to whom Clause 1 of the Bill applies. Such persons could succeed to a Scottish peerage—provided, of course, that the terms of the grant so permitted. To complete this part of the picture, however, I should point out that neither would the Amendment exclude from the succession to any title such of the new class of legitimated persons as are legitimated directly by Clause 5 of the Bill; that is to say, children conceived or born at a time when their parents were not free to marry and whose parents have subsequently married each other before the passing of the Bill. To that extent therefore it would be anomalous.
It is on the question of the law relating to the succession to post-1707 Great Britain and United Kingdom dignities that I would depart from what has been said by the noble Lord. Whatever may be the position about English peerages or English baronetcies created before 1707, it is possible that the law of Scotland may apply to the succession to certain post-Union peerages and baronetcies—for instance, those where the territorial designation relates to Scotland and where the last holder was domiciled in Scotland. And if Scots law does so apply, of course, legitimated persons are entitled to succeed to such peerages and baronetcies under existing law, and ought to continue to be able to succeed under the law as it is restated in this Bill. Whether in any particular case the specific terms of the grant of the title would permit such a person to succeed is another matter altogether. What I
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am arguing is that there is nothing in the general law to exclude him from the succession.
In these circumstances, and given that we are concerned in this Bill with codifying the existing law, it would in the Government's view be totally wrong to accept an Amendment which would alter that situation. Such rights as persons legitimated under present law enjoy in this respect should be left intact. Further, since it is a cardinal principle of the Bill that there should be no discrimination between persons legitimated under the present law and the new class of legitimated person created for the first time in Scotland by the Bill, the latter should enjoy whatever rights are possessed in this area of succession by the former. For those reasons, I must strongly urge your Lordships not to accept this Amendment.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I listened with great attention to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, and I am very glad that he came to the point at the end. The point I was putting before your Lordships was whether the people who were legitimated under the Bill, and who would not have been legitimated before the passage of the Bill, if they fell heir to a United Kingdom or British peerage would, in fact, by virtue of the change in Scottish law, succeed. The noble Lord's answer to me, if I understood him right, was that they would so succeed. I think that this is a peculiar Bill. I am told that by moving an Amendment to prevent a change in the law affecting the peerage I am thereby imperilling the present position under the law in Scotland, and if that is the real effect of this Bill I think it is not a very nice trick to play on Parliament, to bring in a Bill in such a form that we cannot amend it without wrecking the law of the land as it at present exists. The point I am really on, I think, is this: that in England, Legitimacy Bills do not refer to peerage, and in Scotland they do.
The point before your Lordships is this. As the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has said, this Bill affects peerage. You can get by residence in Scotland title to a United Kingdom or British peerage which you would not otherwise have got by the law of England. I did not intend to press this Amendment, because

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I moved it, at the request of my noble friend Lord Iddesleigh, to obtain clarification, and I did not expect to find Lord Iddesleigh speaking against me through the lips of Lord Hughes as well as through myself to your Lordships. But if any one of your Lordships wishes to press this Amendment (I see that most noble Lords here are English Peers, and they are much more affected than I am) I will of course divide the House. Otherwise, I will ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, having got as much clarification as I think possible this afternoon.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

CIVIL AVIATION BILL [H.L.]
4.17 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I beg to move that the Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Beswick.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Clause 4 [Byelaws at certain private aerodromes]:
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull has put down an Amendment, and he mentioned his intention to do so on the Committee stage. I thought that the purposes of the Amendment which he indicated to me he proposed to put down were reasonable, and I have been looking at it to see whether I could help. I am advised that the words in the Amendment on the Order Paper which I thought the noble Earl would be moving first are not quite appropriate, and I have therefore distributed, as early as I could—and I have discussed this with the noble Earl—a Manuscript Amendment:
Page 4, line 20, leave out from beginning to "and" in line 25 and insert "The Board of Trade may by order designate for the purposes of this section any private aerodrome (that is to say, any aerodrome not owned or managed by the Board, the British Airports Authority or a local authority)".
This would have the effect of extending to the club aerodrome owners the power to make by-laws. I feel that this wording
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would meet the purposes of the noble Earl. I hope, therefore, it will be acceptable to the House. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 20, leave out from beginning to ("and") in line 25 and insert ("The Board of Trade may by order designate for the purposes of this section any private aerodrome (that is to say, any aerodrome not owned or managed by the Board, the British Airports Authority or a local authority)").—(Lord Beswick.)
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for putting down this Manuscript Amendment. I think it entirely meets the point that we were trying to meet with our Amendment No. 1, which was to include the mixed-user airfield and also the flying club airfield. With his assurance that these two airfields are covered by this clause I am happy to welcome this Amendment.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I just ask my noble friend whether the Amendment would cover aerodromes which are under the control either of the Royal Air Force in this country or of the air force of the United States of America in this country—whether regulations would apply to them as well as to the privately-owned aerodromes and those under local authority control?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, no. It is not possible to extend civil authority over aerodromes operated by the United States Air Force or by the Royal Air Force.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7 [Financial assistance for certain aerodromes]:
4.21 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL THE EARL OF KINNOULL moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "Subject to subsection (2) of this section". The noble Earl said: In the absence of my noble friend Lord Jellicoe, who was to have led the attack on this occasion with this Amendment, I beg to move the Amendment. I should perhaps explain to the House that this is exactly the same Amendment as was moved in Committee and was subsequently withdrawn. After looking at and examining most carefully, the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, we have put down the Amendment again in the same words. The reason is that we were not satisfied with the

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noble Lord's reply, for in our opinion it did not counter the main kernel of our argument; namely, what good reason is there why the British Airports Authority should be excluded specifically from the benefit of this clause?
The House will recollect that the clause gives the Government power to provide grants and loans towards expenses incurred in the development of aerodromes in Great Britain. The first major reason given for this Amendment when it was moved during the Committee stage was that the exclusion of the British Airports Authority from the clause would be in conflict with one of the main principles of the Government's White Paper on Nationalised Industries (Cmnd 3437). The noble Lord will recall that in that White Paper the Government specifically laid down that where nationalised industries were told by the Government to proceed on a certain basis which was not necessarily in their financial interest, they would receive a special payment. I will not read again what I said in the Committee stage. The second reason we gave was one of the inconsistency of the Government. The noble Lord at the time of the Second Reading debate admitted that any new development that the British Airports Authority took over would come within this clause, and it seemed quite illogical that the four major airports they at present control should be excluded.
The noble Lord's reply during the discussion on the Amendment on Committee stage was, I submit, a masterly smokescreen. He replied that the Government had already been given powers to extend loans to the British Airports Authority. This, of course, we already knew. But what we want to see is that in cases where, due to specific Government direction, the British Airports Authority are made to spend capital on improvements to the airports that they at present control, which expenditure, in the mind of the Authority, is contrary to sound commercial sense, then the cost should be clearly identified—"identified" is the word I should like to use—as a Government grant under this clause, and should not be swallowed up and lost in a Government loan under existing powers. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 39, leave out ("Subject to subsection (2) of this section").—(The Earl of Kinnoull.)
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Earl has reiterated the arguments which he used previously on the Committee stage in support of the same Amendment, and I am afraid I have little to add to what I said in reply to the arguments he then used. The Airports Authority Act, as I then said, was passed only recently. In that Act we fixed the capital debt of the Authority at a carefully considered figure, taking into account the assets which were being transferred. I say again that the careful accuracy of that calculation has been borne out by events so far, because the four airports taken over by the Authority, taken together, are profitable. As I have said, and as the noble Earl admits, the loan capital can be increased, and undoubtedly will be increased, for the development of the four airports as well as any other airport which the Authority may take over. I said then that it would be possible, under the Civil Aviation Act 1949, to make a non-repetitive grant, and it seems to me wrong to give the impression that we are prepared to make further grants to the Authority for work in connection with the four airports which they now operate.
I quite accept the point which was made by the noble Earl about the White Paper doctrine. All I would say about that is that the White Paper applies to all nationalised industries, and it is not the case with the other nationalised industries that a special provision has been made in law so that the policy of the White Paper can be implemented. On balance, I should have thought that we ought not to accept the proposed Amendment; but I confess that I am not prepared to fight to the last man or to the last ditch against the Amendment. What I suggest to the noble Earl is that his arguments are on record, and if there appears to be any feeling at all in another place in support of what he has said then I give an undertaking now that it will be taken into account and the matter will be dealt with there.
THE EARL OF KLNNOULL: My Lords, I am grateful for that undertaking. I hope, and I am sure, that there will be

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support in another place for this issue, and on the undertaking which has been given I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 [Detention and sale of aircraft for unpaid airport charges]:
4.29 p.m.
LORD BESWICK LORD BESWICK moved, in subsection (1)(b), to leave out "twenty-one" and insert "twenty-eight". The noble Lord said: My Lords, we had a discussion on the Committee stage as to whether it was reasonable to have a period of 21 days within which an aircraft could be detained, and after which sold, in order to meet airport charges. There was some difference between us as to the merits of this period of 21 days. There was no argument as to the principle of the provision. In this Amendment I am suggesting a reasonable compromise between the 42 days which the noble Earl is suggesting in his Amendment, the 7 days which is in the Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847, and the 21 days which was originally in this Bill.
I would ask the noble Earl to bear in mind, before we decide whether it should be his 42 days or my 28 days, that the 28 days starts from the date when detention begins. That is provided for in the Bill. That does not mean that an aerodrome owner will immediately pounce upon an aircraft which uses the facilities provided at an airport. The circumstances no doubt will vary, but presumably in many cases if a charge is made a period of credit will be allowed. This is normal commercial practice. If then there appears to be some reluctance or delay in meeting the proper charge after the normal period of credit has expired, I have no doubt that there will be some correspondence or exchanges of one kind or another, so the time taken may be quite considerable. It is only then, when the aerodrome owner sees that there is no further purpose to be served in continuing the exchanges, that in the majority of cases he will give notice that the aircraft is detained and that he proposes, after the period of 28 days, to sell the machine in order to pay for the charges which have been properly made. In real life I should have thought that a reputable aerodrome authority
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would be reasonable about this matter, and that when he reaches the point where he feels detention is justified 28 days is a reasonable period of time to elapse. I think that the noble Earl on reflection might agree with me. My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 22, leave out ("twenty-one") and insert ("twenty-eight").—(Lord Beswick.)
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, perhaps the difference between the noble Lord's case and ours is that we have consulted aerodrome owners over this problem and they have advised us that 28 days is not a reasonable period of time. The noble Lord mentioned that the period starts from the time of detention. As I understand it—and perhaps the noble Lord could confirm this—the time of detention is governed by the bylaws of the aerodrome. Under this Bill there would be a number of differing by-laws for private airfields, and therefore the time of detention would alter. However, if the feeling in another place is that it should be extended, we have perhaps made a useful contribution in getting it extended at present to 28 days, and I should be happy to leave the matter on this occasion.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I would simply make the point that although the noble Earl has consulted the aerodrome owner, it is not really the aerodrome owner who is concerned at all with this.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: I am sorry, I meant the aircraft owner.
LORD BESWICK: That is different. Of course, it is the aircraft owner who will be concerned here. I am not quite sure which aircraft owner the noble Earl has consulted. Obviously, as it is the aircraft owner who is likely to be behind in his payments, I should not have thought that he was the man to whom one should go for consultation in order to ensure that we have a reasonable period embodied in the Bill. I simply say again that the date of detention will be determined by the aerodrome owner, and that the aerodrome owners with whom we are dealing are reputable people. They are not bound by any by-law, and will themselves determine, after the exchanges about which I have spoken, when the period of 28 days will

1399
commence. In those circumstances, I feel that my proposed Amendment goes a good way to meet the arguments which the noble Earl and his noble friend originally put forward.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord can give any information, beyond the consultations which the Government have had, about the position on the Continent, in France, Germany and so on, in this type of case.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, we have not gone on the precedents there. I indicated during the Committee Stage the precedents which we had consulted; namely, the Harbours Act, and the experience which we have had in connection with marine cases and the impounding or detaining of ships. In drafting this particular clause, we have drawn on our experience there. I cannot give any hope that in this case there will be a change in the other House.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, was kind enough to say in Committee that the point we had raised about private aerodromes not being included in this clause should be reconsidered. I note that Amendments Nos. 7 and 9 will probably cover the point. However, I shall be interested to hear whether the noble Lord has in fact reconsidered this matter. The purpose of the Amendment is to bring private airfields within the scope of the clause. My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 7, leave out from ("aerodrome") to ("and") in line 9 and insert ("for which bye-laws have been confirmed by the Board of Trade in accordance with sections 2, 3 and 4 of and Schedule 3 to the Airports Authority Act 1965").—(The Earl of Kinnoull.)
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Earl is quite correct in saying that I indicated on Committee that I thought that he and his noble friend were on a good point and that I would try to meet it. He was rather quicker off the mark than we were and his Amendment appears on the Order Paper first, but the Amendment which I have submitted, Amendment No. 7, is intended to meet the argument which he has advanced. If it is convenient to the House, I might at
1400
this point refer to Amendment No. 7. I agree that there was a case for extending the provisions and it is a question only of defining the aerodromes. The wording which is to be found in Amendments Nos. 7 and 9 is designed to meet the case which the noble Earl had in mind, and I hope that the House will agree to those Amendments when they are put.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, Amendment No. 7 is intended to meet the case which the noble Earl has put so well both to-day and on Committee stage. It seemed to us reasonable to recognise that the private aerodrome owner was just as liable as the public authority aerodrome owner, to encounter the defaulting aerodrome user, and this Amendment will have the effect of extending to him the protection which is already contained in the case of the other publicly owned aerodromes. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 9. after ("authority") insert ("and any aerodrome designated for the purposes of this section under the next following subsection").—(Lord Beswick.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, the purpose of this Amendment, too, was raised on the Committee stage of the Bill. The problem as we saw it at the time was that under Clause 9 the owner or the manager of a single airfield could be termed the "aerodrome authority" and this could quite easily be two different people. So we have suggested by this Amendment that the administrative muddle which might ensue should be stopped up, and this Amendment would define quite clearly who is the aerodrome authority for the purpose of this clause, It is, of course, to deal with a possible ambiguity. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 11, leave out ("owning or managing it") and insert ("designated an aerodrome authority in bye-laws confirmed by the Board of Trade.")—(The Earl of Kinnoull.)
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Earl has said that he thought his wording was designed to make definition clearer, but I am advised that in fact there are certain ambiguities which would

1401
be left by the form of words which he uses. In our view, it would be undesirable to link the two clauses in the way this Amendment does, as the reasons for affording the power to make by-laws are by no means those for giving power to detain aircraft. There is a further difficulty about this Amendment in that it would be acceptable to the movers only if their Amendment on Clause 4 above had been accepted. I would therefore suggest to the noble Earl that the form of words which I am proposing, in my Amendment at page 8, line 24, to insert the words on the Marshalled List, would cover the case he has in mind, and cover it more effectively.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, I think this is another case of a private Amendment being put down which obviously would not satisfy the Parliamentary draftsmen. I therefore beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 9, to which I have just referred.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 24, at end insert—
("( ) The Board of Trade may by order designate for the purposes of this section any private aerodrome (that is to say, any aerodrome not owned or managed by a government department, the British Airports Authority or a local authority) at which it appears to the Board that there is a substantial amount of air traffic; and any order under this section shall be made by statutory instrument, which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament, and may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order under this subsection.")—(Lord Beswick.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 11 [Power to provide for the mortgaging of aircraft]:
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, this Amendment deals with another point which I raised during the Committee stage and which I think I probably got wrong. But I hope that on this occasion, when it is set down in Amendment form, the point will be more clear to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick. As I understand it, under this Bill the system of mortgages merely provides a system of priorities as between the mortgagor and the mortgagee inter se. The purpose of this Amendment is to strengthen this system,
1402
not only to protect the registered mortgagee against all other claimants, but also to act as a notice to all persons as to the existence and validity of the mortgage. I am advised that under the U.S.A. Federal Aviation Act 1958, Section 503(d) this protection is given. If the wording of this Amendment is not satisfactory to the noble Lord, I shall naturally be prepared to reconsider it further. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 42, at end insert—
("( ) Mortgages created and duly registered in accordance with any Order in Council made under this section shall be valid as respects all persons without further or other registration.") —(The Earl of Kinnoull.)
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I hope to persuade the noble Earl that in this case his Amendment is not necessary. I understand the objectives which he hopes to secure, and I hope to show that they will be secured, but by other means. Section 95 of the Companies Act 1948 provides that certain charges created by companies registered in England shall be void against the liquidators or creditors of the company, unless registered with the Registrar of Companies. The purpose of the Amendment is to ensure that mortgages on United Kingdom registered aircraft, if duly made and recorded in the aircraft register, shall be valid against liquidators and creditors of the company even though not also registered with the Registrar of Companies, thereby avoiding the necessity for the same mortgage to e registered in two separate registers. As has been explained, the Amendment n ay also he intended to ensure the validity of the mortgages against aerodrome authorities who may detain or sell the aircraft under Clause 9, against purchasers of the aircraft under Clause 9, and against holders of other liens for work done or similar cases.
With that in mind, it would seem that the Amendment prejudges the provisions which may be made under Clause 11(2)(b) and Clause 11(2)(c) as respects the operation of Statutes, including the Companies Act and Clause 9 of this Bill in relation to aircraft which are mortgaged under Clause 11. It would also prejudge the provision to be made under Clause 11(2)(b) as to the relationship of the registered mortgage to other rights in or over aircraft, including possessory

1403
liens. These provisions will require consultation with all the interests concerned, and can best be examined when we have the specific Order before us. As the noble Earl knows, there must be a draft Order laid before the two Houses of Parliament. That will be subject to the Affirmative Resolution procedure and if, when he has the terms of the Order before him, he feels that the points he has made have not been covered, I suggest to him that then will be the moment when we may discuss what he has in mind. But, as I have indicated, all the interests concerned will be consulted, and I hope that there will be no necessity for him to raise the matter again.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving us a powerful, though fairly complicated, reply, which I hope he understood more than I did. It is a very complicated subject, and I agree with the noble Lord that one should look at this again, if necessary. On that undertaking, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 [Extra-territorial regulation of certain British-controlled aircraft not registered in the United Kingdom]:
4.49 p.m.
LORD BESWICK LORD BESWICK moved to leave out "chartered by demise to a person who, or to" and to substitute: "under the management of a person who, or of". The noble Lord said: My Lords, here again I am endeavouring to meet a point which was made by the noble Earl on Committee stage. He then suggested that the words in the Bill "chartered by demise to" were not widely recognised in the aviation world. That may or may not be true, but the words which he then proposed to insert, and which he has in his Amendment No. 13 to-day, "operated by", are not entirely satisfactory. "Operated by" leaves open the question of who an operator is, and I am suggesting to him that the words—
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? "Operator" is defined in the Bill in subsection (7) of Clause 9.
LORD BESWICK: Yes; but not, my Lords, in this context. I am putting it to the noble Earl that the effect of this
1404
Amendment, as of the Amendment which he himself has down, will be that the Order in Council under Section 8 of the Civil Aviation Act 1949 will be able, but not required, to apply to foreign-registered aircraft when operated by a person qualified to own a United Kingdom-registered aircraft. This will enable two cases to be taken care of, the first of which is the case of a foreign aircraft interchanged under a demise charter to a British operator who takes possession of the aircraft and uses it for providing his own airline services. It will also meet the case of the foreign aircraft which remains in the possession of the foreign airline, for whom a British airline undertakes to act as an operator. Here we are moving over into a somewhat different field, but I would suggest to the noble Earl that the definition to which he has referred does not cover the case of this situation, where we have a British organisation operating a foreign aircraft from a foreign base. If the noble Earl, as I understand, wishes to cover these cases, then I feel that the draft which I am suggesting would cover them much more effectively. My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 29, leave out ("chartered by demise to a person who, or to") and insert ("under the management of a person who, or of").—(Lord Beswick.)
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, as I could understand it, the noble Lord is arranging that Orders in Council which would be applicable to British aircraft will be applicable to foreign aircraft if they happen to be operated by other nationals, and so on, even if those aircraft are overseas. Will not those same aircraft be subject also to foreign aircraft law; and, if so, which law will prevail?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord said "operated by other nationals". Here, I am talking only about British nationals. If there are British nationals who come under British law—
LORD HAWKE: I am sorry; that was a slip of the tongue. I meant British nationals operating overseas.
LORD BESWICK: Yes, my Lords; we are here talking of a situation in which a foreign aircraft would be operated by British nationals. Effectively, it is their actions that the Bill is designed to cover. The answer to the noble Lord is that

1405
this Bill, if it goes on to the Statute Book, will cover, with the consent of the foreign State concerned, the actions of those British nationals. They will be responsible to British law.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, the purpose of this Amendment, of course, one welcomes. It was the very point that was raised at Committee stage. I very much hope that the noble Lord's wording is correct. Perhaps it would be unkind to remind the noble Lord that at Committee stage his advisers advised him against this Amendment. His words on this very question were:
"It seems to me that his fears are not justified and that the present wording in fact carries out the intentions of the Bill."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7/12/67, col. 805.]
He did not in fact mention that. I do not know how this conflicting advice occurred. Perhaps the noble Lord could explain that.
LORD BESWICK: This is true, my Lords. I did say that the present wording covered the intentions of the Bill, but on further consideration it was seen that there were these operators who were possibly not covered by the Bill as originally drafted. We covered most cases, including the case of a foreign aircraft operated by a British company based in this country, but the case of a foreign-registered aircraft operated by a company with a base abroad was not covered. I am now saying that we are meeting the noble Earl's argument rather more effectively than the original words did.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
LONDON CAB BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
ERSKINE BRIDGE TOLLS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
COAL INDUSTRY BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.

HONG KONG: PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION
4.58 p.m.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether steps are being taken to enable children in Hong Kong to have free primary school education. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I feel like a maiden who has been abandoned by the very knight who should have come to rescue her, because I am forced to ask your Lordships' permission to ask this Question in the absence of my noble friend Lord Moynihan. I rise to speak to your Lordships' House for the first time with a very real diffidence, but perhaps it is just a little bit affected by the fact that I feel I am contributing to one of the better beliefs about your Lordships' House. It is, as your Lordships know, generally held that there is no subject so recondite that there cannot be found a noble Lord who has personal experience of it; and, as a former chairman of a primary school in Hong Kong, I cannot but feel that my elevation in time for this Question was almost providential.
My Lords, I know the great difficulties that the Hong Kong Government have had to experience ever since 1935, when the great influx of refugees started, and how well they have done in coping with so many of the problems of housing, health and crime which seemed to them the most urgent. So much so that Hong Kong is not a show-case of British democracy, for there is no democracy there; it is not a show-case of British capitalism, because some parts of capitalism in Hong Kong are by no means to be exhibited in a show-case; but it is at any rate a show-case for British administration. But I feel that there is one side in particular in respect of which the Government have been overkeen to

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rely on help from outside, and have therefore been a little too complacent, and this is education.
First of all, they have been able to rely on the tremendous feeling and desire for education on the part of the Chinese parents and, secondly, they have been able to rely on the tremendous work done by the voluntary societies, notably by the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches and, in particular, by one extremely great man to whom Hong Kong probably owes more than to anyone else in the course of this century. I refer to the retired Bishop of Hong Kong, Bishop Hall. Scratch the surface of any movement of social security in Hong Kong and you will get down to something which Bishop Hall first suggested at a time when he had to combat sometimes opposition, but always apathy. Now, because of this great work, because of the schools built by the Churches and the voluntary societies, and because of the desire by Chinese parents for education, I feel that certain aspects of this matter have probably been left out of account.
First of all, my Lords, there is no free education in Hong Kong. As your Lordships probably know, 20 per cent. of the places in the primary schools are free, and I am glad to hear that this has just been raised from the previous level of 10 per cent. But this is not by any means what we would know as free education. In many of the schools where this applies there is a classroom charge. a small one, to pay for chalk and electric light. There are still fees for taking examinations, even the examination to secondary schools; there are uniforms which are compulsory and which, for the lower primary, will cost something in the neighbourhood of 60 Hong Kong dollars, and for the upper primary, 80 Hong Kong dollars. There are books and paper, which are not provided free and which for the lower primary schools cost in the neighbourhood of 45 Hong Kong dollars, and for the upper primary schools 80 Hong Kong dollars. Your Lordships will readily realise what a drain this can be upon parents, possibly unskilled labourers, who are working together for a total salary of 400 Hong Kong dollars a month.
That this does not appear to have a great dissuasive effect on school attendance
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is to the credit of the parents concerned—although I am not entirely certain that I accept the figures that we are given of 99·8 per cent. of the estimated number of children in the 6 to 11 age group being in primary schools. I have consulted quite a number of people who have worked in Hong King recently, and all say that this is quite unrealistic. Possibly the mistake comes from a mistake in the estimated number of children. But there is undoubtedly some kind of dissuasive effect here which is doubled when one realises that there is no subsidy for, and no free places in, the pre-primary schools: the day centres, the day schools, the play centres, the nursery schools and the kindergartens. These are almost as important as the primary schools. The last Hong Kong Government Report admits that there is pressure for subsidisation; and I hope we shall see it. So often what happens is that the education of the older children is itself damaged by their having to stay at home to look after the younger children in those cases where both husband and wife have to work and work hard to get even the barest living wage. All this is of extreme importance.
My noble friend Lord Moynihan will be putting more strongly than I am doing at the moment the case for universal education in Hong Kong; and I thoroughly abide by the necessity of that principle. If the answer is that this cannot at the moment be afforded, then I ask that very careful consideration be given to the provision of grants towards uniforms, books and paper to make free places absolutely free; to the provision of a child attendance service, which, in spite of the figures we are given, I am still convinced is needed; and to the provision of a subsidy and free places in the pre-primary schools. I think that this would go a long way to meet the point. But if it is argued that there is no leeway in which extra taxation could be raised to pay for this—and I do not accept that argument—then, as is being done in secondary education in the Colony, the standard fees for those who can afford it should be raised in order to pay for those who cannot.
My Lords, Hong Kong, as we know, is going to face a more and more difficult time in the near future. It is up to us, as the responsible Government, to prepare them for this as much as we can.

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It is certainly up to us to try to produce the best education that we can and to try to relieve some of the grinding poverty—a great deal of which is contributed to by the amount of money that has now to be paid for schooling, if not technically for school fees. I beg to ask the Question standing in the name of my noble friend.
5.6 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I have rarely had such great pleasure as I have in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitney, upon the speech he has just delivered. One of the values of your Lordships' House lies in the fact that it contains people of experience in many fields of activity; and the speech to which we have just listened has emphasised that point, in that we have had the chairman of a primary school in Hong Kong opening our debate to-day. I do not know whether it was through Destiny that Lord Moynihan was not able to be in his place to open this debate; but I am quite sure that he himself welcomes the fact that his noble friend was able to do so. I hope that we shall hear him often. As one who has delivered more than one maiden speech—here and in another place—I should like to congratulate him upon the way in which he spoke and to say that I am sure that we all hope to be able to hear him many times again.
My Lords, I was not at first sure that the procedure of your Lordships' House allowed me to intervene at this moment since Lord Moynihan's name was first on the Order Paper; but, after consultation, I understand that he would prefer to conclude the debate rather than to take part now. I am very ready indeed to meet his wishes on that point. Although the Minister, my noble friend Lord Shepherd, is not at this moment on the Front Bench—although he is within hearing of my voice—I should like to say that I am very glad that he is to reply to this debate, because I am well aware of the very deep concern which he feels about Hong Kong. I know that not only his sympathy but his influence will be exerted to the fullest extent to meet the requests which have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitney, in opening this debate.
I should like to emphasise one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. Quite honestly, I find it impossible
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to believe the official figures which suggest that 98 per cent. of the children are attending primary schools. I acknowledge at once that I have never been to Hong Kong. I have never been further East than Sabah in Borneo, though I was born in the East. But I am intensely interested and I have had information from those who are there, including one of the district councillors in the Hong Kong district. She informs me that no one in Hong Kong except the officials believes this figure of 98 per cent. So my first request to my noble friend Lord Shepherd is that he will investigate this figure which has been issued.
None of us who at all understands the poverty of the people of Hong Kong could believe that, on their wretchedly low wages, they are able to send their children to fee-paying schools where only 20 per cent. of the places are free. As the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, indicated, the term "free places" is a misnomer, for the parents of the children have to pay for the exercise books which their children use; and they have to pay for the pencils and the chalk, and for the uniforms the children wear. They actually have to pay for the examinations which their children take if they wish to go further in education and take scholarships for the secondary schools. It is beyond credibility, when one knows of the appalling poverty which exists among the mass of the people in Hong Kong, to accept the official figure that 98 per cent. of the children of school age are able to go to the primary schools. I ask my noble friend Lord Shepherd to examine that figure in very great detail.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to intervene? Would he agree that in many cases quite a number of Chinese firms give free food and accommodation to the servants who work for them, and that that has a relationship to the cost of living?
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I appreciate that some do, and that others are in a position to do it. I am not sure that the word "many" in proportion to "all" would be appropriate, but I appreciate the point. I think my noble friend would agree that, even taking that into consideration, it is beyond the gulf of credibility to believe that 98 per cent. of the children of school age

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are able to attend primary schools, as the official figures would lead us to believe. My main reason for intervening in this debate is to emphasise the fact of the poverty in Hong Kong, which prevents advantage from being taken not only of primary education, but still more of secondary education facilities.
I do not think that any Member of your Lordships' House would be very proud of the circumstances in which the British occupation of Hong Kong began. It was to impose opium upon the Chinese people—when the Government of China sought to reject it—in exchange for Chinese trade. My Lords, I think it possible that the future of Hong Kong may anticipate the Day of Judgment and that we may be in the dock when history comes to make that judgment. What I wish to say immediately is that, while recognising, as I do, the contribution the Government of Hong Kong has made to housing and to health, as the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, has mentioned, nevertheless, as I know my noble friend Lord Shepherd appreciates, the problems of housing and health in Hong King have not begun to be solved. As rapidly as housing is made available to the people there are as many squatters as there were before the houses were built. And, unless I am misinformed, the number of deaths from tuberculosis in Hong Kong is still between 20 and 30 every week.
This situation has its effect upon education of the children. There we have a mass of people living in poverty. First, I decline to believe that such a large number of children are going to school. Secondly, I know from experience in Britain that when children come from overcrowded homes and are living in poverty they cannot take advantage of education. Thirdly only an insignificant number of children in Hong Kong are able to go to secondary school. I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Shepherd now has responsibility at the Commonwealth Office because I know of his great sympathy with the problems of Hong Kong. I appeal to him to try to make this a special issue to which he will give his attention, because, despite all that has been done regarding housing and health, Hong Kong is now one of the black spots in the British Commonwealth.
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I wish to appeal to my noble friend to do that, not only from the economic point of view but also from the political aspect. We have passed the day when there should be no elected authority to represent the wishes of the people of Hong Kong. If this seems a little farfetched from the problem of education, which was my primary motive in speaking, my Lords, I would say this to my noble friend. All experience shows that as democratic rights are extended in territories the enthusiasm which is latent among the common people for their children to have an opportunity to be educated finds expression through those democratic rights. I believe that my noble friend will have all these things in mind, and I am hoping that the contribution which I have tried to make tonight will be regarded, not in any sense as a censure, but rather as an encouragement to him in the task which he has undertaken.
5.19 p.m.
LORD MOYNIHAN: My Lords, I should like first to apologise most sincerely to your Lordships' House and in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for my late arrival. I am not sure that I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, that it was fate that held me up, but I would certainly agree with him that nobody in your Lordships' House could have spoken with more experience or could have put the case for further education in Hong Kong better than my noble friend Lord Beaumont of Whitley.
I should like to cast your minds back to the last time Hong Kong was discussed in your Lordships' House and to quote from the Hansard of that date what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said:
"Some 18 per cent. of the annual budget goes into the field of education."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9/11/67, col. 576.]
I am sure that that is the case, but I should like to be reassured of it, because in the Hong Kong Education Department Annual Summary on page 31 there is the following:
The actual total recurrent expenditure on education is 13·8 per cent. of the actual total of current expenditure of the Colony."
That was for the year 1965–66, the latest figure available to me. It is perfectly

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possible that that figure could have increased to 18 per cent. in the next year, in which case, I can assure your Lordships nobody would be happier than I, but I think that probably that is too large an increase to be true. I wonder where that figure of 18 per cent. came from, and whether the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, can reassure me when he comes to answer.
My noble friend Lord Brockway found it incredible that 98 per cent. of children in this age group in Hong Kong were in schools. May I point out to him that the published figure is not 98, but 99–8 per cent., which I am sure he will agree with me is even more unlikely to be the truth. Without any shred of evidence at all in my hands I hesitate to say that 99·8 per cent. is untrue, but I feel it must be extremely unlikely that that is a genuine figure. Possibly, as the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, said, the trouble with that figure is not the percentage of children that we know about but the large number of children we do not know about, who would decrease the percentage considerably. Anyway, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, will not stress that figure of 99·8 per cent. too hard, because he has been assured now by three people that they are in some considerable doubt as to its validity.
If the percentage of children at school in Hong Kong is high, it is not really because of the British Government or the Hong Kong Government, who have done precious little to help the percentage rise. It is due basically, as I am sure noble Lords who know the Chinese people and who know Hong Kong will agree, to the wonderful acceptance by the Chinese people of the extreme necessity to better themselves and to provide the best form of education possible for their children. I take my hat off to-night to the Chinese parents, not to the Government officials, for this high figure, if indeed the figure is what it is supposed to be.
The Chinese people in Hong Kong have over many years come in many ways to trust the British Government there. One feels sometimes that they rely on the British to an almost naïve extent, and it is certainly up to us not to let them down. What kind of education do the children get when in fact they get to school? Are we letting them down? I should like to quote some figures about
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the qualifications of teachers at present practising in Hong Kong. At primary education level, there are 943 trained graduate teachers, 1,713 untrained graduate teachers, 10,951 teachers who are not graduates but have had some form of training, 4,896 teachers who have had secondary education themselves and no training whatsoever, and 141 teachers who have no secondary education and are totally untrained. The total number of graduate teachers, irrespective of their academic qualifications, is 6,750.
There may be some noble Lords who believe, as I do, that this is not good enough. One third of the total number of teachers at this level in Hong Kong are
totally untrained and one quarter are totally untrained without a degree. On several occasions in Hong Kong I was asked whether I would teach in a primary school. I never did, possibly because I felt that I was unqualified to do so. Had I been aware of these figures, I might have felt that I could have contributed something to the education there, because I certainly should not have been alone in my lack of qualifications. There is a large number of totally untrained wives of British Service personnel stationed in Hong Kong who are making extra money out of teaching in primary schools. I am not saying that it is not a wonderful thing that these women should give up their time and dedicate themselves to the teaching of these children. What I am calling into question is whether we, in our responsibility to the Chinese children, are giving them what their parents think they are buying—and I use the word "buying" advisedly, because they are in fact paying for their education.
I should like to consider for a moment the language difficulties in the Anglo-Chinese schools in Hong Kong. This is a very difficult problem. I do not expect that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, will be able to answer this, because I think it is unanswerable, but I should like to draw his attention to it. I quote a Chinese official, who said:
"Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that to a Chinese pupil in an Anglo-Chinese school every lesson, whether it is arithmetic or science or whatever you will, is in the first instance an English lesson, for he has first of all to understand the language—and the English used in mathematics and science textbooks is often peculiar—before he can comprehend a problem. He therefore learns much more slowly than he would if the language used had been his mother tongue. This is not all, for if the tests

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and examinations are conducted in English, he has to be able to express in English what he has learned; and to be able to express something in English is much more difficult than just to understand a thing in English."
There is a tendency for many Chinese pupils attending Anglo-Chinese schools to spend most of their time learning from textbooks and learning to reproduce, sometimes in very poor English, what they have learned. They have little time for anything else: not even to think for themselves, or to try to apply the knowledge that they have acquired from textbooks to daily life, not to mention developing wider interests and learning through the medium of a foreign language. This, therefore, hampers the mental and general development of Chinese pupils.
I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, exactly whose "Holy cow" it is that taxation cannot be raised in Hong Kong. We understand that the very existence of this Colony depends upon high profits. But are not the profits at the moment just a little too high, and the standard of the social services, in particular of education, just a little too low? Is it not time that we did something about it? Your Lordships are sitting in a country to which free education came at a primary level in 1918; but in fact since 1870 there has been virtually free primary education in this country. In Hong Kong, from September, 1966, we have taken the reactionary step of raising school fees from 360 dollars to 480 dollars.
LORD SHEPHERD: Can the noble Lord tell me when these fees were raised?
LORD MOYNIHAN: In September, 1966. I obtained this information from the Education Department Annual Summary. I do not have it with me, but I will certainly get the exact page and line for the noble Lord.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord for one moment. I have been looking at the same document, and it appears to be 9 per cent. of the fee income for primary education.
LORD MOYNIHAN: My Lords, I am afraid that, without holding up the proceedings, I cannot find it at this stage, but I assure your Lordships that I will
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find the exact page and line showing that in September, 1966, fees were raised from 360 dollars to 480 dollars. When the question of Hong Kong is raised, it is very often said by members of the Government in this country—not only the present Government, but all recent Governments—how much better off the people of Hong Kong are in relation to the surrounding territories; and I mean, in particular, the surrounding free territories. One is told that in comparison with the other parts of the Far East they are very well off, and that we must make our comparisons with other Far Eastern countries and not with the United Kingdom.
I fully appreciate the logic of this. But is the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, aware that, whatever the figure be in Hong Kong—whether it be his figure of 18 per cent. or my figure of 13·8 per cent.—in the Philippines, which most noble Lords who have been there will agree is perhaps one of the most poverty-stricken areas in that part of the world, the figure is not 18 per cent., not 13·8 per cent., but 30 per cent.; that in Korea it is 19 per cent., and in Malaysia 21 per cent.? I am not making any comparison between the United Kingdom and Hong Kong; I am making direct comparisons between Hong Kong and the nearest geographical surrounding free territories.
This leads one to suppose that the Governments of the Philippines, Korea and Malaysia are doing more for the education of the people of those countries than we are doing for the people of Hong Kong. I sincerely hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, comes to reply he will hold out some hope to us that the percentage that we are spending in Hong Kong, whether it be my figure or his figure, will be raised.
5.35 p.m.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships for intervening in this debate when my name is not on the list of speakers. I should first like to pay my tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, who made a most able maiden speech. I know it will be the wish of your Lordships that we shall hear him often in the future.
In the few words that I want to say this afternoon I do not wish to go into a great number of statistics, but, having heard what other speakers have said, I

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hope that due credit will be given when we have the reply from the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, to the great way in which the Education Department of Hong Kong has carried out its duties in difficult times over the past years, and that whatever has been said in this debate will not in any way be construed as being a criticism of that Department.
As I understand this Question, it relates primarily to free education in primary schools in Hong Kong. So far as I am able to gather from the Annual Summary for 1965–66, in English primary schools in Hong Kong the amount paid is purely nominal, and represents only 9 per cent. of fee income. In Hong Kong there are a great many problems facing the Colony, not the least being the question of space. Many people from the mainland come there because they prefer the conditions of living in Hong Kong to those on the mainland of China. Apart from anything else, if one is to consider the problems affecting education, one has to find space for new schools.
From the long experience over many years that I have had with the Chinese, it is quite true, as noble Lords have said, that they are most concerned with giving their children a good start in life, and they will make any sacrifices to that end; in the way of paying fees for education or in other ways. There are a great many Chinese who under British administration have become millionaires—and this goes for Hong Kong as well as for Malaysia, where I was. I feel that the Chinese in that category would make a marked contribution towards an educational trust fund, if such a fund could be set up. I wonder whether this would be an appropriate measure to see if something of the kind could be adopted.
My Lords, that is all I have to say, but I sincerely hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, comes to reply he will at least give some credit to our Administration out there for the work they have done for education over past years.
5.39 p.m.
LORD RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I am prompted to intervene only by the fantastic vision of the truant officer looking for that missing 0·2 per cent. in Aberdeen—that is, Aberdeen, Hong Kong. The
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figure is quite absurd. This is not a question of whether the facilities are adequate, available and so on. The fact is that in the situation of Hong Kong, with which some of us are familiar—and I am particularly familiar with it only in terms of the refugee problem—this figure cannot make sense. What we are talking about is the desperate efforts of people to get education in Hong Kong. And I subscribe to everything that has been said about the determination of the Chinese people to provide their children with this education, which I regret to say I think the authorities in Hong Kong have, in this sense, failed to provide.
The burden of the problem, as has been stressed, lies in overcrowding. It lies, as my noble friend Lord Brockway stressed, in the fact of poverty: the poverty of people suffering from the effects of prosperity in Hong Kong. And it applies particularly to those who in fact have what I call "hot doss-houses" in Hong Kong where people literally move in and out of the same beds in the course of the same day. Let us be realistic about this problem. I know from my own experience the tremendous efforts which voluntary organisations have made, and are making, to cope in the main with the need for education in Hong Kong. I very sincerely hope that my noble friend Lord Shepherd will give some encouragement to our thinking that, under our influence, this Colony of ours will at least give some substance to the lip service given to the anti-illiteracy campaign, of which I am one of the spokesmen.
5.41 p.m.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for introducing this aspect of Hong Kong life, and we congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, on his maiden speech. We have heard a number of percentages given across the Floor of the House. It reminds me of when I went into Mrs. Gartside's shop, in the village where I lived, and asked her how she was getting on. She said, "Very well." I said, "Are you making a profit?" She said, "Yes, I am. But I don't agree with these people, you know, who make 5 per cent. profit. I am satisfied with one. If I can buy something for 1d. and sell it for 2d. I am very happy indeed."

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This Question, however, concerns a serious subject, and one of which everybody concerned with the well-being of this Colony will have to take due notice. My intervention is not to vilify or blame. My intervention is perhaps something modestly constructive—so to influence opinion that we can stay there until the end of our legal tenure. Because if, in our day and generation, with the economic situation of the country as it is here at the present time, we neglect any opportunity in future years of selling into that great continent of China, which we should be able to do in abundance, we shall have neglected our duty.
I had hoped that the debate would have been a touch wider than concentration on primary schools. But, even so, I think it is permitted in these debates to draw attention to the consequences of neglect or inaction in primary education, and also to what happens after primary education. The repercussions can be immense. It is here, in education, that if economies and savage cutbacks are made we shall have another example of eating our seed corn. This is precisely what they will be faced with in Hong Kong if they do not do certain things that need to be done.
I well remember seeing a tiny little wizened old lady at a function in Hong Kong, and I asked who this interesting person was. I was told that she was an American-born woman. She had gone to the Far East with her father and mother when she was 21 as a twenty-first anniversary treat, now many years ago. She went to a village in the territories of Hong Kong and there saw a small female child who had been left there alone and neglected. She picked it up. She went to the head man of the village; she went to the British representative, and eventually to the Governor. Nobody could do anything about it: and she still had this child in her arms. She stayed there the whole of her life and built something into Hong Kong that will be remembered when many of the more excitable happenings of recent days have long been forgotten. This was a long time ago. The woman was living last time I went there—and I have been many times—and has been followed by sincere people who have tried to make a contribution in the education of the young in Hong Kong.
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But we must remember this. All through these years the Hong Kong economy has been in the middle of a low-wage economy in North and South Korea, Japan and China, and low wages are the only thing that can spell success for Hong Kong. This situation has been connived at by Governments—a Government which has paid its way out of current revenue, with 250 million here in London in reserves. It is connived at by the manufacturers. This has gone far, and has resulted in the troubles that we have had with the concentration on the political elements in the unions. It has gone far enough. It has reached its end. It is the end of an era. That being the case, what can be done?
We must remember, first of all, that the autonomy that Hong Kong enjoys, built up over the years by tacit acceptance by successive Governments and successive Ministers, first of all in the Colonial Office and then in the Commonwealth Affairs Office, has led to a state of affairs which is extremely difficult. Nobody now knows better than the present Minister of State how far removed the actual influence of Government here in Britain can be. We have an example of this. Your Lordship's know that during the last few weeks we devalued—though perhaps some of you have forgotten the fact. Hong Kong, tied to sterling, devalued by some 14 per cent.; and within three days revalued. For the first time they realised—and they realised very forcibly during those three days—that they were more tied to the Peking currency than to the currency of anywhere else in the world.
So they put up the exchange rate again, because they realised at once that if they devalued the full amount, the prices of foodstuffs would rise 20 per cent. In fact they did. Now they have revalued, and I understand that the prices have settled at a point where the increase is round about 6 per cent. Here, again, the old philosophy is creeping in of being adamant against rising wages all along the line, because if the 20 per cent. increase in foodstuffs had gone on the workers would automatically have been asking for large increases in wages, and it was said that that could not be afforded.
There is a big change coming in the thinking of the people in responsible

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positions in Hong Kong. For the first time the Hong Kong Employers' Federation, the Hong Kong Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Hong Kong Industries and the Chinese Manufacturers' Association have come together to discuss their common problems. This has happened for the first time in the last few weeks, and not a little of this has been due to the intervention of the present Minister of State, who gave a very good impression there.
What I really want to say this afternoon is that the seed corn must not be neglected. Never mind what has gone before, let us look to the future. If the people of Hong Kong are to increase their technical know-how so that they are able to engage in new manufactures that they can sell throughout the world, there is a need for education. This is known by responsible people; how much it is known in Government circles I shall be eager to hear when the Minister of State replies. But I do know that this is engaging the attention of responsible people in Hong Kong, who are going for it as hard as they know how, as they realise that they are stepping out of the old, low-wage economy era into a new era, because the old days of laissez-faire have gone for ever.
Not only that, but more interest in this subject would be good business. Time and time again it was pointed out to me in the areas in Kowloon and the territories dominated by a few Communist people how these Communists set up schools, not allowing non-Communists to enter those schools; and the parents and the children realised that unless they said that they were in favour of what the Communists were trying to put over, the children would not be able to enter the schools. This is another aspect of the stupid business of the political elements in unions and the tacit acceptance of these by the Government in the past—in other words dividing and ruling. Here, again, I make a plea for the recognition of really good tip-top men who are trying desperately to do something about the industrial unions in Hong Kong, because if the education is not given the seed corn will be eaten away and, as I have said before, Hong Kong is no different from any other manufacturing country in the world. If you eat your seed corn you erode your future.
5.55 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, first I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, for rising to the occasion to ask the Unstarred Question in the absence of his noble friend. Of course, I understand that such absence was something over which the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, had no control. I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, on the way in which he made his maiden speech, thus starting this interesting and, I think, important debate.
The noble Lord referred to the fact that he had been a chairman of a primary school in Hong Kong, and my noble friend Lord Brockway said that this illustrates one of the great features of your Lordships' House. I could not help but reflect that some years ago I saw a Question on the Order Paper drawing attention to cruelty to whales—not the Wales of the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, but the whales that are to be found in the Antarctic. On that occasion I noticed on the list of speakers the name of a right reverend Prelate and I wondered how the Church had become involved in cruelty to whales, but it turned out that the right reverend Prelate had been the chaplain of a whaling fleet many years before and he was able to speak with infinitely greater authority than the noble Lord who was then asking the Question. We are fortunate for the way in which we attract into our House those who have an intimate knowledge of far distant places, and Hong Kong clearly is very much in the minds not only of your Lordships but of people throughout the country, particularly during these difficult times in the Colony.
The debate has ranged rather widely, from the problem of the balances and how they can be achieved to the point that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about whether we should not raise taxation in Hong Kong and the point raised by my noble friend Lord Brockway about the constitutional advance of the Colony. I may touch on one or two of those topics, but certainly not the last one. However, in the first instance I should like to keep close to the Question which has been put. Since 1963 the educational policy of Hong Kong has been under extensive review. In that year an Education Commission was set

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up to study the Colony's educational needs and to advise on the most economical and practical ways of meeting them. The Commission reported in October, 1963, and a working party of officials and non-officials was then set up to examine their recommendations and to make specific proposals for their implementation. The working party presented its report early in 1965 and a White Paper was then prepared outlining the educational policy for the future.
The Government White Paper accepted the view expressed by the Education Commission that although it was incapable of achievement at the present time the final aim of the educational policy must always be to provide every child in Hong Kong with the best education that he or she was capable of absorbing, at a cost that the parents and the community could afford. The White Paper recognised that although free primary education for all those in the appropriate age groups who seek it has long been the aim of Hong Kong policy, this too, was incapable of early achievement. The circumstances on which that decision was based should be set out, particularly in view of a number of harsh strictures that have been made upon the Government of Hong Kong and the Colony. I think it is wise to remember not only the massive immigration problem that arose in the 1950s—and I will deal with that matter a little more specifically later on—but it is well to reflect that some 22 years ago, in 1945, which is not very long ago, the Colony emerged from the Second World War after a very harsh occupation by the Japanese. Then the Colony consisted of some 600,000 to 650,000 people, none of whom were living in very affluent conditions.
My noble friend Lord Brockway, I am sure, will agree with me that only those who came out of the prison camps, or those who went to the Far East immediately after the occupation, can fully appreciate the ravages that had occurred in that area. In Hong Kong many of the school buildings had been destroyed. The school teaching staff, particularly those who were expatriates, were in need of rehabilitation because of ill health arising from captivity. At that time, in the first year after the reoccupation, we
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had in all grades of our schools 4,000 children. Two years later there were 81,000 attending primary schools alone. In 1965, this figure had leapt to 190,000; in 1967, to 500,000, and at the present time the total enrolment in primary schools alone is 690,000. Over the same period of 22 years the population had increased from 600,000 to nearly 4,000,000. The school population had increased in those 22 years from 4,000 to over 1,006,000.
I believe there is no territory, at least to my knowledge, that has had to cope with such a fantastic strain, such a tremendous demand upon all the resources, not only in terms of buildings and finance, but also in terms of teachers. I must say that I bitterly resented the picture that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, gave of the very devoted teaching staff that we have in Hong Kong. It may not be as adequately trained as we should like it to be, but progress is being made, and I think it would be wrong for it to go out from your Lordships' House that the people of Hong Kong are not doing the best they can with the resources available. Bearing in mind the tremendous growth in the numbers of children, let us also recognise, as my noble friend Lord Brockway recognised, the tremendous scale of operations in the field of housing and hospitals. It was not so many weeks ago that I saw that the one millionth local man had been rehoused in Hong Kong. That in itself is a tremendous achievement. When everything is taken into consideration, in terms of bricks and mortar I do not think that Hong Kong has anything to be ashamed of.
LORD MOYNIHAN: My Lords, if I may clear up one point, in the course of my speech I did not make any reflection on the devotion to duty of the people carrying out the teaching in Hong Kong. Far from it. All I did was to call your Lordships' attention to the lamentable number of totally untrained and unqualified teachers, not to any lack of devotion.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, it may not have been the noble Lord's intention, but I remember a speech which he made in your Lordships' House not long ago, and I well remember seeing the newspaper reports in Hong Kong in which his speech had been gleefully received. I challenged the noble Lord in order that

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he could correct the impression he gave to me, and perhaps the impression he might have given in Hong Kong. He has now put the Record straight.
The second factor in this decision about fee paying in the schools in Hong Kong is due to hard economic facts. In view of what the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has said, in challenging the figure of some 18 per cent. which I gave the other day, I must weary your Lordships by giving the scale of increase of expenditure on education in Hong Kong since 1950. In 1950, it was some £290,000; in 1960–61, some ten years later, it was £13·8 million; in 1965–66 it was some £15·3 million; and this year, 1967–68 the estimate is £20·3 million. The figure that I gave of some 18 per cent. of the budget on education is perfectly correct. It includes the recurrent expenditure, and also the capital expenditure for the educational service.
As I have said, few people can appreciate the enormous strains which were placed upon the economy when the decision was taken to admit the hundreds of thousands of refugees. Many of our problems in Hong Kong to-day arise from that decision. It is true that the increase of population which came about with the refugees brought in many brilliant men, both industrialists and workers, who added to the economy, but it also added some impossible strains. I think the Government of Hong Kong was right to accept this flood of refugees, but this tremendous pressure caused many of their difficulties. The decision had to be taken whether to provide a first-class primary education and first-class secondary education for a limited select few, or whether they were right, as I believe the Hong Kong Government were, to say "We must first of all seek that all children in Hong Kong should at least receive primary education". I believe that decision to have been the right one.
How far have we got? We believe that we have now covered some 90 per cent. of the children in primary schools. I do not say that that is a correct figure. The Hong Kong Government has always said that it was an estimate. But this is a figure which, taking into account the 1961 Census and those children who are now in our schools, we believe to be right.
LORD MOYNIHAN: My Lords, does the noble Lord definitely revoke the figure of 99·8 per cent?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am not sure where the noble Lord got this figure. I will come back to it in a moment. There is a figure, I know, of some 98 per cent. or 99 per cent. I believe this arises from the fact that there is a figure of 90 per cent. for children in this particular age group, and a figure of some 8 per cent. of children in the primary schools who are in fact over age. As my noble friend Lord Brockway asked, I will certainly look at this figure. I recognise the very severe difficulties. If you want to carry out a Census in Hong Kong it is a very protracted and difficult operation. I will look at this figure, but I believe it was the best figure that the Government of Hong Kong could give at that time.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I based my 98 per cent., as distinct from the larger percentage that has been mentioned, on the facts which the noble Lord has given.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, now let us come to the future. As part of the programme of the Government of Hong Kong, it is the aim to provide by 1970–71 subsidised places in Government and Government-aided primary schools to accommodate all pupils of the right age group who may wish to attend them. Under this programme of expansion, 100,000 additional places have been found since 1965. At present, some 450,000 children—nearly two-thirds of the figure that we believe to be the total primary enrolment—are now accommodated in public primary schools. To complete the programme, an additional 170,000 places, or the equivalent of 80 new standard schools, will have to be provided by 1970. On the advice that I have been given, there seems no reason to believe that this target could not be met.
Estate schools are now provided automatically in the new resettlement and low-cost housing estate: the present programme envisages the construction of some 60 of these schools in the next four years. The capital cost of this stage of the programme will be approximately £3 million, and by 1971 the annually recurrent cost of primary education will be in the region of £12¼ million. It may

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here be remarked that the total provision for primary education in the estimates for the current year is £10·8 million, a little more than one half of the entire educational budget.
Let us now consider the tuition fees that are charged in Government and aided primary schools. These are low, and although I fully recognise that for many families in Hong Kong they are particularly hard, I think we should put on record the figures that we are talking about. They vary from 12s. 6d. annually in rural schools to 62s. 6d. in the urban schools. They have not been increased for 15 years. The 20 per cent. (I think it is) increase was referred to by the
noble Lord. I am grateful to him for sending the paper, but I am sorry he did not read it a little more carefully before he sent it. The figure that he marked is for English schools, primarily urban. These schools are not only for English-educated but for European children. They do not come into the class of children
about whom, presumably, this debate is concerned. Funds, are, nevertheless, provided to permit the partial or full remission of fees in cases of hardship. Funds for the remission of fees are expressed as a percentage of total school fee income. In 1965 the maximum provision of funds for this purpose was doubled from 10 per cent. to 20 per cent. I would make it clear, as the Government of Hong Kong have made it clear, that additional funds will be sought if the demand for fee remission should make this necessary.
The Education Department has recently completed a survey of the extent to which free places have been taken up in Government and subsidised primary schools for the present school year. It has been found that the rate for remission taken up in Government primary schools has increased from 15 per cent. in the last school year to 18 per cent. at present; in other words, there are more remissions of schools fees than there have been in the past.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend just once again? He mentioned that the cost was 62s. a year in the urban schools. That may seem small; but when wages are below £1 a week it is a very large sum indeed.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I fully recognise this; and that is why I qualified my words at the beginning. The Hong Kong Government are themselves aware of this position, which is perhaps due to ignorance on the part of families about what services are available. The Government recently issued some 85,000 copies of a pamphlet in Chinese to give publicity to the existence of free places in the public sector. A further 100,000 copies are being printed for issue in the near future. I have asked the Hong Kong Government to see what other means can be found of conveying information to the public in Hong Kong in regard to the service that is available. I think I can leave this question which is greatly in our minds.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, who referred to what one might call the socio-economic problem, the question of how parents who go out to work are able to send their children to school, and how often a child has to be left at home and perhaps is denied education because he is needed to look after some of the younger children. This we know to be a problem. We are taking steps to increase the provision of kindergarten places and day nurseries to deal with this particular problem, but I would not say that the present situation is in any way adequately covered.
I should like now to deal with the question about whether the Government of Hong Kong should or should not remove fee-paying from primary schools. The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, knows very well the demands of the developing countries, particularly those in the East, and how one has to balance priorities. A figure of 500,000 has been brought in in connection with fee-paying. We are talking now only of primary schools. There is an urgent need not only for the development of secondary schools in Hong Kong, but also for the development of technical schools. But here the Government of Hong Kong have a good record. I see that some 72 per cent. of the primary school pupils who completed their primary day schooling in July, 1965, were admitted to secondary schools in September, 1965. This is a remarkable achievement, considering the places that were available, say, some ten years ago.

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We now have some 200,000 children in our secondary schools; and new places and new school buildings are being provided at the rate of some 14,000 annually. We have our universities. We have now some 4,200 university students in the two universities of Hong Kong compared with 1,600 some five years ago. We have our technical education. Our technical college was opened in 1963. It was built for some 9,500 students, and we are now accommodating and educating some 13,500 students. So noble Lords will see that even here we do not meet the needs, though efforts are being made to increase our ability. Therefore, with these pressures for technical education, for university education and for the provision of secondary education, and having regard to the limited sums available, the question arises whether it would not be better to continue as we now are, certainly seeing that in cases of hardship there are opportunities for fees to be remitted, instead of holding back some development in one of the other facets of education.
It has been said that we could raise revenue in Hong Kong by increasing taxation. I am not unsympathetic to the idea of raising money to meet the needs of Hong Kong. I realise that the economy of Hong Kong is based on its ability to manufacture and to export. It needs vast sums of overseas capital to develop the economy, and in the past this need has been successfully met on a low tax basis. Whether the stage has come when an increase would be possible I do not know, but this is a field in which we rely very much upon our officers, our Government in Hong Kong. My noble friend Lord Rhodes drew attention to their own decision in the field of devaluation, a field in which we delegated responsibility to them to decide what was right and proper for Hong Kong. I know that this matter is exercising the thoughts of the Government of Hong Kong, not only as to how one raises revenue but also as to how one should use it.
Having given these figures of the development of education in Hong Kong, outlining, I think, a very great achievement, I should not like it to be thought that we or those in Hong Kong are in any way complacent. Certainly one has only to read the papers in Hong Kong to see this subject being healthily discussed.
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I think there is a great deal to be done in the field of education. I believe that not only have we to provide a system of primary education for all children, not only have we to increase the range of secondary education, but we have to pay very special attention to the development of the technical schools. Speaking personally, I hope to see the establishment of a real polytechnic, as we understand thy; term in this country.
I should be less than frank if I did not say that one thing which concerns me more than the question of quantity and quality of education is what happens to the boys, particularly those who leave primary school and who do not get to secondary education. Some of them may be attracted into the technical schools. I hope particularly that, as there is this new radical thought among employers in Hong Kong, particularly in the field of labour relations, they will feel that they have a special part to play and a special responsibility in the matter of education, particularly in regard to those children who leave primary school and are unable to go to secondary school.
I should like to see a massive effort made by the employers—and I am sure that the Labour Department of the Hong Kong Government would be ready to participate—in regard to a scheme of apprenticeship. This would be of great value, and not only to the youth who can be trained for the top industrial jobs in Hong Kong; my belief, which I think is shared by my noble friend Lord Rhodes, is that increasingly Hong Kong will need highly skilled engineers, lathe workers and the like. Hong Kong is turning from the old traditional "spinning and weaving" into more sophisticated fields of production. I believe that this is a field where the employers in Hong Kong have a very special part to play.
Hong Kong is in no way complacent. One can recognise the genuine and real achievements which are taking place there. There are limits to what can be done, not only in the field of finance but also from the point of view of construction and in regard to teacher resources and so on; but I think that, given what I believe will be a long period of stability, we shall see growth in Hong Kong; and, having recently been there, I believe that

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education will be very much in the forefront of the Government's mind and that they will not need the spur, either of the Commonwealth Office or of your Lordships' House.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I say how much all of us have been inspired by the great speech which the noble Lord has made? It will be appreciated, not only in this country but in the wider sense among Europeans and Chinese in Hong Kong.