Lords Sitting of 10 February 1967

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Lincoln.
The Lord Joicey—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

GRADING OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
11.5 a.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: 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 will consider extending the provisions of the Agriculture and Horticulture Act 1964 to include retail sales before the Act comes into force in July 1967.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD WALSTON): My Lords, the grading provisions of the Agriculture and Horticulture Act 1964 were designed to apply to sales in bulk. Different provisions would be required for sales by retail, and we do not feel that, at this stage, it would be wise or indeed helpful to consider introducing further legislation.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, while, out of courtesy, I thank my noble friend for that Answer, is he aware that I regard it as completely unsatisfactory? I am wondering whether my noble friend could tell the House why it is that on matters of horticulture, Government, by either Party, seems to put the consumer last. It is the consumer, in effect, who is paying for this grading.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I am unfortunately well aware of the feelings of my noble friend and I am sorry that she feels in this way. I can assure her that the Government have no intention or desire to put the consumer last, and I should have thought that the pro posed legislation and what has already been done for consumer protection gives,
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if I may say so with all respect to my noble friend, the lie to that suggestion. I must point out to my noble friend that this particular piece of legislation is designed to promote the competitive ability of the British producer and to deal with producer matters. It would only be clouding the issue and making the legislation less efficient if we attempted to include legislation for dealing with consumer protection.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that I still disagree with him and that the legislation that is now pending, and has-been pending for a long time, in regard to consumer protection does not give the lie to what I said? Lastly, is he aware that the shopper shopping for fruit needs a grading system more than anything, and can he further emphasise this point to his right honourable friend?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I will make certain that my right honourable friend is aware of my noble friend's views on this subject, but I would point out to my noble friend that the retail shopper—the housewife—shopping for fruit has the opportunity of seeing the fruit before she buys it and therefore to that extent is able to do her own grading, whereas the wholesaler buying the fruit has to buy it in crates, or whatever form it may be, and therefore has to rely on a suitable form of grading.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, does my noble friend ever buy from the barrows?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I do not.

ROAD PROGRAMME EXPANSION
11.8 a.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will now provide information about the proposed expansion of the road programme in the 1970's announced by the Minister of Transport and whether they can state the years during which the new road schemes in London and the other major conurbations to the value of £1,000 million will be commenced.]
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the Minister of Transport has recently announced an extension of the local authority principal road programme to around 1971. She has also stated that she intends to publish shortly the first instalment of a £1,000 million list of principal road schemes to be put in preparation now for further extensions of the programme in the 1970's. The £1,000 million list is to cover other towns as well as London and the other major conurbations.
The starting dates of particular schemes will depend on decisions yet to be taken by the Government about the levels of expenditure for the road programme in the 1970's, as well as on the progress made between now and then with preparing the schemes. However, it is envisaged that the schemes will start within up to eight years from about 1970, together with such other schemes as it may be decided to include in the principal road programme within this period.
The Minister has also said in another place that she intends to announce later this month a very considerable list of trunk road schemes for preparation for the early 1970's programme. It will be seen, therefore, that a large volume of additional work is being put in hand in readiness for extensions of the 1970's road programme.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for his careful and, in some ways, encouraging Answer? I would ask him, however, whether he is aware that he has in fact added little to the practically nothing already provided by the Minister. Is he aware that those of us who are interested in such matters are quite unable to judge the significance of these high-sounding figures, in view of the fact that the Minister has not yet announced the rolling programme to the years 1970–71 and 1971–72? Therefore, is he aware that we have no means of judging the significance of an increase to £650 million, or to £1,000 million, because we have no yardstick against which to judge it? It is even possible that it might be a diminution, for all we can tell.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in the first place I do not expect that there will be any diminution. Also the figure I
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have given is a rough guide line to the local authorities and others responsible for planning. It is not the final figure. I appreciate that I have not added to the noble Lord's information, but as he will have noted in my original Answer, the Minister intends to make a statement shortly. I hope the noble Lord will then be provided with the information he now seeks.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, would the noble Lord convey to his right honourable friend the fact that the revenue now raised from the road-using community as a whole each year is in excess of this figure of £1,000 million? It is well over that figure per year. Is the noble Lord aware that his right honourable friend herself has assessed that traffic will double by the years we are talking about, and the revenues by that time will be huge? May I ask that this point will he fully taken into consideration in allocating adequate funds?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in regard to the first part of the noble Lord's supplementary question, my right honour able friend is well aware of that fact. I think this is a matter that has been in existence ever since the Road Fund was brought into being. In regard to the second part of the question, I am well aware, and so is my right honourable friend, of the growing congestion which arises from the increased number of vehicles on our roads. The noble Lord will appreciate that this is a matter which goes beyond the question of the finances available. One has to take into account the physical resources that are available for a large programme. I will convey what the noble Lord has said to my right honourable friend.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, are Her Majesty's Government aware that the Malthusian law of population, whose implications we discussed yesterday evening, also applies to road traffic, in that motor traffic tends to increase up to and beyond the roads and parking places available for its accommodation, and that therefore car control must accompany road betterment?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, my noble friend does not need to remind me of a difficulty from which I suffer every day when I drive to your Lord ships' House.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that we note the safeguard in his Answer, that these schemes depend on the time taken in preparation of these schemes?
Further, is he aware that 31 different steps are needed from first approving the line for a road before the road can be commenced; and in this preparation to which my noble friend has referred, could he say whether his right honourable friend the Minister is taking any action at all to concertina some of these 31 steps, at the same time safeguarding to the full the rights of the public in so far as their objections are concerned? Furthermore, can we be assured that the rolling programme referred to will be a real consideration; and that, instead of certain mileages of road being completed and then reverting to narrow strips again, every effort will be made to see that the capital equipment and everything assembled for these jobs will not be left idle, but will continue in use and serve a useful purpose to us all?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords with regard to the first part of my noble friend's supplementary question, this is a very great problem of which we are all aware. Of course, one needs to protect the public to whom road building causes damage. With regard to the second part of the question, here again this is a matter for consideration. I should not like to answer the noble Lord now, because it does not strictly arise out of the Question on the Order Paper.

MOTORWAYS
11.16 a.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they can state the date by which the first 1,000 miles of motorway in Great Britain will be completed, the mileage of motorways which will be completed by 1980, and whether they will provide details of any plans for expansion of the existing 1,200 mile motorway programme.]
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the Government still envisage the completion
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of the first 1,000 miles of motorway in England and Wales by the early 1970s. The mileage of motorway completed by 1980 will depend on the decision by the Government on the level of public expenditure on inter-urban roads during the 1970s and decisions on the standards to which individual sections of the inter-urban road network need to he improved. My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport intends to announce later this month a further substantial list of new trunk road schemes for England on which preparations are to proceed with a view to subsequent inclusion in the programme; some of these will be built to motorway standards, others as all-purpose roads.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for his Answer, may I ask him whether he is aware that a future statement on trunk roads goes no part of the way to answering my Question? Is he aware that the 428 miles of motorways we have today, with 176 miles building, indicates that to achieve the target to complete the first 1,000 miles the Government have got to get a real move on?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, as the noble Lord is aware from his fairly long tenure of office in the Ministry of Transport, the length of motorways built fluctuates from one year to another. We believe that the forecast made by the previous Administration, which this Government have accepted, that by 1970 we shall have over 750 miles of motor way, provides reasonably conclusive proof that we shall achieve 1,000 miles of motorway for Great Britain in the early 1970s.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the assumption we must draw from his Answer, that there are in fact no future plans for extending the motorway system, will cause a great deal of dismay and despondency? May I ask three short supplementary questions? Will Her Majesty's Government study what is being done in other countries, where they perhaps realise more acutely how to provide for efficient movement of traffic and the consequent economic advantages? Secondly, will they give urgent consideration to a seriously considered plan made by the County Surveys' society some years

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ago urging the need for construction of 2,700 miles of motorway in this country? Thirdly, will they give serious consideration to the urgent need to provide access to the ports, which was greatly stressed in the recent Report of the Economic Development Committee for the Movement of Exports, and in view of the Minister's own assessment of the very large percentage of exports which goes to the ports by road?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in regard to the noble Lord's last supplementary question, if there is any possible fear that my right honourable friend is not aware of the points made I will ensure that her attention is drawn to them. As the noble Lord knows, the Ministry of Transport always study closely what is going on overseas to find out what we can learn, and we have taken into account the submissions made by the various bodies in road transport.
In regard to the first part of the noble Lord's supplementaries, may I say that I did not say there were no plans for development of a motorway system beyond the 1970s. What I said, in dealing with substantial new trunk road schemes for England, was that some of them will be built to motorway standards and others as all-purpose roads. This is quite different from what the noble Lord alleged that I said.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I am not going to argue with the noble Lord at the present time. Is he aware that the only fear I know of is, not that his right honourable friend is unaware of the matters I mentioned, but that she is acting insufficiently upon the knowledge?
LORD TAYLOR OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, can my noble friend say this morning when the northward extension of the M.1 from Nutgall, in Nottingham, will be open to the public?
LORD SHEPHERD: Not this morning; but I will endeavour to convey the information to my noble friend later.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the fact that the services of Mr. Ernest Marples are now available? Does he think it is worth while consulting him?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, so I understand.

MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
11.21 a.m.
Read 2a and committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.

METROPOLITAN WATER BOARD BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a and committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME BURGESSES' LANDS BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a and committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
RHYMNEY VALLEY SEWERAGE BOARD BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS BILL [H.L.]
11.23 a.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Willis.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:
Prevention of payments' being made by public for watching competitive sports, &c. taking place between 2 a.m. and 2 p.m.
2.—(1) This section applies to a spectacle—
(c) taking place in such circumstances that any part of the time occupied by it falls on Sunday between 2 a.m. and 2 p.m.
(2) If the occupier of any land permits it to to be used on any occasion for enabling members of the public to enter on it for the purpose of watching thereon or there from a spectacle to which this section applies, he shall, if those persons or any of them make payment for the privilege of doing so (whether for the benefit of himself or another), be guilty of an offence.
LORD CHESHAM LORD CHESHAM moved, in subsection (1)(c), to leave out "2 p.m." and insert "12.30 p.m. "The noble Lord said: In moving this Amendment which stands in my name, I hope that I may have the leave of the Committee to make a brief personal remark. Since I last had the privilege of addressing your Lordships on any subject or of doing any work in your Lordships' House, my status has changed somewhat, and I think I should reveal to your Lordships that I now greatly enjoy the position of being executive Vice-Chairman of the Royal Automobile Club. I say that, not as a piece of advertising but so that when I presently move Amendments your Lordships will be quite sure that I have declared any interest I may have in them, if I may be said to have a declarable interest.
It is even possible that some of your Lordships have picked up the impression that I may even know what I am talking about in connection with these Amendments, because I admit that the group of Amendments as a whole has arisen out of consideration of the effect of this Bill on motor sporting events in all their wide variety as they take place all over the country in some numbers. Having said that, I am also perfectly aware that much of the principle or argument which I am about to put forward applies also to a wide variety of other forms of sport and spectacle.
If I may now turn to this Amendment, I would first say that in suggesting that in Clause 2 12.30 should be substituted for 2 o'clock as the time at which permitted events might begin, I am in no way anxious to create any breach of principle or to try to blow a hole in any form of principle which may be established by the provisions of the Bill. I propose this substitution simply as a matter of practical common sense. The reason I have for saying this—the suggestion incidentally was recommended in the Report of the Crathorne Committee—is that many motor sporting events, particularly during the winter, when it gets dark early, are of such duration that if they cannot start until 2 o'clock in the afternoon they simply cannot take place at all. At least, there would be a serious restriction on their capacity. I do not think I need stress to your Lordships the fact, which I am not arguing one way or the other, that there are many such events,
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and that many people enjoy taking part in them and, therefore, it is not just a small flatter but is a widespread problem.
Bearing in mind some views which your Lordships have put forward, and which have been put forward in the past in another place, upon which action has been taken governmentally, I would point out that these events would tend to be discouraged if 2 p.m. is to be the starting time for the holding of events on private property, and it would perhaps tend to drive them back on to the roads in the form of events of a quite different sort. While there is a control system for that, I think we should not discourage such events being held on land off the roads. For the reasons I have mentioned, I hope your Lordships will consider this Amendment reason able, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 7, leave out ("2 p.m.") and insert ("12.30 p.m."),—(Lord Chesham.)
11.28 a.m.
LORD SOPER: I want to ask the Committee to reject this Amendment because in my judgment it strikes at the root of the Bill, and I believe it is objectionable on two counts, both of which I shall briefly deploy. The first is the religious count. I have found this Bill friendly to the true interests of what I think a Christian Sunday should be. It seems to me that it is indeed almost an angel in disguise, and not an impenetrable disguise at that. The fact that there has been this attention to the needs of Sunday morning as a time of worship, and therefore the postponement of the entertainment activities until 2 o'clock, is a genuine safeguard; and though there may be many who are clamorous, I would think, notwithstanding the protestant underworld as well as the fringes of totalitarianism theology, where it is thought that the Sabbath and Sunday are the same thing and to be equally preserved, that there is an in creasing recognition that it would do us all good in the Christian Church to get up earlier and to worship earlier on Sunday, and not seek to perpetuate the bad Nonconformist tradition of getting up late and concentrating all activities of a religious order in the evening. For this reason, I am the more glad that we have this safeguard, interpreted quite

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properly, it seems to me, by the mover of this Bill.
I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Willis for this attention to what I believe is essentially a Christian consideration. If 12.30 becomes the time then it will seriously impede many who would like to go to church from doing so; and, though I take it that sermons are not generally so long as they were, it will discourage many who would like, after they have been to church, to take part in some of these activities, including motoring activities. I myself am not particularly attached to them, but I understand that there are many who are addicted to them. It is a principle for which the Christian Church should stand, and in many cases I think it has already indicated that it is prepared to stand for it. But we do not want to be cosseted or supported by legislation to prevent people enjoying themselves on Sunday. We want a reasonable opportunity to do both those things which we believe to be right and to make it possible for those who seek other activities to be free to do so. I therefore hope that, from a religious standpoint, we shall not accept this Amendment in regard to the time of 12.30 p.m.
There are other, and not precisely religious grounds, for thinking that this is a very bad Amendment, one of which is that it will interfere with the Sunday dinner. I am not quite sure how widespread this particular occasion is in comparison with other days, but it is an occasion where families are accustomed to meet. If this Amendment is accepted it will mean the destruction, or at least a diminution, of the kind of social event which I think has very good therapeutic value in the community to-day. Furthermore, if activities begin at 12.30 p.m., the preparation for these activities will have to commence very much earlier. It will largely destroy the opportunity of many people who otherwise would have a free Sunday morning to do other things. They will be already engaged in the preparation for the activities which will begin so much earlier.
The more temperate, and, I think, more reasonable, attitude which has been adopted by the Christian Churches—and I now think of the Baptist Church and the Methodist, as well, I suspect, as the
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Church of England—is that here is a Bill which reasonable and sensible Christian people are prepared to accept, because they believe that it recognises both the claims of religious freedom and the claims of ordinary people to be free on Sunday to make what use they like of their leisure. Therefore, were this Amendment to be accepted by the Committee, it would destroy the good will already given to the Bill by many Christian authorities, and which has been welcomed by freedom-loving people generally. I hope that the Amendment will be rejected.
11.33 a.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: I suppose it is unnecessary, in view of my costume, to declare an interest in this matter, but I think I must fall in line with what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Soper, on this subject. I do not want to go into the details about the manner of observing Sunday in Churches of various kinds, but I think that it is my duty to report to the Committee that this matter was fully discussed in the Church Assembly, the Church of England legislative body.
I would not obtrude the views of that Assembly on the Committee were it not for the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in replying to the debate on the Crathorne Report, said that they awaited with interest the debate in the Church Assembly. Therefore, it is relevant to say that in the Church Assembly debate there was a very strong expression of opinion that the vital time should be 2 o'clock and not 12.30. I do not myself hold any romantic views about the likelihood of people who are going to compete in large sporting events being enabled by legislation to attend Divine Service, or prevented by the absence of such legislation. But I think as a gesture by the country to the whole question of the nature of Sunday, there is a difference between 12.30 and 2 o'clock. It is on those broad and general grounds that I am afraid I shall have to oppose the Amendment.
LORD WILLIS: I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Soper and the right reverend Prelate for their contributions. I would resist this Amendment, and I do not want to go over ground which has already been covered. It was

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nice to have the Bill described as "an angel in disguise". I do not quite know what that makes me, but we will work that out later.
I should like to throw in one other argument, which I think is inportant. I do not think that there is any particular magic about what hour one takes, but one has to bring down the knife somewhere. Some people will think that they are a little more hard done by than others. That is unfortunate, but I think that the weight of the arguments which have already been advanced are sufficient, if it were not for the fact that if you advanced the time to 12.30 p.m., the comparatively small number of people who would be involved in working to provide the entertainment would have to start their preparations a good deal earlier than 12.30. So if there is any argument about a few people working in order to entertain the many, it is surely fair and reasonable that we should try to give these people at least their Sunday mornings. If one makes it 12.30 then a number of sportsmen, transport people, and so on, would have to be on duty at 11 o'clock if not sooner.
This is a weighty argument against the Amendment. I recognise the difficulties. I have great sympathy with the point made by noble Lord, Lord Chesham, and for the sport with which he is connected. But in this case I do not think it is possible to help them, or indeed that it would be right to help them, and therefore I would ask the Committee to resist the Amendment.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): I am deputising once again for my noble friend Lord Stonham, whom we hope to see back here fairly soon.
As the Committee know, the attitude of the Government is one of neutrality—which does not mean that I am incapable of forming or holding any views on this subject myself. But the Government's attitude is neutral, and I must adhere to that as strictly as I can.
On this Amendment there is only one point I should like to lay before the Committee as a suggestion. If 12.30 p.m. should be the terminal for restrictions on sport, it should presumably be applied also to entertainment under Clause 3, since it is difficult to see any distinction
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in principle between sport and entertainment. That is not a point the Committee need decide this morning, but if the Bill were to be changed in this way it is something I should imagine that your Lordships might wish to consider.
LORD CHESHAM: I have listened with great respect to what has been said, particularly to the speeches from the Benches opposite. I began by saying that I was not trying to breach any principle, but that I was trying to meet a practical difficulty in the lives of very many people. I rather disagreed with the noble Lord, Lord Willis, when he seemed to cast slight doubt on the estimate of the number of people who were involved in this matter. I think that it is rather higher than he gave us to understand—unless, of course, he was referring to the fewer people who are engaged in the preparatory work. There is some substance in the point he made, but I do not feel that it is one which would stand over-emphasis. It goes just so far and no further.
The noble Earl the Leader of the House raised the point of the differentiation between sport and entertainment, and that is a point I should like to think about. Having thought about this matter and the points that have been raised on the Amendment, possibly I might return to it at a later stage. At present, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.40 a.m.
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT moved to add to subsection (1):
"and
( ) to which the next following section does not apply".
The noble Lord said: I hope it will be for the convenience of the Committee if we discuss Amendments Nos. 2 and 6 together, because No. 2 is consequential on No. 6 and the meat of the whole matter is of course in No. 6. If we have to come to a decision later, we can come to it on Amendment No. 2 and let No. 6 follow whatever we decide on No. 2. I hope that will meet your Lordships' wishes.
The intention behind my Amendments is that, by and large—and I use those words advisedly—professional sport shall not take place on a Sunday. I think I

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must go into some detail as to exactly what happens under these Amendments, because it is quite clear from the Press and from my postbag that the way in which these Amendments work is not in the last understood. Clause 2 of the Bill is widely misunderstood, too, and as to some extent the Bill and my Amendments follow each other, and they all follow the Crathorne Report, perhaps I may explain the Amendments in some detail. As I say, to some extent the main Bill and my Amendment follow each other, but with the exception of this one point of professional sport.
What these Amendments say is that on a Sunday an offence will be committed, not by those taking part in or organising the sport, but by the occupier of the land on which the sport or game takes place, if two things happen. He will commit an offence if any or all the players are remunerated for playing and if the public are charged for entrance to go and watch them. If professionals play and no charge is made to the public for entry there will be no offence. If, on the other hand, a charge is made to the public and no professionals are playing, again there will be no offence. I hope that is clear, because it has been widely misunderstood.
To that extent, I depart from the recommendations of the Crathorne Com mittee—and I will explain why in a moment—who recommended that the promotion of spectator sports, as they termed them, should be prohibited if the participants receive, either directly or indirectly, any reward in money or kind for taking part. I have not gone so far as that. There are certain professional sports, which I shall mention in a moment, which would not be restricted under my Amendments, and I shall explain why. However, I follow the thinking of the Crathorne Report.
I would remind your Lordships that the Crathorne Committee, which considered this very difficult subject about which there are many different opinions, were composed of very diverse members and it is quite remarkable that the Committee produced a unanimous Report. I feel myself that they were right in what they recommended, and that in view of their unanimous Report we ought, by and large, to follow their recommendations.
The way in which they treated this question was this. They thought that in the public interest there ought to be one day in the week different from the others, and it seems common sense that that one day should be Sunday. There should be one day on which most families were able to get together and to spend the day as they wanted. There should be a day on which every possible relaxation in entertainment or sport should be allowed, provided that such entertainment or sport did not cause nuisance in the neighbourhood to those people who wanted to be quiet on a Sunday, and provided—and, to my mind, this is the most important part of all—that the additional recreation which was being granted under this new Bill did not entail much additional Sunday work for other people. So far as possible, people should not be required to work on this special day which is obviously going to be Sunday.
I am sure it is right that nobody should be penalised, and nobody should be put under pressure to work unnecessarily on that day. So a balance had to be found. On going into this, the Committee found that what was really going to cause extra employment and possibly great crowds—and this, of course, is important—was professional sports. As a general rule, amateur sports do not cause great crowds throughout the year, but professional sports very often do. In addition, when great crowds collect there is going to be a lot of extra work caused for catering staff, extra police on duty—and, heaven knows, the police have enough of their weekends interfered with—transport staff, and so on. The extra work would be caused not directly by the professional sports, but indirectly because that is where the great crowds would gather.
The Committee wondered how to deal with professional sport and they thought, first of all, that the best way was to say that one could not charge the public for entrance to sports. They came to the conclusion that that was a bad idea, because even small amateur clubs—football clubs and what-have-you—occasionally charge for entrance to pay their expenses, and no great crowds or trouble are caused by charging for entrance. Then they came to the conclusion that if a charge for entrance was prohibited it would, of course, stop most professional

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sport, but that was not really the way to handle the problem because of the amateur clubs They then said, "Well, the only thing is to ban professionals playing on a Sunday".
I have departed from that for this reason. I agree with the Committee that great crowds should be avoided, but there are certain professional sports where the public are not charged even for admittance, and which never draw great crowds. An example is cyclists. They do most of their racing on the roads, but they do not charge the public for entrance and they do not cause great crowds. Not only is cycle racing always carried on on a Sunday, but it would be almost impossible for clubs or operate at all if they did not race on a Sunday. So what I have sought to do in these Amendments is to say that the occupier of the land is the person who can commit the offence, as the Bill itself says in different circumstances, and he commits the offence if there are professionals playing and if, at the same time, the public are charged for admittance.
I believe that this Amendment is necessary, because if great crowds are created other people are disturbed on a Sunday and extra work is caused. One or two sports, which neither attract great crowds nor create a lot of extra employment, may be hit. But as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, said a moment ago, one has to put the knife down somewhere, and I believe that this is as fair a way of doing it as one can find. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 7, at end insert ("and
( ) to which the next following section does not apply.")—(Lord Derwent.)
11.49 a.m.
LORD WILLIS: I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, for the very fair and precise way in which he has put the point. I think we all have some sympathy with the Amendment, but I feel I cannot accept it and shall ask the Committee to reject it for a number of reasons. I believe that the Amendment has the basic effect of re-enacting the existing law and even, in certain cases, making it worse. In effect it would produce very little liberalisation of Sunday sport, whatever it might do for entertainment, and it would create a whole welter of new anomalies. As the noble
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Lord, Lord Derwent, said, the main object in restricting Sunday afternoon sport is not on moral grounds but on practical grounds.
The two reasons advanced have been, first, that it would prevent disturbance in the neighbourhood through the gathering of large crowds, and, secondly, that it would restrict Sunday employment. On both counts the aim, as I say, is to stop the large gathering, and the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, proposes that this can be done by applying a test which is, in effect, a double test. To decide whether an event is or is not banned under the Bill, under this particular Amendment you would have to decide, first, whether people are charged admission and, secondly, whether the people participating in the spectacle are in fact paid. So you have a dual test. I believe that this in fact confuses the issue, and that the clear and simple proposal in the Bill, that the test should be whether people pay to go in, is far more simple and far more effective.
I say that, first of all, because it is reasonable common sense that no one is going to promote a really big event without charging admission. Certainly they would not in football, which is the one thing that is continually advanced by the opponents of professional sport on Sunday afternoons as being the sport which would be calculated to draw a large crowd. No one could imagine the Football League or the Football Association promoting one of their large events with out charging admission; and, indeed, it is very difficult to think of any sport which would not be covered by this very simple proposal.
The professional yardstick of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, is less exact. If this is the test, and if the purpose is to keep down large crowds, then under the noble Lord's proposal you could have 70,000 people attending a rugger match at Twickenham but you would not allow 3,000 people to watch Surrey versus Lancashire at the Oval. The test of admission charges is simple and enforce able, but what is remuneration for professionals? Do you include in this prizes that are given to people who take part in horseriding, in horse shows, or the prizes that are given in golf tournaments? And what about the problem of concealed remuneration—sham amateurism?

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The great sporting associations have been in despair in the last fifteen or twenty years in attempts to stop this, and most of them have finally realised that in fact you cannot, and have had largely to turn a blind eye to it.
Thirdly, it would not be beyond the wit of man, since the wit of man is continually able to get round the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the realm of tax, to get round this test in the field of football, for example, and to devise the contracts of the players so that legally they were paid for six days a week and whatever they did on a Sunday was voluntary and unpaid. In my view, this really would not work. It would confuse the issue and, as I say, would create a whole host of new anomalies.
In my view, however, the principle is wrong, and this Amendment ought to be rejected by your Lordships' for that reason—because it introducesan amateur code by Statute. Almost for the first time in the history of this country it is proposed, by law, to define "amateur" and "professional", particularly in regard to Sunday afternoons, and a breach of the regulations would be a criminal offence. Under this particular Amendment, if there was an offence the owner of the land would be liable to a £200 fine or a twelve-month gaol sentence, or both. He might not know whether the players concerned are taking "back-handers"; whether there is this concealed remuneration. This Amendment would lay him open to something which was not an offence even under the old Acts. Under the old Acts, he could expiate his sin by spending three hours in the stocks, but under this Amendment he would be liable to twelve months in gaol for something it is almost impossible for him to know about. So I am more than ever convinced that we must be rational and sensible on this, and allow all sport after 2 p.m.
I should like to come back to the two main arguments—first, the noise and disturbance. I think we must frankly admit that some will occur. I think it is much exaggerated, but we shall have to learn to live with it. In effect, what is going to come about is a fairer distribution of noise and nuisance. Instead offal the noise being on the roads, all the noise going through the small
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villages and all the noise being at the resorts and the swimming lidos, there are going to be other, alternative sources of pleasure. We are going to spread the load a little. Anybody knows—and the police will certainly tell us—that the centres of big towns and cities on Sunday afternoons are thronged with milling crowds, particularly young people, who are bored and do not know what to do. That particular ration of noise can be spread if entertainment and sport is open to them. There is no evidence that civilisation in Ireland or Europe has collapsed under the weight of the noise of Sunday sport there.
Are we going to legislate in favour of some noises and against others? For example, I read the other day that Billy Graham is discussing having an 8.30 p.m. rally at Earl's Court on a Sunday evening which 25,000 people may attend. One can argue that this is for a religious purpose, and that it is reasonable; but I am sure that a large number of people who live in the Earl's Court area would not welcome that noise and the noise of cars parking there, any more than anybody would outside the Arsenal football ground. Are we going to have the anomaly that the noise of 1,000 people driving up in their various cars and public transport to the National Theatre to see Olivier on a Sunday night or the noise of 3,000 music-lovers going to the Festival Hall is to be allowed, while we object to the noise of 3,000 people spending a pleasant Sunday afternoon at the Oval watching a cricket match? It is illogical and nonsense. It is illogical to say that you can have 70,000 people at Twickenham for an amateur Rugby international, as I have said, but not 30,000 at Arsenal. I may be being a little generous to Arsenal as far as their gate is concerned these days, but let us put it at 30,000.
The second objection is that to more people working on Sunday, and I should like to deal with this briefly. It is already happening. We live in that kind of society; and, again, it is something which, while one wants to control it, we have to face. Nobody is proposing under this Bill, as we all know, that we open the factories and the shops, and that there should be mass working. No; the main object of this Bill is to recognise that most people do not work on a Sunday,

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that the shops are shut on a Sunday, that Sunday is a day that is different, and therefore to provide something for these people to do, in addition to religious observance, on their free day, on a Sun day. The fact is that 18 per cent. of our population—18 out of every hundred of the working population, that is—work on Sunday now in one form or another, on essential services. By the same token, therefore, a large percentage work on Saturdays and are robbed of any opportunity to see professional sport for that reason.
If every sport, entertainment, et cetera, took place on Sunday, only about 200,000 people would be involved in working, including the actors and the professionals. I am excluding transport from this argument, but, as I said on Second Reading, I understand that, in fact, apart from an increase in train crews, very little extra transport would be required. We have to remember that in fact most people have cars these days and use them for traveling to and from these particular events. I am not going to deny that there would be a cost in noise and a cost in people working. It would be foolish to do so. But I believe it has been much exaggerated by the opponents of the Bill as it stands, and I think that is wrong.
Here again, we come to this anomaly of whether you legislate against one form of work on a Sunday and not another. Nobody would argue about people working on Sunday in electrical undertakings or on newspapers, which are necessary. But, for example, in Brighton on a peak summer Sunday something like 200 to 250 people are employed by the Corporation, hiring out deck-chairs, as attendants at bathing pools and serving in cafés. That is about the same number of people as would be working in a big soccer international. Is it right for one and wrong for the others? The R.A.C. and the A.A. employ 2,500 patrolmen on the roads on a summer Sunday. No one screams at this. We all regard this as a valuable service by these two organisations. Yet if some pressure were taken off the roads, it is conceivable—I would not exaggerate this argument—that fewer patrolmen would be needed.
I believe that the clause as it stands is right and good; and, above all, I was much heartened to see today that it does mirror a very significant change in public
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opinion. The Daily Mail in its national public opinion poll today, for example, indicated that 75 per cent. of the people in their poll were in favour of professional Soccer on a Sunday. This represents an increase of 29 per cent. in eight years; it probably represents an increase since the Crathorne Committee sat. I know we can all say various things about the polls; but they do indicate certain tendencies and certain feelings among the public, and I think that this is worthy of being taken into account. In ray view the Amendment would cripple and maim the Bill. I believe that is wrong. It is still astonishing to me—I would not for a moment believe that this in any way represents Lord Derwent's opinion; but the view still exists—that in some of the newspaper articles that I have read which are opposed to this particular clause in the Bill (not against Lord Derwent's Amendment) it appears that sport is still regarded in certain places as a dirty word. Watching and playing, in my view, are two sides of the same coin; each helps the other. It is wrong to legislate against people's being able on Sundays to see the best in professional sport. Years ago at Lord's a kind of apartheid was in operation. Ae we all know, "Professionals" and "Gentlemen" came out by different gates. We do not want to go back to that and to create here an apartheid between amateurs and professionals on Sunday afternoons. We do not want to create the vast number of anomalies that this Amendment would create. We do not want to have a situation where people, as now, find devious, underhand ways to get round what is, in fact, an unreasonable law. For that reason I ask the Committee to reject this Amendment.
12.3 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: It might be useful if I said one or two words from the Home Office point of view, still adhering to this rather trying neutrality. The Amendment is said to be defective in one or two ways—they might bethought to be serious ways or minor ways, but certainly the noble Lord would wish to clarify his Amendment in certain respects at a later stage if it were carried now or brought back in some other way. I need not go into the technicalities of the defect sat length, but there are obscurities about the use of the word

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"participants" and the question whether it is intended to bite even if only one of the participants is remunerated or whether it applies only if most or all are remunerated. More serious obscurities arise on the meaning of "remuneration", most of which have been dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Willis. For example, does "remuneration" include expenses? There is the question of the player who is paid under a long-term contract. Will he count as being remunerated if he volunteered to play on a Sunday without extra pay?. And there are one or two other points. I mention those to the noble Lord; and no doubt he will consider his line of action accordingly.
On the general issue, I do not think that I can do anything more helpful than simply to recite, not for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Willis, who was clarity itself, nor for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Crathorne, who knows the subject backwards, but for the benefit of most noble Lords, the position in regard to prohibited forms of sport under various schemes. I am referring to the period after 2 p.m. on Sundays. Under the existing law, any sporting event is prohibited for which there is an ad mission charge; for instance, league football and rugby at Twickenham are both prohibited, but not county cricket as organised at present on Sundays, which manages on a silver collection and charges for parking and programmes.
Under the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Crathorne, events would be prohibited if the players or participants were remunerated for taking part and were called professionals. That would prohibit league football and county cricket but not rugby at Twickenham—which is a slight change of emphasis. Then, tinder the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, in its present form, what would be prohibited would be spectator events for which there is an admission charge and where the participants are remunerated. He has the double test. It has to satisfy both those criteria before it is called a prohibited sport. He prohibits less than the noble Lord, Lord Crathorne. Under the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Willis, there would be no restrictions at all; and that is perhaps the simplest of all solutions. But it is
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not for me to commend one more than the other.
I am sure that whatever the House decides on the question of principle would be workable; but I must say that from the Home Office point of view there is felt to be something of a difficulty in Lord Derwent's attempt in the Amendment to graft one kind of criteria to a system based on another kind under the Bill. Under the Bill the test is admission up to two o'clock. He wants to graft on another test, the professional test, for the later period. I do not say that you cannot produce a scheme that way; but it is felt that there would be some difficulty. I thought it my duty to set out the position as it is and as it would be under the various proposals. Now it is for the Committee, after debate, to see what it wants to do.
LORD CHESHAM: I should like to join with the noble Lord, Lord Willis, in expressing the hope that this Amendment will not commend itself to the Committee. I am not going to follow his arguments, but I would thank him for the germ of an idea that he put forward which could possibly lead to my putting down an Amendment for great restrictions on Sunday traffic—which perhaps I could do at Report stage—in order to give my hard-worked patrolmen a little more leisure. I thank him for that. I think the defect in the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Derwent is that he has managed to see differentiation between an amateur and a professional simply in terms of black and white; and he has completely ignored about 97 shades of grey that exist between the two. If I may again draw on my experience of the situation in motor sport in the widest sense—I think it must be applicable to quite a number of other forms of activity as well—I believe I can demonstrate very quickly what I mean.
Almost without exception, everybody taking part in these events does so on payment of an entry fee. He may get certain returns. In some larger events he may even receive starting money. Cash prizes in these and many other events are not uncommon. It seems to me, that in the terms of the Amendment as drafted, the noble Lord is going to scoop a good many more fish into his net than he intended. Certainly, he is going to I scoop in the majority of motor sporting

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events; because starting money, cash prizes or even prizes of any value such as a silver cup, seem to me to he covered by the definition in the proposed Amendment.
As I say, motoring sport certainly is expensive, and it is desirable, I think, that people should be able to get some contribution towards their expenses. I think I am absolutely right in saying that the majority of people take part in these events because they enjoy doing so and not because they intend or hope to make a financial profit out of it. Their expenses are very welcome to them, and perhaps some might not be able to take part in the sport unless they got a little back; but that does not make them professionals in any true sense of the word. I am sure that is so and I think that this argument could be extended over a much wider field, if one paused to work it out. I think that over a wide range of the country's activities this could prove to be a harmful Amendment and I hope your Lordships will not accept it.
12.11 p.m.
LORD NUGENT: I ask your Lordships to extend to me the usual measure of indulgence which is extended to those who address your Lordships for the first time. I must also declare my interest in this matter. I am a trustee of the M.C.C. and President of the Surrey County Cricket Club. Both these bodies are very much concerned about this Amendment, as indeed is cricket all over England. Your Lordships will be aware that lately the gates at county cricket matches have dwindled sadly. Some unkind people may say that this is due to the dullness of modern cricket, but people have been saying that cricket is going to the dogs since W. G. Grace's day and before, and I personally, perhaps naturally, do not agree with this view. I think there is a great interest in cricket throughout the country, but the reason that people do not go to watch it as they used to do is that the whole tempo of life has changed, and today there are many more attractions and things to do. Many more people have motor cars. Whereas in the old days father was allowed to go on his afternoon or day off to his county ground and watch cricket, and to talk about it afterwards with his friends in the bar, today he has to take the family to
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the sea or for a trip in the car to a stately home.
Then there is television on a Saturday afternoon, the afternoon on which in the old days cricket grounds were most crowded. From his own armchair, and at no extra expense to himself, father can watch for a few hours not only cricket but racing, running, athletics, swimming and lawn tennis, and, if his taste is this way, all-in wrestling. But on Sundays these distractions are not so available or so attractive. There is little or no sport on the "telly" on a Sunday afternoon; and it is much more pleasant to take the family to Lords, or the Oval or the local county ground than to sit in a snarl of traffic on the road to Bognor Regis. Last year as an experiment Surrey played three county matches over the week-end and the number of spectators on the Sunday—that is to say, the second day of the match—was apprecially higher than on any other day in the whole of the county cricket season; which proves, I think, that cricket on Sunday is popular. We could not, of course, charge a gate and we tried to make our expenses by raffles, lucky score cards and so on; but these improvisations can be followed only on a limited number of occasions, and it is quite clear that if a gate cannot legally be charged, Sunday cricket cannot go on. Not only would this be a blow to first-class cricket but it would deny an amenity which the public has shown that it wants.
There is another point of great importance, perhaps of even greater importance, which has been mentioned already by the noble Lord, Lord Willis. It is that by this Amendment the professional would be penalised and the amateur would be privileged. As the noble Lord truly said, it would be possible for England to play Wales at Twickenham before a crowd of anything up to 70,000 paying spectators, while a few miles away at the Oval it would be illegal for Surrey to play Kent or Lancashire. Surely in this day and age such a differentiation between the amateur and the professional, to the detriment of the professional, is both unjust and intolerable.
Your Lordships will be aware that in cricket today there are no amateurs or professionals; they are all cricketers, and most of them play under contract. The days when some splendid, excellent and

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keen cricketers were able, through having private means or through the leniency and kindness of the firms for which they worked, to play regularly for their county are over. Today all cricketers are paid. In 1963 M.C.C. approved, with the concurrence, indeed at the wish, of the counties, the abolition of the names "amateur" and "professional" and called them all cricketers. I do not suppose that today there are more than one or two players who, perhaps for the good of their county club, play for nothing. All the rest are paid, so that if it were illegal for professionals to play on Sundays there could be no county cricket on that day. The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, fears disturbances on Sun day afternoons, but cricket is not a noisy game—except, perhaps, when the noble Lord's own cricket county, Yorkshire, is appealing for a catch at the wicket against Lancashire. But even when our enthusiastic West Indian friends are here the applause at a cricket ground is a mere whisper compared to the continuous roar of rugger fans. In any case it is not intended to play Test matches or great matches on a Sunday.
Finance is the great worry of first-class cricket today. With dwindling gates and rising prices some counties find it difficult to carry on, and if county cricket were to collapse the whole level of cricket would suffer a mortal blow. First-class cricket is not only the feeding ground for our Test teams; it is the model on which cricket at every level—school, village or club, or the little boy playing in the street with three stumps chalked on a wall and shouting that he is Hobbs or Hutton or Dexter—is moulded. Every cricketer, whatever his standard of skill, must have the highest standard to aim at, and if there are no paid cricketers that standard will disappear and our national game will dwindle. The M.C.C. and the counties are doing their best to find methods of raising money to keep cricket going, and it appears likely that Sunday cricket will be one of the most profitable games. I beg your Lordships to help us by rejecting this Amendment.
12.20 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: I know that this is only Committee stage, but I think that even in Committee it would be the wish of your Lordships that
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I should express my own and your Lordships' appreciation of the speech we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, not only for its clarity but also for the pleasure it has given us just to hear cricket being talked about, particularly in the middle of winter.
At the moment I have to support the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, although by the time I have finished my speech he may feel I have so many qualifications to make that he will wish to say, "Save me from my friends! "I feel that it is my duty to report what happened in the Church Assembly, not because the Church Assembly is representative of the whole country, but because it is a representative institution for the Church of England and it gave almost a whole day to a debate on this subject. Strange as it may seem to your Lordships, who naturally think of Bishops as officially representing a Conservative and almost reactionary attitude in these matters, I had the greatest difficulty in persuading the Church Assembly to accept the main findings of the Crathorne Report, but after a long and thorough debate the Church Assembly decided unanimously to support the main provisions of the Report. They came to that decision on the recommendation in the Report that professional sport in the broad sense should not be allowed on Sunday. Therefore, I feel that, in fairness to the Church Assembly, I have to say that the unanimous opinion in support of the Crathorne Report could not be assumed to support the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Willis, in its present form.
Having said that, I feel very much the force of some of the arguments that have been raised against Lord Derwent's Amendment. I need not repeat the many anomalies that might arise. They have been outlined with great clarity by the noble Lord, Lord Willis. But there are some other considerations which have been touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent. A great change has come over the situation since our last debate arising from the fact that county cricket has been held on Sundays on a considerable scale. It has been found possible by various subterfuges within the existing law to hold a profitable county cricket match, and my own County of Leicester has been at the forefront of these ventures. I think

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that they were lucky in getting one of the most beautiful Sundays of the year for their first Sunday cricket match, and probably got an exaggerated idea of Sunday cricket from the slight excitement and sensationalism of their first Sunday match.
I am bound to say that it is extremely difficult to pass a Bill which would make it more difficult than it is now to hold a Sunday county cricket match. What worries us about the present Bill is that it opens the door to every professional sport and entertainment after 2 o'clock. The noble Lord, Lord Willis, has been perfectly frank and open with us in admitting that he thinks that is the right thing to do. Some of us feel that so to change the law that the Cup Final could be held on a Sunday—and we cannot avoid the fact that the Bill would allow this—would introduce something into the social life of the country which would make a very big change, which we believe would certainly not be desired by all, and which I think would be resented by a considerable section of the population. It is only on those broad grounds that we want to safeguard the position.
I feel unhappy about both these two Amendments. I have it seriously in mind to bring forward another Amendment on Report stage, if I think there is any support for it, making a totally different approach from that provided by either of these Amendments. I do not want to take the time of the Committee at this point by going into the matter in any great detail, but the root idea is that we should abandon all attempt in this type of legislation to define exactly what is or is not allowed, and there should be a system of licensing of groups of activities by the Home Secretary which could be reviewed (shall we say?) at five-yearly intervals. By some means of that sort a much more flexible and human judgment could be brought to bear on the total situation, taking into account not only all the interests involved but also the general mind and spirit of the nation at any one time. In choosing between a complete free-for-all after 2 o'clock and the rather severe restriction of Lord Derwent's Amendment, for the moment I have to side with the noble Lord, Lord Derwent.
12.28 p.m.
LORD CRATHORNE: I only wish to intervene for a moment in this debate,
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not in any way to argue the case in detail—because our view is laid down in the Report of the Committee over whom I had the honour to preside, which is published as Command 2528—but to support on principle the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, and explain to your Lordships why I do so. I support it in principle because I am very much in favour of this Bill and hope to see it on the Statute Book. If our Report had been drafted in line with the discussion in your Lordships' House to-day, I can assure your Lordships that our Report would not have been unanimous, but divided up into two, three or four different sections.
We sat for three years considering these problems. We started off as eight individual people of entirely different political and religious backgrounds. We could not have been more different. But the more we got together, the closer our views came together. The first point we agreed upon, and which enabled us to make a unanimous Report, was, as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, has said, that in this extremely difficult field we were bound to be illogical. I do not think there is any way to get out of that. So we decided that we would be illogical and try to make the proposals and suggestions which we thought would suit the general wishes of the people of our country in this particular time of our history.
There is no doubt that, as the Report was submitted, it received a wide measure of overall support. That is why I want to see this Bill on the Statute Book. This debate is beginning to frighten me, as I thought it might, because I feel that if we go into too much detail the net result may well be that we shall not get a Bill. This would be the worst of all worlds, because at the present time the law regarding sport and entertainment on Sunday (I will not say anything about trade) is absolutely chaotic.
It is not for us to talk about what happens in another place, but I am anxious about what might happen there. I would remind your Lordships that, if this Bill goes to another place as a Private Member's Bill, only one Member of the 600 Members there has to get up and say, "Object", and there is no chance of getting the Bill on the Statute Book. Therefore, the only hope that this Bill

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has of reaching the Statute Book, either modified or in its existing form, is by the Government of the day giving it not only time, but also moral support. The noble Earl the Leader of the House has quite rightly said that he is neutral on this matter in speaking on behalf of the Government, but he kindly pointed out to my noble friend certain difficulties of a technical nature in the Amendment now before us. I am sure that the noble Lord. Lord Derwent, will consider these difficulties before the further stages of the Bill.
I should like also to consider the possible implications of the suggestion made by the right reverend Prelate who has just spoken. I should not like to give an opinion one way or another on his suggestion at this stage, because again it is full of difficulties. But I certainly think that the suggestion he made is worthy of consideration during the pas sage of the Bill.
Finally, I would say that I wish this Bill well. I think your Lordships should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for giving his time to the Bill, and for introducing it in this House. I am sure that I speak for the whole of my Committee when I say that I want to see some measure of this nature on the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment, and I hope that we shall not forfeit the possibility of such an event by trying to put things into the Bill which I know could not he accepted by another place, or indeed by the majority of people in the country.
12.36 p.m.
LORD CORNWALLIS: May I declare my interest? I am a fellow Trustee, with Lord Nugent, and your Lordships are looking at one of those "old, potty fuddy-duddies" who sits in the Lords' Committee Room—at least, that is our description in some parts of the Press. I have had that honour, probably to the detriment of cricket, for32 years. We have heard the pros and cons concerning this difficult matter put very clearly. I could not begin to talk about this Bill with the clarity of the noble Lord, Lord Willis, or in the manner of the moving speech that we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Nugent. But I did play cricket with professionals for seven consecutive years. I want to say that the
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one thing that upset me was the discrimination between amateurs and professionals. There is no such thing these days in a great many sports, but when I was playing the professionals played far more like amateurs than did a great many of the amateurs.
I hope that these Amendments will not be pressed to-day. As the right reverend Prelate and my noble friend Lord Crathorne have said, some arrangement may be arrived at during the further stages of the Bill to take out one or two small items that could cause trouble. But I beg your Lordships not to think that you can stop professional players from playing sports and games, and taking part in entertainment during the course of Sunday afternoon. For example, what is to be done with regard to benefits for professional cricketers? All professionals give their services to help a friend. They are not allowed to take a "gate", but the hat goes round the whole time, and some of these Sunday afternoon matches produce £200 or £300 towards a professional cricketer's benefit. Is that to be illegal? Will the man who allows that to take place on his cricket ground he "had up" because he has permitted money to be taken? Once you start looking into the question of the stopping of payment or the taking of a "gate", you get into the most etxraordinary anomalies. I beg my noble friend Lord Derwent not to press these Amendments to make this terrible discrimination and distinction between what is supposed to be an amateur and a professional.
VISCOUNT BARRINGTON: I intensely dislike saying even the few words that I am going to say to your Lord ships when I had not intended to say anything when I came here; and I dislike doing so even more when I have not heard the beginning of the debate on this particular Amendment, and, therefore, may say something that can be very properly corrected. I only want to say this. Having heard what I understand was a maiden speech from the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, I feel that I need not declare an interest, because some of the unhappiest moments of my life (unlike those of other of your Lordships, who have spoken this morning) have been spent playing cricket. I attribute this to the fact that my father and my grandfather were both captains

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of their cricket elevens, and therefore hoped that I should be as good a cricketer as they were. Therefore, I cannot be accused of being prejudiced, as some noble Lords might be, in favour of cricket as such.
But I know enough about cricket to know what is meant by a "maiden over"; and can therefore say that if I were a batsman (which I think nowadays is called "Batman", or something like that, by the younger generation), and if I were faced with a bowler (even a "square" bowler, of the type worn by some eminent statesmen, and, for all I know by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent), I would know that that particular maiden speech was a "maiden over", in the sense that if I had wanted to try and score off it I should have been unable to do so; and from what I have heard—I know, of course, that other noble Lords would not wish to "score off" a maiden speech in the colloquial sense—no one has yet been able to contradict any one of the noble Lord's arguments, which I thought were put up with a clarity, a cogency and, if I may use this word from the Liberal Benches, a humanity which we expect in your Lordships' House, and which I hope we shall always get; but which I know, from what I have heard in the last few minutes, that we shall get on every occasion when the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, speaks to us again.
LORD MOYNIHAM: There are only two small points that I want to make on this Amendment. First of all, I was most upset at the use of the word "subterfuge" by the right reverend prelate in regard to first-class cricket. Surely, throughout the entire world cricket has come to mean a game which breeds in English and Commonwealth people a sense of decency, honesty and fair play. To bring this game down to the level of having to employ subterfuge to exist is, surely, to take away the meaning of the word "cricket" in its widest sense in the world. If this Amendment is not withdrawn, I beg your Lordships to support the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and go into the Division Lobby with him. Cricket will not survive if this Amendment goes through—I am quite sure of that—and cricket is what this country has stood for, not in sport but in an attitude and a way of life.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: I should like to intervene for one moment and I must declare an interest in that I am a Trustee of the Rugby Football Union, a member of the M.C.C. and President of various amateur national organisations and clubs. I very much hope that these Amendments will not be pressed. I say this because I think the effect of them may well be far wider than is understood. The Amendments as drawn may prevent a great deal of absolutely amateur sport taking place. For instance, imagine a game where two teams are playing, perhaps the final of a Cup competition, in which medals are presented to both teams. Under this Amendment those medals could not he played for and presented because the participants would be receiving something in kind—something of value. Again, as we all know, when people take part in athletics there are prizes. Sometimes they are of not much value, but on other occasions they can be of considerable value. Indeed I remember on one occasion my wife greeting me with astonishment when I came home on a bicycle which I had won as a result of winning a particular race.
It will be obvious to your Lordships that if these Amendments are pressed to a Division in the form in which they now stand, a great deal of amateur sport as well as professional sport is bound to be included, when I do not believe it is the intention to include it. I was much attracted by the idea put forward by the right reverend Prelate, because I think that if some thought could be given to what he suggested it would be far better than trying to differentiate between professional and amateur sport, which it seems to me is what this Amendment is trying to do. For these reasons and for the many other reasons put forward by other noble Lords I hope that these Amendments will not be pressed.
LORD DERWENT: May I start by saying how glad we all were at long last to hear the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, make his maiden speech. We have been waiting for it for a long time. I hope he will not think me patronising if I say that I wish I could make a speech without a note, as he did; and now that he has started speaking I hope he will continue.
May I now deal with the question of cricket "apartheid", raised by the noble

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Lord, Lord Willis, and by my noble friend, Lord Cornwallis. It is not, of course, anything of the kind. The difficulty which arises is this. If we are to have the sort of restriction which I am suggesting, how are we to take one game out and leave the others under the restriction? It is not really a question of the professional and the amateur cricketer, because in other sports, if my Amendments were liked by the Committee, one professional would be enough, merely because there must be some sort of criteria. But it is not fair to say that there is apartheid in cricket.
May I briefly comment on what the noble Lord, Lord Willis, said? I will not deal with all the points he raised, because I think he scraped the barrel a little for some of them. This is a difficulty. And may I say that he did not deal with the object of my Amendments at all? He said he did not like them, and he gave reasons, but he made no suggestions as to how one was to deal with the situation if large crowds caused greatly increased Sunday employment and considerable disturbance. With the exception of the right reverend Prelate no one has so far made a suggestion. It is a real problem, in spite of what has been said today. The noble Lord, Lord Willis, said that there could be an international match at Twickenham, and so on. If he re-reads the Crathorne Report he will find that it has dealt with the occasional amateur match that might bring a large crown. Undoubtedly if professional football were allowed, it would occur every Sunday.
LORD WILLIS: May I interrupt the noble Lord? The right reverend Prelate mentioned the Cup Final. That is occasional, too.
LORD DERWENT: That is certainly occasional, and I agree with the right reverend Prelate that that might well be a special case, because a Cup Final draws crowds and causes transport difficulties which do not arise with any other match. So much for the occasional big amateur match.
The noble Lord also raised the question of remuneration. I have taken advice on this point and I should not like to say what the law might be, with the
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noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor sitting opposite me, but I am advised that both in the operation of Acts of Parliament and (perhaps to many people more important) in the operation of the collection of tax, "remuneration" is well understood. It does not include proper expenses; it does not include money prizes for winning or for being second or third. For instance, if one has a horse that wins a horse race the money that is won is not considered as income—it is not remuneration as such. I think the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, in that connection was a little heavy-handed. I do not think it would fit any amateur sports which had cash prizes. Of course, payment for taking part is something quite different, and that might well be considered to be remuneration, both by the tax collector and in law.
The noble Lord Lord Willis, made rather heavy weather about concealed remuneration and breaking the law. There is no law which can be passed which somebody will not try to get round, but that does not necessarily make it a bad law. The noble Lord also mentioned the opinion polls. I wonder whether they would be the same if we had all read today's debate and heard all sides of both cases? As your Lordships know, the results of opinion polls often depend not only on the actual question asked but even on the tone of voice in which it is asked, so we need not pay much attention to that. Now may I come to what the noble Earl the Leader of the House said about the drafting. I am not in the least surprised that there are faults in drafting. I shall consult him later, but I do not understand why there is any difficulty at all in having two criteria for making a sport or a game illegal—the entrance criterion and the professional criterion. I re-read what I had written and I should have thought that covered it; but I hope that before the next stage of the Bill somebody on the Government side may be able to give me some advice about the drafting.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I will gladly bring some experts to a meeting with the noble Lord and will be of any assistance possible. What I said in connection with the last point he mentioned was that there was an administrative

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difficulty, and not a drafting difficulty. I did not say that it presented an insuperable obstacle but that from the point of view of my advisers there was an administrative difficulty.
LORD DERWENT: That, of course, they would know much more about than I should. I am grateful to the noble Earl for saying he would give me help at a later date. My noble friend Lord Chesham went on to this question of expenses, prizes, and entrance fees for competitors. None of them, I think, are remuneration, certainly not for an entrance fee to go in; only if they are paid for by somebody else to go in would it possibly be against the law.
May I finally refer to the right reverend Prelate's suggestion about licensing of certain sports. It is an attractive idea. It has been put to me before. There are certain difficulties; the principal difficulty is a question of political pressures. It has even been suggested by some people that the local authority should licence. I shudder to think what would happen. In many local authorities cricket would not be allowed and professional football would be, and so on. That, I think, would be quite wrong. I hope the right reverend Prelate will work out an Amendment and let us look at it at the next stage, but there are certain difficulties. We have a Minister of Sport. I do not know what happens if the Minister of Sport or the Home Secretary or another Minister is mad keen on one sport or game and the rest of the country does not like it. It seems to present opportunity for unnecessary pressures. But I am certain everyone would like to look at it.
For two reasons, I am not going to press these Amendments to-day. One is that in view of what has been said to-day a good deal needs to be looked at again; I quite admit that. There is another reason. This is a highly controversial Bill and I should not think it right or proper to ask your Lordships to divide on a Friday. I do not quite know why we are sitting so often on Fridays, but I think it would be wrong to have controversial business on a Friday when the House happens to be rather thin—it usually is, though it was not last Friday—and it is most certainly an unrepresentative House. I do not think a matter as controversial as this should
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be settled in a House of that kind. If later, after the noble Lord has replied, I ask for permission to withdraw the Amendment I will reserve the right, and probably will exercise it, to put down a similar Amendment on Report stage.
LORD WILLIS: I was not intending to reply. I merely wanted to say, first of all, that I do not think I could accept the view that this House is unrepresentative at any time. If this is in fact a controversial piece of legislation, I imagine that those people most interested will have come along to-day in order to take part in a vital debate. I accept that the noble Lord would wish to reconsider, in the light of the debate, the Amendments he has put forward, though I personally regret very much we cannot settle the issue to-day. I am afraid that if we go on much longer the Red Guards of the M.C.C. will be surrounding Lord Derwent's Embassy and shouting slogans and holding up placards.
I should like to thank and congratulate on my own behalf and that of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, on his magnificent maiden speech in support of the point I was making. Since we keep coming back to this question of crowds and noise, I would stress, first of all, that it is impossible in this day and age to penalise one sport as against another, and certainly it would be wrong to penalise Association football because it happens to be a sport that attracts large groups as against other sports. In other words, I do not think you can divide oft like that. Secondly, I would stress the point I made: that what you are in fact doing is spreading the load of noise and crowds. If, for example, Fulham or any big club, play at home on Saturday, people will go to that match, women are out shopping with their children, the shops are open and there is utter chaos and confusion. But if you have Saturday afternoon for shopping and Sunday for football or cricket, these conditions are spread over. I would stress that.
LORD DERWENT: When I said that this was an unrepresentative House I meant exactly what I said. The noble Lord must know perfectly well that many noble Lords have always made arrangements for Fridays weeks ahead, because they think they will not have to be here,

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and those arrangements cannot be altered. Many noble Lords cannot be here on Friday, and I think they should be given the opportunity to take part. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
12.55 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM LORD CHESHAM moved, in subsection (2) after "them" to insert "are required to". The noble Lord said: I am strongly of the opinion that unless these words in the Amendment I have put down are inserted, the Bill must, or may very likely, have an effect which I do not believe the noble Lord, Lord Willis, or anyone else would desire it to have. I am grateful to the noble Earl, the Leader of the House, in that he has made my task in explaining this Amendment somewhat easier by what he said in reply to the Amendment just withdrawn, when he pointed out what was permissible by way of charges under the present arrangements. He told us that as things are at the moment it is not an offence to accept voluntary contributions from spectators by having a silver collection, passing a hat round or something like that, or to make charges for programmes, or, in certain circumstances, to make charges for the use of a car park, so long as that does not impose conditions relating to entry on the land.
There will be, I take it—in fact I confidently assume there will continue to be—events which will not come within the scope of the Bill in its present form to which these arrangements will continue to apply. I think the Bill as drafted at the moment would cause grave doubt whether those arrangements could continue to apply. I want to make sure that an offence will be created only where I think it is the noble Lord's intention to create one, and that is where spectators are required to pay for the privilege of entering to watch the spectacle or whatever it may be. I do not believe there is any intention to change the present situation where these rather tenuous arrangements for admission could be maintained. If the words "are required to" are inserted in the appropriate part of the Bill I believe it will have the effect I hope for, and I trust the noble Lord will agree. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 12, after ("them") insert ("are required to").—(Lord Chesham.)
LORD WILLIS: There is in this matter no difference of opinion between myself and the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, except that I am advised—and therefore, because I am advised, I believe—the addition is unnecessary. I am told that the Bill as it stands is strong enough to take care of the point that has been raised. If the purpose of the Amendment is to make quite sure that voluntary payments or payments for programme, car parking and other facilities, are not excluded by the Bill, I am advised that the additional words are unnecessary. I will look at it again and take advice again, but I believe the Bill covers the point. Payments in such circumstances are voluntary, and the people are not paying for the privilege of watching the sport; they are paying for the particular programme or car park or something else, and the privilege of watching the sport is not conditional on that payment. Therefore, I feel that the Amendment complicates a clear and simple provision. That is the only reason why I am opposed to it at this stage. I will look at it again, but I am strongly advised that it would complicate the Bill and that it is unnecessary.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: May I intervene? By a curious chance the advice given to me coincides with that given to Lord Willis. Therefore I shall do no more than repeat what he has just said, with the authority of someone speaking for the Government. The additional words are unnecessary if the intention of the noble Lord is as it appears to be, and it is felt that to put in these extra words would merely complicate the position.
LORD CHESHAM: Needless to say, as I said, my intention was only to try to make assurance doubly sure. My advice was that there was some doubt about this matter, and that these words were necessary to clear it up. But I learn with interest the opposite advice and view. In the circumstances, naturally I have no intention of doing anything other than withdrawing the Amendment at present. That being so, I should like the opportunity to study the matter again between now and the

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next stage. If the noble Lord, Lord Willis, would be good enough to allow me a word with him, to discuss his advice, and should I be satisfied (there is the possibility of coming back to it, but that may not arise) I am quite agreeable to leave it at that. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
1.5 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD CHESHAM: My reason for not moving my last two Amendments is not because I do not consider that this clause does not still require some Amendment. I shall be brief. The Amendments the clause needs are concerned with two entirely practical points, which I think have little or no effect on the principle behind the Bill. They relate to the question of practising for events which are to take place at 2 p.m., and also the question regarding unnecessary crowding and congestion on the road by people getting to these events.
I must be quite frank and tell your Lordships that the reason why I did not move these Amendments was because, after a last minute consideration, it seemed to me that the Amendments I had down did not do exactly what I wanted. Therefore, rather than waste your Lordships' time with long explanations, and confusing your Lordships by trying verbally to make manuscript Amendments to other Amendments, I thought it better to withdraw them. I should say that I propose to put them down in a more correct form at the next stage.
THE LORD BISHOP or LEICESTER: I think this is the moment when I should say that I shall respond to the encouragement that I have received, partly orally and partly in writing, to endeavour to frame an Amendment expressing the idea that I adumbrated briefly about licensing. I have given a good deal more thought to the matter than I could possibly make clear in the few words that I addressed to your Lordships, and I think I have some answers to some of the difficulties already raised by the noble Lord, Lord Derwent. But I will not delay the Committee longer at this point.
On Question, Clause 2 agreed to.
Clauses 3 to 7 agreed to.
Clause 8:
Short title, extent one commencement
(2) This Act shall not extend to Scotland or Northern Ireland.
1.7 p.m.
LORD MAELOR LORD MAELOR moved, in subsection (2), after "Scotland" to insert, "Wales". The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. My Amendment is rather exceptional and of its kind it is rare. Amendments are usually moved in order to change the content of the Bill, but this morning I am not opposing the Bill at all. Consequently, I see no reason why even the sponsor of the Bill could not support me in my Amendment. I am speaking as a Welshman, and I am articulating the feeling against this Bill which has been expressed in all parts of the Principality. I would readily concede that there are in Wales, as there would be in Scotland and Northern Ireland, other opinions.
It may be recalled that during the Second Reading debate I was the only one to speak against the Bill. That was the only course left open to me, because at that stage I should not have been allowed to move an Amendment. I did not proceed to divide the House, for the simple reason that if the compatriots of my noble friend Lord Willis, that is, the English, desired this Bill, then who am I, as a Welshman, to deny them their request? Conversely, I believe that no English or Scottish Lord or Lady on either side of the House would care to deny the people of Wales their wish.
In moving my Amendment, therefore, I feel that what I have need to do is to make out an unanswerable case for Wales being excluded from the provisions of this Bill. I feel myself less a politician this morning than a barrister addressing a jury in a court of law. I am going to appeal to your Lordships as a barrister would do in these circumstances. I am not a legal man and, in the presence of the Lord Chancellor, I feel shy to pose as such. But I shall be calling my witnesses in due course and, if I succeed in proving my case, then I am sure that this habitually generous House will acknowledge the fact by expressing itself content with the Amendment. If

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I fail to make a case I will respectfully accept your Lordships' verdict.
When speaking on the Second Reading debate, I made it clear that I was speaking as a Welshman. I would point out that the present Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Wilson, recognised in a practical manner, and for the first time in history, the nationhood of Wales. Sir Winston Churchill came near to doing so by placing on one of his Ministers the responsibility to be in charge of Welsh Affairs. The late lamented Earl of Kilmuir was the first Minister to hold that office. It was something new in our Parliamentary history. But the present Prime Minister has gone one step further, and indeed taken the final step by establishing a Welsh Office to give the Secretary of State for Wales a seat in the Cabinet. The fact that we are a nation apart is now therefore recognised by the Government.
Not only do the Government recognise that we as a nation have our problems, but also that we have our own ways of dealing with our problems; and this is asserted now nearly every day. Only this morning I saw in a newspaper this short paragraph:
"A new charter for the Arts Council, which would mean a change of name for the Welsh Committee, was announced yesterday. From now on the Welsh Committee will be known as the Welsh Arts Council."
All this used to be England and Wales. Of course, historically it should have been in any case Wales and England, because we were here when the Anglo-Saxons were paddling their canoes on the shallow waters of the continent. We have our own outlook on most things. What the Government now recognise is the fact that what may apply to England does not of necessity apply to Wales. We view things differently. We have our own traditions and our own way of life. I am not suggesting that we are a better people, but I am emphasising that we are a different people, because of our traditions, temperament, and may be our education. We view things differently from our English neighbours. This is definitely true of our view of Sunday. In spite of declining church attendances, I claim that we in Wales still respect and uphold the traditional Sunday.
I said in my last speech on the subject that this was put to the test in Wales some five years ago. The then Home Secretary decided to have a referendum on the question of Sunday opening of public houses. One would not dream of holding such a referendum in England. It would be preposterous and quite unnecessary to do so. But the very idea underlines our difference in outlook and way of life. As a result of that referendum in 1961 eight counties—Carmarthen, Cardigan, Pembrokeshire, Denbigh, Merioneth, Carnaervon, Anglesey, and Montgomery—all voted against Sunday opening. This was in spite of the fact that within those counties are the most popular holiday resorts in the British Isles and thousands of visitors are to be seen there every summer. Those counties also cover no less than four-fifths of the territory of Wales. If I may give another illustration, in South Wales we have the Rhondda Valley, a purely industrial area, and an area where a decline in church attendance is most pronounced. It has, however, a very strong religious and Nonconformist background. A plebiscite was held there to ascertain whether it was the wish of the inhabitants to have a cinema open on the Lord's Day. They voted against its opening, and the same thing happened in the industrial town of Neath in South Wales.
I said I should be calling on witnesses to prove that we have this peculiar outlook and our own way of life. My first witness this morning will be the immortal W. E. Gladstone, one of the three greatest Parliamentarians of all times. Gladstone was not a Welshman; he was an English man living in Wales. On May 4, 1881, a Private Member introduced a Bill in the other place under the title Sale of Intoxicating Liquors on Sunday (Wales) Bill. That private Member was the grandfather of the present Lord Clwyd. Gladstone was the Prime Minister, and he took the unusual step of taking part in a debate on a Private Member's Bill. If my oratory fails to touch the hearts of your Lordships, I am sure Gladstone will succeed. This is what he said:
"It appears to me that this is eminently a question on which the feeling of one of the great sections of the country may be well ascertained, and when tested by the experience of some length of time, when placed entirely beyond doubt by sufficient evidence, it ought to command the greatest attention, and I would even say a willing assent in this House".

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Then he proceeded:
"This is a question in regard to which it appears to me to be eminently right and fit that the desire of the Welsh should be kindly entertained by Parliament. Wales is, after all, a country with a people of its own, with feelings of its own, and with especially religious feelings and associations of its own. I do not think therefore that in a question of this kind it is too much to say that the House would do well to give kindly attention to the wish which is almost unanimously entertained by the people of Wales in these matters".
Those were the words of Mr. Gladstone. I could not have said it better myself! He carried the House with him. Gladstone's words are as appropriate this morning as if they were said in my support in moving this Amendment. I am sure that on any jury's mind it would have the desired effect.
I call another witness. This time the London Times. Having read the Hansard Report of that debate I have just referred to, I was anxious to know the reaction of the English Press to what had been said in the House of Commons. I looked up a copy of The Times for May 5, 1881, and to my great surprise I found that the Editor had devoted two columns in a leading article to this very subject. Let me quote two paragraphs of what the Editor said:
"In matters like this Welsh Bill it is not only a safe principle but it is the only principle compatible with rational freedom, and the opinions of the persons concerned should be the mainspring of legislation.
That Wales is a portion large enough and distinct enough, not only to form an opinion of its own interest in this matter, but to have that opinion listened to, is beyond all question. In language, in social habits, in the character of their intelligence, in religious associations, the Welsh are absolutely different from ourselves and singularly at one with each other."
I do not see the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Fleet, present but were he present I am sure he would be tempted to reprint that article in to-morrow's Times, because the words are as appropriate to day as they were in 1881.
If I am reminded that this was 86 years ago, my retort to that would be that, throughout the length and breadth of Wales to-day, petitions are being signed in all the Welsh churches imploring their respective M.P.s to vote against the Bill if it is presented in another place. My nearest town is Wrexham, which is a border town and consequently much anglicised. One would not expect to find there the same amount of objection as
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in the Welsh villages and towns in the hinterland. I was therefore surprised to read the following paragraph in the town's local paper, the Wrexham Leader only last week. The paragraph was framed and appeared in thick print, and this is what it said:
"Forms petitioning for the rejection of the controversial Sunday Entertainments Bill have appeared in the porches of a number of churches in the town, and the number of names on the forms has risen sharply."
Indeed, only this morning from a still more anglicised town, Colwyn Bay, where there are many English business people now living in retirement I received this telegram in Welsh:
"Pobhdynuiniad da a Chefnogaeth Heddiw Cymrod Orion Colwynbay."
"All best wishes and backing for to-day". This was sent by the Welsh Society of Colwyn Bay. I have had hundreds of letters from religious denominations in Wales begging me this morning to move this Amendment.
I was reading only this week an article in the Expository Times and was struck by an observation which I saw there. It refers to England, and I quote:
"The pattern over a number of years has been of a full church for morning service, but a remnant of 50 or 60 people in the evening."
That is the pattern in England. That is probably why my noble friend Lord Soper and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester gave this Bill their blessing during the Second Reading debate, as it provides for nothing new to happen after 2 p.m. on Sunday.
But in Wales the pattern is quite different. Our large congregations are in the afternoon and evening, because the after noon is devoted to Sunday school and in Wales it is as much an adult Sunday school as a children's Sunday school. Then, in regard to the evenings, I would say without fear of contradiction or fear of being charged with exaggeration that there are four times more people attending the evening services than the morning services in Wales.
I will only say in conclusion that this happens to be my birthday. I am sure that noble Lords, with their customary kindness, will readily wish me a happy birthday.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD MAELOR: This morning they can express that wish in a practical way. It will be the happiest birthday of my life if I find that this Amendment has been accepted by them. As I said, I am not opposing the Bill. Had the earlier Amendments gone to a Division I would have retained my seat. I am not concerned about the Bill so far as it relates to England, but I do say, as a Welshman—and I beg the House to listen to me—that the people of Wales do not desire to change the traditional Sunday. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 12. after ("Scotland") insert (",Wales").—(Lord Maelor.)
LORD OGMORE: I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, on his birthday to-day, but I must ask your Lordships not to give him a birthday present of the Amendment which he has moved. We all have great regard—myself particularly so, since I have known him for so long—for the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, and he is utterly sincere in what he said and in the view which he expressed, but I think that view is wrong so far as the majority of the Welsh people are concerned. That view no longer represents the view of the Welsh people, although undoubtedly it did so in 1881. But time has moved on since 1881, and even since Mr. Gladstone's day. To-day it is Mr. Thorpe who is the Leader of the Liberal Party.
I believe that the Welsh people are not desirous—the majority, at all events—of being excluded from this Bill. The county from which I come, Glamorgan, is the most cosmopolitan, the most colourful, the most enterprising and the most diversified county in Wales. Perhaps not all other counties will agree, but I make that claim. I think we must look at population figures. When we are talking about Wales we must talk about the population of Wales, because that surely has some bearing. The population of Glamorgan is 46 per cent. of the population of Wales, so almost one out of every two Welshmen comes from Glamorgan. Also, three-quarters of the population of Wales—and I include Monmouth shire in Wales, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, does—live within a radius of 50 miles of Cardiff, the
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capital of Wales, which is in Glamorgan. So when one talks about the population of Wales, one has to realise that to a very large extent it is centred within a small radius of Cardiff.
The situation to-day is that life in Wales has changed completely from the days when the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, and I were young, and there is not a great difference, as I see it, between the life there and the life in many parts of England or Scotland. So far as the language is concerned, only 26 per cent. of Welsh people to-day talk Welsh. That is the maximum. I should think it is even slightly less than that, but I accept the census figure. In Glamorgan, the percentage is only 17 per cent. and in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, it is only 4.7 per cent.
When the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, was speaking he referred to witnesses whom he had called. They were rather long in the tooth, as we know—Mr. Gladstone and The Times in 1881, even before the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Fleet, bought it. But let us accept them as witnesses. Now I am going to call witnesses from this week, and from North Wales—I am not going to my own county. I will go to the area of the noble Lord, to North Wales, and I will even go to Wrexham which he mentioned as his home town.
In North Wales this week the biggest trade union, the Transport and General Workers', have come out in blank opposition to the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, and they have 50,000 members in North Wales. That is the Transport and General Workers' Union—Ernie Bevin's old union. This is what Mr. Tom Jones, the Regional Secretary, said when talking about this Amendment:
"Why should people be governed by centuries-old Acts that were never intended to apply to society as we know it to-day. People should be treated like grown-ups and not like little children."
Mr. Branwell, a delegate from Wrexham, argued the case for keeping Wales in the Bill, and a newspaper cutting which I have reports that he said that
"the object was to give people more freedom to enjoy Sunday sport and entertainment and to remove anomalies in the law governing Sunday activities. Lord Maelor's attitude in opposing the Bill was out-dated for most

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people in Wales. If Wales had different legislation from England, Welsh people would have to travel over the border for Sunday entertainment. It would also be injurious to the Welsh tourist trade. In supporting the Brighter Sunday Bill, the committee are understood to have had respect for the views held by Lord Maelor and religious organisations who share them. Mr. Jones and many of his committee members are churchgoers. Some are deacons. But as Mr. Jones explained yesterday, they had to take into account the situation as it was in Wales to-day. Many people working a shift system were having to regard Sunday as a day for recreation. Others working six days had only a Sunday to relax."
He goes on to explain how, if this Amendment were carried, young people would not stay in Wales and would go to England, because it would encourage them to travel in search of "brighter pastures".
I do not want to speak for long, because other noble Lords will also have something to say, but what entertainment are the Welsh people getting on Sunday now—not in 1881 but to-day? When the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, and I debated this subject on the radio some time ago. I put this point. I said that to a large extent the situation has changed completely since television was introduced, because people are seeing boxing and many other types of amusement in their houses on a Sunday, and what is the difference between its being piped into the house and being seen there and going out and seeing the amusement in the fresh air? I see no difference in principle.
This was the situation last Sunday. This is the kind of entertainment which the Welsh people saw on their television screens, and they seem to have a lot more channels than we have in London. There were "Gymnastics", "Film Matinee", "The Lucy Show", "Great Expectations", "Pinky and Perky's Island", "Bertram Mills' Circus", Much Ado About Nothing, "The Danny Kaye Show", "World Cinema", A New View of Politics, a play adapted from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories, "Rugby Special: Wales v. Scotland", "Lost in Space", "Tingha and Tucker", (what that is I do not know), "Attack!", "The London Palladium Show"—that is good Sunday entertainment, but not Lord Maelor's idea of entertainment—and "The Eamonn Andrews Show". Then there was another regional programme, on which there was "Batman". If one
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looks at the radio programmes on that day, there were "The Ken Dodd Show" and "The Clitheroe Kid". This is the sort of entertainment that the people of Wales are having to-day; and if they are having this sort of entertainment in their home what on earth is the difference if they have entertainment in the open air?
For these reasons I ask your Lordships, if this Amendment is pressed to a Division, to vote against it. But I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, whose sincerity I completely accept, will withdraw his Amendment before the Committee.
1.32 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My noble friend Lord Maelor is a very old friend of mine because we worked together in another place. I suppose our association is that much greater, and that he has much greater respect for me, because 40 years ago I married a Welsh man—a real Welshman, who is Welsh-speaking, who has a tenor voice and an abiding love for rugger, who was fully immersed and baptised at the age of 17, and who bears a Biblical name. Therefore, when the noble Lord said, "We are different", I have had 40 years—and, after all, my children are half Welsh—learning that difference. Of course I agree with him that the Welsh approach to life in the old days was entirely different from that of the English. But he must recognise—and this has already been said—that the strongest quotations he can make in support of his case come from the last century.
When, as a young woman, I went to my in-laws in Llanelly, in Wales, I found that Sunday newspapers were not permitted in the house, which absolutely astonished me. This was in the town of Llanelly, Jim Griffiths's town. In the 'thirties, Jim Griffiths took over a cinema in the town on a Sunday afternoon and charged 1s. for a meeting, and I attended. It was packed and there were queues in the street. I confess that I went to my mother-in-law with my bouquet of red roses in fear and trembling and said, "Please forgive this, but the times are changing". I recall the chief constable by her side telling her about the queues, and she said, "If it were 25 years ago, I should have been upset. I realise now that people must have full

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relaxation on Sundays. That, surely, is what the Lord intended".
My noble friend—and I hate to say this—did not declare his interests. He is a lay preacher, and if this Amendment is rejected it will cut across his preaching in the afternoon and evening. I can quite understand that he may feel rather sore about that, because he knows as well as I do—and I know full well—that the Nonconformist Churches are as empty as the Church of England these days. One finds only a handful of people in them. But the Church is at fault, not the young people. The Church has failed to help the young people, whether they be Nonconformist or Anglican, and the result is that the churches are empty. This is not due to any progressive legislation. It is not due to our giving any special privileges to the youths in Wales whom I have seen kicking their heels on the corners on Sundays, wondering what to do because they did not want to go and listen to a preacher. It is not the fault of this House. This is the fault of the Church in our changing times.
I would say this to my noble friend, if my other noble friend would permit me. Apart from morals, there is the question of expediency. I know perfectly well that he will agree with me that the Welsh are quite aware of the meaning of expediency, and that he knows full well that there is a tragic emigration of the youth from Wales to England. Why? Is it perhaps because Wales does not hold them, for reasons which youth understands? It will be tragic, as somebody has already said, if this emigration is accelerated because more cross the boundaries and go over to England on Sundays.
Another thing I must put to my noble friend is on the question of drink. I agree that, when the referendum was carried out in Wales, South Wales supported Sunday licensing, with the exception of Carmarthen, and that North Wales opposed it. But could my noble friend tell me why he did not equally oppose drinking in working men's clubs on Sunday nights? Why? It is equally immoral. If it is immoral for people to go into public houses in North Wales on a Sunday, why is it not immoral for them to go into working men's clubs? Drinking in working men's clubs takes
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place in North Wales; and, although I do not like using the word about Wales because of my very close association, I think it is hypocritical to say that if you go into one building in the High Street you can drink on a Sunday night, but if you go into another building in the same High Street, in the name of religion you cannot.
My final word to my noble friend is this. I always regard Christ as a great social reformer of His day. That is my conception of Christ—a social reformer who challenged bigotry of all types. He even had some good words to say to the harlot. I have a feeling that North Wales would not. He spent a great deal of his time talking about youth, and the protection of youth. I can assure my noble friend that Christ would not have supported this Amendment.
1.37 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: I should like to say a few words against this Amendment. I am sorry to have to do so on my noble friend's birthday, and particularly after he has addressed your Lordships' Committee, as usual, with so much eloquence and charm, but if Wales is excluded from the Bill I think it will give rise to a certain number of anomalies. For example, there would be a completely illogical situation so far as the opening of cinemas is concerned. Here I should like to declare an interest in the film industry, and also the fact that I am a member of the Labour Party Film Group. I have also received some factual help from the Cinematograph Exhibitors' Association, but I speak entirely for myself. Indeed, on Second Reading of the Bill I said a few words about the Sunday charity tax, about which I have felt very strongly for a number of years.
I had the impression from the speech of my noble friend Lord Maelor that on Sunday in Wales there is no entertainment of any kind. In actual fact, there are 85 cinemas open, 13 in North Wales and 72 in South Wales; and according to a list I had yesterday from the C.E.A. one of those in South Wales is the Windsor at Neath, which my noble friend assured us was a town which had rejected Sunday cinema opening. Now if this Amendment were carried the situation would be that Wales would be excluded, and therefore the cinemas in

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Wales, the 85, would have to go on paying this Sunday charity tax while the cinemas in England would not. I do not want to repeat what I said on Second Reading about this tax, but I think it is generally agreed that the tax, which is levied under the 1932 Bill, is out of date and hypocritical. It also puts a very heavy burden on the cinema industry, which by itself, by its own voluntary effort, is raising very large sums for charity. As many noble Lords will be aware, cinemas can be opened on Sunday at the present time only if the local authority gives permission, and the local authority in many cases makes a condition of that permission the levying of this special tax.
The Crathorne Committee recommended that the permission of the local authority for Sunday entertainment should no longer be obtained; and I would submit that this should be equally applicable to Wales. The Crathorne Committee pointed out, I think rightly, that the local authorities' decisions are not always representative of local opinion; they are often the result of pressure by vociferous pressure groups. Furthermore—and this applies particularly to Wales—if the local population are not in favour of a cinema's being opened, the cinema is not attended; therefore, it will not be a commercially worthwhile proposition.
The situation has changed much since 1932. The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, referred to television. How can one differentiate between entertainment on the television screen at home and entertainment in the cinema? It appears to be the view of my noble friend Lord Maelor that one should not be allowed to see a film in public, but that does not prevent one from seeing it in the privacy of one's home. To see a film in a cinema on a Sunday is considered wicked; to see it at home on television is not. This seems to me as illogical as to say that a local museum can be opened on Sunday provided you see the glass on display but not the china. I hope that this Amendment will be rejected so that when this Bill becomes law it will apply in the whole of England and Wales.
LORD AUCKLAND: I can claim no family connections with Wales but I know it to some extent, partly through Territorial Army camps which I have attended in South Wales and partly
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through two or three holidays I have spent in North Wales in the county of Merioneth. I should be the last person to hope that Merioneth should become even more depopulated than it now appears to be. Except during the height of the holiday season delightful resorts such as Barmouth seem to be virtually empty. When I was last there, out of season, I was able to enjoy the lovely coastline and countryside around, but I was told by some of the local residents that one of the reasons why young people had deserted the place was the lack of entertainment on Sundays.
I am certainly not an advocate of the Continental Sunday for Wales or else where; but I believe that the question of tourism which has been raised is a major factor. At Waterloo station recently Wales was for a fortnight extensively publicised as a tourist area. I think I am right in saying that the railways advertise cheap week-end trips to Wales—and all power to their elbow. But if one is going to encourage young people particularly to go to these places, there must be somewhere where they can indulge in or watch forms of sport and entertainment and, within reason, get a drink. Otherwise there will be clubs springing up, or trying to spring up, all over the place; and the very thing that we have been fighting against, the setting up of some of these clubs, will come about. Much as I respect the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, who I am sure moved this Amendment with the sincerest of motives, I certainly cannot support it.
LORD ARWYN: I have scrapped the speech I intended to make and I think that I can put what I have to say in a few words. Why are the Scottish and the Northern Irish allowed to work out their own salvation in a way that we are not allowed to do? Whatever our faults, and however far behind the times we may be, I still think that the core of Wales, the one which is operative to-day and the one which might be operative to a greater extent than we can imagine in the next twenty years, develops from the training which a few of them still get in the Sunday Schools. I happen to be "a son of the manse". I was brought up in the strict way of which the noble Lords, Lord Maelor and Lord Ogmore, are well aware. In my day we were not allowed even to carry water on a Sunday.

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But there is a happy medium. That which is taught in the Welsh Sunday schools is not the ordinary curricula one finds in other Sunday schools. It is very comprehensive. I knew of three boys who began to appreciate the reading of the Testament in Greek because they were taught Greek in Sunday school. One of them became an eminent Greek scholar.
The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, referred to television programmes. I look at them. I am not a very good example of one who was brought up in a manse, I know. But if we are to rely on escapism for the rest of our lives and think only of that kind of thing, we are not going to get very far; because something will be lacking in the British nation. And, as my noble friend Lord Maelor said, we are the Ancient Britons—although I do not want to rub that in. I think that if we had been given some latitude here, if there had been some local option, that would have made the passage of this Bill easier. I personally agree with the Bill, but, for Heavens sake! do not let it start repercussions in Wales.
LORD MOYNIHAN: I had the pleasure recently of debating this subject with the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, on Welsh television. He seems also to have debated it on radio with Lord Ogmore. I hope that he, as a Socialist of 15 years' standing in another place, will join the appropriate union, Equity, if he is going to continue making these appearances. Entertainment, like water, finds its own level. It costs a lot of money to open cinemas; it costs a lot of money to stage professional sport and other activities. This is a commercial industry; people are not going to stage these things and open cinemas at a cost to themselves unless they are going to make money. Surely, if in any particular area of Wales the people feel so strongly about this that they do not want it, they could abstain from attending, and therefore vote with their feet. The people who were opening the cinemas would be losing money and would therefore close them. In that way the object would be achieved in a perfectly normal way. Bearing this in mind, and all the other valid points which have been made, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, may be persuaded to join the newly created "Friday Observance Society" and withdraw his Amendment.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Perhaps I may pour one or two rather cold-blooded points on this warm-hearted debate. The Amendment is slightly defective in its present form. The changes would not require to be very large, but I should point out that, if Wales is to be taken out of the Bill, there should be written into it a specific Amendment to the existing law as set out in the Schedule of enactments repealed so as to secure its continuance on the Statute Book in such fashion as to apply only to Wales; and, secondly, an appropriate Amendment to Clause 7 would be required so as to continue the Cinematograph Fund in so far as contributions accrue from Welsh cinemas. No doubt that could be done quite easily if this Amendment were carried, but those are drafting points which it would be necessary to consider.
There is of course the wider issue, on which the Government preserve strict neutrality. There are precedents for the separate treatment of Wales in legislation, for example, Church Disestablishment where there is separate legislation, and also with regard to the Sunday closing of public houses, where there is a system of local option in Wales. While it is normal to exclude territories like Scotland and Northern Ireland from the general law, it is not normal to adopt the same expedient for Wales. I have asked whether there would be precedents for this, and I have not in fact been supplied with any.
On the other hand, to be fair, the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, who spoke with such eloquence, was able to argue that there has been a greater recognition lately of the independent character and "peculiar tendencies"—if I may use his expression—of Wales; and so I suppose he could suggest that it was time to make a precedent, even if one did not already exist. But I cannot find a precedent for what he proposes to do. It should be pointed out that there are rather better reasons for special treatment in the case of Scotland and Northern Ireland, as the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, suggested, because they do have a special corpus of their own law which provides a reason which does not at the moment exist in the case of Wales.
I am not going to try to influence opinion either for or against the Amendment. My grandmother came from

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Llandilo, but I am not sure what they are saying in Llandilo about this. If any Welshman present, from the North or the South, can tell me that, I might be influenced to vote in one Division Lobby or the other. But I am bound to say that, while the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, and I have so much in common, and I have the greatest feeling for Welsh nationality, I defer on many of these matters to the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, who has assured me—I have it only on his authority—that if my Welsh relations had their rights, one of them would be a Prince of Wales to-day; so I am very biased in his favour also. But I am completely neutral, as are the Government, on this interesting Amendment.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My noble friend Lord Arwyn asked us to remember that the Welsh are the Ancient Britons. I think that the modern Britons also have an entitlement to have their voice heard on a matter of this kind. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, of what Gladstone said 80 years ago. I think things have changed since those days, and they have changed in Wales just as they have in other parts of the country.
After the noble Lord had finished speaking, I thought that I would go to the Library and look at the Western Mail which is one of the principal, if not the principal, newspaper in the Principality. I saw in the Monday issue of that paper a paragraph which said that hundreds of Welsh Rugby supporters returning by air from Scotland on Sunday were held up by fog. Then I saw in the advertisements that the A.B.C. Olympia Cinema was proudly announcing that it was having performances on Sunday evenings at 6.30, and that this Sunday's programme was the film Dr. Zhivago. I saw that the Park Hall Cinema was advertising that on Sunday at 7 p.m. Mediterranean Holiday would be shown. We have heard about the abstemious or temperate habits of the Welsh. I saw another paragraph saying that the 500 members of the London Welsh Association had filled up a questionnaire saying that they would not attend meetings less frequently if a new centre were opened where drinks were served, and only five of them were threatening to give up their membership.
I cannot speak, as so many have spoken, with a Welsh accent or back-
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ground, except that from the age of two to the age of five I did live in South Wales at Dinas Powis where my father happened to be a bandmaster. In those days I was conscious of the very sanctified atmosphere of the Sabbath but, as I say, that has changed very considerably in the last fifty or sixty years. I should like noble Lords from Wales to show me one Welshman who does not look at television or listen to the radio on Sundays.
LORD ARWYN: I am not arguing that. I am trying to uphold a feeling which is of great strength in Wales. It starts from the Sunday school and I am going to defend that.
LORD LEATHERLAND: But if it is sinful to be amused on Sundays, it is sinful to be amused by television as much as by a live form of entertainment, and you cannot have this argument both ways. If it will raise me in the esteem of my noble friend, I will say that not only did I go to Sunday school, but I was a Sun day school teacher for several years—but do not hold that against me. I do not want to see a system of apartheid growing up in this country, where we have one system of law and one standard of citizenship and conduct for one part of the country, and another for the little place called Wales. Let us all be on equal footing where this is concerned, whether for good or for ill.
I would listen more attentively to my Welsh noble friends if they would stop working as well as stop playing on Sundays. We have Welsh miners going down the pits on Sunday nights; we have Welsh railway men catering for special excursion trains which carry people to sporting events and bring them back again; and we have Welsh newspapermen having to work all day on Sunday, and at night as well. My noble friend Lord Maelor, for whom I have the highest respect, gave some figures about Sunday drinking in Wales. He pointed out, quite correctly, that under the local option scheme in Wales only 5 of the 13 counties have voted for drinking, whereas 8 have voted for not drinking. This is one aspect of Sunday entertainment and of the attitude of mind in which you can approach the Sabbath. My noble friend did not tell us that the eight counties which had voted against Sunday drinking were the middle and northern counties of

1615
Wales, the agricultural as distinct from the industrial counties. He did not tell us that the five industrial counties in the South had voted overwhelmingly for Sunday drinking. Another aspect of this Sunday drinking is linked with the clubs. It is undoubtedly a fact that in those places where Sunday drinking in the pubs has been stopped, Sunday drinking in the clubs has developed, and that has not been an improvement.
I know that we are to consider the question of football matches and cricket matches on Sunday. If they do come about, I do not want to see the cricket supporters of Glamorgan and the football supporters of Swansea deprived of an opportunity to share the same kind of entertainment and sport that is available to the rest of the country. My noble friend Lord Willis is not compelling any Welshman to do any of these sinful things on Sundays; he is just saying that if they want to take their wives and families out, on what is perhaps the only day during the week on which they are free to do so, to witness one of these sporting or recreational events, then let them have the opportunity to do so. But it does not go any further than that. There is no conscription or compulsion of any kind.
There was a stage during the speech of my noble friend when I wondered whether local option would not be the remedy, as it has been for the Sunday opening of public houses, but during the last few minutes I have altered my mind. There would still be a large minority in many counties who would want an opportunity to have Sunday entertainment, yet who would be denied it because a bare majority of people had voted against it.
I hesitate to express an opinion on a matter which is solely the concern of Wales. We have to bear in mind that a lot of people leave Wales, for various reasons, and a lot of them are in London. I do not see any distinction between the habits of Welshmen in London and the Cockneys who are native to the city. I feel that it would be detrimental to the worthy objects of this Bill if we inserted this special provision, which would make an apartheid territory of the Principality of Wales.
LORD WILLIS: Speaking as an Englishman who keeps away from Wales as
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often as he can, and who has suffered a great deal in the past at the hands of Welshmen, and not least to-day, when we stagger on lunch less into the afternoon, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, for the courteous and eloquent way in which he expressed himself. I am reminded of a phrase from Shakespeare, though perhaps it is a little out of place—
"There is much kind and gentle in this Welshman".
On my noble friend's birthday, I give him that tribute from Shakespeare, but I am afraid that it is all I can give him. Under the generous and gentle manner of my noble friend lies a diabolically cunning political brain. Notice, for example, the cunning with which he approaches this question. He is much more circumspect than the Scots. When we had a Sunday Entertainment Bill in another place some years ago, though it did not affect Scotland, the Scots rose in their thousands and attacked it hook, line and sinker.
Now we have this Amendment, and I think I detect underneath it an authentic cry of despair—the wail of defeat. Now the Welsh are saying in effect, "Please leave us our Principality. You can go to hell in your own way, with Sunday theatres, football, cricket and drink. But erect a fence round Wales and we will look after it. "Indeed, my noble friend said that the English could do what they liked. The plea is to leave them Wales. My noble friend did not actually say that the Welsh are better people than the English, but I must say that he dropped some pretty strong hints in the course of his contribution.
My noble friend Lord Arwyn spoke up for the Ancient Britons. His body covered in woad, he shouts that we have to remember the place of Sunday schools in Wales.
LORD ARWYN: I must correct the noble Lord. This is a dastardly yarn put up by the English. We never wore it.
LORD WILLIS: I take that back and apologise. I was under the impression that woad was a dye that came from South Wales, but my noble friend has cleared up that misapprehension. I bow to the noble Lord's superior knowledge of, at least, ancient matters.

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May I say a final word on this, which will have to be serious? We cannot exclude Wales from this Bill for many reasons, the most telling of which was given by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, who I think spoke with the authentic voice of modern Wales, young Wales. I have received a great number of letters and have a great many Press cuttings indicating that there is a feeling in Wales for a change. I beg my noble friend not to be like Canute and try to hold back the tide. That is an impossibility, and I would beg him not to do it, not only because it is a negative occupation, but also because this Bill is not a harmful Bill. It is not a bad Bill that is going to take people away from Sunday school, church or chapel, or from anything they may wish to do. It restores a measure of freedom to Sunday, without affecting anyone's particular interests or what people believe in. If this Amendment were passed, it would set up Wales as a medieval fortress from which, I warn my noble friend, there will be such a drain of the young population that Wales will be left a Principality of old, bearded men and faded women. I beg my noble friend, therefore, not to press his Amendment.
LORD MAELOR: I should like to reply to a couple of matters that have been brought up against me this morning. The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, referred to the resolution passed at a meeting of 50,000 workers the other day, but there is a vast difference between the union concerned and the churches who have had petitions signed every Sunday. Here may I quote the Wrexham Leader. Petitions are put in the porches and as members go out, they see them and sign them voluntarily. I am sure that if these 50,000 members of the Transport and General Workers' Union had been canvassed for their views, we should then see that A large proportion of them, knowing them as I do in North Wales, would be very much in my favour.
My noble friend Lady Summerskill referred to the fact that I am a lay preacher and that I should be losing my big congregations. I happen to belong to a peculiar denomination, the smallest in Wales, called the Scotch Baptists in Wales. Curiously enough, there are no Scotch Baptists in Scotland. There are Baptists in Scotland, of course. but no
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Scotch Baptists. I am a Scotch Baptist and I have always been used to preaching to small congregations.
LORD WILLIS: If I may interrupt my noble friend, may I say that that explains a great deal.
LORD MAELOR: All this is done voluntarily. I can claim one distinction. Probably I am the only Member of your Lordships' House who has been excommunicated from church membership because of holding broadminded beliefs. My noble friend Lady Summerskill must look again and say whether that is broad or narrow.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Was it due to smoking or drinking?
LORD MAELOR: No, it was because of my theological beliefs. In regard to emigration, I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, appreciates that I was formerly for 15 years the Member of Parliament for Merioneth. Emigration has happened there, as in other parts of the Principality, through lack of industry. Indeed, the noble Lord contradicted himself when he said how in summer Towyn, Barmouth and other holiday places were packed out with people anxious to come and enjoy the good health that is provided in Wales and the Welsh Sunday.
LORD AUCKLAND: Scenery; not Sunday.
LORD MAELOR: Scenery and Sunday. We are told that there are no precedents. Well, the Welsh Office has been in existence for only a couple of years, and I am sure it is high time to set precedents for the future so far as that particular office is concerned. I cannot withdraw my Amendment. As one who has been begged by so many people in Wales to take the action that I am taking this morning, I think it would be cowardly on my part to withdraw it. I shall definitely divide the Committee, if necessary, and, as I said in my speech, if I sink, I sink, but I am hoping that I shall keep afloat.
2.11 p.m.
On Question: Whether the said Amendment (No. 7) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 7; Not-contents, 28.*

CONTENTS

Arwyn, L. [Teller]

Kilbracken, L.

Moyle, L.

Falkland, V.

Longford, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Stocks, Bs.

Horsbrugh, Bs.

Maelor, L. [Teller]

Strange, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Gifford, L.

Popplewell, L.

Ampthill, L.

Hacking, L.

St. Davids, V.

Amulree, L.

Jessell, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Atholl, D.

Kinnoull, E.

Shannon, E.

Auckland, L.

Leatherland, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Barrington, V.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller]

Burden, L.

Moynihan, L.

Strang, L.

Chorley, L.

Ogmore, L.

Summerskill, Bs. [Teller]

Effingham, E.

Phillips, Bs.

Willis, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.

BRITISH RAIL DEFICIT
2.21 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL THE EARL OF KINNOULL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they intend to take in view of the recent announcement of the Railways Board's deficit in their last financial year of £130 million. The noble Earl said: My Lords, after that stimulating Welsh debate, I ask your Lordships to address your minds to a subject which arouses equal passion in some quarters; namely, the railways. When I put this Question down for to-day I did so in a spirit of objectivity and in terms which, if digestion permits, could lead those who are taking part in this discussion to a fairly wide-ranging debate.
I believe such a debate gives us the opportunity to express views on both the current Government policy and the management policy of the railways. It also gives the opportunity, of course, of raising political red-herrings, but I very much hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, comes to reply he does not fall into this trap and so cloud the clarity of his arguments and lead us to suspect the frailty of his case.
The purpose of my Question to-day falls into three parts. In the first place, it is simply to ask the Government whether they are satisfied that this country is getting good value for its money when it finds itself faced, this year, with a bill for approximately £130 million for the railway deficits. Secondly, it is to demonstrate that many of the economy measures taken by the railways in recent years have resulted in little financial gain to the country and have taken place at the expense of increased public hardship. Lastly, the purpose of my Question to-day is to ask the Government perhaps the million dollar question: What positive steps do they intend to take this year to correct this ever-increasing financial drain from the public purse?
Anyone who has recently examined the Annual Reports of the railways will have noticed that the total deficit is in fact made up from two main sources: the operational deficit, which is the main guide-line, and the interest deficit payable on accumulated losses. These two figures are currently running at approximately £70 million for the operational loss and £60 million for the interest payments. What the purpose is in adding to the operational loss every year a sum almost equal to it in interest charges on past losses is difficult to fathom, particularly when no Government can seriously expect to be repaid on these accumulated losses.
The surprising feature of the operational deficit is that since 1964 it has varied little from between £68 million to £70 million, and yet during this period

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there have been over 286 closures of passenger lines, innumerable closures of freight services and depôts, withdrawals of many weekend passenger services, and a considerable reduction in staff. Yet despite all these economies, despite all these reductions in passenger services, despite all the reductions in freight services, and despite all the public hardship that has occurred, the annual deficit has remained exactly the same. The only inescapable conclusion one can come to is that this is a highly unsatisfactory state of affairs and that the country was getting better value from the railways in 1964 than it is getting to-day.
Perhaps I may now turn briefly to the sensitive subject of rail closures. The Railways Board estimated some time ago that recent closures would save something in the region of £17 million annually. On a number of occasions this figure has been strongly challenged by leading railway economists, who claim that the Railways Board appear to forget that the branch lines are the grass roots that feed the main lines. I would ask the noble Lord whether he can state the actual savings gained as a result of these closures. Such information may afford some grain of comfort to those who have been deprived of their rail services, and who now suffer the inadequacies of the alternative bus services. These inadequacies are very real—the services are slower, they are less frequent, they are less comfortable, they are less reliable in winter, and in some cases they have been withdrawn altogether.
The Government policy on closures is, as the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, will be aware, a very sore point. Out of the window went their 1964 pledge to halt closures, and out of the window has apparently gone their full transport survey that was promised. In view of this, surely the least that should be disclosed is the figure of the actual financial savings from these closures.
One of the many reasons for passenger dissatisfaction with the railways to-day, and one which I am sure has contributed at least to part of the 5 per cent. loss of passenger traffic for this last year, is the recent wide curtailment of Sunday services. The pattern has been to withdraw these services from many areas throughout the country during the autumn, on
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the pretext that they are not being properly used, and then never to reintroduce them in the spring. These services are withdrawn without reference to the Minister or to the T.U.C.C., and those objecting have little or no chance to offer any effective or real resistance. There is clear evidence of hardship here, and I have been informed of cases in Wales where families and friends cannot be happily reunited at weekends because of the lack of Sunday services. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, will be prepared to look into this matter, which brings nothing but discredit to the railways.
There are those who argue that the only way of making the railways pay, or to make them more viable, is to reverse the present trend and to increase passenger and freight traffic every year. Such advocates produce figures which show that from 1938 to 1966 French railways increased their freight tonnage per kilometre by 250 per cent.; Swiss railways by 400 per cent.; Japanese railways by over 2,500 per cent., and British Railways by 2per cent. With passenger traffic, the French railways increased by 75 per cent.; Swiss railways by 400 per cent., and Japanese railways by 8,000 per cent. British Railways succeeded in fact in reducing their passenger traffic by 3 per cent. Why is it, people ask, that the foreign railways appear to flourish while British Railways appear to wither? In fact, as I am sure the House will be aware, in 1965 both passenger and freight traffic fell by 5 per cent. It is my submission that whereas a loss of passenger traffic is understandable to a point, the loss of freight traffic is inexcusable and a trend which must be reversed, both on social and on economic grounds.
Before cooling here to-day, besides reading from the Annual Report I have attempted to discover why it is this trend has occurred in the last year. The most common complaints that have been made are, first, that the railways have an inflexible commercial approach which is outdated. and the attitude "Take it or leave it" is losing them business fast; and, secondly, the so-called rationalisation of freight depots apparently did not take into account the fact that customers would not be prepared to tolerate the extended transit time that has resulted. In the case of the London area alone,

1623
where 18 depots were reduced to six, the freight traffic has dwindled to an alarming proportion over the last year, and the result of this loss, of course, is a further increase of road congestion.
When I discussed the question of rail deficits with an old politician recently I was told that the Government answer to day would be a "lemon". I hope it is not. The Government must take full responsibility, as any Government would have to, for this continual loss. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, that what the taxpayer requires to know to-day is the answer to four questions. Why is he getting less value for his money than in 1964? Why has the transport survey not been made? Why have the closures not been halted? Why has no positive step been taken to arrest this ever-increasing financial trend? Those are the questions to which I would ask the noble Lord to address his mind to-day.
2.32 p.m.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, I think the pertinent questions put forward by the noble Lord which require an answer are very important ones indeed. I would only suggest, with regard to the first two questions, that these lie with the Government which he evidently supported, because of the policy that has been followed since 1951 to date; the effect of that policy has been to bring about this continual trend that is taking place. I think it is right that he should put the third question and ask what the present Government are going to do to stop that trend. That is something that concerns many of us who have taken a keen part and a great interest in transport as a whole. I think there is a cynical disregard of the ever-increasing deficit of the Railways Board. The present estimate for 1967 of £130 milion is alarming, to say the least. We seem to be taking this just in our stride, and one must seek the reason why this should be so.
Let us look at the global figure of these deficits. If we take them from when the deficit first commenced—I will deal first with total deficits and then working deficits—we find that the policy that was followed under the 1947 Act for the first time brought some real finance into railway operation. We all know the very serious financial position in pre-war days of railways as a whole. They had their
1624
temporary respite due to the war, and after the war we found, when the decontrol took place, that at once the railways commenced to run into the deficit that was so usual in pre-war days. As the operation of the 1947 Act became more effective, we found that by 1952, after paying all working costs, paying all interest and central charges and so on, there was a surplus of £3·7 million. That is why we have to look at what has happened since that date that has now led us to a gross deficit of—these figures are staggering—over £1,345 million to the end of 1966. That is astonishing. Let me repeat: in 1952, with the common-sense operation of the 1947 Act, after paying all interest charges and meeting all working costs there was a surplus of £3·7 million. In the intervening years to the end of 1966, there was a deficit of £1,115 million. The nation has a right to be alarmed about this. We have a right to ask questions in this House and to probe it.
What has brought this about? If we take central and interest charges, we find they have been pretty static. From 1952 onwards they have gone from £35 million —a big increase—to £55 million, but if we take an average out each year for central and interest charges we find they have been reasonably steady. The big difficulty has arisen, naturally, in the operating deficit, and we find that in the operations up to 1955 the railways were able to meet all working costs and provide a surplus of £1·8 million. As the full effects of the Tory Government Act of 1951 have been felt, these operating deficits have increased to a remarkable degree. The railways commenced, let me repeat, by showing a surplus in 1955 of £1·8 million; in 1956 a deficit of £16·5 million. I do not want to quote all the figures year by year; one can find them in the Hansard of the other place for January 22, 1964, column 136, in a reply to questions. It gives the figures up to 1962, and by that time the operating deficit had risen to £104 millions. This is a proper responsibility of the policy followed out in particular by the Marples-Beeching régime. Dr. Beeching at that time went out with a halo around his head for the modernisation of transport and rail. He has been the biggest murderer of transport following the Tory Government policy that this nation has ever known. If we go on from 1962 to

1625
the present time, we find that the working deficit continues at £75 million, £62 million and £71 million. This is some thing that is very alarming.
A policy has been followed of closing branch lines, of hiving off everything that has been profitable on the railways side, of closing down railway workshops and handing out to private enterprise the maintenance production that railways require. I have before me two wonderful brochures issued by the Derby work shops in 1954. How proud they were, when I visited them on Monday, October 11, 1954, to indicate in this brochure that it was the railway workshops which experimented with the first diesels. By 1938 they had the first prototype diesels running They go on to say that by 1954 they were producing a number of diesel units, both main line and for shunting; and then suddenly they were completely deprived of their production. It was handed out to private enterprise, and we all know the sad story of the North British, and so on, in this connection.
In 1953 48 diesel locomotives were produced. They were stripped, repaired and rebuilt; and 25 new ones were produced for main line running. All this was taken away from the railway workshops and handed over to private enterprise. The significance attaching to this will be noted, because it is from that time onwards that the operating deficit and the gross deficit of the railways commenced to leap to the astronomical figures at which they stand now. Therefore, in reply to the first two questions of the noble Earl, I would say that the Government he supported, that side of the House, must take full responsibility, for this particular reason, for the tremendously steep increase in the deficit of the Railways Board, going on year by year.
If we take the Beeching-Marples era, traffic was constantly falling. If we take the coal traffic carried by rail in 1963 and compare it with that of 1966 we find there has been a reduction of 4·7 per cent. One understands certain economic changes that have taken place in the use of oil and electricity for power producing units. But we have only to travel the countryside, and particularly my own part of the world, in the great North-East, the industrial area, and we see the amount of coal which is now being carried by road; vehicles are cluttering up
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the roads where there should be an adequate rail service to carry it. At one particular time there was such a service. Of course, the branch lines and so on have been closed down, and we see the added congestion that is caused through this.
Since 1963 to the end of 1966 we find that there has been a decrease of 15.4 per cent. in the iron and steel carried on rail. Again, as we travel up and down the countryside we see much of this heavy traffic cluttering up our roads when it ought not to be there. We even see our motorways being developed in order to carry much of this type of traffic, but those concerned have neglected to connect them up to the docks and seaports where, if we are to be really economically solvent, the steel ought to be travelling for export. Instead of that, we see what takes place.
We see also what happens in regard to other quantities of traffic. I am not going back too far. I am quoting figures only from 1963. We find that there has been a further decrease of 2.6 per cent. in the volume of traffic carried. This is the story. This is the reason why these deficits are constantly growing. We know that the Beeching—Marples policy has been to cut out all sundries as much as possible. The noble Earl referred to what is taking place in this particular direction. If we take the sundries traffic we find that the closing up of many branch line stations and collecting depôts has deliberately sent this traffic off to the road. Those of us who live in rural areas have seen our local stations being closed, and are having to depend upon distribution from a given centre. We know that freight that is carried by rail and sent on by road is often waiting two or three days before it is delivered. These, then, are the reasons for the deficit.
To take some global figures, the total freight receipts in 1963 were £291 million. In 1965, the last total gross figure was down to £282 million: and the estimate for 1966 is £271 million. This reflects itself in the falling gross receipts. This is the answer to the question posed by the noble Earl.
Looking at the Accounts, while all the accounts are legally scrupulously correct, one wonders whether they are not overbalanced a little to show more of a

1627
deficit than they should. If we take the Depreciation Account and suchlike which is written off, we find that the depreciation has been quite considerable over the years. But when we come to the assets —I do not mean the rolling stock assets, but land values and so on—while there are certain items in the accounts which indicate the book value of the assets, one queries whether the correct land values have been brought into them. I am subject to correction on this, but I think the last valuation of land values took place in about 1963. We all know that there has been an appreciation in many depôts and areas of land where the station buildings have been pulled down. The land is most useful in the centre of a town. I do not think that assets have been written up to quite the extent they ought to have been. This could have a certain effect upon the accounts in this particular direction.
We find, too, a point that has been emphasised on a number of occasions, that the railways have never acted, and under existing statutory regulations never can act, on a commercial basis. In fact, up till now it is a one-way traffic, because the railways have been placing large con tracts to outside industries for vast quantities of their materials. We have also found changes within the administration which are supposed to be modernisation. There is, indeed, much to be desired, be cause departments have been established. In addition to the higher price that has to be paid for goods coming from private production compared with what it used to be under railway production, let us consider changes that are taking place in the Chief Mechanical Engineer's department, the divisions and workshops. We find the workshops have to produce to sell. The accounts of one department have to be adjusted to another's. A really fantastic set-up is in operation. I sincerely hope that the Government are going to have another look at this.
We find that instead of the 28 railway shops we had a little time ago, we have only 16. This is significant. If we take a place like Wolverton, at one time not only was there a most efficient shop but it was producing gas to serve the town. This is something that has been hived off and sold. This is a consequence of the Beeching, Marples, Watkins, Len-
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nox-Boyd set-up in previous Ministries of Transport under the Tory régime. I am afraid that when the subject of railways comes up I am inclined to speak for a little too long, but I feel that these are matters which have to be pointed out.
If we look farther into the matter of reorganisation, we have before us the out standing example of the British Rail way-owned service from Southampton to Le Havre, which was sold to the Norwegian line on the grounds that it was not profitable. The policy of the Government, as implemented by their minions in the Railways Board of that time, accepted that situation. Although it was suggested it should be transferred to a car ferry service, they would not allow that to be done and the line was sold. Now, of course, we see the Norwegian Olsen line making a tremendous profit on this service. They built two new car ferries in Norwegian shipyards, which was an order lost to our own yards, and they are now building a third. One could go on giving many of these examples if one had more time. There was the case of the proposed sale of Milden Quarry, and it was only after a great deal of hard work that that sale was stopped.
These matters have all combined to lead to this increasing deficit, and it is as well that they should be on record, because the present Government, owing to the short period of time they have been in office, have not had the opportunity to bring in amending legislation, as I hope ultimately they will do, to put these matters right. Furthermore, on the question of the accounts the Railways Board have to find some £3 million in order to keep in being a separate police force. Is such a force in its existence only for the Railway service? Additionally, the Board carry a burden of some £6 million for pensions and other things. I see that in 1963 they paid £92,600 in order to keep unremunerative bus services in operation—in other words, as grants to private bus companies to keep the services running. All these matters are reflected in the financial statement which we have before us.
Both inside and outside Parliament there have been savage attacks on railway men who, it is said, are not doing a good day's job of work and are against change. I would point out that since 1947 the railways staff has been reduced

1629
by half; since 1960 there has been a further reduction in railway staff of over 150,000. At the same time, since 1960 one finds that there has not been a steep increase in wages and salaries paid by the Railways Board. Despite all that is said about staff problems, one must recognise that staff is the largest single unit for which the Board have to provide. Furthermore, one finds that since 1960 wage rates and staff remuneration have remained pretty static. It is interesting to note that in 1960 salaries and wages paid to railway men amounted to £373 million; in 1965, they amounted to only £389 million—in spite of all the inflation and rising costs; and at the same time there was a reduction of 167,000 staff.
There have been many instances where the railway management have wanted to follow a certain policy which, because of directives by the Ministry on the part of those at the top, they have been unable to implement. One knows that there has been a remarkable procession of change after change. If I may go back, one remembers the old British Transport Commission as a policy-making body, with its various executives responsible for various forms of transport. The policy-making body tit the top decided that the best change from steam to some other form of traction was by electrification in densely populated areas and by diesel traction in less dense areas. The railways management went to great expense to heighten the bridges between London and Newcastle in order to take the overhead electric equipment. But then the dead hand of the Tory Government came clown, and said that, instead of electric power, diesels would be used. And yet one finds that the cost of using the electrical equipment resulted in an expenditure of £25,000 less than that on diesels.
The Government of the day, in the interests of the oil industry, decided that it should be dieselisation. Then there was the great hold-up that took place in electrification on the route from Euston to Manchester. Electrification went on as far as Crewe for five years, and then came the dead hand of the Tory Government, and that electrified route was not completed until last year. Now every body is extolling the benefits of electri-
1630
fication when the old railway management wanted to go ahead in this direction years ago. These are all costs which have had to be borne by the Railways Board and they have all contributed to this large deficit.
A third and very pertinent question was put to your Lordships by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. What steps are the Government going to take, and how soon, to produce legislation which will treat transport not from the angle that each section, or workshop or branch line must be balanced to pay for itself, but from the standpoint that it should be part of the whole overall transport policy? We are entitled to say to the Government: "These are the failures of the past. How soon are you going to put them right? How soon will you give freedom to railway workshops to embark on work which they can well do as compared with out side bodies?" How soon are they going to get back to the old system carried out by private-owner railway managements which established their own workshops because of the difficulties they experienced outside? We all know about the numerous failures of diesel engines, and most people realise that what is required is overall electrification.
This matter of restoring to railway workshops the right to manufacture their own equipment has been pursued by many Members of the other place. Certain promises were extracted from the Ministry some time ago that this would be attended to as an urgent matter. It has now been postponed. I would ask my noble friend to press the Minister to do something tangible about these railway workshops, without waiting for legislation to come along later.
We hear a lot of talk about the National Freight Authority. We shall all be very interested to read the White Paper which is coming along, and if what we hear is correct—that this is to be something separate from other forms of transport—then I would again ask my noble friend to have another look at this, because under this Government transport must be looked upon as a whole. There is wide scope for road transport, inland waterways, air and everything else, but transport must be looked upon as a service to the nation, and we should not just separate roads, inland waterways,

1631
docks and harbours and railways and treat them as separate factors. We are too much inclined always to refer to transport as an industry. Certainly, transport requires industry to produce the goods, but of itself transport is a service, and we must look at it from that angle. There fore, when he replies, I hope that my noble friend will be able to tell me something comforting in that direction.
In conclusion, I should like to turn to another most interesting point. I wonder whether my noble friend would convey to the Minister of Labour, in his exalted position, with his railway background and experience, the urgent need to try to secure the amalgamation of the three railway unions—N.U.R., T.A.S.S.A., and A.S.L.E.F. It is a long-standing disgrace that these three unions remain as separate identities. Down the ages we have seen the warring factor between those three. We have just averted a strike or a work to rule, because of A.S.L.E.F. and their attitude so far as mileage is concerned, and I sincerely hope that the Minister of Labour will be more energetic in trying to secure this amalgamation.
I also hope that he will try to ensure that we get away from the position in the railway world where, if the lower-paid man gets a little bit of something, there must be these wide differentials. At the present moment, railwaymen on base rates are not well-paid, but many of them are able to get a very good remuneration because of the introduction of these so-called bonus and piecework earnings. But in consequence of having introduced these bonus and piecework earnings in certain grades, we witness a very disgruntled staff in other grades where the bonus system cannot be so easily applied. This is a curse which has been introduced, and I think a leaf ought to be taken out of the book of Jack Scamp, who is responsible for getting some easement in so far as the rates of pay at London Docks are concerned, where piecework and bonus rates are rather going by the board and a decent base rate is being established. That type of arrangement, not only on rates but on other conditions of service, ought to be earnestly thought about, and I sincerely hope that it will.
I can understand the reason why legislation has taken so long and I can under-
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stand the noble Earl's reason for pressing this Question and seeking an answer. Of course, the Government have had tremendous difficulties—they have had to overcome the hopeless mess which was left them by their predecessors; there is the economic difficulty which we have been experiencing, and they have been trying to put the nation on the right lines. Those are some of the reasons why up to the present it has not been possible to have legislation embracing all these services. But now, when we may be getting towards the end of these difficulties, I hope we can receive some indication from my noble friend that legislation is to be brought forward at a reason ably early date. If two bites at the cherry are required, a certain section will have to be dealt with immediately and a bigger and more co-ordinated measure will have to come later. I sincerely hope that my noble friend will be able to give some indication when that might be expected.
3.5 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I was very pleased when I saw the Unstarred Question which the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, had put down for this afternoon, because it raises one or two very important matters in which I have been interested for quite a long time. I want to put certain questions to the noble Lord, although I am not expecting a very detailed reply.
The noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, said that the railways paid for a short time after the 1947 Act which was, taking the story of the railways generally, a very remarkable thing. I say that because, so far as I recall, they certainly were not paying, or were not paying very well, in the days of private enterprise for a long time before the 1947 Act came into operation.
The noble Earl mentioned what was happening in some foreign countries. He said that passenger numbers had increased and freights had increased. But although freights have increased in most of the countries which the noble Earl mentioned, the railways are paid a very substantial subsidy of one sort or another. They do not all get subsidies in the same way, and it is not very easy to find out exactly what form that subsidy takes or what sum is involved. But certainly the railways in Belgium, France,

1633
Italy and West Germany have a big Government subvention of some sort or another. I cannot talk about Japan, because I am afraid I did not have an opportunity to look into the figures, and I did not know that the noble Earl was going to refer to that country. I think one can say, therefore, that it is very difficult to ensure that a railway service is going to pay its way in the world at the present time.
I think the position might be greatly improved, as the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, said, if one could get a co-ordinated system of transport, which I have always thought it was right to aim for, and that we should not try to make one branch of the transport system pay to the exclusion of the others. That is why one must regard the railway system as part of a general social service over most of the country; and that should be particularly applicable to those parts of the country where development is expected or wished to be encouraged. There has been considerable talk about whether some of the railways on the borders of Scotland should be shut down, although I do not think there has yet been any decision taken about that. But attempts are being made to develop that part of the country, and it is very difficult to develop part of a country if, at the same time, you take away the railway services.
Then there are those parts of the country where new towns are being built, and where overspill towns are being encouraged to take population from what are over-populated centres. There has been talk about closing the line between Colchester and Cambridge, while at the same time there is talk about certain towns along that line being developed to take more and more population. That again is a case where the railways should be used as a social service, and should be encouraged. The third group of which I am thinking consists of the holiday parts of the country, taking Suffolk, Norfolk and East Anglia generally, where again there has been talk about shutting down the railways because they do not pay. It means that the holiday towns will suffer a good deal because the roads are not big enough to take a great deal more traffic.
There were two things, however, which gave me some encouragement. One was the White Paper on Transport Policy,
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published in July, 1966, which in paragraph 17 says:
"For the for seeable future the country's transport system must include a substantial railway network."
In paragraph 25 it says:
"Certain services which are unremunerative but socially necessary will be assisted by the Government."
That seems to be the right kind of policy to pursue, because the railways must be regarded as a necessary part of the social structure of the country, and the expectation that the railways themselves are going to pay their way is not borne out by the experience of countries on the Continent of Europe.
3.12 p.m.
LORD STRANGE: My Lords, my name is not on the list of speakers, but I have asked for permission to speak. In fact, my name is represented by a blank on the list, and that is descriptive of the sort of speech I am going to make. I would declare an interest, in that I have recently gathered together a group which intends to try to preserve the Manx Steam Railway. This railway is unique in this country, being the longest steam railway, and I hope it will go into the future as a living railway, a permanent memorial to steam. I shall preach to this group what I have heard to-day, and tell them not to copy British Railways when they are deciding the way in which to run their railway in the future.
I shall explain to them that, in my view, and from what I have gathered, British Railways have failed because they made two cardinal mistakes. They have failed because they did not have regard to the passengers. They will not listen to what the passengers want, or study what they do. They regard them as so much material that is moved about on the railways, and not as customers. The same attitude, which is pathological, is adopted in the case of freight. They have laws laid down about freight, and they will not run it as a commercial business. They do not try to get new orders by bargaining and by providing new opportunities for commercial firms to transport their freight on the railways in a way which would be more attractive than the road services.
I shall also tell my group to follow the example of the Swiss, the French and the

1635
Japanese railways, which pay. Here I am very much indebted to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for some figures which he gave. I shall point out to them that they should study the methods of those countries rather than those of the British, because they had an increase of 2,500 per cent. in passengers and an increase of 8,000 per cent. in freight.
3.14 p.m.
Loan DERWENT: My Lords, I was very interested in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell—one always likes to listen to an expert—but he cannot expect me to agree with everything he says. I am not a railway expert, but I am an expert on this question in another respect, in that I am an expert taxpayer. It is as such that my noble friend has asked this Question—I think, very wisely—and I hope we shall be given some satisfactory answers. I am not going to follow the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, into the Party political aspect which he tried to raise, except perhaps in saying two things. Under the present régime, which has been in office for two and a half years—
LORD SHEPHERD: Which régime is the noble Lord talking about?
LORD DERWENT: The noble Lord fully understands. The Ministry of Trans port régime under the present Minister and the late Minister. Under that régime, nothing, specific seems to have been done to improve the rail services. The Marples Beeching régime at any rate attempted to get cracking on something. I merely throw that remark out to the noble Lord. He referred to the economic mess left by their predecessors. We are getting rather bored with hearing about this. I think it is now generally agreed that most of the economic mess was caused by a lack of confidence in the 1964 Government. Most economists now agree on that.
In this connection, there is one matter about which I do know a good deal, and that is the question of road transport. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, that it is very desirable that more goods should be put on the railways, but the fact is that one of the reasons why so much freight goes by road which should go on the railways is that the handling charges are so high nowadays
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when goods are being transferred from lorry to train, from train to lorry and so on, and it is far cheaper to put goods on a lorry and send them the whole distance by road.
Another thing is that, compared with pre-war, the delivery system on the railways is, I regret to say, extremely inefficient. The noble Lord touched on that subject. I have a particular friend who, ever since the war, has longed to put his goods back on the railways, as he did before the war. He just cannot do it. He has to run his own fleet of lorries, which he does not like doing, because he has to deliver from, say, Doncaster to Glasgow by a Tuesday, and the railways cannot tell him when they will be delivering. That is one great problem with regard to rail transport.
The noble Lord rather indicated, though he did not say so, that he thought the unions and the railwaymen had really very little to do with this inefficiency which has grown up. I do not think he can quite get away with that one. The controversy about liner trains, which ought to be running properly now, is a case in point. I was glad to hear him say (because he knows more about this than I do) that, as I have long thought, many of the railways' troubles would be overcome if there was one union. I entirely agree with him. Time and again we have seen trouble caused which has had very little to do with the management and very little to do with the men, but has arisen simply between the unions.
My Lords, I said I was going to speak for only a minute or two. I am speaking as a taxpayer, and it is in that respect that I am interested in my noble friend's Question. The noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, went long into the past. But what this Question, for which we are all grateful to my noble friend, asks is: What is in the Government's mind? What are they intending to do? We should like to hear that answered in some detail, if possible, and not be given vague generalisations. We do not want to be told merely, "We are going to amalgamate this", and so on. We should like to hear in some detail what the Government are going to do, if they know, and how soon they are going to do it. Those are the questions which all of us, in all Parties, hope that the noble

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Lord, Lord Shepherd, will be able to answer.
3.18 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, at a quarter-past three on a Friday, which the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, admits is a rare occasion, I do not think he would expect me to deliver a major transport policy speech. As the minutes ticked by, and I again looked at the noble Earl's Question, I thought that as a kindness to the House I could merely draw his attention to the fact that the announcement to which he refers in his Question arises from an error in our newspapers, in that, of course, the 1966 accounts have not yet been published. There has been no announcement as to the deficit. The figure that the noble Earl had in mind when he put his Question down refers to the estimated deficit for 1967.
Having corrected that. I was wondering whether, again as a kindness to the House, I should merely refer the noble Earl to the White Paper issued in July 1966, which sets out in quite considerable de tail what the Government have in mind. But kindness is one thing, courtesy is another. The speech made by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, was one of misery and woe, I thought; a damning indictment of the 1962 Act, for which his Party was responsible, because the railways and the Holding Company now operate under an Act of Parliament that noble Lords opposite put through against severe criticism from this side. But, in view of his speech, I will perhaps say a little on the points he raised.
First, the problems of the railways are not unique. I do not know whether the noble Lord did me a little justice by reading a speech I made in 1962 when I was leading for the Opposition in this House on the Transport Act. Your Lordships may remember that I quoted a speech made by my noble friend Lord Brabazon of Tara. I think he made this speech on what is now the 1947 Transport Act, an Act for which a Labour Government were responsible. He said this:
"For many years now, not, of course, because of any fault of the railway companies, but because of the advance of the internal combustion engine, transport by road has eaten into the guts of the railway companies and it will go on. And the question arises, and a question that we have decide: Are you prepared to let the railways go bankrupt and let
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everything go by road, or do the railways supply something which is of national importance and which ought to be kept alive?"
He went on:
"But if they are to be preserved in this country, to preserve them is to co-ordinate them with road haulage. I do not say you should take them over by nationalising, but anyone who takes over the railways without at any time taking a very close hand in road haulage is just taking over a bankrupt concern."
That was the situation in 1947 and the situation that had been prevalent before the war. The railways were in very grave difficulties.
We in 1947 thought that we should seek a co-ordination of road and rail. I will not say that the structure we then created was perfect. At that time we thought it was the best way to do it. But at least we had an integrated service and, as my noble friend Lord Popplewell pointed out, in 1951 the railways had an operative profit of some £39 million. In 1954 it was still a profit of some £16½, million. Then came the noble Lords opposite, with their competition as the one way of stimulating effort, and what happened? In 1956 we had the first deficit since the war, a deficit of £16½ million. In 1958 it increased to £43 million in operating deficits. In 1960 it was £67½ million. Then, after the 1962 Act, the Act which was to make the railways viable and efficient, we find that the deficit soared to £73 million. By 1965, it was £79 million; and it is estimated that for 1966 it will be about £71 million.
.Great efforts have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Beeching, by Sir Stanley Raymond and by members of the Board to make the railways efficient, and they have made a considerable improvement. I will give an indication of this to the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, in a moment. Certainly they have been able to keep their gross receipts, particularly for passenger traffic, fairly high and fairly steady in spite of the increasing use of motorcars and other forms of road vehicles. Some of the old freights of coal and steel have been declining, and much of the lucrative freight has been moving on to the roads.
But let us think in terms of improvements of service and what it can mean in increasing revenue. Take the new electrification of the London-to-Manchester line. We see that since April the number of passengers has increased

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by some 65 per cent. and the receipts have been increased by some 50 per cent. We should treat these figures with caution because it is a new service, but it shows that where the railways put on modern, efficient, speedy and punctual trains the public will support those services. Very shortly we shall see the London-to-Birmingham line electrified and I should not be at all surprised if the results were the same. But you can have this type of system only on the main lines.
The noble Lord spoke about the in creases in passengers and freight in Japan. I know something of these Japanese trains. They are all long-distance trains, very fast, very efficient, and all built since the war. And if my memory serves me aright, they run on tracks which have been laid since the war. But the trains in Tokyo, which are infinitely more crowded than we should be prepared to tolerate, run at a loss rather like our own internal services.
I think there is a strong case for moving freight on to the railways; but we must have a little sense in this. Let us see what the railways can do. It is clear to the Government and, I think, to most, that the railways are best for the long haul, for the cargoes from London to Glasgow, from London to Edinburgh, and between places like that. If I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, he is right in this respect: that one of the problems is the cost of handling the cargoes. But this will be changed. I believe that we shall see a big revolution in transport in the next few years through containerisation. This means that there will need to be a greater co-ordination between road and rail, if only to see that the vehicles that run on the road can carry the containers that you put on the railways. It follows that in short haul the roads will still be the better means of transport.
But at a time when most trunk roads are carrying a large number of goods vehicles, heavily overloaded, the railways have spare capacity. The situation so clearly conflicts with the best use of national resources that the Government have put in hand a very comprehensive review of the policy for freight transport. I am afraid that one of the causes of the imbalance between road and rail has been the determination of noble Lords opposite to destroy the methods of integra-
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ing road and rail. They set the road hauliers free; that was one thing. But the 1962 Act set the Transport Holding Company and the private road services in direct competition. They did it deliberately; they set it in direct competition with the railways.
Therefore, we feel that we must provide the machinery for integrating the freight-carrying of this country to a greater extent. We are proposing a new national freight organisation. This is now being worked out with the Railways Board, the Transport Holding Company, the transport unions and the users' organisations. I shall not hide the fact that there are going to be difficulties in getting all these various groups to agree. I agree with my noble friend Lord Popplewell that if we could have fewer unions—not only in the railways, but throughout the country—many of our difficulties would quickly disappear. But those who say that this can be done quickly forget how and why the unions came into being. But I do not think it is for the Minister of Labour to push it. He can encourage; but this, in my view, is the responsibility of the Trades Union Congress. I think they are cognisant of the problem, but we must approach with care all these groups, so far as this new organisation is concerned, to see that we obtain the maximum of co-operation.
I think it was my noble friend Lord Popplewell who mentioned the labour force, and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, drew attention to the fact that we have had considerable savings by railway closures and a decline in the number of workers, but we do not appear able to reduce costs in any big way. It should be borne in mind that the railways are one of the most labour-intensified industries in the country. Two-thirds of the cost of running British Rail is represented by wages. My noble friend Lord Popplewell drew attention to the decline in the working force. Since 1963 the labour force has been reduced from some 500,000 to 350,000, which is a sizeable reduction. I question whether any other industry, except perhaps the coal industry, has a higher rate of increased productivity than British Rail.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, they have, with respect, been reducing the services as well.
LORD SHEPHERD: The amount of service may have hurt particular areas, but the broad railway pattern remains the same. In many parts where railway services continue the service has been increased, and I would say that, by and large, the output of British Rail remains broadly the same as in 1963; but it is being provided by a much smaller number of workpeople. The cost of increased wages—and no one would say that the pay for railwaymen is high (I see that the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, nods his head in agreement with me)—is one of the problems confronting the Railways Board. Top management is needed and there is difficulty in finding the right men from among railwaymen because their pay is so low that the right people are not attracted. Therefore the Railways Board have been obliged to go to grammar schools and universities in search of top management material. I hope that in time we shall be able to find a greater percentage of people to fill top management positions directly from the rail way workers.
I think it is to the credit of the Railways Board that in spite of the increased cost of fuel and repairs, and the amount paid in wages, they have been able to hold the working deficit pretty steady over the years, though they have not been able to make any great reduction in it. I believe that those who work and manage London Transport and British Rail, and the provincial bus ser vices, are struggling to reconcile two mutually contradictory objectives: the provision of an adequate service for the public and one which will pay its way. As a result, they are finding it increasingly difficult to do either, and the Railways Board would be the first to admit that the solution will come only from a radical change in the provisions of the 1962 Act. The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull referred, rightly, to the amount of some £17 million which has been saved by rail closures. I have not the 1966 figures—they have not yet been published —but if the noble Earl looks at the 1965 figures he will find that in respect of what is called stopping trains there was a loss of some £49 million and on suburban trains some £19 million. That makes a sizeable figure and we should try to make the necessary savings.
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The closures which have taken place have been in respect of railway services which were not supported. No one would disagree that hardship has been caused to a number of people, but I must say, though it comes hard to say it, that there are limits to which public money can be spent on providing services which people do not use. We may have to find other ways to assist our people in need. The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, drew attention to what the Government intend in the White Paper. We intend, not to subsidise, but to assist or relieve the Railways Board of the responsibility for the cost of operating those services which are maintained on service grounds. One of the first things we have to do is to identify them. I do not know whether the commuter service into London which conveys hundreds of thousands of people every morning to the City is regarded as a social service. Certainly the railways run it at a loss and in some respects I suppose that the railways are subsidising the merchants of the City and the West End.
These burdens are borne by the rail ways, and I am quite sure that the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, whom I saw shaking his head, would find it hard to argue that the commuter who uses these trains would accept a major increase in his fare to cover the deficits. But some way will have to be found to cover them, because I think most people would agree that it is unfair to place this burden on the railways, particularly if we say to the railways, "You must try to become commercially viable." The identification and the costing of these services is being looked at by a special committee under my honourable friend, Mr. John Morris.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, spoke about Sunday services. The responsibility lies with the Board, which takes out of service those trains which do not pay their way. I can hardly see how we can blame the Board if, under the provisions of the present Act, they close a Sunday service completely. But local people have a right to go to their transport users' consultative committee to seek redress. if they can make out a case, the matter has to be referred to the Minister, who will take it up with the Railways Board. During the summer

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period I have seen trains operating on the East Coast of England on a Sunday and carrying only two or three people, and I think it hard to expect the Railways Board to run services under those conditions.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, it depends on the time of day the trains run.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, as I said to the noble Earl, if the services are withdrawn completely, the appropriate machinery comes into operation.
My noble friend Lord Popplewell asked about the value of the Board's land, and revaluation. I do not know how the Railways Board and their advisers arrive at the figures in the balance sheet, but profit and loss is not in any way affected; although were we to increase the value of the land, and then seek to devalue what was on it, it would have an adverse effect on the accounts. I think that is all, except perhaps what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Strange, about the Manx Railways. But the noble Lord has left the Chamber, and I do not think that what he referred to is the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government.
Perhaps the main question put by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, my noble friend Lord Popplewell and the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, was "When?". As one who must be careful in your Lord ships' House, I will only say that your Lordships will see a Bill in the not-too-
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distant future which I believe will be a framework for our transport system with which most of your Lordships will agree. It will be a comprehensive measure and I imagine that we shall have a great deal of work to do on it.
As my noble friend Lord Popplewell said, most people now believe that trans port must be a service for both the community and industry. We have to see how we can make the best use of all the resources available to us. This requires integration and co-operation. I hope that co-operation will be the policy of the future instead of competition, with perhaps in that co-operation a little competition to see how great the co-operation can be. I believe that such a Bill would receive the overwhelming support of your Lordships. It would bring about a major development of the railways and be of benefit to the men who work in them and those who use them. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for asking this Question, even though he has called on me to reply at a very late hour.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS BILL: DIVISION FIGURES
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, before the House adjourns, I have to say that nine noble Lords, and not seven, as was announced, voted in the "Contents" Lobby in the Division this afternoon.
House adjourned at eighteen minutes before four o'clock.