Lords Sitting of 31 January 1967

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

BRITISH INFORMATION SERVICES
2.35 p.m.
LORD ALPORT: 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 what cuts were made in the British information services in Great Britain and overseas during 1966.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, in view of the financial situation it was necessary to set in train, in 1966, certain economies both in current activities and in plans for future expenditure. These economies will ensure that, in spite of increased costs, the total expenditure on our overseas information services during the next financial year is contained at about the level of the current year's Estimates.
The cuts made include reductions both in the staff and activities of the British Information Services abroad and of the supporting services supplied by the Central Office of Information; withdrawal of British Council representation from certain posts and reductions in their expenditure at home and their capital expenditure, and cuts in the B.B.C.'s planned expenditure, involving a reduction in the hours of broadcasting of the Arabic Services and the closing of the Albanian Service, although there should in fact be an overall increase in broadcasting hours during the coming year.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he is able to publish, or can direct my attention to a place where I can find, the details of the cuts to which he has referred? And is he aware that the statement which he has made leaves me with the impression that
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very serious inroads have been made into the efficiency of the British Information Services overseas during the last twelve months?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, with regard to the first part of the noble Lord's question, I would point out that certain information has already been published with regard to the British Council's activities, and he will now have seen the statement in The Times. With regard to the other cuts, I should be very happy to give such information as it has been customary to give in the past. I would not agree with him that this represents serious inroads, since the level of expenditure is being held at about the same level as in the current year's Estimates. There has, however, been some measure of rearrangement and some increase in certain areas.
VISCOUNT MASSER EENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, is the Minister aware that all thinking people will deplore any cut in the overseas information services? May I remind the noble Lord that the pen is mightier than the sword?
LORD ALPORT: 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 what policy they propose to follow for the development of British information services to Commonwealth and foreign countries during the period 1967–68.]
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the Government have asked Sir Harold Beeley to review our overseas information services, with special reference to the need to reconcile their effectiveness with the need to contain Government expenditure in all fields. In the meantime, as I have said, we plan to maintain expenditure during 1967–68 at about the present level.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, is the Minister aware that at this time when we are reducing the effectiveness of our forces overseas it is most important that the British presence, in the shape of information services and diplomatic representation, should be maintained and indeed enhanced, particularly in relation to the trade effort which the Government are so insistent upon at present? Am I right

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in supposing that the object of the investigation is in fact to introduce additional cuts after the end of the forthcoming financial year?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I cannot anticipate the outcome of the investigation. I share the noble Lord's views on the very great importance of these services. Certainly, it is not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to reduce drastically in areas of great importance. However, in a time when it is necessary to accept certain restrictions on foreign expenditure, selective cuts, based on the best judgment we can make, are in order. I would assure the noble Lord, as one who personally has been deeply interested in these services, that there is no drastic cut of the kind that he would fear. We shall await with interest what Sir Harold Beeley has to recommend in the future.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask one further question: when is the Report likely to be available?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am sorry I cannot answer the noble Lord as to when it will be available, but certainly I should hope within the next twelve months. But if I am wrong—it may be very much sooner—I will inform the noble Lord and, if he wishes, answer a further Question on the matter.

RHODESIA: LEGALITY OF REFERENCE TO UNITED NATIONS
2.41 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: 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 are aware that continuing doubts are being expressed by those who speak with legal authority as to the legality of Her Majesty's Government's action in referring the Rhodesian problem to the Security Council of the United Nations under Chapter 7 of the Charter; and to ask further, in view of this fact, whether they will bring this matter to the arbitrament of the International Court at The Hague.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, the Question which the noble Marquess has asked is one of obvious importance requiring a full Answer. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will forgive me if my Answer is a little longer than is usual in reply to a Starred Question.
I am aware that some doubts have been expressed in certain quarters about the legality of Her Majesty's Government's action in referring the Rhodesian problem to the Security Council and about the legality of the Security Council's action on this problem. These doubts betray a fundamental misconception about the provisions of the United Nations Charter and it may be helpful if I attempt to clarify the position.
Under Article 35 of the Charter, any member of the United Nations may bring to the attention of the Security Council any dispute or any situation which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute. Under Article 39 the Security Council has power to determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression. These provisions have been the basis for Her Majesty's Government's action in taking the matter to the Security Council.
The Charter leaves to the discretion of the Security Council the decision as to what constitutes a threat to peace, or breach of the peace, or an act of aggression. This is clear from its wording. That this was also the intention of those who framed the Charter is clear from the records of the Preparatory Commission which in San Francisco in 1945 approved the final text. These records do not bear out the contention of the noble Marquess, made in the debate on December 8, that a threat to peace means only a threat of aggression by one independent and sovereign State against another. Legally speaking, it is open to the Security Council to decide that a situation, whether it involves action by a State or not, constitutes a threat to peace.
The San Francisco Conference rejected all proposals to restrict the Council's freedom of action by specific provision in the Charter, and expressly, as its records show, decided to leave to the Security Council the entire decision as to what constitutes a threat to peace. There is no basis for maintaining that a threat to the

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peace can arise only from a dispute between States. A threat can arise as much from a situation within a State as from a dispute between States, and it is for the Council to decide what action under the Charter is appropriate.
It is, of course, true that in its determination of a threat to the peace, and in its decision about what measures are called for, the Council will be largely influenced by political considerations. But this is natural as it is a political organ and not a law court. These powers were conferred on a political organ, as distinct from a court, precisely in order that a discretion should be exercised in the light of political considerations.
As regards the adoption of the present resolution, I have seen doubts expressed as to whether it was validly adopted in accordance with the requirements of Article 27 of the Charter, bearing in mind that two Permanent Members of the Security Council abstained. These doubts are also unfounded. The consistent practice of the Council, Which might almost be called United Nations case law, since the earliest days has been to interpret the phrase "concurring votes of the Permanent Members" in Article 27(3) to mean the votes of those members which actually cast a vote. An abstention in Security Council practice is not regarded as casting a vote, and has not been regarded as amounting to a veto. All the Permanent Members of the Council have accepted the Council's practice in this regard and so also for a great many years have the non-Permanent Members. No member of the Security Council which adopted this resolution has queried the validity of its adoption.
Finally, some attempt has been made to cast doubt on the exact basis on which the Security Council was proceeding when it imposed selective mandatory sanctions in December last year. As the resolution makes clear, the Security Council was acting in accordance with Articles 39 and 41 of the Charter and called on all members under Article 25 of the Charter to carry out its decisions. In these circumstances Her Majesty's Government see no need to bring this matter before the International Court of Justice, even if they were able to do so.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, the Answer which has just been given by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, for which I am very grateful, is an extremely full one, and your Lordships will not, I am sure, expect me to ask questions to-day on the details. But arising from his Answer, I should like to ask one question. Is the noble and learned Lord aware that on November 1, when the Government's decision to refer the question of Gibraltar to the International Court was under discussion in your Lordships' House, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, explaining the reasons for the Government's decision, used these words:
"What I have suggested as the sensible and civilised way of getting these legal matters settled, in the best interests of the people of Gibraltar as well as ourselves, is to have the matter properly considered by the International Court."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 277 (No. 61), col. 502; 1/11/66.]
What I want to ask is: If that is the Government's view, why do they adopt in this particular case what is by their own definition a senseless and uncivilised attitude towards Rhodesia?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, we are satisfied, as I take it all the members of the Security Council are, that what the Security Council did was fully within its powers. If any other State wishes to take the matter to the International Court that, I should have thought, was a matter for that State.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, but what I was asking the noble and learned Lord was: Why was there this differentiation between the two cases? Is not the real explanation for it that the Government know very well that, if they did take the matter to the International Court, they would get an adverse verdict?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: No, my Lords. The distinction is that, in the case of Gibraltar, there was an existing dispute between us and Spain as to the construction of a Treaty between us. There is no such dispute here.
LORD HARLECH: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord referred to those who were responsible for the formulation of the Charter. Is he aware that the former Secretary of State of the United States, Mr. Dean Acheson, who not only

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had a great part in the formulation of the Charter but is also a very distinguished international lawyer, has cast serious doubts on the legality of the position taken by the Security Council over this matter? Furthermore, I think there is still great doubt in all our minds as to whether this particular interpretation of "a threat to peace" will really stand up.
Is the noble and learned Lord also aware that the Prime Minister, in November, 1965, quite clearly stated that he did not regard the situation in Rhodesia as falling under Chapter 7 of the Charter? How is it that a year later, when there has not been any substantial change in the position in Rhodesia, we now act under Chapter 7 of the Charter? I think these matters require very careful consideration and, in spite of the very full Answer which has been given this afternoon, if the Government refuse to refer the subject to the International Court I think there might be a case for issuing a White Paper on the matter.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am not quite sure whether that was a question, but on the first part of the noble Lord's observations I would say that no doubt on this subject, as on most subjects in the world, there are individuals who have different views, including, it may be, individuals in the United States; but the question is not one on which any member of the Security Council, including the, United States itself, has any doubt. In answer to the second part of the noble Lord's observations, in the case of the previous resolution of November 20, 1965, the Security Council, in the preamble, found that the continuance in time of the situation then existing would constitute a threat to peace; and the Council decided, in its resolution of December 16 last, that the present situation in Southern Rhodesia constitutes a threat to international peace and security.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: But from whom did the threat come? It was not from Rhodesia, who would wish only to remain within her own boundaries.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Your Lordships may think that if the matter is to be debated further the debate which we shall in any case be having on Monday next might prove an appropriate time.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, may I ask my noble and learned friend whether it would not have been within the power of the Security Council to reject the approach that Britain made if it had been thought there was any doubt about it?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, that is certainly so, my Lords; and, of course, an Advisory Opinion of the Court can be obtained only either by the Security Council or by the Assembly.

SPECIAL PROCEDURE ORDERS: PETITIONS BY PEERS
2.52 p.m.
LORD INGLEWOOD: 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 the Chairman of Committees by what authority a Peer seeking to amend a Statutory Instrument subject to Special Parliamentary Procedure is charged a fee.]
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, the authority for charging fees to Petitioners against Special Procedure Orders is Private Bill Standing Order No. 215, together with Appendix C, Part IV, which sets out the amount of the fees to be charged in this House, and Part IV of the Table of Fees of the Standing Orders governing Private Business in the House of Commons. These provisions apply to all Petitioners against Special Procedure Orders, whether they are Peers, Members of the House of Commons or members of the public.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Earl for that reply? May I ask him also whether he thinks it logical, in the mid-twentieth century, that a Member of any House of Parliament, in attempting to do his duty—and in his view his duty may be to move a simple amendment to an Order of this kind—should be charged a fee when it is open to any Member of your Lordships' House to move an annulment of the Order on the Floor of this House when he can speak for as long as he likes without any fee being charged?
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, perhaps I might point out to the noble

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Lord that if he does not approve of the provisions of this Standing Order it is open to him, as it is to any other noble Lord, to ask the House to amend it.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for that further reply, might I ask him whether, in view of the extreme unfairness of all this, he will himself propose an amendment to the Order?
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I will, of course, gladly consider any proposal that the noble Lord may put to me.

LONDON BRIDGE BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I think I should explain that the object of the Amendment which I am moving is to correct a typing error which found its way into the printed Bill after the Committee stage in your Lordship's House. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 12, leave out ("18") and insert ("18/").—(The Earl of Listowel).
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question? Is any fee being charged for this Amendment?
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to confer jurisdiction on county courts in certain matrimonial proceedings; and for purposes connected therewith. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

MINISTRY OF AVIATION (DISSOLUTION) ORDER 1967
2.56 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I beg to move that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Ministry of Aviation (Dissolution) Order 1967 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on the 17th January. The effect of this Order is to absorb the Ministry of Aviation with the Ministry of Technology. As such, it has its place in the Government's efforts to promote advanced technology and new processes into British industry.
Since the Ministry of Technology was set up in December, 1964, to assist in the economic and technological development of industry, it has become responsible for the Atomic Energy Authority, the National Research Development Corporation and the industrial side of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. When set up, it was made the sponsoring Department for the machine tools, electronics, telecommunications and computer industries. It has since acquired responsibility for the mechanical, electrical and chemical engineering industries, and for the ship building industry. With the transfer of the functions of the Ministry of Aviation, the Ministry of Technology will become the sponsoring Department for the aircraft industry. It will also assume responsibility for the Ministry's research, development and procurement work on aircraft, guided weapons and electronic equipment.
The draft Order is made under Section 1 of the Ministers of the Crown (Transfer of Functions) Act 1946, and is subject to the Affirmative Resolution procedure in accordance with Section 3 of that Act. This section provides that no Order in Council for the dissolution of a Government Department may be made unless copies of the draft have been laid before Parliament and each House has presented an Address to Her Majesty praying that the Order be made.
It might be helpful if I were to say a few words about the history and origin of the Ministry of Aviation. It has its origins in the formation of the Ministry of Supply in 1939 and the Ministry of

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Aircraft Production in 1940. Though its functions have been modified quite radically since then—especially in regard to its extensive temporary powers in war time—it has continued to be charged with procurement responsibilities in the defence field, most recently in connection with aircraft, guided weapons and electronic equipment. The title of the Ministry was altered to Ministry of Aviation in 1959, when civil aviation functions were transferred from the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. When I say "civil aviation functions" these were not in fact all civil aviation functions, but those particularly concerned with the operation of airlines and civil aircraft.
A decision about the future of the Ministry of Aviation has involved a careful study of a number of important issues. One point for decision was whether ministerial responsibility for the aircraft industry should be associated with responsibility for the management of the airlines, customers of that industry, or whether it should be handled ministerially together with the rest of the engineering industry of which it is an important part. The Prime Minister announced on June 16 last year that the Government had decided that responsibility for the aircraft industry should pass in due course to the Ministry of Technology, and that civil aviation functions should be transferred to the Board of Trade. Civil aviation functions were subsequently transferred to the Board by the Transfer of Functions (Civil Aviation) Order 1966 (which is Statutory Instrument No. 1966/741) (as amended by Statutory Instrument 1966/1015), but the Ministry of Aviation retained functions in connection with the designing, development and production of civil aircraft and equipment for promoting safety and efficiency in the use of aircraft.
There was the further point that a greater part of the research and development resources controlled by the Ministry of Aviation were deployed in the military field. The Government's aim is to see that the benefits of defence research and development are more effectively exploited in the civil field and this can be more easily achieved if there are no departmental boundaries to cross. The issue here—and this was a particularly difficult one; a s I am sure the noble Earl,
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Lord Jellicoe, will agree—was to discover whether the greater part of the research and development work of the Ministry of Aviation could be transferred to the Ministry of Technology whilst transferring the Ministry's military procurement responsibilities to the Ministry of Defence. This matter was studied with great care and in very much detail. The study led the Prime Minister to decide that the functions of the Ministry of Aviation formed such a closely related group that they should not be divided. My right honourable friend the Lord Privy Seal informed the House on November 21 last year that the Prime Minister had decided that the responsibilities of the Ministry of Aviation were to be transferred to the Ministry of Technology as a whole.
It is recognised that the close ties between the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Aviation in the management of military projects should be maintained, and, in fact, improved. The machinery for military procurement in the Ministry of Aviation will not be dismantled on its transfer to the Ministry of Technology. Indeed, the Minister of State in that Ministry who will, in effect, succeed the Minister of Aviation will have special responsibilities for defence procurement functions of the Ministry and will be the normal link with the Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister of Defence (Equipment). A provision enabling the appointment of a Minister of State is contained in Article 3(2) of the draft Order.
As a result of the reorganisation proposed in the draft Order, it will be possible for the Government to consider the economic and technological development of the engineering industry as a whole. It will also mean that a greater part of the Government-financed research establishments and research and development in industry is brought together in or under one Department. This will improve the services which the Government can provide to firms in civil industry as there will be greater opportunities for technological "fall-out", if I dare use that phrase again, from defence research and the initiation of research for purely civil application. And it will be achieved without detriment to the machinery for research, development and procurement of aircraft and associated

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equipment. This is a difficult area for decision, but I am satisfied that the solution which is now proposed and which is being put into effect will best meet the differing and, at times, conflicting needs and so add substantially to the national advantage.
In conclusion, I should like to pay tribute to the loyal support which the members of the staff of the Ministry of Aviation have given to succeeding Ministers over the years, and as a former Minister of Defence for the Royal Air Force myself, I would pay my own tribute to the staff of a Ministry which was frequently under criticism and which had a difficult job to do in serving more than one master. Despite the immense technical complexities and the advanced realms in which they operated, they brought devotion, ability, skill and, indeed, a sense of co-operation of which I was deeply conscious. I am sure that in the Ministry of Technology, with its wider responsibilities, they will find full scope for their abilities. I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Ministry of Aviation (Dissolution) Order 1967 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on the 17th January.—(Lord Shackleton.)
3.8 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, the Ministry of Aviation passes from the scene; and after eleven years of fairly close contact with that Ministry as a member of the Board of British European Airways I should like to pay my tribute to the civil servants in the Ministry for their unfailing courtesy and helpfulness on all occasions. I should like to think that this Order will bring about a position which means farewell to delay and indecision, so far as the operations of civil aviation are concerned; but the Order is part of the machinery of Government and subject to amendment and alterations which I fear may be giving opportunities for further delays.
It is right that your Lordships should be aware of the urgency of the decisions now awaited, many of which have been outstanding for too long and the lack of which affects aversely British civil aviation, at home and overseas. I wonder
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whether B.E.A. can now say farewell to delays on decisions required from the Government before a new fleet can be ordered; decisions dealing with planning of the numbers and types of aircraft required. I rather doubt it, because under this new procedure the Chairman of B.E.A. is in no position at all to go to the Minister of Technology. All the Chairman of B.E.A. can do is to go to the President of the Board of Trade, who in turn will go to the Minister of Technology and convey what the B.E.A. want or their particular viewpoint on some problem. The Minister will then come back to the Board of Trade who will, in due course, come back to B.E.A. All this, it seems to me, gives serious grounds for further prolonging these decisions of which I spoke just now. As the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, reminded us, the Air Corporations are now administered by the Board of Trade; but to me it seems wrong that there is no direct access for the Chairman of B.E.A. to the Minister of Technology in regard to equipment which the Ministry of Technology will now be responsible for sanctioning.
My Lords, can we say farewell to other issues on which an urgent decision is required? There is the noise issue. I am not saying what the decision should be, but there must be a decision if operations for the future are to be planned; and the Ministry of Technology has a position in respect of that, just the same as the Board of Trade has. Can we say farewell to delay over a third airport for London, about which a decision is long overdue? The Ministry of Technology has a position there in the same way as the Board of Trade has. Can we say farewell to the inordinate delays over the new buildings at London Airport?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, will allow me to interrupt him, I would say that I am afraid that I shall not be able to answer these questions under this Order. I should not wish to restrain the noble Lord from making these points, but he will appreciate that they do not arise in any way at all under the Order.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, I think that these points do arise under this Order because the

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Ministry of Technology, which is to supersede the Ministry of Aviation, has indeed a position in respect of each one of the points that I am making.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, in that case I shall be interested to know from the noble Lord the points which link London's third airport with the Ministry of Technology and which would transfer functions from the Ministry of Aviation, as they now exist, to the Ministry of Technology.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, the Ministry of Technology has a positionas regards the technical aspect of noise and the loss of power consequent upon the enforcement of certain noise restrictions. Undoubtedly the Ministry has a strong technical position there. As regards London Airport undoubtedly the Board of Trade will have to consult the Ministry of Technology about various technical aspects of take-off, landing and climbing for new aircraft. I admit that in respect of buildings the argument is a bit thin, but I believe that in practice the Ministry of Technology would be consulted by the Board of Trade because the Board of Trade would wish to know how big the hangars would have to be for the aircraft which the Ministry of Technology is going to sanction.
I think one could make the same point regarding the delay over the Turn house Airport runway. Undoubtedly, the Ministry of Technology will be asked, "What are these new aircraft you are designing and what design are you going to sanction? And what are these new aircraft going to require?" I believe that on all these matters, about which decisions are outstanding, the Ministry of Technology has a position, and the Board of Trade would not go forward without consulting that Ministry. I think the Government have created a dichotomy with the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Technology. We who have been concerned with civil aviation will watch critically. After 11 years with the Corporation (and having known the Government, under pressure from many directions on many occasions, to make decisions which could not be extracted from them) I confess that I shall watch critically and, I regret to say, fearfully.
3.15 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I agree in one respect with the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye: I think it is going to be a bad day for civil aviation. No doubt there will be advantages from the change, as there nearly always are from changes such as this. I suppose that there will be advantages regarding procurement and supply of Service aircraft. But so far as the posture of civil aviation is concerned, I believe that we shall see a decline. I do not think that you can divide the functions of the Ministry of Aviation between two Ministries which have a large number of problems to deal with, most of them having nothing whatever to do with aviation. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, who has probably had a longer experience than anybody in this House in civil aviation, is quite right, although he was rather put down by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, about the noise problem.
I was struck by a statement made recently by the Chairman of B.E.A. Writing in the B.E.A. Journal, he pointed out that it was impossible for B.E.A. to order the new aircraft that were required until they had technical advice or instruction from the Government on the noise factor. That was the point which, rightly in my opinion, the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, was trying to make. The Chairman does not know and the Board of B.E.A. do not know what aircraft they can order for ten or twelve years ahead, which is the sort of time factor we have to contemplate, because the Government have not told them what the noise capability, or restriction, is to be. This is a matter which the Ministry should look at in conjunction with the Board of Trade. It is very definitely a matter for the Ministry of Technology. It is a technological issue which then becomes a commercial issue. B.E.A. says, "Get on with the technical issue and make your decision so that we on the commercial side may apply it".
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I am a little alarmed by the difference in view about the relevance of certain topics between the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, for both of whom I entertain the highest respect. But assuming for the purposes of argument that what the

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noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, said is relevant, I wish to say most emphatically that the question of noise and the question of the siting of a third London airport are certainly not matters only for the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Technology. If the public is to be protected at all in its most vital interests, it is necessary to pay the greatest attention, I should have thought, to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government; and, also, I should have thought (though I seldom speak on that topic) to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Since noise has been mentioned, I hope that, in this respect at any rate, the Government will show themselves to have regard to civilised standards. The noise over London at present is quite intolerable. London suffers noise from the air which is not suffered by any other capital city in the world, and, far from increasing that noise, it ought to be the task of the Government to end that nuisance.
3.18 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for the full and careful explanation of this Order which he gave to us. I should like to echo the tributes which he and my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye paid to the Ministry of Aviation and its staff. In my short period as a Defence Minister I received much kindness and much help at their hands, and if some of what I say may seem critical of the Ministry of Aviation, it is not a criticism of the people in the Ministry but of the system.
I know that the Special Orders Committee were probably using a time-honoured formula when they said that this Order did not raise any important questions of policy or principle. It seems to me, from this brief discussion that we have had this afternoon, that in fact it does raise most important questions of policy and principle, some of them relevant and some possibly less relevant. In any event, this Order does touch on the leading edge of our leading technological industry, and therefore, of course, what it does by this transfer of functions between Department and Department may in its effect be very crucial. I must express some doubts not only about what is being
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done but also about the manner in which it is being done.
I would recall to your Lordships that these changes were announced in the broad last June by the Prime Minister. He then said that they would become effective in the autumn. I assume that the Government had then taken some decisions on the broad scheme, but clearly they had no idea how this was to be done practically. This is reflected in two ways: first, the delay which has taken place. Now, when the detailed scheme is about to be implemented, it is not early autumn but mid-winter. Secondly, this lack of prior and careful thought invited a monumental squabble in Whitehall. The noise of that squabble was fairly audible, and the fall-out has been visible both in the Press and in Parliament. I think that was because the full and careful examination of the details of this issue, to which the noble Lord alluded, was not given before the decision was announced but afterwards. This seems to me to be putting the cart very much before the horse.
My second objection to how this is being done is the lack of prior consultation with the industry. Your Lordships will recall that one of the themes running through the Plowden Report on the aircraft industry was the need for bringing the Government and industry closer together and for attaining a closer degree of confidence between this important industry and the Government. I understand that when the Prime Minister's decision was announced in June, there had been no prior consultation with the industry; and there was none until a fortnight thereafter. And I do not think that it is any secret that sections of the industry have serious reservations about the scheme that is now before the House.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, could the noble Earl tell the House to which industry he is referring?
EARL JELLICOE: To the aircraft industry, and in particular to the careful scheme produced by the Society of Aerospace Companies, which I think runs counter to the scheme embodied in this Order. I personally share some of the reservations which have been expressed. If it was decided to break up the Ministry of Aviation—and I am not saying that

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it was either right or wrong—then I should have thought that there was a strong case for putting defence procurement under the Ministry of Defence. I am grateful to the noble Lord for alluding at some length to this in his exposition, but I should like to remind your Lordships that in paragraph 501, the Plowden Report says:
"The main purpose of any change in the arrangements"—
that is, for the future of the Ministry of Aviation—
"would be to foster a more direct relationship on military aircraft procurement between the Service Departments and the industry'.
That followed a statement in paragraph 499, no doubt familiar to the noble Lord, which states:
"In evidence before the Committee the most serious criticisms of the Ministry came from Air Force Department witnesses".
The reasons why I feel that procurement should have gone to the Ministry of Defence are fourfold. First, in my experience as a Service Minister I was always up happy about the cushion interposed by the Ministry of Aviation between the producer and consumer. I very much share, so far as military procurement is concerned, the sort of doubts my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye has expressed about the procurement of civil aircraft. I think that there is a great deal to be said for a direct and, if necessary, a somewhat abrasive relationship between the producer and consumer in this field. It brings a smell of the front line into the factories, and perhaps a little more technology into the Services.
Secondly, I would remind your Lordships that other countries not dissimilarly placed seem to manage their affairs in this field without the interposition of a great bureaucracy between the military consumer and the producer. The Americans do it; so do our immediate neighbours, France; and they seem to manage, if anything, rather better than we do. Of course, I should not feel this if we did not now have an integrated Defence Ministry. I should be the first to concede that in the old days, when every Service Department was more or less a law unto itself, this was a different matter. Your Lordships will recall that before the last war the Royal Air Force and the Air
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Ministry were responsible for procurement for the Fleet Air Arm. I do not think that most people in the Fleet Air Arm were happy with that situation. It has been said that that was one of the reasons why we entered the last war with less than adequate Naval aircraft. I am not saying whether that was right or wrong, but it has been a strongly held view. But now that we have a fully integrated Ministry of Defence and a Minister specifically responsible for equipment matters, I think this completely changes the situation.
My fourth reason for feeling that there is a strong case for bringing military aircraft procurement under the new integrated Ministry of Defence is the question of close collaboration in all this with Europe. That involves major issues of defence policy and also different issues of staff requirements. These are matters which I think should fall squarely on the Ministry of Defence, on the Minister responsible for supply and, of course, on the Secretary of State for Defence himself. To some extent the Government have recognised this. In his statement on November 21, the Prime Minister said:
"The detailed arrangements will ensure also that the Secretary of State for Defence will continue to take the lead in all business with other countries on defence projects."
That situation would, in my view, have been better faced, with the responsibilities clearer and more clean-cut, if the responsibiliy for military aircraft procurement had been placed fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the Secretary of State for Defence.
I do not wish to be dogmatic about this matter. I agree fully with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that it is by no means an easy question. I recognise the force of the arguments which he put. I recognise the difficulty of separating research and development and procurement in this field. I recognise that there may be some advantage in the transfer of technology to the Ministry of Technology in that the fall-out might benefit the other areas of technology for which he is responsible. I also recognise that the solution which I have been favouring, at least in argument, involves difficulties between the civil and military fields. But if the case is held to be overwhelming, then I should have thought that there

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was a case for not abolishing the Ministry at all in the first place.
As the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, said, there is a real danger that this fledgling Ministry of Technology will be swamped by taking on board this vast bird of the Ministry of Aviation. If it is best to keep all these functions together, then I should have thought that there was a case for not establishing the new Ministry of Technology but for keeping the Ministry of Aviation and grafting on to it the new functions which the Ministry of Technology has assumed. However, if there had to be a break-up, then I personally have real doubts about the new arrangement, because I feel that procurement should have gone to the Ministry of Defence, and because I share some of the doubts expressed by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye. If there was going to be a break-up, I doubt whether it was really sensible to hive off the civil aviation functions of the old Ministry of Aviation on to the Board of Trade.
I will not labour these arguments, which have been fully ventilated this afternoon. A lot of Ministries have been mentioned which have direct interests at stake—for example, the Board of Trade, Housing and Local Government, and Agriculture by my noble friend Lord Conesford—and I would produce a new candidate in Transport. I personally should have thought that there was a strong case, if the Civil Aviation functions were going to be detached, for putting them, not with the Board of Trade, but with Transport. To take one example, I find it difficult to understand how you are going effectively to plan the site for the third London airport without taking closely into account the whole complex of rail and road communications in the London region.
I have spoken for rather a long time on this Order, but I make no apology for this, because it does touch on a vital segment of our industrial life. I should like, in conclusion, to ask the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, two questions—and I apologise in that I have not given him prior notice of one of them. My first question is whether the noble Lord can tell us what savings, if any, in Civil Service manpower the new arrangements will permit. My second question relates to
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space. As the noble Lord knows, the Ministry of Aviation had certain specific responsibilities in this sphere. I should like to pay tribute to the late Minister of Aviation, Mr. Mulley, for the way he discharged those responsibilities. Can the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, say whether those functions have gone to Technology? I should also like to ask the noble Lord whether advantage has been taken of these new inter-governmental inter-departmental changes to ensure that in future there is a real ministerial authority centred on one Minister for our policy in space matters. I very much hope that the noble Lord will be able to give a positive answer to that question.
To sum up, I should like to reiterate that I have some real doubts as to what has been done. I want to repeat that I have some real criticism of how it has been done. But, that said, your Lordships will be relieved that I am not going to suggest that you should do other than assent to this Order.
3.33 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, your Lordships have taken the opportunity on this relatively narrow Order to stage what was rapidly growing into a major debate on the machinery of Government, and I must confess that if I had been in Opposition I, too, should have taken such advantage. But, equally, I should not necessarily have expected the Minister replying for the Government to answer all the points. None the less such interesting points have been raised and this is an issue of such importance, that I will, with your Lordships' permission, at least express my personal views on some of the matters that have been covered. This is in a sense an off-the-cuff reply to a debate on the machinery of government.
First of all, I do not think—and I say this with the deepest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye—that it is appropriate to go quite so far on some of the aspects relating to civil aviation as he did. There are in existence two Civil Aviation Orders which, although not liable to the Affirmative Resolution procedure, could have been prayed against, and were in fact prayed against in another place. This would have been an opportunity to discuss certain of the issues.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, may I say that I cannot quite remember the dates, but I think I was "old-sealed-lips" at the time. I think I was shut out from speaking when I was still a member of the Board.
LORD SHACKLETON: I sympathise with the noble Lord in that he has missed his opportunity. But that opportunity was not denied to the noble Lord, Lord Cones ford, or to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, like my noble friend, I cannot precisely recall the date, but I think I was in Tokyo at the time.
LORD SHACKLETON: As the noble Earl knows, that is no possible justification to your Lordships' House. Therefore, I should prefer not to go into those matters, bearing in mind, also, that it was the previous Government which took civil aviation' away from the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. However, that is not to suggest in any way that the issues which the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, raised, and, indeed, this passionate subject of noise referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, are not of the greatest importance.
I accept that the object of any reorganisation must be to achieve greater efficiency and quicker and more relevant decision making. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, with regard to the Minister of Technology and his particular relations with the heads of the national airlines, that, whether or not there is formal access, I cannot conceive that there will not be informal access. Strictly speaking, although I, as Minister of Defence for the Royal Air Force, was not contractually or functionally in relationship with the heads of the aircraft manufacturing companies, I saw them whenever they wished to see me, and, more often, when I wished to see them; and I see no reason why in any system of government any Minister should stand on the protocol of formal access with people carrying the responsibilities which the chairmen of B.E.A. and B.O.A.C. have.
It could be argued—and I throw this out lightly, not as a statement of policy—that in this matter the President of the Board of Trade will be wholly on their side, whereas the Minister of Aviation
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suffered from permanent schizophrenia, in that he had to serve both the aircraft industry and the civil airlines, whose interests were not always the same. It could be argued that we have now moved to a position of opposed interests. But this does not necessarily suggest that the airlines will be worse served. Indeed, I should hope that in the light of experience the new arrangements will be better than those in the past.
The last thing I should wish to do is to criticise either those who carried out policy in the past or, indeed, previous Governments who sought to make it in what is an exceedingly difficult field. We all learn by experience, and whatever arrangements are made in the way of formal government machinery, there is no substitute for the hard facts of life and the understanding of them and of the limitations and difficulties in this highly complex subject of weapon, aircraft and electronic procurement.
I am sure that we shall hear from the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, on frequent occasions. quietly or otherwise, on the subject of noise, and I do not propose to do other than say that the problem of decision in relation to noise and its effect on the policy of aircraft ordering—and this applies particularly in relation to supersonic aircraft—is one of the most difficult with which any Government has been confronted. I can assure noble Lords that it is receiving great attention from the Government and from our advisers, and if there is delay in achieving an answer it is a result of the fact that there are no easy answers to this particular problem.
I should now like to turn to the interesting speech of the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe. Here his experience and mine are slightly similar, except that he would argue that the Royal Navy suffered in the past from the machinations of the Air Ministry and the Royal Air Force, which ensured, through incompetence or malice, that the Navy failed to get the aircraft they needed during the war. I must say, speaking as a former member of the Royal Air Force, that one was conscious at the time that the Air Force had—shall I say?—grave remarks to make about some of the aircraft the Royal Navy had. One of the most difficult issues that can confront Government is the organisation of government and of the machinery of

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government. I think it is, I will not use the word a "travesty"(because I think it is probably over-simplifying to suggest that there was a great squabble in Whitehall over this matter) but natural that where interests of great importance were at stake, those who had strong views should put them forward. It is also natural that anyone who has an area of responsibility will believe that if only he can extend that area further he will get better service than if he has to rely on an agency or an allied service; and I myself, like the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, have been very prone to these emotions.
In arriving at this decision the Government gave the matter the most exhaustive examination. The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, suggested that there was no consultation with industry before the decision was taken. I would suggest to him that the decision to which I referred on June 16, while establishing that responsibility would go to the Ministry of Technology, did not finally settle where responsibility in the matter of procurement would lie. On this matter industry was consulted very fully and differing views were expressed. I am well aware of the views of the S.B.A.C. and of the force with which they argued them, and under the hat I then wore I had considerable sympathy with them. But there was very great difficulty in deciding how to settle this problem.
There was a choice before the Government of leaving the Ministry of Aviation as it stood—and there were, of course, very powerful arguments in favour of doing so and powerful arguments against—and of splitting it up, giving part to the Board of Trade, part to the Ministry of Defence, and part, perhaps, to the Ministry of Technology. The actual decisions in relation to responsibility for procurement were taken only after a most thorough examination, in which inevitably one came to a conclusion, as previous Governments have done, that it was essential to keep this function in one particular package. In other words, in order to maintain that phrase which is so familiar to those in this field, namely, the seamless road from research right through to production, it was necessary to keep the old Ministry of Aviation responsibilities in this field in one particular package.
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At the same time, it was the powerful aim of the Government to spread the very great advantages that could come from research in the defence field; and let us face the fact that a very high proportion of our national scientific brains are involved in defence research. It is very much the aim of the Government that the great skills that rested in such bodies as the Royal Radar Establishment at Malvern and the Royal Aircraft Establishment should operate also to fertilise industry. Therefore it was decided to take that part of the Ministry of Aviation, shorn of its direct responsibilities in the operation of civil aviation, and put it under the Ministry of Technology, but in a form that would enable it directly to meet and serve the needs of defence.
There has been considerable criticism in the past of the service the Ministry of Aviation has given; and anyone who has been a Defence Minister has, as always, been conscious of defects. But any Minister is conscious of defects of certain of his departmental colleagues, and not least, of course, as the noble Earl will agree, of the attitude of Chief Secretaries to the Treasury and others who say "No". However, the Ministry of Aviation, involved with their responsibilities, confronted with decision-making in a peculiarly difficult field, in which the Government—either past or present Governments—have not always been as successful, have none the less served the country well. I believe that closeness of relationship and of understanding based on experience, some of it bitter, has led to very real improvements in this field, which it is my belief will continue in the future.
The noble Earl complained, I think, that in this respect the Government were not giving full effect to the Plowden Report. There are other aspects of the Plowden Report which the Government have not carried out. They have not carried out the Plowden Report's recommendation to set up a single, unified aircraft industry with a Government majority holding. Indeed, their announcement, which I am sure is much more acceptable to your Lordships' House, is that there should be a minority holding. But the Government, by and large, have had to give full consideration to these matters, and most of the Plowden recommendations have been carried out.

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I hope that, with the new arrangement, we shall carry forward the virtues of the past system and achieve even greater benefits to the community than we should have done under the old system. I do not think that this area—namely, the organisation of the machinery of government—is one in which it is ever possible to be certain that one has achieved the right solution. But I do think that the logic of the arguments which have led to the Government's taking this decision is convincing, and I believe that in going ahead with this proposal we have made an arrangement which will continue to serve the Ministry of Defence effectively; and the Ministry of Defence, through its own organisation, through the setting up of a Minister of Defence, Equipment, with a stronger effect across the board, will be better able to co-operate with the Ministry of Technology than in the past.
If there have been mistakes in the past they have certainly not all been in one quarter, and I hope, therefore, that the reorganisation and strengthening of the Ministry of Defence, with the transfer of these particular functions to the Ministry of Technology, will fulfil the very fair prospect that there will be wider benefits from the enormous national investment in the field of defence, research and development. I am glad that your Lordships will agree to this Order, and I am grateful for the interesting points that have been raised. I can only apologise because, in answering for the Government in this way, I may have missed certain of the interesting arguments put forward.
On Question, Motion agreed to: The said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

SALMON AND MIGRATORY TROUT (PROHIBITION OF DRIFT-NET FISHING) (EXTENSION) ORDER 1966
3.49 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES): My Lords, I beg to move that the Salmon and Migratory Trout (Prohibition of Drift-Net Fishing) (Extension) Order 1966, a copy of which was laid before your Lordships' House on December 15, be approved. The Order is a simple one. It extends for a further two years, to February 15, 1969, the prohibition on fishing for salmon and migratory trout by drift-net in an area of sea off the coast of Scotland. Noble Lords will wish to know why on this occasion we have extended it for two years, rather than for one year as on previous occasions. The answer is bound up with the Report of the Hunter Committee on Salmon and Trout Fisheries. As I have told your Lordships before, we are not convinced that it would be right to take final decisions on the drift-netting problem separately and in advance of decisions on the many other recommendations in the Hunter Report. Once we have reached conclusions about the action to be taken in regard to these recommendations, we shall be able to decide on this aspect of the salmon fisheries within that wider context.
The more study that is given to the implications of the Hunter Committee's proposals, with the wide diversification of opinion on them revealed in the written comments lodged by the large number of organisations which have interests in the fisheries, the more clear has become the need for further careful consultation and exploration. Accordingly, it has been decided that we ought to put in train a series of discussions with the main organisations which are interested and knowledgeable in this field, in order to bring out more clearly than is possible in correspondence the views which they hold and the advice which they can give on the practical application and implications of the Committee's recommendations.
This is, in fact, in progress. My Department has had talks with some bodies and dates for meetings with others have been

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fixed, and yet others will be arranged as the programme develops. We think it would be unrealistic to expect to reach and implement final conclusions on this difficult and important subject by this time next year, and therefore we seek to continue the ban on drift-netting for two years, to give time for the careful consideration that is needed. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Salmon and Migratory Trout (Prohibition of Drift-Net Fishing) (Extension) Order 1966 be approved.—(Lord Hughes.)
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for his explanation of the purpose of this Order, and may I assure him immediately that my advice to the House would be that we should assent to it. However, when I was preparing to say a word on this I did wonder whether the noble Lord would repeat the speech that he made to your Lordships a year ago, When he told the House that there would be no unnecessary delay in arriving at decisions on the Hunter Report. The noble Lord has now told us that it will take another couple of years before these decisions can take place. I am bound to say that his words leave the impression that this past year has been one of rather gentle inactivity in his Department on these important matters.
I am the first to recognise that the Hunter Report was wide-ranging and complex; that it takes time to study all these matters in detail and, of course, that it would be a complete mistake to take a final decision on drift-net fishing in isolation, but that the whole matter should be decided together. However, I hope noble Lords opposite will use the next two years for which this Order runs to complete these consultations and to prepare the legislation Which will deal with the whole picture.
In the very interesting Hunter Report, for which I should like personally to express my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, and his colleagues, there is a strong note of warning of which I am sure the House will be conscious—that is, that a comprehensive and reliable system of administration and control over these
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fisheries is urgently needed. Paragraph 44 is a condensation of that, and paragraph 40 warns us of greater hazards in the future. There is undoubtedly a danger, particularly to our salmon fisheries, and although the Order on drift-net fishing is a valuable stop-gap measure, the whole burden of the Report is that something more is needed.
In particular, the Report recommends that the salt water system of fishing should end in due course and that modern systems of catching by nets men should be introduced, in order that the numbers of fish entering a river can be accurately recorded, and the number allowed to be taken by netsmen and rodmen can be scientifically controlled at a level which ensures that the escapement for breeding is sufficient without being excessive. In view of this authoritative advice, it is desirable that the Government should lose no time in proceeding to implement these cogent recommendations.
I should like to ask the noble Lord three questions. First, will he tell the House what is happening in regard to research into the best design of river traps for salmon and salmon trout, for regulation and checking? Is research proceeding on this? Has a satisfactory design been settled? I imagine this is no easy matter and that it will need a great deal of careful thought, both to design the right structure and the right organisation to operate the structure. My second question is with regard to the enforcement of the drift-net Regulations. I think the House would be interested to hear what infringements there have been, and what prosecutions there have been in the past year. Finally, have Her Majesty's Government taken a view as to whether there should be any compensation for the drift-netsmen who were put out of operation by the original Order in 1962?
Apart from these three questions I am only too glad to agree to the continuation of the prohibition on the use of drift-nets. I am sure the prohibition is right, but I feel that the House is entitled to ask the noble Lord for a firm assurance that the next two years will be used for completing these consultations which, I understand, have really not yet started physically; they are only on paper. Also, I think the Government should resolve their minds on the Hunter Report, and

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prepare and bring before this House the necessary legislation to implement the Report. With those few words, I have much pleasure in supporting the Order.
3.58 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, for the welcome and the support which he has given to the Order. I am conscious of the fact that if my remarks a year ago had been one word shorter I might have been in difficulties. I was quoted as saying that there would be no "unnecessary delay". If I had left out the word "unnecessary" things might not have been so easy. I do not think that what has taken place during the past year, and what may take place in the time that lies ahead, can possibly be regarded as unnecessary delay, because while I concede that urgency in this matter is important, the arrival at correct decisions is vital. This is a case where time spent in consultation with people who, in their own particular fields, are authoritative, is more likely to produce better decisions than otherwise.
On the points raised by the noble Lord, dealing first with the question of design of river traps, it is difficult to put what has been done under the heading of research. Rather would I say that there has been considerable inquiry into the possible alternative methods. One of the difficulties of implementing this is that there are a variety of traps, not one of which is necessarily suitable for the conditions that exist on different rivers. This is one of the matters which caused the greatest amount of consultation.
So far as the question of infringements and prosecutions is concerned, I am very glad to say that the answer, in both cases is, None. On the subject of compensation to those who were debarred from taking part, I would remind your Lordships that the original Order was brought into operation in 1962, and I have no doubt that the then Government gave serious consideration to a matter which obviously was more pertinent in 1962 than it is in 1967. In their defence—although far be it from me to defend my predecessors—they gave some 13 months' notice of the intention of doing so, so that it could at least be argued that those who were practising drift-netting at that time had
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a fair run on the equipment which was in their possession at that time, and if anyone acquired that equipment after notice was given that drift-netting was coming to an end, that was entirely his responsibility. I think it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to go into any question of compensation now, at this comparatively late date. The noble Lord raised a question on the report recommending that the salt-water system of fishing should give way to trapping or netting, to allow for scientific control. I have dealt with that in answer to the question on traps.
I should like to associate myself with what the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, said with regard to our gratitude to Lord Hunter's Committee for the excellent Report which they made. It is because of the completely comprehensive nature of that Report, and the very widespread changes in practice which have grown up over many years that the Government are required to go very warily in these matters. We want to be certain that at the end of the day we arrive at conclusions which, though I am afraid they will not necessarily command unanimous support, will be fair to the greatest number of people concerned.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DIPLOMATIC PRIVILEGES (CITIZENS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM AND COLONIES) (AMENDMENT) ORDER 1967
4.3 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (LORD BESWICK)THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (LORD BESWICK) rose to move that the Draft Diplomatic Privileges (Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies) (Amendment) Order 1967, laid before the House on the 18th January 1967, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move that the Order standing in my name on the Order Paper be approved. Like the Order to which approval has just been given, this is a simple one. It does not make any alteration at all in the nature or degree of diplomatic privileges. It simply applies the existing law to certain newly independent Commonwealth countries.
I had the very agreeable duty last year of inviting this House to adopt legislation which established Singapore, Guyana, Lesotho, Botswana and Barbados as independent States within the Commonwealth of Nations. This Order applies to them and is really consequent upon those other Acts. It achieves its purpose by amending Article 2(2) of the 1964 Order which lists the Commonwealth countries to which Article 2(1) applies. The individuals affected by the present Order will be those who have dual citizenship, that is to say, citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies, in addition to their citizenship of the sending State with whose mission they serve in this country.
I might add that the Order has been before the Special Orders Committee and they have reported that it is in accordance with precedent. The numbers actually involved must be quite small, but I am sure that, even though there are such a small number affected, provision must be made for them. Accordingly I invite the House to approve this Order. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Diplomatic Privileges (Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies) (Amendment) Order 1967 laid before the House on the 18th January. 1967, he approved.—(Lord Beswick.)
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord for the clarity with which he has explained this Order. This is merely the latest one of a whole series of Orders of this kind, to which your Lordships are well accustomed, and it is clearly desirable that the Order should be approved.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I have no objection to the Order, but may I raise one point, for clarification? I notice that the Order applies to members of the diplomatic missions and to their private servants. How wide is the classification of private servants. Does it apply to domestic servants, part-time, in members' houses outside the Diplomatic building? Does it apply to the private servant when he is not actually engaged on the business of the High Commission, or looking after, or driving, or whatever it may be, the High Commissioner or one of his staff? We have always been
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a little concerned at extending diplomatic privilege too widely, and therefore I think it would be of some assurance to some of us if we had an answer to the question.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as I said earlier, the Order will apply only to those who have dual citizenship, so that is a very restrictive application in the first place. But within that application this particular Order will apply to those to whom we have agreed it should apply under Article 38 of the Vienna Convention. That Article states that, except in so far as additional privileges and immunities may be granted by the receiving State, persons who are members of diplomatic missions and are nationals of or permanently resident in that State shall enjoy such immunities only in respect of official acts performed in the exercise of their function. Private servants who are likewise nationals of or permanently resident in the receiving State enjoy privileges and immunities only to the extent admitted by the receiving State. I hope that, with that restriction—that is to say, that in the first place the Order is a very narrow one, and that we have agreed, in addition, under the Vienna Convention, to further restrictions upon those to whom it applies, the noble Lord will be able to approve this Order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMPANIES BILL [H.L.]
4.8 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Brown, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 3a.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the Privilege Amendment be agreed to.
Moved, That the Privilege Amendment be agreed to.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. As your Lordships know, the Bill is mainly concerned with two things.

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The first is further disclosure of information by companies in general. Clause 2 of the Bill abolishes the status of exempt private company. When it comes into force those companies which now have the status of exempt private companies will be brought into line with other limited companies and so be required to disclose to the public information about their affairs by filing their accounts with the Registrar of Companies. Clauses 3 to 9 and Schedule I add to the information companies are required to give in their accounts. These clauses and the Schedule are concerned with information about subsidiary companies, associated companies, a company's ultimate holding company, the emoluments of directors and highly-paid employees, and the information which Schedule 8 to the Companies Act 1948 states is to be shown in accounts.
Clauses 15 to 19 are concerned with the directors' report. They will lead to directors' reports being much more informative documents than they are at present. The reports will deal with matters such as significant changes in a company's fixed assets, issues of shares made in the course of the year, contracts in which directors are interested, the results attributable to each of a company's substantially differing activities, political and charitable contributions, and exports. Clauses 26 to 30 provide for further disclosure by means of registers which will be available for inspection by the public. One register will show directors' holdings of and dealings in shares of their company and of the other companies in the same group. Another register, which will be kept only by companies whose shares are quoted on a stock exchange, will give information as to those persons who have substantial interests in the company's shares, which they may hold through nominees. The last of the disclosure provisions are those which provide that a company shall keep at its registered office, for inspection by members of the company but not by the public, copies of its directors' contracts of service and a statement showing each charitable purpose for which in the year the company have contributed more than £50. Many of these provisions for further disclosure implement recommendations made by the Jenkins Committee on Company Law.
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The second main subject with which the Bill is concerned is reform where events have shown reform to be urgently needed. This part of the Bill is mainly concerned with insurance companies. Provisions are made for the authorisation of new companies before they can start insurance business, for restrictions on the ways in which any insurance company carries on its business if the Board of Trade are not satisfied in regard to matters such as the excess of assets over liabilities or reinsurance arrangements, for the content and audit of accounts, for the grounds on which the Board of Trade may petition for a company to be wound up, and for the investigations and inquiries the Board of Trade will need to make in order to exercise their powers to restrict the way in which a company conducts its business or to petition for its winding-up.
The amendment to the provision in the Moneylenders Acts which exempts any person bona fide carrying on the business of banking, although a small matter when compared with the insurance provisions, comes within the group of provisions which will effect urgently needed reforms. It is of great importance to some companies that they should know whether they are or are not, for the purposes of exemption from the Moneylenders Acts, justified in regarding themselves as carrying on the business of banking.
There are a few provisions in the Bill concerned neither with disclosure nor with urgently needed reform. There are the provisions, added to the Bill following Amendments moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and by the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, to permit the introduction, at such time as the Board of Trade may by order appoint, of shares of no par value. The arguments for and against extending the scope of the Bill by including these provisions were considered at length in Committee and on Report. No more need be said than that the Government will state their views about the scope of the Bill in another place.
Another provision which falls outside the two main groups is the one which would enable the Board of Trade at any time to direct that a company should change its name on the ground

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that its name conveys a false or misleading indication of its activities. The provision was added to the Bill following an Amendment put down by the noble Lords, Lord Drumalbyn and Lord Erroll of Hale. There might be advantage in postponing legislation on company names until considerations of Parliamentary time would permit all the recommendations of the Jenkins Committee on this subject to be taken into account. However this may be, the House may be assured that the Government will consider carefully all that was said in support of this provision before stating their views on it in another place.
Some noble Lords expressed misgivings about the absence in the insurance clauses of a provision which would give a company whose application for authorisation the Board of Trade wished to refuse a right to be informed of the ground for refusal and, possibly, a right to be heard. In addition, some helpful comments were made on matters such as the requirement that a company should retain part of its assets in the United Kingdom. But few Amendments of substance to the insurance provisions were proposed, and it may be said that the House found these provisions generally satisfactory and appropriate to a closer control and supervision of insurance companies.
The House also showed its general support of the proposals for greater disclosure by companies in general. But here noble Lords had considerably more to propose in the way of Amendments. Some Amendments were intended to make clear the scope of a provision or to put right some defect in the Bill as introduced. The Government are grateful for the proposals which led to these Amendments and the Bill is the better for the Amendments which exclude from the directors' interests in contracts to be shown in the directors' report, interests in contracts of service and interests arising solely from being director of another company, define more closely the transactions within the prohibition on directors' purchases of options, exclude an interest arising from an appointment as proxy from the interests that are relevant to the registers of directors' share dealings and of substantial interests in the shares of a company, and make clear that the amount of the charge for taxation
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to be shown in a profit and loss account is the amount of the charge to revenue.
Other Amendments were concerned with the possibility that in some circumstances disclosure of certain information might be harmful to a company. The Bill now provides, as a result of these Amendments, that a company may, with the consent of the Board of Trade, withhold information about an associated company which is incorporated abroad or operates abroad; that the number to be shown of a company's highly-paid employees does not include persons who worked abroad; that charitable contributions given to persons ordinarily resident outside the United Kingdom are to be left out of account; and that details of a company's charitable contributions are to be available only to its members. The requirement to show rents payable in respect of land has been left out from the Bill. The Bill has been improved by these Amendments.
Those who supported the Amendment which added Clause 37 to the Bill no doubt consider that it falls within this category of Amendments concerned to prevent disclosure which might be harmful. The clause permits a company none of whose shares or debentures have been quoted on a stock exchange or offered to the public for subscription or purchase, and which is not the subsidiary of a company whose shares have been so quoted or offered, to omit from its accounts filed with the Registrar of Companies, but not from its accounts circulated to its members, the information about the aggregate emoluments of its directors required by Section 196 of the Companies Act 1948, and the information about emoluments of directors and highly-paid employees required by Clauses 6, 7 and 8 of the Bill. The clause also permits such a company to omit from the copy of the directors' report which it files with the Registrar of Companies the information about results attributable to substantially differing activities required by Clause 17. In the Government's view disclosure of the information with which this clause is concerned would be of use to creditors and for the purposes of an incomes policy. The Government may be expected to press that view in another place.
The Bill, although it deals with only a part of the recommendations of the

921
Jenkins Committee, is nevertheless a substantial one of 96 clauses and 7 schedules. It should lead to an Act of Parliament which, by making more information available to all concerned with the activities of companies, will increase the efficiency with which industry and commerce is conducted; and, by strengthening the powers of the Board of Trade, will ensure that insurance business is more closely controlled and supervised.
My Lords, on the Second Reading debate the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, said that the Bill was one which had had a good Press. During the Committee stage there was a difference of opinion as to what the scope of the Bill should be. It is of course clear that this is an honest difference of opinion, and both those who take one view and those who take the other view have expressed their views at great length, and it is now at all events clear to all of us what the differing views are. I said, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, that we should welcome Amendments which were within the scope of the Bill, and indeed we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, and his colleagues for all the time which they have spent and the trouble which they have taken to help us to make it a better Bill in those respects. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
4.20 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I should like to start by expressing thanks to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for having summarised the position as regards the Bill and for telling us something about the intentions of the Government as regards its future. Secondly, I should like to express condolence with the noble Lord, Lord Brown. We are very sorry not to see him in his place to-day, and especially for the reason that he has had to go into hospital. We hope that he will have a kindly and skilful surgeon who will put him right (I mean physically, not politically, for that is too much to expect) in the minimum of time.
The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has gone through the various Parts of the Bill, and I should like to divide it up and comment on certain aspects of it. As the noble and learned
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Lord said, there are two main Parts of the Bill. In regard to Part II, which amends the law with respect to insurance companies, the provisions fall into the category of what he described as urgently needed reforms, and, as he said, we on this side regard them as generally satisfactory and appropriate to a closer control of insurance companies. I think these were his words. The troubles in one particular sector of insurance, motor insurance, which have come to light since the Bill was introduced throw some doubt on the adequacy of the provisions for securing the proper conduct of existing businesses; and no doubt they will be more closely examined in another place in the light of recent events and of the possibility of further disasters which have been darkly foreshadowed in the Press.
As to the authorisation of new motor insurance ventures, the Bill appears to give the Board of Trade complete discretion to authorise or not to authorise, except so far as share capital and net assets are concerned, where the Board of Trade are forbidden to issue authorisations unless share capital and net assets exceed the minimum prescribed in the Bill. I hope I am right in thinking that the Board of Trade will exercise their discretion not to issue an authorisation where there is an absence of appropriate experience within the company applying for authorisation to start up in motor insurance. I mentioned on Second Reading that there is a section of opinion in the insurance industry that a company should not be authorised to engage in motor vehicle insurance until it has had experience in other classes of insurance for a period of time, perhaps five years. No doubt this point also will be further explored.
Your Lordships were also uneasy about leaving absolute discretion to the Board of Trade to refuse, without assigning any reason, to issue an authorisation to an applicant to engage in a class of insurance business if the Board considered that there was associated with the applicant a person who in the Board's view was not a fit and proper person. The noble Lord on the Woolsack suggested in the course of our debates that this was a matter which perhaps could be dealt with by the Ombudsman. Later in the day—in fact I think well into the night—I understood that the Government were

923
introducing an Amendment to the Parliamentary Commissioner Bill now before the House.
The Amendment appears as subsection (4) of Clause 5, and seems to exclude the kind of investigation to which the noble Lord appeared to be referring. In general, it appears that the Ombudsman would not have power to investigate the actions of Government where, as in this case, there was ministerial discretion. As Mr. Crossman put it in another place, a
"discretionary decision properly exercised which the complainant dislikes but cannot fault the manner in which it was taken is excluded by the clause."
I do not know whether this would be described by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, as a "technical fall-out" in the Government: I am not certain that it is not a "technical knockout". Perhaps the noble and learned Lordon the Woolsack will be able to say exactly what the position of the Ombudsman is likely to be.
Most of our debates, as the noble Lord said, have related to Part I, which not only imposes new duties of disclosure of information on companies, whether in the directors' reports and their accounts or in registers kept for the purpose, but extends both the existing and the new duties to those private companies which are at present exempted from having to attach a copy of their accounts, auditors' report and directors' report to the annual return which has to be filed with the Registrar.
We have not contested the desirability of requiring greater disclosure in general on the part of companies, although we have questioned the relevance and usefulness of, for example, compelling all companies supplying goods to include in their directors' report a statement that they have not made any direct exports, or, if they have, a statement of the value of their direct exports. Nor have we contested the proposition that as much disclosure, to use the words of the Jenkins Report, as is
"necessary to protect those who trade with and extend credit to limited companies"
is the appropriate price to pay for the privilege of limited liability.
In the case of companies whose shares are offered to the public and quoted on
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the stock exchanges, it is right that the fullest possible information should be given, not only to shareholders, but also to the investing public as potential shareholders. But in the case of private companies whose shares are neither offered to the public nor quoted on stock exchanges, while it is also right that the fullest possible information should be given to shareholders, it does not seem right that information which is not necessary for the protection of those who trade with, and extend credit to, them should be disclosed to the Registrar and made public if it could be embarrassing or prejudicial—damaging, as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said—to the business of the company. There is perhaps a difference of opinion up to a point in this matter, but the Government conceded this point in regard to the disclosure of rents payable, and amended the Bill accordingly in general.
The House also carried an Amendment, against the Government' sadvice, exempting private companies from the requirements in the Bill that there should be shown in the accounts the number of salaries of employees in excess of £10,000, in bands of £2,500, and a breakdown of emoluments of directors, and also of turnover between various classes of business carried on by the company. As the Bill stands, private companies (and in this matter I am not at one with the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack; but all I can say, if this is not so, is that it is certainly what we intended) will still have to state the total emoluments, pensions and compensation paid to directors and past directors, and their total turnover in their accounts, although Jenkins was prepared to exempt them from still having to give this information. The Bill as it now stands, as we intended it to be, and as I believe it is, seems therefore to be a reasonable compromise between the conflicting views of the Jenkins Committee and of the Government, and I hope that the Government will commend it to another place.
Among the requirements for disclosure is one which has caused the House a little trouble, not so much for itself, but as to the kind of action to which it could give rise. I refer to Clause 18, which requires the disclosure of charitable and political contributions if in total they exceed £50,

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and also the disclosure in the directors' report of any individual political contribution exceeding £50. We are glad that the Government accepted the view, expressed on both sides of the House, that individual charitable contributions exceeding £50 should not be recorded in the directors' report, but should be listed at the company's registered office and available for shareholders to see if they wished.
There are three matters still outstanding, and I hope the Government will deal with all of them in another place. The first is the danger of discrimination. I have expressed the view that there is cause to believe that, while it is reasonable that shareholders should be able to know what contributions have been made by their company for political and charitable purposes, publication of this information could result in discrimination against the company on the part of those who disapproved of the political purposes for which the contribution was made. The noble Lord, Lord Brown, in the course of the Report stage said this:
"I would say, however, that the Government are in a sense wholly in sympathy with the feeling behind these Amendments, for they would specifically deplore the action of a public body which expressly stated that it was going to refuse to place contracts with companies which had or had not given political or charitable contributions in a particular direction."—[OFFICIAL REPORT: 23/1/67, col. 377.]
The clause which I moved on Report was criticised as going too wide, and it was pointed out how difficult it is to legislate against discrimination. But of this, at least, I am sure. Local authorities and public corporations should set an example in this matter. I am equally sure that it would not be beyond the skill of the Parliamentary draftsman to make it unlawful for any local authority or public corporation to say, when issuing invitations to tender or awarding contracts, that they were going to take account of any political or charitable contributions which companies may have made. The Government have indicated their disapproval of such discrimination, and I would simply say that action and not words is needed to prevent it.
The second point is whether £50 is not too insignificant an amount to warrant disclosure. My noble friend Lord Erroll of Hale suggested 100 guineas
926
in the Committee stage, and in view of the fact that at the time when the Government undertook to increase the amount of £25 originally in the Bill Ministers themselves thought that £25 for charities, plus £25 for political purposes, was meant, the Government have not, in fact, gone further than Ministers thought the position to be originally. In those circumstances, I feel sure that the Government will be willing to reconsider the matter.
Thirdly, there is the question of the effective date when these particular provisions come into effect. Clause 18 differs from Clauses 16, 17 and 19, in that the directors' action may depend on whether or not it has to be disclosed. Directors may wish to disclose in their report that they have made a contribution to this Party or that charity, or they may not wish to do so; and if they are required to disclose they may prefer not to contribute at all. But, at least, surely this is true: that they should not have to decide whether or not to contribute, and if so how much, without knowing definitely what the law will require after the Bill has become law. So it follows that any contribution made before the Bill becomes law should not be required to be published in the directors' report; otherwise, the Bill would contain a truly retrospective element. That is why I moved an Amendment that the operative date for disclosure should be July 1, 1968, on the assumption that the Bill is likely to become law before next June. The noble Lord, Lord Brown, undertook on behalf of the Government to consider this, and I hope that the Government will amend the Bill in another place.
Finally, the House has also amended the Bill to provide that the authorised capital for a company may consist wholly of shares without nominal or par value. No objection has been expressed to the substance of these provisions. The clauses that have been inserted are so skilfully drafted that the only way in which it is possible to distinguish them from the rest of the Bill is that in them the word "authorization" is spelled with a "z", and with an "s" elsewhere in the Bill. I very much hope that the clauses will remain in the Bill. As the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said, they can

927
be activated only by an Order under Clause 35, and will certainly not be activated until the Treasury have looked to see what consequential changes, if any, are required in income and other tax legislation. The fact that they are in the Bill should encourage the Treasury to get on with it. These Amendments, in our view, make the Bill more useful. They certainly cannot be said to be any less in keeping with the rest of the Bill than Part III, which deals with moneylenders, although I would agree that, so far as the moneylenders' provision is concerned, there is an element of urgency.
Quite apart from this improvement, the Bill has certainly been improved during its passage through this House, and we are glad that the Government have accepted or implemented some of our suggestions. There are some, however, which they have undertaken to consider but have not yet implemented, so the good work is not yet finished.
4.37 p.m.
LORD MILNE: My Lords, I should like first to echo the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, with regard to both the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and the noble Lord, Lord Brown. When I spoke on the Second Reading I indicated certain Amendments which I considered desirable but on which, in fact, I did not wish to anticipate the views of expert bodies concerned. What I had forgotten, if I ever in fact knew, was that, other than in Bills where Parliamentary agents act for interested parties, there is no mechanism for converting views into Amendments, even in technical Bills where drafting is all-important; that is, of course, unless a submission is accepted by the Government, with or without prior debate, or unless one can arrange it through one's own resources, which are limited by time. I mention this partly to explain my silence in the later stages of this Bill, but also because it seems to me that where clauses are departures from a prior Report, or are entirely new, it would in the long run improve the quality of the result if every opportunity was taken for prior consultation with the principal expert bodies which are going to be concerned.
928
As an accountant I realise that, in the past, lack of consultation has not been entirely the fault of the Government of the day, but it seems now that this important step can and should be realised. It so happened that in this event the bodies with which I am concerned were not able to keep up with the pace set by the Government, and their views are only now available for consideration in another place. Your Lordships rightly pride yourselves on the care with which Bills are examined and the quality of the result. In this latter respect, I do not feel that we should be entirely satisfied with this Bill, in spite of the heroic stand put up by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, and the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale, to which reference has already been made. I feel that Company Law has been confused somewhat by political irrelevancies masquerading as meaningful disclosure.
Finally, as the insurance sections were so urgent, and in view of the fact that the Government must have known at the outset what was not known to this House—namely, that a further Companies Bill was contemplated—would it not have been far wiser to arrange the insurance clauses as a separate Bill, which could have gone through its stages with considerable dispatch? As it is, in due course we shall be having what is, in effect, a third bite at Company Law, at the cost of all concerned with it, having delayed the essential for what is at this moment a trivial aspect in comparison with the fundamental problems of business ethics which, as the noble Lord. Lord Goodman, and daily events remind us, remain unsolved.
4.40 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, it is very often your Lordships' custom on the Third Reading of a Bill to say what a fine Bill we have succeeded in passing. Personally, I have never been very keen on legislation. I think the rogues merely get more astute, and it increases the number of Government servants needed to try to catch them. In this respect this Bill is no better than most others. During the passage of the Bill I have made criticisms on one or two grounds. The first was on the main theme, which is the increased bureaucracy which will be required to

929
deal with this business of disclosure by the numerous small companies, which I believe will serve no very useful purpose. Secondly, I have criticised the lack of some provision to tighten up the law in regard to banks which are not strictly banks. Thirdly, I have criticised the insurance provisions. Here, I declare an interest as being a director of a small tariff insurance company. In my view, the provisions in the Bill are quite inadequate as regards motor insurance—and my friends in the insurance world agree with me.
Since the Second Reading we have had a flood of disclosures of motor insurance swindles—because that is what they are—which the Board of 'Trade claim they need more powers to counter. But some insurance people believe that the Board of Trade have had the powers the whole time. Your Lordships may have seen a letter from Mr. Smeddles, the General Manager of the Royal Insurance Company, to that effect in The Times last week. My friends believe he is correct. On the other hand, from the Sunday Times last Sunday your Lordships may have seen that their correspondent believes that the Board of Trade have not got the powers. However, whether the powers exist now and are not used because the department of the Board of Trade is inadequately manned and too weak, or whether the powers do not exist, something must be done; and, in my view, whatever merits the provisions of the Bill may have in regard to fire insurance, its provisions are quite inadequate and unsuitable for motor insurance.
After all, (motor insurance is a special case. It is the only case where the risk to the general public is as wide as it is to the insured. If a house burns down, the sufferer is the insured. If the company does not pay, he is the sole sufferer. But if there is a motor accident, it may be innocent members of the public who are the sufferers, whether as victims or as passengers. The law provides that every driver must have third-party cover. That is to cover his direct victims. In addition, if something goes wrong with the policy, there is the sort of long-stop in the shape of the Motor Insurers' Bureau—which, incidentally, is financed by the solvent and good companies—by means of which his direct victims can be compensated in the event of his company not paying up. But there is no such
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compensation for passengers unless they are the victims of proved negligence.
To-day, public transport is drying up all over the country. Those who have not got cars are more and more depending on lifts from friends, acquaintances and even strangers. Cars are borrowed; and there is no means of knowing whether the insurance is or is not valid. All these doubts arise from two factors, the first of which is the cost. A great many people run cars who, on an accountancy basis, cannot afford to do so at all. They have to cheesepare on tyres, on insurance, on everything. They take the minimum cover that the law requires; and they get it through a broker who may have no qualifications, or who need have no qualifications, who may or may not know anything about the quality of the insurance he is selling and who, in any case, may be tempted by the very large commissions which are paid by the dud companies. In fact, there is a considerable case for saying that the broker's commission should not be paid by the company at all but should be paid by the insurer as an introductory fee. There are other people who regard insurance as sheer robbery and who buy the cheapest they can; and, as your Lordships know, in every walk of life you get what you pay for.
The second factor is risk. The premium demanded by a respectable company for insuring certain types of drivers and certain types of cars is very heavy, even prohibitive in cases. This is based on experience, not on robbery; and, in fact, many drivers cannot get cover for passenger risk, even if they want to do so. The combination of these two factors makes motor insurance absolutely wide open for the crooks, who will quote cheap rates and then, as soon as the claims start to roll in, will disappear with a good part of the premiums. Anybody who listened to the B.B.C. last Saturday morning heard an account of what pertains in the United States of America. I gather that the situation there is worse than here, and we seem to have imported some of their rogues into this country.
What is the remedy? First of all, we have to circumvent the crooks. I think we must have much more stringent provisions for motor insurance. There should be substantial deposits in short-dated gilt-edged, with the Board of

931
Trade or a banker's guarantee. There should be reinsurance treaties with members of the British Insurance Association or with Lloyd's, and there should be immediate notification should the reinsurers refuse to fulfil or renew a treaty. These last two provisions would almost automatically stop any roguery, and would be a tremendous safeguard.
People will say that this would stop young people from setting up new motor insurance companies. I do not mind, my Lords. People are much too tenderhearted on this issue. Anybody indulging in motor insurance is the sole guardian of any member of the general public who is the victim of a motorist, and we cannot afford any sloppy sentiment about making it easy for people to start up such a business. After all, if you want to underwrite at Lloyd's you have first to show a large fortune, you have to put up a large deposit, and then you have to accept unlimited risk and be one of twenty or thirty members of a syndicate. Why on earth should anybody be allowed easier conditions to set up a limited liability company to do the same job, and get away with it?
That still leaves another problem unsolved, and that is the uncovered liability—the damage done to others which has not got to be covered by the law and which in practice is not covered by a great many of the policies. I should like to see it impossible for any passenger in a car to be uncovered. I should like to see every car covered for any licensed driver. The market might say that the cost of this would be prohibitive. That may or may not be so; but until we get the figures, we cannot know. Certainly the present position, if these risks are not covered, is highly unsatisfactory to the general public.
I think that a Working Party of Government and insurance officials should be asked to attempt to ascertain the cost of covering these risks. If we get the figures, we can then have an idea of the cost of providing the cover. Undoubtedly funds could be raised. For instance, the driving licence is remarkably cheap in this country. A £3 or £5 driving licence would raise an enormous sum of money. I should have thought it would have been more than ample for the job required. But certainly I regard this
932
investigation as most important. There is not one of us who does not accept a lift at times and few of us who do not occasionally drive somebody else's car, even if only for a few yards. Could we, or do we, demand to see the policy? Of course not. In fact, does the owner know what is written in small print? By no means always.
The market might have two main objections here. First, they might say that this is not proper underwriting, because a fiat rate is charged for a wide variety of risks covering a wide variety of drivers. My reply to that would be: "We are not covering drivers; we are covering the general public—just as a personal accident policy covers widely differing risks to widely differing people at the same rate." They might then say: "This is the thin edge of the wedge of State insurance." My reply would be "Insurance against calamity is a very personal matter. Nobody would want to have to get a claim paid by a State bureau. Imagine trying to get an ex gratia claim out of a State bureau!" Ex gratia payments form a very important part of insurance in this country.
My Lords, there are plenty of ways by which a scheme financed by levy on the licence could be operated by the insurance market with no risks to public funds. For instance, one could enlarge the scope of the Motor Insurers' Bureau, top it up with funds derived from levy on the driving licence and have Government representatives on the Bureau to see fair play in the administration. I hope that the Board of Trade officials will not turn down this suggestion automatically because they have not thought of it themselves (which I am afraid is sometimes a habit of the Civil Service), but will put it to the Minister and let him give some thought to it: because I believe that this is something which would fulfil a very long-felt public need.
4.54 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am grateful to all who have taken part in the discussion on this Motion. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, raised a point about insurance provisions in the Bill. The Government will certainly consider, before the Bill comes before another place, whether they need any amplification in the light of recent events relating to motor insurance companies.

933
In discussing how far the Ombudsman could investigate a case in which my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade came to the conclusion that certain people ought not to be given authority to start an insurance company, the noble Lord then said that, by a recent Amendment in another place, his power had become so limited that it would be useless in this case because that was an Amendment to provide that the Ombudsman could not overrule the discretion of the Minister. This is not the day on which to start a consideration of the Parliamentary Commissioner Bill, but I can assure the noble Lord that he is quite wrong. It was never intended by Justice, or by anyone who has been in favour of the Parliamentary Commissioner, that he should be a one-man universal court of appeal from every policy decision made by every Minister. What he would be entitled to do in the case put is to walk into the Board of Trade and cross-examine my right honourable friend, or any civil servants, to find out exactly what material they had before them when the Minister made his decision.
It is, of course, the essence of a question of discretion that the circumstances are such that one man might have one view and another man a different view. One could not have the Parliamentary Commissioner overruling a Minister on a question of discretion without making him a one-man appeal from every policy decision or discretionary decision by a Minister. But what he will be entitled to do is to say, and report to the Select Committee, that the Minister had not acted properly in the matter because all the material on which he came to the conclusion that the applicants ought not to have authority to start an insurance company was so-and-so; that the Minister ought to have checked it with other people. Or the Parliamentary Commissioner might find that it was a casein which, when the Minister came to his decision not all the relevant documents in the Ministry had been put before him. So the Commissioner will certainly be able to check on every administrative point. The only thing he will not be able to do—and which nobody has ever supposed he would—is to overrule what is a policy or discretionary decision by a Minister.
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The noble Lord again raised on some points arguments which were discussed at length during the Committee stage. I am sure he will not want me to reply again to them. As to discrimination, we are all agreed how undesirable it is. The sole difference between us is whether or not it can usefully be stopped by an Act of Parliament. The Government do not say that it cannot be stopped: we may yet in this Parliament have to consider again the question of racial discrimination. But it is, I think, a very difficult field. I can certainly undertake that my right honourable friend will consider again the question of the £50, and whether this ought not to be a higher figure—indeed, I know that he intends to do so. I will also see that he takes into account what the noble Lord said with regard to the dates of particular sections coming into force.
The noble Lord, Lord Milne, spoke of the need for prior consultation and said that there is only now available the views of accountants and others who ought to have been consulted. I agree with the noble Lord in principle. I am a little surprised about this particular case, because the bones of the Bill were published in the lifetime of the last Government, of the last Parliament; so I should have thought that in this particular case they had had time, although certain provisions have been added since. A Government is always, in a sense, in conflict between time, on the one hand, and wanting to take advantage of proper consultation, on the other.
I am convinced myself that certainly, generally speaking, in the field of law reform, consultation is vital. I know that the Law Commission found this. Nearly all the time which the Law Commission take over the preparation of reports and of a Bill is taken up by consultation: always, of course, with the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Society of Advanced Teachers of Law, and so forth; and, in particular cases, with outside lay bodies. They regard this consultation as essential, as I am sure it is.
It may be that we shall live to see the day when Members of both Houses themselves are given a good deal more information than they have at present about the Bills which are before them. It may be that we ought to have with every Bill a much longer Explanatory

935
Memorandum than we now have, explaining what is the mischief which the Bill intends to cure, and how it is to be done. As noble Lords will know, Ministers have the advantage of having notes on clauses explaining exactly what each clause is intended to do, and how. It may be that there is no real reason why these notes on clauses should not be available to every Member of both Houses. It would make for a much more intelligible discussion on a Bill and would save a good many Amendments being put down simply for the purpose of "probing", as it is phrased, of finding out what is behind a particular clause. I see no reason why all the Members of both Houses should not know that from the start.
Then the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, raised a point which indeed he had raised on Second Reading, about whether there ought not to be some new entity, halfway between a bank and a limited company. There may be a good deal to be said for that, and it is the sort of point which the Government will now have time to consider before the second Bill is introduced. With regard to the matter of insurance, I will see that what the noble Lord has said is conveyed both to my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade and to my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport. I cannot honestly say, speaking personally, that I differ from anything the noble Lord has said. I have never understood why, if it is right to provide insurance against a claim by somebody in another motor car whom you injure, it is not equally right to provide for insurance against a claim by a passenger in your own car. I once read through all the proceedings—Committee stage and all—in both Houses on the original Road Traffic Bill to find out the reason why, when we started compulsory insurance, we excluded passengers. To my surprise, I found that nobody raised the point in either House at any stage of the Bill, and if I may say so (I speak personally rather than for the Government) I have always had the greatest sympathy with the view which the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, expressed.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may I enlarge slightly on one point, because it might help later on? I believe that the
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ordinary insurance companies would find that covering these people—particularly some of the younger, more reckless drivers—for passenger insurance would require a premium so prohibitive that such people would never drive at all.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, that might be a good thing. I think I am right in saying that our motoring insurance premiums are substantially lower than those in other countries, and it may be right to say that if people cannot afford to pay the premiums to provide for compensation to be paid to those they injure, they should not be driving what is a dangerous machine. I know that my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport is considering this carefully, but that is not really the main difficulty. I do not think that the premium would be exorbitant.
The main difficulty is that the motorcyclists and the motor scooterists are a powerful lobby. There are a great many of them. Naturally, a great many of them are not people of means, but they can afford this kind of transport. There is usually a place on the vehicle where a passenger can be carried, but many of the drivers say, "I never carry a passenger, I have no intention of carrying a passenger; why therefore should I pay a premium for a risk which cannot arise?". It is this difficulty about motorcyclists which, so far, has always proved to be the biggest difficulty in practice in implementing the views which the noble Lord has expressed. May I say again how grateful I am to these noble Lords who have taken part in the discussion on this Motion, and I hope that we can now send this useful Bill on its way.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

TATTOOING OF YOUNG PEOPLE
5.5 p.m.
LORD ROYLE LORD ROYLE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether their attention has been called to the growth of the practice of tattooing amongst young people, and if they will take steps to check the practice. The noble Lord said: My Lords, may I say at the beginning that it has been suggested to me that the steps that I hope may be

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taken on this Question would result in interference with the freedom of the individual. I hope that, in the course of what I have to say, I may show your Lordships that in my view it is not so much a question of interfering with the freedom of the individual as protecting some individuals from themselves, particularly young people.
At first sight, this unusual subject might appear to be an amusing one. In fact, it has very many amusing aspects. One of my noble friends asked me the other day whether "Tattooing" was a village in Lancashire; he did not altogether understand it. Many wonderful stories can be told of the type of tattooing and the weird designs that are indulged in by adults and, unfortunately, by very young people. I could produce to your Lordships a very long schedule of designs with which I could amuse you for a long time, but my purpose is not to amuse; it is to bring to your notice, and to the notice of the Minister, the serious side of this practice.
I confess at once that my interest was aroused by conversations I had with eminent dermatologists and plastic surgeons. My friend Dr. Patrick-Hall Smith, who is a distinguished consultant dermatologist in Brighton, and also the Medical Officer of Health for the town, have told me of the appalling increase in the practice in Brighton. This is also happening in many of our resorts, and certainly at our seaports. The matter has become so serious that it has been taken up by the British Medical Association, and a special committee has been devoting serious attention to it. In addition, the assistant secretary of the British Medical Association has taken the matter up with Dame Albertine Winner of the Home Office. Every year dermatologists and plastic surgeons in many parts of the country are confronted with a large number of patients who request the removal of what can only be described as outrageous and disfiguring tattoos executed, in many cases, upon very young people when they were minors.
My Lords, I am told that the removal of a tattoo is a very difficult procedure, and that it can mean a couple of weeks in a plastic surgical unit. Many of the tattoos are on the hands and forearms. If the practice is amusing, it also has its
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serious and tragic side. I was told the story of a girl of 18 who at the age of 16 had a tattoo put on her arm with "George" emblazoned on it. In tears she went to a plastic surgeon, because she was now engaged to Henry, and was keeping a plaster on her arm and telling Henry that she had a sore which would not heal. Boys and girls have the letters of "Love" and "Hate" tattooed on the fingers of their hands.
My friend told me of a young man who went out with his pals one evening and, after he had had a little too much to drink, had a snake tattooed on his neck so that it protruded from his collar. In addition, the tattooist put a buttercup on one ear and a daisy on the other. These stories may be multiplied very many times. The operation of being tattooed, particularly with a very young person, is followed by misery and even remorse. Apart from the psychological trauma sustained, by these disfigurations it is possible to transmit skin infections such as boils and impetigo—and tuberculosis, syphilis and virus infections are far from being unknown.
The reasons given for people indulging in tattooing vary considerably. In some cases it is a "dare" from the youngster's associates. Sometimes it is the desire to be different. Boredom is mentioned. Sometimes it is to symbolise manliness and virility. It is done to record attachments and even filial devotion, to show admiration for some pop singer or to display patriotism.
Removing the tattoo involves expenditure of medical man hours, additional cost to the Health Service and in-patient stay of up to two weeks in an expensive plastic surgical unit. In the Evening News the other day there was a story of a man who had been refused a job because of unsightly tattooing on his face and hands. A letter to the Guardian on December 16, signed by several eminent consultant dematologists, told of a successful prosecution of a tattooist for an assault on two boys aged 12 and 13, and it was revealed that in the town of Castle ford, in Yorkshire, 53 boys aged 13 and 14 had been tattooed. In one regional plastic unit 90 patients had tattoos removed in three years, and 12 of them were under 16 when the tattooing took place. Among 150 cases treated in two London units in the last few years,

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70 were known to have been done when the persons were between the ages of 5 and 16; 16 was the age of greatest activity and 17 the lowest age of request for removal.
When it was known that I was to raise this question this afternoon I received a letter—I understand that I am quite at liberty to mention the writer's name, although he is a serving officer—from Surgeon Commander Scutt, of the Royal Naval Barracks, Portsmouth. He tells me that over the past three years he has questioned 2,000 patients attending his clinic about tattooing. Approximately 46 per cent. of the lower deck are tattooed. It is 60 per cent. in the case of seamen, non-skilled engineering ratings, cooks and stewards, as against 10 per cent. in the case of artificers and writers. Two-thirds of those tattooed had it done before the age of 18. About 50 per cent. were tattooed for the first time in home naval ports and about 33 per cent. in foreign ports. The incidence of jaundice following the practice can be shown. The surgeon commander tells me that the percentage of regrets is about 55, but in the case of married men it is 70 per cent.
The latter part of my Question in effect asks for legislation. As a start, perhaps it could be made illegal for anyone to tattoo a person under the age of 18, even if at first this applied only to exposed area carts of the body. If this were done in civilian circles, I feel that the Services would in course of time follow suit. A commanding officer might decide that the tattooist's premises should be made out of bounds or that tattooing could not be done without his permission. While there have been successful prosecutions for assaults on young people, there are few parents who feel financially able to undertake a private prosecution.
I am not treating this as one of the great evils of our day. I do not think that nations will rise or fall about it. It is a matter quite different from many of the subjects we discuss in your Lordships' House. But I believe that it is now reaching a serious state, and therefore I ask my noble friend whether he can give the House an assurance that one of the Ministries—I am not sure which, either the Ministry of Health or the Home Office—will look at the matter seriously,
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to see if they can do something about introducing some form of legislation which will limit what I regard as a pernicious practice.
5.17 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I cannot altogether agree with the noble Lord, Lord Royle. I was tattooed many years ago, as a midshipman in Her Majesty's Fleet, and I never suffered from dermatitis. In fact, I have never regretted it. The tattooist who did me—a Japanese, by the way—told me that tattooing was a good preventative against Eastern diseases. So far I have been lucky. I have been out East many times and have never had any of the Eastern diseases.
I think that I ought to tell your Lordships that it has other bearings on the young man. I believe that it gives him a certain sense of strength, and it is good for a young man in many ways. It hurts like hell—it did in my day—and it takes sometimes two or three hours to have it done. When a man sees the tattooist heating up the needle to a red-point heat in front of him, ready to line him in, he needs to have a certain amount of strength of mind to go on with it. I cannot help feeling that it would be the greatest mistake to try to prevent any sailor or any young man from being tattooed if he wants to. I believe it does not really do him any harm.
5.19 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should like to take a line opposed to that of the noble Lord, Lord Teynham. The Japanese was wrong in giving him the advice that tattooing was a preventative against diseases of the East; I think he could have got them, whether tattooed or not. The noble Lord also said that tattooing gave a young man a sense of strength. I suppose that is true, but it seems to me to be going a long way back to a primitive sort of attitude that we should not think much of to-day. There is a serious side to tattooing. The noble Lord, Lord Royle, mentioned that it was possible to acquire syphilis and tuberculosis of the skin from dirty needles. That is a danger which is present, although not so well marked as it was. Another difficulty is the psychological effect, but I will not go into that at great length. If a person is tattooed when he is young, it may prey on his mind, not necessarily because he

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has fallen in love with somebody else but because it may be rather a peculiar tattoo. He begins to wonder why he did it and does not know what to do about getting rid of it
There are two questions that I should like to ask the noble Lord who is to reply. The first is this. If a person is tattooed and the tattooist uses dirty needles, or there is something wrong with the tattoo, with the result that the person suffers some illness, is there any protection under the Public Health Acts? I thought that there would be, but I have been looking up a number of the Acts dealing with public health and I can find no specific mention of tattooing.
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Royle, has already given the answer to the second question. But supposing a minor was tattooed, at his or her request, when the parents objected to the tattoo, would the tattooist be liable to prosecution? Would the prosecution need to be undertaken by the parents, or could it be instituted by the police?
5.21 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I am glad my noble friend Lord Royle has raised this matter. It is not, as he said, something that is going to alter the fate of nations, but it is a matter which is of real and genuine importance to the young people who get themselves tattooed. I may say that I had thought about bringing in a Private Member's Bill on this subject some time ago, but I was inhibited because of my personal connections with the prison services. It is those connections which have led me to realise that this a genuine evil.
The noble Lord, Lord Teynham, pointed out that young sailors have this done as a sort of dare, as a test of courage. That is fair enough if they have reached years of discretion. But when you get young girls of 14, 15 and 16 who get themselves tattoed with extremely embarrassing inscriptions on their fingers—sometimes, as my noble friend said, on the tips of their fingers, so that they can make a rude gesture at a boy friend—or when they get the name of a boy friend tattoed on their arms, or even something on their faces, then this can be an absolute tragedy for them. They get this done as a sort of gesture of defiance—and young girls are particularly
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prone to gestures of defiance. They sometimes get their hair bleached just to annoy their parents. This is all right, because the hair grows out in time. But having got a tattoo on themselves, they may bitterly regret it; and, what is far more important, it may destroy their confidence in themselves in their ordinary social relations. Moreover, as my noble friend Lord Royle said, it can make it difficult for them to get a job. Supposing they apply for a job in a supermarket, or in any kind of shop, if a tattoo is on their hands, or if they have to work with short sleeves, they cannot do it. It is quite a serious matter.
My noble friend mentioned the case of a young lady who had to keep the tattoo covered up to hide it from the eyes of a boy friend. I came across the case of a young girl who had a similar inscription which she had put on at the age of 16. When she was about 18 she became engaged to a decent young American, and he would not marry her until it was taken off. I cannot say that I blame him. She was one of the lucky young girls, of course, because she got engaged. But with many of these girls their confidence is destroyed by having one of these horrible tattoos put on.
LORD TEYNHAM: If the noble Lord will permit me to interrupt, I can tell him of a reverse case, which occurred just about the time I was in Malta. It concerned a very pretty girl who had a bad birthmark on her left arm. I suggested that she should go and see a tattooist—and upon my soul she did! And a few weeks later I saw her at another dance with a beautiful red admiral tattooed on her left arm.
LORD TAYLOR: I was going to say that there is a case for cosmetic disguise of birthmarks, but this is the only justifiable case for a girl getting tattooed. For most of these young girls and boys it is a serious matter. I understand that the situation is now that at Wormwood Scrubs, Grendon and Holloway there are clinics where tattooing is removed as a part of rehabilitation. The tragedy of it is that there are now great waiting lists of people who are in trouble and waiting to have these tattoos removed; and they cannot get them removed because there are so many of them.

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I do not think there is the slightest doubt that my noble friend Lord Royle is quite right in saying that it should certainly be illegal to tattoo any one under the age of 18. To protect these young people from doing an extremely foolish thing is entirely a worthwhile thing to do. It will also save a great deal of money. It must be borne in mind that to-day it costs approximately £50 of your and my money per week for somebody to go into a plastic unit; and if my noble friend is right it costs £100 every time it is desired to take these things off. Even from the national wealth point of view, is that sensible? But it is far more important, I should have thought, from the point of view of the young people themselves, who through stupidity, an act of bravado, a dare or an act of defiance, disfigure themselves. I hope that my noble friend will follow up this Question with a Private Member's Bill; and, if he does, I shall certainly give him my full support.
5.27 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Royle, has drawn attention to what is undoubtedly a serious social problem. But it seems to me that, with so many desirable things needing legislation, it is going to be difficult to put it into practice. First of all, there is the question of what contitutes a young person.
LORD TAYLOR: Under 18.
LORD AUCKLAND: Under 18 may be a fair answer. But how are we going to ensure that the person is under 18? They do not carry identity cards.
LORD TAYLOR: In the same way as is done in pubs.
LORD AUCKLAND: We could obviously discuss the age limit for some little time. Clearly, if young people are going to submit themselves to tattooing they should have their parents' consent. But what I think is more important—and I should like to put this point to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick—is that tattooists should be compulsorily registered, as are the majority of chiropodists and physiotherapists. I know that one cannot really draw an analogy here, because physiotherapy and chiropody are strictly medical treatment. But if these people had
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to be compulsorily registered, the point raised so cogently by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, would be met, because the public health authorities could inspect the premises.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, may I interrupt for one moment? It would not make it easier for the public health authorities to inspect premises if these people were registered. They have the right to inspect premises whether they are registered or not.
LORD AUCKLAND: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that information, because it is clearly necessary that these premises should be regularly inspected, to make sure that the needles and equipment are clean, otherwise infection may ensue. It seems that a decision must be left largely to parents. No self-respecting parents would allow daughters of 16 to be tattooed, even allowing for the fact that in these days teenage daughters are very adamant and do defy their parents—in fact, they defy them now a good deal younger in their teens. But I cannot see that this or any other Government can bring in carte blanche legislation here, because of the enormous administrative problems involved.
5.30 p.m.
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, may I say one word? Once upon a time, many years ago, my duty as a signal midshipman was to report a signal one day to my Admiral. The Admiral was in his bathroom. On being told to enter the bathroom, I was faced with the nude figure of the great man, who had modestly turned his back upon me. And in front of me, was the panorama of a complete hunt, in full cry, travelling down the great man's back: horses, hounds, and the fox. Well, my Lords, the fox was gradually disappearing. The pursuit was in a North to South direction. The great man was aged about 60 or 65 at the time. No harm had come to him, so far as I know. He commanded a Fleet and he was a very famous Admiral indeed.
I put that point of view only to show that there is a light-hearted way of looking at this question. I agree with the noble Lords that there ought to be a certain limit upon youths being allowed to be tattooed. Nevertheless, do not let us be too "cissy".
5.32 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, we have had an interesting, and at times amusing, discussion about a matter which I think the majority of us on both sides of the House agree can be treated lightheartedly, but which also involves some more serious considerations. I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Royle for bringing before the House this problem which, while, as he says, it is not one of the major evils of our time, nevertheless is a matter of some real concern, and does affect a not insignificant number of young people in the country.
To some extent it seems that being tattooed is a matter of following fashion; but, unlike some other fashions, the consequences of following this particular one cannot be undone quite so rapidly. One cannot take off a tattoo as some young ladies can take off a mini-skirt, and the consequences can be much more far-reaching. Her Majesty's Government have for some time been aware of the existence of this problem; and, as I have said, I am grateful to my noble friend for the constructive way in which he has raised the matter this afternoon.
He gave us some statistics, and I have others which. to me at any rate, made interesting, indeed fascinating, reading. There are no official statistics of the national incidence of tattooing, but the indications are that it is on the increase. This is particularly so among boys and youths who go into detention centres, borstals and prisons, about whom it is possible to collect figures. I understand that something like 40 per cent. of boys and youths going into borstals and detention centres are found to be tattooed. This seems to be about the same percentage as my noble friend himself quoted.
In the young prisoners' centre at Liver-pool 90 per cent. of the young people who go in there for some unfortunate reason or another are found to be tattooed. I cannot myself think that there is no correlation between this incidence and the behaviour of the young people concerned. No doubt the percentage who are tattooed is high owing to the fact that Liverpool is a seaport, and, as indeed we have heard this afternoon, there seems to be some correlation between those who go to sea and those who are tattooed. In junior detention centres, the proportion
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among boys aged between 14 and 17, I understand, ranges between 16 and 40 per cent.
I quite agree that on purely medical grounds there is no reason for undue concern, although, as my noble friend Lord Royle, the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, and my noble friend Lord Taylor have indicated, the known factors ought not to be overlooked. We have been given evidence that tattooing does not necessarily mean that ill-health follows. I am very pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, looking so hale and hearty, but I really wonder whether he would have been quite so satisfied if the needle to which he subjected himself had been applied to a more exposed part of his person. It is then conceivable he would have taken a different view later in life.
My medical advisers tell me that because some of the tattooing is carried out under poor hygienic conditions, occasional infection may be expected. As the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, said, this can include septic infections, syphilitic, tuberculous and viral infections. There is also the possibility of unsightly scar formations. Another possibility, which is more dangerous, and to which I think my noble friend Lord Taylor referred, is that of the incidence of virus hepatitis. This is a serious disease, and is easily transferred from one person to another by an infected needle. It is relevant that there is a higher incidence of reported cases of jaundice among persons a short time after they have been tattooed. Nevertheless, the risk to health, while real, is not such as to justify the restrictive legislation to which my noble friend has referred.
A more important consideration—and I think this is agreed upon by most noble Lords who have spoken—is the fact that a young person subjecting himself to this form of disfigurement may in later life suffer, as my noble friend Lord Royle said, acute remorse and embarrassment. Sometimes the tattooing is not just one or two words or pictures, which may or may not be visible, but, as we have heard, a tattoo can cover a good deal of the body. While I do not intend to pursue the adventures of the animal on the back of the noble Lord's superior officer, I think there are cases where that kind of thing, when seen on occasions other

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than when the person is in the bath, can cause psychological upsets in later life.
There was a recent case about which there was a good deal of publicity in the newspapers, to which I do not wish to add as I do not wish to bring additional pain to the parents of the person concerned. But in this particular case there was a tattoo on the throat. This showed vividly, I think, the foolishness of this kind of activity on the part of the young and how it is regretted in later life.
It is possible, as I think my noble (friend suggested, to seek to have, or indeed to have, the tattoo marks removed by plastic surgery. But, of course, it is not always possible. But if tattoo marks, are removed by plastic surgery, or by the skill of the medical profession, we are surely here misusing these skills. Some tattoo marks are removed in borstals and prisons, where it is felt that the removal is practical and the results will be beneficial; but if we could somehow avoid the necessity for this kind of surgical operation, I should have thought there would be value in doing this.
My noble friend asked about the possibility of taking steps to check the practice. As the law now stands, some restriction is possible, although there is no prohibition of tattooing as such. The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, asked whether the Public Health Acts offered protection, and I am advised that there is no protection there. However, as my noble friend mentioned, a tattooist was recently convicted of an assault occasioning bodily harm, as the result of his operation on two boys aged 12 and 13. An appeal to the Divisional Court was dismissed, the court holding that if the child was unable to appreciate the nature of the act, apparent consent was no consent at all.
There are, nevertheless, difficulties, and whilst it is possible for the parents to take action if there has been assault, I think the noble Lord will agree that this is not the kind of protection which is satisfactory in all cases. Prosecutions have also successfully been brought against tattooists who have made tattoo marks that have been held to be obscene. I could not say without further evidence whether this applies to the particular case we heard about in the admiral's bathroom.
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It is clear from what has been said this afternoon that these legal provisions do not suffice to prevent the fairly widespread and probably increasing incidence of the tattooing of youngsters, and this is the problem which I think we have to face. Her Majesty's Government understand the feelings which have been expressed by my noble friend and others this afternoon, and which have also been expressed by parents, teachers and doctors to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary.
The question arises as to what justification there is for legislation. And it was also suggested that we might meet the problem by registration. I do not myself think—and indeed my advisers do not think—that registration is the answer here. If tattooists were required to be registered by local authorities that would not of itself deal with the problem of the young person. Moreover, the improvement in the hygienic conditions of the premises in which this operation was carried out would be a difficult matter. It would not be easy to ensure that sterile techniques were used. I suppose it is also true that registration might give the impression that the local authority was satisfied with the conditions, and that tattooing had some sort of official sanction. Therefore I think that, if we are going to deal with the matter, we shall have to look at the possibility of legislation.
I agree with what has been said by noble Lords opposite; one does not wish to be "cissy" in this matter. It is also true that a question of individual liberty is involved, and, as we have seen, there is more than one opinion on this point. I suppose the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, for example, would require a good deal of additional evidence that positive harm is being inflicted before he would agree to an extension of the criminal law. Evidence of regret or distress on the part of those tattooed might be thought by some to be insufficient to warrant the intrusion of the criminal law into the private activities of individuals.
Nevertheless, we return to the question of young persons, and there is a point of view which my noble friend and others gave: that the law already restricts certain actions of young people, on the ground that they are not yet of

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an age at which they should be left completely free to take decisions which will permanently affect their lives later on. Tattoo marks are so permanent that they can be removed—if they can be removed at all—only by expensive surgery. On this ground it is arguable that true freedom of choice would be preserved, and not limited, if young people were made to postpone the decision to have themselves tattooed until they had reached more mature years.
Certainly if action is to be taken to deal with this problem, that action should be achieved by a straightforward amendment of the law, rather than by the use of existing laws on obscenity and assault. I cannot this afternoon hold out any early prospect of Government legislation, and as an ex-Whip my noble friend is well aware of the present pressure upon the Parliamentary machine and the Parliamentary timetable. How-
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ever, I can say that a Bill promoted by a Private Member would be a useful way of securing the view of Parliament. Though I cannot give my noble friend any firm commitments, I would emphasise that if he feels disposed to introduce a Bill, not necessarily in this Session but on some future occasion, I shall be glad to discuss with him, constructively, I hope, the possibility of affording some assistance.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down may I ask whether he knows of any country which has used legislation to curtail, in one way or another, this habit?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I know that consideration has been given in other countries, but I cannot answer that question without notice.
House adjourned at thirteen minutes before six o'clock