Lords Sitting of 7 March 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 Birmingham.
The Lord Cromwell—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

SELECTIVE EMPLOYMENT TAX REFUNDS
2.35 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: 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 why those who process and pack poultry are entitled both to a refund of the selective employment tax and to the premium, whereas those who process and pack vegetables are entitled only to the refund but not to the premium.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD WALSTON): My Lords, entitlement to premium or refund under the Selective Employment Payments Act 1966 depends upon the category in which the activities of any establishment are classified in the Standard Industrial Classification. The processing of poultry, which usually involves a series of operations to convert the live bird into a packed product, is regarded as manufacturing for the purposes of this classification. The processing of vegetables is also regarded as manufacturing if preservation by canning, bottling or quick-freezing is involved. Both processes attract premium. If, however, the processing of vegetables simply involves preparation for sale, it is regarded as a part of wholesale distribution which attracts neither premium nor refund. When the preparation and packing of vegetables is carried out by the producer himself it is regarded as part of his agricultural or horticultural activities and qualifies for refund. In the same way, the preparation of poultry for
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the market, if undertaken by the producer himself, would normally qualify for refund.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that the complexity of the Answer which he has just given indicates that some more uniform method of application of the selective employment tax is highly desirable?
LORD WALSTON: No, my Lords. I would suggest that the Answer I have given is an extremely simple and straightforward one. Any complexity—and there is complexity—arises in the variety of processes and the forms in which they can be carried out on the farm, in the agricultural enterprise, in the factory, in the retail establishment, or wherever it may be.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, what happens if a manufacturer of pre-cooked meals wishes to put both poultry and vegetables into the same packs? Does he get a premium or only a refund?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, a manufacturer is classified as a manufacturing enterprise and receives the appropriate treatment.

STAMP DUTY ON FOREIGN TRAVELLERS' CHEQUES
2.38 p.m.
LORD REDMAYNE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will introduce legislation to provide for the collection of stamp duty on foreign travellers' cheques by means other than adhesive stamps.]
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, I understand that the noble Lord has already made this suggestion in a letter to my honourable and learned friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and the matter is under consideration.
LORD REDMAYNE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him to press the Treasury to ensure that the clause necessary for this quite small reform is included in this year's Finance Bill?
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, I am sure my honourable and learned friend will take notice of what the noble Lord has just said.

ADEN: FORCES' TOUR OF DUTY
2.40 p.m.
LORD GRENFELL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the present tour of duty for a battalion in Aden.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORT-FOLIO (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, the battalions now in Aden are on a tour of duty of about nine months, except for one which is on a tour of seven months.
LORD GRENFELL: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer. Can he tell me how long the battalions now in Aden have been stationed there? Secondly, while paying sincere tribute to the troops in Aden, may I ask, in view of the mental and physical strain of the present emergency, whether the Minister will consider more frequent relief than would otherwise be customary?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am not sure whether I can tell the noble Lord exactly how long each battalion has been in Aden. Certain of them are due to be relieved. For instance, the 3rd Royal Anglians are due to be relieved in May, when they will have done only seven months' duty there. But they are being relieved in May because this follows a tour overseas elsewhere. The 1st Royal Northumberland Fusiliers are due to leave in June. I could go through the list, but most of the infantry units there now are due either to go home and be relieved, or to go home. A number are, in fact, being relieved by other units some time in the course of this summer.
As regards the ardousness of duty in Aden, which I think was the second part of the noble Lord's supplementary question, it is the view of the Government, which I share, that the tour is not too long. There is no doubt about the arduousness of the task of countering organised terrorism, which is a particu-
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larly unpleasant, worrying and thankless task; and it is not made any easier by unfounded allegations about their conduct.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD SHACKLETON: As I am sure your Lordships would agree, they are behaving with great courage and restraint, and, I believe, effectiveness.
LORD GRENFELL: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his answer.

DECIMAL CURRENCY: THE POUND UNIT
2.43 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: 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, in view of recent expressions of opinion in both Houses of Parliament on decimal currency, whether they will consult representative business, industrial professional and consumers' organisations before irrevocably committing themselves to a 20s. main unit.]
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, this task was carried out carefully and comprehensively by the Halsbury Committee, which was appointed by the previous Government. All the relevant evidence was taken into account by the Committee, and the Government gave full weight to the opinions which had been expressed before they took their decision. No new considerations have been put forward, either in general discussion or in the debates to which the noble Earl refers.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his reply, but is he bearing in mind that the White Paper was published only just before Christmas? Is it not usual, and wise, when a decision of such magnitude is about to be taken, that the Government should consult the people in the country who know most about it, outside as well as inside the City of London? And can the noble Earl say whether, since the White Paper was issued, any representations have been received by the Government from industrialists, chambers of

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commerce, trade unions and consumer organisations?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I could not answer the last question without notice, but may I submit to the noble Earl that the Government's decision in principle was announced in March last year, two and a half years after the Halsbury Committee had reported. So that there had been wide opportunity, both while the Committee were sitting and taking evidence and during the three years that elapsed before the White Paper was issued, to take into account all these considerations.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I appreciate that, my Lords, but is the noble Earl aware that the Chancellor's announcement on March 1 last year was made as a kind of momentary diversion, in the middle of his pre-Election Budget statement, at a time when many people's minds were a little preoccupied with other matters?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am not aware of that. I should regard it as a rather frivolous comment.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, does the noble Earl realise that there are people who are very disturbed about this decision, and is he aware that had the Halsbury Committee been sitting to-day they might possibly have felt that times have changed? Is he further aware that those of us—and I speak for myself—who would wish to support the Government are disturbed at the attitude the Government are taking by implying that the opposition comes from people whose views are really not worth considering, and that this is just not the case?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am very glad that the noble Baroness is strongly supporting the Government, in spite of any indications to the contrary.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: No; what I said was that I "would wish to".
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I gather, then, that she would wish to, and that there is still a reasonable chance of her doing so. I would fall back on the wise words that flowed from the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury—and nobody could
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accuse him of any Party bias—who in our last debate on this matter said:
"We are merely talking about a factor of two in the size of the major unit, and it is not an issue on which any man should express intemperate opinions."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30/1/67, col. 831.]
Very humbly and respectfully, I submit that to the House this afternoon.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware of the fact that the Decimal Currency Action Committee now has 16 organisations supporting it, among which are retail, distributive, manufacturing, commercial and transport interests? Will the noble Earl ask the Government to be kind enough to consult these representatives, who represent many millions of people in all these different fields?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, the Government—in fact Governments, both the last Government and this one—have now been considering this matter for over three years, and there comes a time when a Government must reach a decision. The decision has been reached. We shall always be very glad to hear from all these excellent people, but a decision has been reached.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, does the noble Earl realise that this is not a Party question at all? There are differing views on both sides of the House. Does it follow from what he has said that the Whips are going to be on, both in another place and here, on Government supporters to support the decision?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I am sorry that the noble Lord should have introduced the question of Party. I said nothing whatever about it.
LORD CARRINGTON: The noble Earl did.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: What did I say about Party? I give way to the noble Lord.
LORD CARRINGTON: The noble Earl quoted Lord Halsbury as saying that this was not a Party issue, and rather rebuked my noble friend.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, clearly, as usual, I have failed to make myself sufficiently articulate. I

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did not wish to introduce Party considerations at all. I quoted the words of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, who is a completely non-Party figure, in order to remove any sort of Party suggestion. This is not a question of Party consideration, but the Government have to reach a decision, and having reached the decision they must see it through.
LORD REDMAYNE: My Lords, why did the noble Earl quote the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, as saying that opinion expressed against the pound unit was intemperate? Is he therefore suggesting that all the multiplicity of opinion which is now being expressed is intemperate? Will he not understand, on behalf of the Government, that it is useless to use the argument that public opinion did not greatly express itself last March or thereafter, since public opinion regards this matter as something that is going to happen in the long-distant future, in 1971, and therefore it is only now, when the subject has become topical, that public opinion is expressing itself? Will not the Government listen to that opinion?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am sorry that I have made myself so completely misunderstood. I simply brought in someone who might be regarded as non-Party in order to indicate that I thought this was not in any way a Party question. If noble Lords have come here to-day determined to fasten some Party attitude on me, I would only suggest that there was nothing in what I said to support that position.
May I answer the point put by the noble Lord, Lord Redmayne? He made a very powerful speech on this question a short while ago and, with great respect, I would point out that we had a debate on it just over a month ago, and I do not think the House will want to debate it again to-day. There is a Bill now before the House of Commons, which is another reason perhaps for not wanting to go into this subject at great length. But if we are talking of public opinion, may I remind your Lordships that the noble Lord, Lord Redmayne, did say, only a month ago [OFFICIAL REPORT, 30/1/67, col. 800]:
"…if you put the question to those who have had no reason to give the subject great thought—and they are, after all, the vast
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majority of the people—they would express precisely the same sentiment"
in favour of the pound. Therefore, while I am putting what I believe to be the expert point of view, if we are going to judge by public opinion, the noble Lord concedes that it is in favour of the pound.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, if this is not a Party question, why do the Government not allow a free vote?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: The noble Lord is quite aware of the answer to that one. Many issues are not Party questions—one might say that the Common Market is not a Party question. There are all sorts of questions which are not Party questions, but finally the Government of the day have to make up their mind. When that point is reached, they have to see it through. The noble Lord is perfectly aware of that position.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, may I put this question to the Leader of the House? If it is necessary, contrary to what a great many people on his side and on the other sides think, to discipline the noble Earl's Party and Parliament on what are Party matters, is the Government's dictatorial attitude really going so far as to say that when there is something very like unanimity—at any rate, obviously a great majority opinion—in all parts of both Houses that a matter which the noble Earl admits is not a Party one requires reconsideration, that opinion is to receive no consideration?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I always defer to the noble Earl on any matter of experience and wisdom. But here I am bound to think that he comes under the censure of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury (whom we all respect so much), for his use of "intemperate" language. There is no question of unanimity in this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Redmayne, who has made such a speciality of this question concedes that the vast majority of the British people at this moment would favour the pound unit.
LORD REDMAYNE: My Lords, if I may take up that point of the noble Earl, that was precisely the point of my supplementary. There was no urgency in the mind of the people on this matter, because they regarded it as being a long way off

1325
—in 1971. But now that it has become topical, public opinion is aroused and the Government should pay attention to it.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, if I were not a rather biased participant in these discussions, I should venture to suggest to the noble Lord that he was making a speech.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask the Government to consider this point, which might help them very much? Will they publicly change their mind and then see the outcry which will come in favour of the pound unit?
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, in view of the differences of opinion on this subject, does not the noble Earl consider it a little disappointing that, when my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve produced a very effective compromise between the two systems, he received no reply whatsoever from the Government speaker?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I should not like to criticise in any way any proposals which flowed from such a great industrial expert as the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve. But I would repeat that the Halsbury Committee reported in the autumn of 1963, so there was plenty of time for compromises before 1967.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, would it not be expedient, from the point of view of public relations, at a time when the Government have been accused, rightly or wrongly, of "steam-rollering", to allow a free vote on a matter which does not raise any question of social justice or Party policy?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I was not quite sure when the noble Lady began which side she was on, but I gather she is not on the side of the Government. Is that right?
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, I am very much on the side of the Government. I want their public relations to be as good as possible.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lady for calling my attention to the need for better public relations. But may I say that this is an important economic issue;
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and it is one that should be determined in the interests of the ultimate welfare of the British people, and not, if I may say so with great respect, in the interests of the public relations of any particular Government.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, if they have not already done so, will Her Majesty's Government consult the foreign bankers with regard to the international aspect of this matter, bearing in mind that this is something which the Halsbury Committee did not do, the Halsbury Committee having been told by the Bank of England that it was no use consulting foreign bankers because different foreign bankers might give different replies?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord's suggestion would help the cause of those who favour the smaller unit. We are told that the opinion would be likely to be in favour of the pound unit. But, seriously, to say at this time of the day that we have to go back and consult foreign bankers, would be, I think, a derogation from our own British strength.
LORD AIREDALE: But the foreign bankers have not been consulted so far, because the Bank of England persuaded the Halsbury Committee not to consult them.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I cannot say off-hand whether they have or have not been consulted. But there is no doubt whatever that those concerned with international trade have been thoroughly consulted.
LORD HARLECH: Yes, my Lords, but since the Halsbury Committee reported has it not become very clear that this idea that foreign bankers might take flight from the pound because it was a 10s. unit rather than a pound unit is now not supported by anybody?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am not sure whether there is a clash between the noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Airedale, seeemed to be stressing the need for our looking at the international aspects of the matter, but in fact he is well aware that the Government consider that the arguments in favour of the course proposed are both international and national, and in each case

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all those most relevant have at some time been consulted.
LORD HARLECH: My Lords, did I not understand the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that he no longer laid any stress on the international argument?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I do not think that is right. I think he said that more stress is now laid on the national aspect.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, since the noble Earl the Leader of the House has said in answer to most of the supplementaries that he is not quite sure whether or not the questioner is on the side of the Government, may I ask him this question? Does he not think it possible that some of the Socialist Back-Benchers are on the side of the Government; and if he thinks that possible, why should their request for a debate before the Second Reading comes up be ignored?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I gather that is intended to be ironical, but, frankly, I do not think it is a contribution to this discussion. May I, with very great deference, suggest to the House that I have been given quite a good run around, as one might say, and that we might perhaps now pass on to the other business.

LINER TRAINS
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, at some convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble friend Lord Hughes will be making a Statement upon open terminals for liner trains.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER BILL
2.57 p.m.
Report of Amendments received (according to Order).
Clause 5:
Matters subject to investigation
5.—
(4) Nothing in this section shall be construed as authorising or requiring the Commissioner to review by way of appeal any decision taken by a government department or other authority in the exercise of a discretion vested in that department or authority.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to leave out subsection (4). The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the first Amendment on the Order Paper, to leave out subsection (4) of Clause 5. This arises out of Amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wade, and the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, on the Committee stage, when the noble Lord, Lord Wade, said that he would prefer to see subsection (4) taken out altogether; he would be happier if it were not in the Bill at all. He said:
"I am anxious that the Commissioner should be free to investigate where he thinks fit, and I am not sure that that is quite clear at the moment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21/2/67, col. 676.]
The noble Lord, Lord Harlech, said:
"I think we all appreciate that the Parliamentary Commissioner cannot become a sort of Court of Appeal against every ministerial decision. This would make Government impossible. But also we are anxious—and here I agree with my noble friend—that Departments or Ministers should not avoid investigation simply by declaring that the decision they had taken was one which was in exercise of the discretion vested in them by Act of Parliament".—[col. 679.]
I also said that I thought it was clear what we all wanted. On the one hand, we wanted the Commissioner, whether or not at the end of the day there was a question of discretion, to be perfectly free to investigate; while, on the other hand, if, having investigated, he found that there was no maladministration at all he was not to be a one-man Court of Appeal from a question of policy or discretion vested in a Minister by Parliament.
I ventured to express the view that the subsection was, perhaps, open to misinterpretation in the clause in which it

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was in the Bill, because everything else in the clause was a statement as to when the Commissioner could investigate and when he could not. I was therefore a little apprehensive about the fact that where in such a clause you find a subsection which says that the Commissioner may not review something, it might, rightly or wrongly, be argued that, being in a clause the marginal note to which is Matters subject to investigation, with everything else in the clause defining his sphere of investigation, the effect was that when at the end of the day there was a discretion there could be no investigation.
I said that it would be my intention, if those Amendments were withdrawn, to move on the Report stage, first, an Amendment deleting this subsection, and then, in a later part of the Bill, an Amendment to insert a clause to make it clear that where, having investigated, the Parliamentary Commissioner was satisfied that there was no maladministration it was not for him to review on the merits a decision taken in the exercise of a statutory discretion. This is what this Amendment and Amendment No. 7 do, and I naturally move this Amendment on the footing that Amendment No. 7 will be accepted, but no doubt we can argue No. 7 when we come to it. I hope that this Amendment will therefore be a popular choice. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 10, leave out subsection (4).—(The Lord Chancellor.)
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, may I say very humbly to the noble Lord the Lord Chancellor that, as a layman, I am very glad he has withdrawn this subsection? I am not dealing now with the later Amendment, of course; but during the Second Reading debate, speaking for people with no legal knowledge, I said I found this subsection very difficult to understand, and I should like to express my very great appreciation to the Lord Chancellor for withdrawing it.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I think that the suggestion of the learned and noble Lord the Lord Chancellor was that we should take this Amendment fairly shortly, and should discuss the substitute for it at whatever length the House thinks fit when we come to Amendment No. 7. If that is so,
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then I do not wish to say anything at this stage, but will reserve any remarks I might have until the discussion on the later Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 10:
Reports by Commissioner
10.—
(3) If, after conducting an investigation under this Act, it appears to the Commissioner that injustice has been caused to the person aggrieved in consequence of maladministration and that the injustice has not been, or will not be, remedied, he may, if he thinks fit, lay before the House of Commons a special report upon the case
(4) The Commissioner shall annually lay before the House of Commons a general report on the performance of his functions under this Act and may from time to time lay before that House such other reports with respect to those functions as he thinks fit.
(5) For the purposes of the law of defamation, any such publication as is hereinafter mentioned shall be absolutely privileged, that is to say—

(a) the publication of any matter by the Commissioner in making a report to the House of Commons for the purposes of this Act;

(b) the publication of any matter by a member of that House in communicating with the Commissioner or his officers for those purposes or by the Commissioner or his officers in communicating with such a member for those purposes;

3.2 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved, in subsection (3), to leave out "the House of Commons" and insert "each House of Parliament". The noble Viscount said: My Lords, this Amendment concerns basically a Lords Minister and a special report made by the Parliamentary Commissioner under this Bill. This matter has been discussed twice, first on Second Reading and also when my noble friend Lord Harlech moved an Amendment during the Committee stage, which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said three times, I think, that he would look at again. I think that at that time the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, was not altogether sure of the merits of this point, but I would think there are two matters which ought to be considered.
First of all, there is the position of this House if a Member of it who is

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either a Minister at the time or (perhaps, in some cases, more important) who has been a Minister, either in a previous Government or in a previous form of the same Government, but is no longer in that position, is criticised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for something which he or his Department have done. So long as this House exists in its present form, I very much hope that we shall always have the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, of whatever Party, in charge of his Department and sitting here. I well recall, from various discourses that the noble and learned Lord has given us about the duties of his Department, that he has indicated that he has to deal with a very wide range of subjects. He has explained this at great length, and indeed has led us to believe that it is the job of a superman to fit in all these tasks in the 24 hours of a day; and I well believe it. Each one of them, however, might well be the subject of the sort of criticism which would go to the Parliamentary Commissioner.
The Lord Chancellor's Department is his own responsibility. Any Minister in another place would hardly be able adequately to answer for what was done by the noble and learned Lord and his Department, and he would be the only person who could give a satisfactory explanation of a decision which had been taken. If the Parliamentary Commissioner reported—and, of course, I use this only as an example, because there are other Ministers with departmental duties who might well sit in this House—and made an adverse report upon one of the activities of the noble and learned Lord's Department, then, as the Bill stands at the present moment that report would go only to another place. I think, first of all, it would be very difficult for this House, in those circumstances, to debate it; and, secondly, there are grave difficulties about a Member of this House—and a Minister is no exception in this respect—going to give evidence or to appear in front of a Select Committee in another place.
In these circumstances, I find it difficult to see how Parliament would be able to examine a Minister who sat in this House on the subject matter of a report made by the Parliamentary Commissioner—and, of course, the whole essence
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of this Bill is that Parliament should be able to examine Ministers, Ministers of this House being no exception. Therefore, notwithstanding the difficulties which might arise under Standing Orders and things of that nature, which I would have thought did not necessarily arise or need to be discussed on this Amendment, but could be dealt with later by the appropriate Committee, I think we at any rate need to found a jurisdiction for ourselves to discuss these matters, either in the House itself or, if we choose to set up some other form of machinery, by that means. This must mean, I think, that the special report of the Parliamentary Commissioner must also be made to this House, so that where it concerns a Minister who sits here we may have proper cognisance of it and may deal accordingly with it. That is the first point, and I do not think it is in fact all that different in principle from the one which is the subject matter of the later Amendment to be moved by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor himself, providing that annual reports, which might include such criticisms, although perhaps not so directly or personally, should in fact come to this House. I think the principle is very much the same.
The other point is the Minister's own position. It may well be that in most cases this House will think fit to dispense with its Rules—I do not know—and allow a Lords Minister to go and give evidence, perhaps, in front of a Select Committee of another place; or there might be machinery incorporating some of your Lordships in the Select Committee in those circumstances. That, I think, is not the point. But unless we make this House capable of dealing with these reports, a Minister who sits here may have grave difficulty in defending himself and the work of his Department. I think it would be proper for this House to ask him to do so, since he is a Member of it; and I think we should like to hear his explanation. But I think, above all, that he ought to have the opportunity in his own House to get up and explain the conduct of which he is accused, and try to make out his justification for acting in the way in which he did.
I think my Amendment on this special report from the Parliamentary Commissioner would set the scene for both these

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matters being put right. It is not the complete answer in itself, but I think it would bring this House into the picture in such a way that we could make other arrangements to deal with the perhaps more complicated but I think subsidiary matters of the machinery by which these investigations could in fact take place. I therefore hope that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton (if it is he who is to reply), may have considered this matter more favourably in the interim, and may now be able to accept this Amendment as embodying no different principle at all from that in the Amendment about the annual report which the Government themselves are to move. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 32, leave out ("the House of Commons") and insert ("each House of Parliament")—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD REAY: My Lords, I should like to support the Amendment of the noble Viscount. Apart from the reasons which he himself has given in support of it on the grounds that there might be cases of Ministers in this House against whom such a report is directed, these occasional reports are still reports made by the Parliamentary Commissioner, as he is to be called. I cannot see what the Government stand to lose by agreeing to lay these special reports before both Houses of Parliament. I accept, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said in Committee, that it seems to be the Government's intention that they should be referred to a special Committee which will consist only of Members of another place, but this decision is always one which could be changed by the Government, and changed independently of the future of this Bill; and, indeed, it might be possible that they will change their minds and set up a Committee comprising Members of both Houses.
But even if the reports are to go to a Select Committee formed only of Members of the House of Commons, I suppose this House might in practice feel some inhibition or some frustration when it came to the question of debating them; whereas, if they were laid here also, I think that, when the time came that this House wanted to debate one of these reports, the Government could less easily argue that it was not the business of this House to do so. It seems to me that that is a sufficient
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reason for supporting this Amendment, and if it came to a Division I think I should tend to support it in that Division.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I should like to say a word or two in support of the Amendment. This House not infrequently debates cases of alleged injustice to particular individuals. Very often, this House has more time than another place to devote to matters of that kind. Very often this House can arrange debates on matters of that kind more speedily than is possible in another place. I should have thought there was no better example of a proper subject for debate of this kind in your Lordships' House than a case falling within this subsection, where the Parliamentary Commissioner had found that injustice had been done to some particular individual and it appeared that the injustice would not be remedied. I think it would be a very great shame if this House were to feel in any way embarrassed at debating matters of this kind because this House had not officially been given the special report of the Commissioner into the case so that it seemed that in some way this was a matter that was being reserved for another place and not for this House. I should have thought the Government might well give way and accept this Amendment in order that these particular cases could freely be debated in this House just as easily as in another place.
3.13 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, first of all I should like to congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, on hitting on a point both of great interest and of some real substance. It is the intention of the Government to accept this Amendment. I should like to give a little background, because it relates closely to some of the other material in the noble Viscount's speech. I know he suggested that perhaps we should not go into this at any great length to-day, but it is the basis of the Government's thinking in this matter.
On the Committee stage I suggested that these reports were primarily concerned with matters referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner by Members of another House. Your Lordships, by a quite decisive vote, decided that we did not ourselves wish to have access to the Parliamentary Commissioner. It is right

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(and here I think there will be no disagreement) that in this matter the Select Committee of the Commons will be the body to whom the Parliamentary Commissioner will turn in regard to those matters on which it is appropriate for him to consult them and to whom he wishes to refer matters of dispute.
In accepting the Amendment I am not accepting it so much in the terms of the argument which the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, advanced; that this will be the place where we might have more time to discuss questions of individual injustice. I do not deny for one moment your Lordships' right and indeed, in certain circumstances, your duty, to raise particular cases. But traditionally—and I am sure most noble Lords will agree—these are matters which tend on the whole to be essentially constituency matters, which will fall to be dealt with in another place. When I was resisting the Amendment on the Committee stage I suggested that there would be nothing to stop your Lordships from raising a particular case here, and that what we wanted was a situation in which, while the report did not come to us it was, so to speak, "copied" to us. This aroused some indignation on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, but it represented to my mind precisely the sort of relationship that I believe existed. We did not ourselves necessarily want to get directly involved in these special reports; but we wished to be able to take cognisance of them and, like any copy addressee, if necessary, to weigh in.
The noble Lord raised a more fundamental issue than that: the relationship between this House and another place. He suggested that difficulties might arise over the possible request of a Member of this House to give evidence before the Select Committee on a matter of which this House had no cognisance, or on which it was not likely, officially, to see the report. The Government have decided—I think rightly and it in no way fetters your Lordships in any action you take—that this is clearly a matter in which, in the interests of good relations between the two Houses, and on the merits of the case put forward by the noble Viscount, all the appropriate reports which the Parliamentary Commis-
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sioner may issue should be laid before both Houses of Parliament. The Government are going to accept the Amendment.
I should like just to touch briefly on the wider question of whether Members of your Lordships' House can be summoned to appear before a Select Committee in another place. Obviously, this is a matter which, in the first instance should perhaps be examined by the Committee on Procedure. It may be that we shall even wish to talk about it further on Third Reading. I have made a few preliminary inquiries of my own, and, while I do not wish to suggest that what I say is authoritative, I am reasonably satisfied about the situation, notwithstanding the rather restrictive nature of Standing Order No. 22.
That Order states:
"No Lord shall either go down to the House of Commons or send his answer in writing, or appear by counsel, to answer any accusation there."
That was a Standing Order of 1674. In fact, this House appears to have taken a lenient view of this Standing Order and in a number of cases in the past did not enforce it at all. If any noble Lord wished to examine the authorities, he would find that there have been a number of cases, going back to the Duke of Buckingham; and later on a predecessor of the noble Lord, Lord Somers, was freely allowed to attend in another place. This was dependent on the interpretation, I think, of the word "accusation".
In 1805, however, your Lordships took rather a more restrictive—I should have thought more precise—view of the meaning of this Standing Order in the case of Lord Melville. But even then, they applied their restrictions within definite limits and, on the advice of the Committee for Privileges, came to the view that:
"…it appears undeniably by uniform series of precedents down to the present time that the course adopted by the House respecting the giving leave to Members of this House to go down to the House of Commons has been first to permit the Members of this House on their own request to defend themselves in the House of Commons if they think fit on any points which that House had not previously passed any accusatory or criminating resolution against them."
Noble Lords who are historians will recall that it was not long before that date that the House of Commons had

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passed a very frankly criminating resolution with regard to Lord Melville. Notwithstanding that, he did subsequently go down, although he did not appear before the Select Committee but appeared before the whole House. I think, therefore, that there is a long tradition in this matter that your Lordships have been given permission to attend in another place.
The Parliamentary Commissioner, although he himself has the power of a court of record, will not be operating, as the Swedish Ombudsman does, as a prosecutor. As we know, the Swedish Ombudsman can bring people before the administrative court. Our scheme is a practical, very typically British-adapted arrangement designed to put wrong right in the quickest and most effective way. I am sure that in this matter it is likely that this House will continue to take the liberal view that they have done for several centuries past. None the less, I would agree with the noble Lord that this is a matter which might be examined by the Committee on Procedure, if only because it appears that in this day we are likely to take a more precise view of the meaning of a Standing Order than perhaps in the lackadaisical days in the past in your Lordships' House. Therefore I must congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. I have not been able to give as full a constitutional account of the position as I should have liked, because this is based only on some final reading I did a short while before the debate; but I am sure that your Lordships are glad that these reports will be coming before your Lordships' House.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and I think that the House is, too. It must be a matter of rejoicing to him that in his position as Deputy Leader he has been able to take some active step which I think will add to the comity between the two Houses, which is of great importance and was, I think, the fundamental point which this Amendment raised. I agree with the noble Lord that it may well be that in the vast majority of cases your Lordships will not wish to discuss the special reports at all, but I was anxious that there should be no bar upon the House doing so, which seemed to me to be the case.
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Finally, my Lords, so far as Standing Order No. 22 is concerned, I agree with the noble Lord that this should go to the Committee on Procedure. But he will of course recognise that it would have been singularly difficult for the Committee on Procedure to make any general or any particular ruling on this if the subject-matter of the report was not before the House at all. This was the difficulty that I foresaw and which the noble Lord, in accepting this Amendment, has, I think, wholly done away with. I am therefore very grateful to him, and I hope that the House will agree that this Amendment should be made.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (4), to leave out "the House of Commons" and insert "each House of Parliament". The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, if no noble Lord disagrees I would venture to address your Lordships on Amendments Nos. 3, 4, 5 and 6 together and then to move them, because they all relate to exactly the same point. These Amendments arise out of an Amendment moved from the Liberal Benches on the Committee stage and relate to the publication of the annual report.
I apologise for the fact that I have this afternoon, on this and other Amendments, to carry on something of a colloquy with noble Lords on the Liberal Benches, while at the same time turning my back on them. This, as your Lordships may know, is entirely due to Thomas Cromwell. Henry VIII passed an Act the object of which was to get the Archbishops off the steps of the Throne and sitting where they now sit, and to get Thomas Cromwell on the steps of the Throne, because he was the man whom Henry had decided would despoil the monasteries. He was to preside over Convocation, though he had never been ordained; in fact, he had not even got a university degree. That being the object of the Act, in order to camouflage it King Henry VIII also laid down in the Act where a number of other people were to sit, so that it looked merely as though it was an Act to arrange where people were to sit. It was there laid down, and is still law, that the two seats nearest the Throne in front of the

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Benches now occupied by the Liberal Party were, and indeed still are, the seats of the two Royal Dukes. The third seat is the Lord Chancellor's seat. Of course, he has not sat on it for about 350 years, because he always sits on the Woolsack. The reason why, though a member of the Government, I address your Lordships from the Opposition side of the House instead of from the Government side is that that is where I should be if I got up from the seat that I have not sat on for 350 years. I am not sure that this is not a point which ought to engage the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Alport, or other reformers, at some stage. I apologise for turning my back to them in this way.
The noble Lord, Lord Wade, contended that at least the annual reports ought to be put before this House as well as the other House. I said I was quite prepared to accept that on the part of the Government, though I had been advised that the noble Lord's wording was not quite correct and that some consequential Amendment would be needed. My Lords, this Amendment gives effect to that undertaking, and the remaining Amendments are the consequential Amendments referred to. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 34, leave out ("the House of Commons") and insert ("each House of Parliament").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
3.23 p.m.
LORD REAY: My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has pointed out, since this Amendment was in substance moved in Committee stage by my noble friend Lord Wade (who, incidentally, regrets very much that he is unable to be here this afternoon), I should like to say that we on these Benches are very grateful to the Government for accepting it in this its improved version. The arguments advanced now and then seemed sound, and if there is a justification for the title of "Parliamentary Commissioner", and any justification for the responsibility of this House for his removal from office he must, at some level, be made accountable to this House, and it should be made formally clear that his work is open for us to debate and to comment upon. I think this has been made clear, and we
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are pleased that the Government have seen fit to introduce this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 4.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 36, leave out ("that House") and insert ("each House of Parliament").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 5.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 43, leave out ("the House of Commons") and insert ("either House of Parliament").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 6.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 1, leave out ("that House") and insert ("the House of Commons").—(The Lord chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 12 [Interpretation]:
3.28 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to add to the clause:
"It is hereby declared that nothing in this Act authorises or requires the Commissioner to question the merits of a decision taken without maladministration by a government department or other authority in the exercise of a discretion vested in that department or authority."
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is the other Amendment which I agreed to move on Report stage in association with Amendment No. 1. I hope it does that which we have all, I think, always intended. As the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, said on Committee stage, no Government could tolerate a Commissioner being made a one-man Court of Appeal from a discretionary decision. This Amendment makes clear that it is in no way restricting what the Commissioner investigates. The Amendment reads:
"It is hereby declared that nothing in this Act authorises or requires the Commissioner to question the merits of a decision taken without maladministration by a government department or other authority in the exercise of a discretion vested in that department or authority."
Parliament has, of course, left many questions of policy and discretion to Ministers. Whether you have a new town at place A or place B is a question of discretion, and no one, I think, ever intended that the Parliamentary Commissioner should express an opinion on the merits of what, at the end of the day, is a question of discretion. I hope, therefore, that this meets with the approval of the House, and accordingly I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 28, at end insert the said subsection.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, as I have an Amendment to this Amendment on the Marshalled List, I think it is correct that I should say a word now as to the Amendment which I was proposing to move—
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, will the noble Lord be moving his Amendment now?
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I think it is in order if I now move Amendment No. 8, which is to insert in the proposed new subsection, after the word "taken", the words, "in good faith". The purpose of this Amendment to the Amendment is to ensure that "maladministration" refers not only to the machinery of collecting the matters which require consideration at the time the consideration is made and placing them before the person considering them in exercising his discretion upon them, but also to the actual careful consideration of all those matters by the person about to exercise his discretion.
If maladministration includes all those things, then I shall concede that this Amendment to insert "in good faith" will be unnecessary and I shall be pleased to withdraw it. But if maladministration means merely the machinery of collecting the documents together and the matters which have to be considered, and no more, then I submit that it would be appropriate to accept the Amendment so as to make certain that it is necessary, in order to escape the attention of the Parliamentary Commissioner, that the person about to exercise his discretion in a case shall have carefully considered all the matters requiring consideration in good faith at the time that his discretion is exercised. I beg to move.
Amendment to Amendment moved—
Line 3, after ("taken") insert ("in good faith and").—(Lord Airedale.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: If I may comment first on the Amendment to the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, I shall of course be interested to hear what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has to say about it, but the impression I have received from reading the Reports of the various stages of the Bill in another place and in your Lordships' House is that we cannot define maladministration by any series of nouns which attempt to put in extra synonyms, because we shall always leave out some set of circumstances which might conceivably arise. Therefore, the best thing to do is to accept the fact that when we find maladministration we shall recognise it even if we cannot define it in advance.
I should have thought that to add another phrase to the definition of the circumstances in which the Parliamentary Commissioner can act might have a confusing rather than a clarifying effect, because it would then appear that, on the one hand, there is maladministration, including all the plethora of circumstances which have been exemplified elsewhere, and on the other, a lack of good faith. I should think that if it could be spotted in time to appeal to the High Court, lack of good faith in itself would be a reason to ask the court to overturn the Minister's decision. I do not know what would have happened when Mr. Franklin sued the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, about the original Stevenage New Town. I understand fully and accept that the matter was done in the best of faith but, if it had been clear that the noble Lord had acted in bad faith, then I think that the court might have come to a decision other than the one it came to—but nothing of the kind happened. Here is where we impinge on the jurisdiction of the court itself, and I suspect that here we ought to be really careful.
Coming to the Amendment itself, I am sorry to see the end of the phrase "review by way of appeal", which at one stage I thought I had begun to understand. I hope that I am not going to add to the muddle about this by what I am going to say. But I would ask what is now going to happen. If there is no

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maladministration, in whatever form it may be defined, we cannot ask the Parliamentary Commissioner to consider the merits of a decision; but if there is maladministration, then not only that maladministration itself but also the decision that was reached by that means is open to being impugned. If that is so, as I think it is, we have an important clarification of this matter, which I do not think could have been immediately read out of the old Clause 5(4). It may well be that we have here the clearer statement of the matter which everybody was seeking at Second Reading.
I should like to make a suggestion to the noble and learned Lord. This is an important matter. It goes to the root of the whole relationship of the Parliamentary Commissioner to Government in all its forms. Is it not perhaps a pity to put in this declaratory subsection as part of the ragtag and bobtail of definitions in Clause 12? Does it not merit a clause of its own, with a separate side-note so that attention is attracted to it? I suggest that to the noble and learned Lord, because this is an important matter to which everybody's mind ought to be drawn.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: First, as to Amendment No. 7, I agree with the construction given to it by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. As to the suggestion that it should be given a more prominent place, this is a matter of opinion and of presentation, but I will consider it before Third Reading.
All your Lordships must agree that my noble friend Lord Shackleton and I have leant over backwards to be as accommodating as possible so far this afternoon, but I am afraid that the limit of accommodation has been reached on the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, really for the reasons given by the noble Viscount. We have all agreed that maladministration is the widest possible word. It certainly includes bad faith and delay. I said on Second Reading that it covers negligence, ineptitude and dishonesty. These are things which everybody recognises. Maladministration is difficult to define, but I should like to make clear that it certainly includes bad faith.
If it is then said that, if we agree that it includes bad faith, what can be the
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harm in putting in the Bill, "in good faith", one difficulty at least is—I think that all lawyers, including the noble Viscount, would agree—that if we put in here "in good faith" the legal mind will then say, "Ah, ha! Maladministration does not include bad faith wherever else we find it, otherwise it would not have been necessary to put in the words 'in good faith' in this particular clause" That is the main reason why I am afraid I cannot accept the Amendment.
LORD AIREDALE: I am not surprised to learn that the limit of the Government's accommodation has been reached and that this Amendment is not acceptable. My noble friend Lord Wade and I put it down only as a probing Amendment. We hoped it would draw from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor the kind of assurance that it has drawn, I am glad to say, and in these circumstances I am very happy to ask to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment to Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

FREIGHT-LINER TERMINALS
3.40 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES): My Lords, it may be convenient for the House if at this stage I repeat a Statement which is being made by my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport in another place. I will make use of her own words:
"As the House will know, I have during the last week been holding intensive discussions with the National Union of Railway men on the opening of freight-liner terminals to all road haulage vehicles. The dispute between the National Union of Railwaymen and the Railways Board over open terminals was a long-standing one which had prevented the full use of freight-liner services, and the opportunity to discuss it further arose when the Union asked to see me on February 16 about the completion of the Transport Holding Company's acquisition of the Tartan Arrow Company. I am happy to be able to tell the House that, in the light of the discussions and of the assurances given, the N.U.R. Executive withdrew their objection to open terminals and

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agreed to co-operate in the full expansion of the freight-liner network.
"It is a primary aim of my policy to exploit to the full the railways' ability to transport large flows of freight in containers with maximum efficiency; this will be a vital element in developing the new railways.
"The Railways Board will shortly be putting forward for my approval proposals for the investment of some £7 million in Stage 2 of the freightliner project. Expenditure of this order could not have been economically justified without open terminals. The Board will also be seeking my approval for further investment in cartage vehicles to service the freight-liners, and this is expected to total about£2 million. With the establishment of open terminals, I confidently expect that these proposals will prove to be soundly based.
"I am anxious that the Railway Workshops should share in the benefits of the expansion of the freight-liner network, and I have just approved the setting up of a modern and efficient container production line which will enable the Derby workshops to manufacture up to at least 4,000 containers a year. The removal of the present restrictions on the Board's powers of manufacture which I shall propose in my forthcoming Transport Bill will also help to ensure that the railway workshops in general, on whose modernisation some £17 million has been spent in the past few years, are used to their fullest extent.
"As I said in the House before Christmas, the British Railways Board and the Transport Holding Company have already taken the first steps to create an integrated freight system by establishing joint machinery to promote interworking in the parcels and sundries field. As a further step towards integration it has now been agreed between the Railways Board and the Transport Holding Company that the Board will take a50 per cent. holding in Tartan Arrow, and so become joint owners with the Transport Holding Company. The Board and the Holding Company will make an immediate start on securing that mutual benefits to be derived from joint ownership of Tartan Arrow even before the legal formalities are completed. Discussions will cover
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means of integrating the use of trains and job opportunities. There will be full consultation with all the Unions concerned.
"The Chairman of the Railways Board has reaffirmed the assurances already offered to railwaymen that there will be no redundancies among cartage or other railway workers as a result of the opening of the terminals to private hauliers and that earnings will be suitably safeguarded. The Board will shortly be starting discussions with the trade unions with the aim of translating these assurances into an agreement which will meet specific points raised by the N.U.R. Executive.
"The service planned by Tartan Arrow will be starting between their own depots at London and Glasgow next month with one train daily in each direction. The Railways Board also intend to add further trains to their own London—Glasgow service in the near future as traffic expands with the establishment of open terminals.
"In these ways we shall continue to work towards the fullest use of freight-liners. I look forward to the continuing expansion of this traffic in which I am confident that all sections of the railway industry will share."
My Lords, that concludes my right honourable friend's Statement.
3.46 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for this Statement, and also for kindly furnishing me with a copy of it. Is the noble Lord aware that there is great interest in this subject, and that a settlement of this three-year-old dispute, which has been depriving us of the great value of Lord Beeching's brilliant innovation, is welcome indeed? There are several questions I should like to ask the noble Lord by way of clarification.
Is the noble Lord aware that there is some anxiety about the arrangements by which the depots have been opened to Tartan Arrow by the nationalised industries buying out Tartan Arrow? Will the noble Lord assure us that now all liner train depots will be unconditionally opened to all private hauliers? Secondly, is the noble Lord aware that the innovation of the

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rail workshops manufacturing containers will be carefully watched to ensure that the railway workshops are not put on a basis to compete with private manufacturers by means of a wasteful subsidy?
Is the noble Lord able to tell us now what overall increase in freight traffic is forecast for the next 12 months, and whether it will be enough to reverse the falling trend of freight traffic over the last two years? Then, is the noble Lord satisfied that the rates to be charged for this service are set at a level which will help to reduce British Railways' deficit, and are not set at an uneconomically low level in order simply to attract traffic off the roads? Finally, can the noble Lord tell us whether in fact any jobs will become superfluous as a result of this very welcome statement?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his welcome of this Statement, which I am quite certain is a welcome generally felt by all Members of your Lordships' House. He has set me quite a considerable task in the variety of questions he has asked. If I may take them not necessarily in the order in which he tabled them, I will do my best to answer.
The noble Lord asked whether there will be any jobs which will become superfluous. He is aware of the fact that my right honourable friend's Statement says that the jobs of those presently employed by the Railways Board will be safeguarded. That, one would imagine, will be done in the ordinary way: that such diminution of employment as may be necessary will arise in the ordinary way through wastage rather than dismissals. On the subject of whether the rates that will be charged will be such as to reduce the deficit, I think that is implicit in the Statement. The whole object of the liner trains arose because Lord Beeching and the Railways Board thought that this was a method by which the railways could take traffic on a remunerative basis; and it would obviously be the height of folly to invest money of this order if it were thought that at the end of the day the deficit would have increased. So I can give a firm assurance that the intention is as the noble Lord hopes.
The noble Lord asked what the freight might be over the next twelve months.
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I am not in a position to give any answer to that question, other than this. At the present time the amount of freight is believed to be at the rate of some 750,000 tons a year. The estimate made by the Railways Board some three years ago was that the potential traffic would be some 30 million tons a year. The rate at which we can proceed over the next twelve months must be a matter upon which the advice of a former distinguished Prime Minister is appropriate: let us wait and see.
Because of the speed with which the noble Lord put these questions I wrote them down hurriedly, and I am unable to read my own writing. I think he asked something about the opening of the workshops, and whether there would be a subsidy or whether they would be operated on a commercial basis. I think the answer which I have given to the other question about the rates to be applied is equally appropriate in the case of the opening of the workshops. A considerable amount of money had been invested in these workshops. The purpose of the Government's proposals in relation to the manufacturing activities which are to be available is that the workshops shall be developed in the most economic fashion and that the best possible use shall be made of the money invested in them. I can assure the noble Lord that it is the intention of the Government that this will be work of economic value, and that object would be frustrated if we were merely encouraging them to do things on which they were going to lose money.
The final point to which I am going to reply was, I think, the noble Lord's first one; namely, would all depots be open unconditionally to all hauliers? Whether I would be justified at this stage in putting it exactly in those words I am not quite certain, but it will not have escaped the noble Lord's notice that my right honourable friend's Statement refers specifically to open depots, and when she talks about open depots I think she means exactly what she says.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I do not think we ought to pass from this matter without congratulating my right honourable friend on the successful outcome of an extremely difficult set of negotiations. I happen to have been able to look at these negotiations both from

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the Government side and also, as a member, still, of the N.U.R., from the N.U.R. side. I should like to feel that we all recognise the tremendous amount of work that my right honourable friend has done and the common sense of the Executive of the N.U.R. in arriving at a settlement which will safeguard their essential interests and at the same time ensure the better use of our railways.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, could the noble Lord make one point clear? In the Statement the Minister spoke in general terms of assurances given to the N.U.R., and then, later in the Statement, instances were given of a number of such assurances. Can the noble Lord say that the total number of assurances are those read out by the noble Lord to the House and that no other assurances were given, such as a long period of time for manufacture, or assurances in some other direction of which we have not heard?
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for the answers which he gave to my questions. On the last point, may I just ask him this further question? Is he aware that the terms of his Statement appear to be rather guarded in regard to the general opening of the terminals as compared with the opening for the Tartan Arrow Company? Further, is the noble Lord aware that it is on this point that public opinion generally has the strongest possible feeling that the wish is to see these depots open to all road traffic?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, perhaps if I were to indicate the build-up of the services it would give some reassurance to the noble Lord. There are now seven two-way services, five days a week, carrying some 1,350 containers weekly. Expansion to 27 services a week by the end of 1967 is planned. Under Stage 1 the present terminals are London (York Way), Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Aberdeen. The rest of Stage 1 comprises terminals at London (Willesden), Cardiff, Newcastle-on-Tyne, London (Stratford), Stockton, Sheffield, Leeds, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Hull. Stage 2 consists of eight more terminals, but I cannot yet state precisely where these will be.
To reply to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, I
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think the Minister's Statement is very forthcoming about the assurances that have been given. It would be equally wrong to attempt to read into the Statement more than is in it or, on the contrary, to assume that anything has been deliberately omitted from it.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER BILL
3.57 p.m.
Report stage resumed.
LORD REAY LORD REAY moved to add to the clause:
"() For the purposes of this Act the term maladministration shall not of itself be understood to exclude those cases where, notwithstanding the fact that administrative procedures may have been properly followed, an arbitrary and unreasonable decision by a government department or other authority resulted in an injustice."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 7, which was moved by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, certainly improves the Bill. As the noble Viscount pointed out, it admits the principle that the merits of certain discretionary decisions—namely, those which have not been taken without maladministration, and, therefore, presumably those in which there has been some maladministration—may be questioned by the Parliamentary Commissioner. But what it will admit in practice remains conjectural, because maladministration is undefined in the Bill. The noble Viscount pointed out that in fact it would be almost impossible to give a definition to "maladministration". My Amendment does not attempt to do this, but seeks to make explicit that the term, in its application, can include what it might well otherwise be taken not to include; namely, cases where, however correct the procedures were—if no delay was incurred, no files were lost, no instructions disobeyed, no behaviour lax—nevertheless the decision taken was ultimately both arbitrary and unreasonable.
I think this is, more or less, what most people, who were disturbed about it in the early stages of the Bill, want to see. They want it to be quite clear that the arbitrary, perverse, unjust and unreasonable consequences of administration, however correctly the established formulae of administrative procedure

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may be observed, are open to direct investigation. I would go further and suggest that this possibly represents the most crucial area of the field with which this Bill is concerned, and that failure to make this clear is the principal reason for that lack of public acclaim which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, complained of on Second Reading.
It is argued, I think, by the Government, and also by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, in a rather frightening alliance that they seem to have established, that the term "maladministration" already covers these cases. I think this opinion may well be wrong. In those examples I have given, namely in cases where files have been lost, instructions have been disobeyed, and so on, an explanation can be given to account for any perverse decision. Such cases would qualify easily for the description of "maladministration". But I am thinking of cases where no explanation at all can be found, where every detail of procedure is correct and where the only fault—apart from the unjust consequences of the decision—will be either that procedures were too correctly and inflexibly followed or that there was some indiscoverable psychological quirk in someone's mind at the moment when the decision was taken. It is those cases—precisely the kind one is after—inexplicable and unjust which I think may be disqualified from the description of maladministration, precisely because they are inexplicable.
Even if the Government are right, there is a great deal to be gained and nothing at all to be lost if it is made perfectly explicit that these cases are covered by the term written in the Bill. This Bill is written more or less personally for the Parliamentary Commissioner. Unlike other legislation that comes to this House, it is not written for the courts to interpret. I know this means that an audacious Parliamentary Commissioner will make much more of it than a modest one, and presumably the Government will have had the opportunity to consult the present incumbent of this as yet uncreated office for his views on this point. But it also means that the interpretation given in this House by Government officers and interpretations given by legal advisers to the Government are not final,
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and possibly they are less useful than in the case of ordinary legislation.
Furthermore, the Bill needs to be understood not only by the Parliamentary Commissioner but also by M.P.s. After all, it is the M.P.s who have to decide whether complaints are eligible for passage to the Parliamentary Commissioner. It needs to be understood also by civil servants, in order that they should be deterred from the practice of unreasonable decisions. I would suggest that if it was understood by the Press and the public that the sort of cases I have outlined were covered by the term "maladministration", the Government would stand to gain far greater credit for this Bill than they have already and more than they will do if this question is left ambiguous.
I had better say a word on the drafting of this Amendment. The word "arbitrary" is coupled with the word "unreasonable" in order to meet the objection that the Parliamentary Commissioner could otherwise question departmental policy. To be arbitrary I think a decision would have to be more or less out of line with the pattern of the decisions taken by a particular authority. The word" unreasonable" is quite familiar as a usable criterion in a court of law. Finally, the whole Amendment has been put negatively; that is to say, it reads "should not by itself exclude", rather than "should include", in order to avoid stating all the necessary conditions which might have to apply before any arbitrary and unreasonable decision could be described as maladministration.
For the reasons I have given, I think this Bill could be interpreted as meaning that these examples of unreasonable decisions were excluded from the term "maladministration". But even if I am wrong and they will be interpreted as being included, more is to be gained than lost by making this more explicit. Therefore I think this Amendment would improve the Bill. I shall certainly listen very carefully to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor's answer, but I think that a statement by a Member of the Government, even if it is satisfactory, would be less useful than an Amendment to the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 28, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Reay.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I think I ought to say one word on this Amendment, because it relates to a point I raised on Second Reading. I shall of course be exceedingly interested, as I am sure the House will be, to hear what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has to say on this matter. I think it exemplifies about the limit of the Parliamentary Commissioner's range. If he finds that he has to decide whether or not to enter into the lists on a subject where there has been no infringement of the technical rules, but on something which might conceivably be said to be a perverse decision and one not supported by any facts before the Minister or the Department concerned, he may well find himself in difficulty.
The difficulty in which I find myself is that if you try to specify what does or does not come within the term "maladministration", I am very much afraid that instead of making it more clear all you will do is to limit the operation of the Parliamentary Commissioner. It would seem to me wrong to try to define too closely what he may or may not do—this may be the opposite of what I was arguing earlier on—and that you must leave him, being a responsible person chosen for that quality, to decide where his range ends and how far he can go. I think there will be cases of this sort, which are cases of perverseness without any infringement of rules, where he thinks he can intervene. On the other hand, it may be very difficult to distinguish that sort of case from one where there has been a decision with which he does not agree, but with which he can find no specific fault, either in the machinery or in the terms of the decision, or in the relationship it bears to the facts and evidence upon which it was based. On the whole I would be against putting an Amendment in the Bill which tried to pin down the realms where the Parliamentary Commissioner could operate any more than is absolutely necessary. I think the term "maladministration" will become clearer in practice than it is now, and I hope we shall not try to define it any further in the Bill.
LORD REAY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount a question, since this forms the kernel of his objection to the Amendment? Would he not agree that you are not pinning down the Parliamen-
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tary Commissioner if you are not making an exclusive definition? If all that you are doing is pointing out that a certain thing can be taken as being included in the term "maladministration", you cannot be said to be limiting him in the interpretation of "maladministration".
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The Amendment says that something shall not be excluded. If you say that it shall not exclude this but, on the other hand, you do not say anything about anything else it may not exclude, I think you are in the same difficulty mentioned by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor earlier: you have drawn attention to one set of words and then thrown doubt about what may be meant by the term in relation to other unspecified situations. It is precisely for the reason that you are picking one thing only out of a large range which is in a way pinning it down, because it is pointing to a particular aspect of maladministration and saying nothing about any other aspect.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I cannot advise the House to accept this Amendment, largely for the reasons given by the noble Viscount. In the Whyatt Report and ever since two things have been distinguished: on the one hand maladministration, and on the other hand, discretionary decisions. As a remedy for the first, the Whyatt Report proposed a Parliamentary Commissioner. As a remedy for the second it proposed an extension of the powers of the Council on Tribunals and perhaps a new general administrative tribunal. Not long ago your Lordships, with another place, passed the Tribunals and Inquiries Act, enabling the Council on Tribunals to supervise new kinds of ministerial inquiries which they had no power to supervise before. I am hoping quite shortly to lay before Parliament an Order applying that to something like a hundred different kinds of ministerial inquiries where the Council on Tribunals has had no power before. In this Bill the Government have throughout on this point sought to follow in substance the recommendations of the Whyatt Committee. I think that your Lordships this afternoon have substantially improved the Bill, not because the Government have changed their mind, but because the Bill now expresses that mind much more clearly.

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On the Second Reading of the Bill my right honourable friend, the Lord President said:
"Nor do we include under maladministration that whole group of discretionary decisions which Sir John Whyatt treated separately in the first part of his Report. Discretionary decision, properly exercised, which the complainant dislikes but cannot fault the manner in which it was taken, is excluded by this clause."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Commons), 18/10/66, col. 51.]
My Lords, I agree with the noble Viscount that this Amendment would merely introduce confusion in attempting what is, in effect, a partial definition of "maladministration". It would enable the Parliamentary Commissioner to intervene, although at the end of the day he found there was no maladministration at all, if he thought the decision arbitrary or unreasonable. I have looked up "arbitrary" in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, and its primary meaning appears to be derived from mere opinion. Of course this must be so at the end of the day. The Minister has to decide whether there is to be a town at place A or B. One of the things which maladministration includes, but which we have not mentioned, is not observing the law. Of course, if the law is that he cannot do that unless there is a public inquiry he must have a public inquiry. If there has been no delay, and none of the factors to which I have referred, then at the end of the day his decision must be derived from his own opinion, and in many cases, although it is an arbitrary decision, one man would take one view and another man another. If one is to say that the Parliamentary Commissioner can cause the decision to be overruled because he thinks it unreasonable, then this again is only substituting one man's opinion for another.
I apprehend that one of the reasons why the noble Lord, Lord Harlech made it plain at the Committee stage of the Bill that no Government could allow a one-man court of appeal from discretionary decisions is, that one of the reasons why the Minister may decide on scheme A rather than scheme B, is because scheme B might cost another £3 million. One cannot have the Parliamentary Commissioner with power to override the Budget. This Amendment to the Amendment, therefore, would, I suggest,
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merely introduce confusion into what I think is now reasonably clear and reasonably simple in the Bill as we have it. It is for those reasons, allied to those put forward by the noble Viscount, that I hope the noble Lord will be prepared to withdraw the Amendment to the Amendment.
LORD REAY: I still feel that this matter has not been made clear. It seems to me that the speech of the noble and learned Lord was (if he will excuse the word) in some sort of sense regressive, in that it again seemed to me to be reintroducing this distinction between maladministration and what may be improper discretion. I do not see how one can distinguish where there has been a discretion, the manner of which has been correct in some sort of sense, although the result or essence has been incorrect.
The noble and learned Lord objected to the use of the word "arbitrary". In practice I do not think it is usually taken as referring simply to the expression of somebody else's opinion: in ordinary language, it is usually used more exclusively and severely than that. I included it only in order to meet an objection which I thought the noble and learned Lord would otherwise make, and which I pointed out when I was originally moving the Amendment—namely, that it would otherwise enable the Parliamentary Commissioner to encroach on the policies of a Department. This was something we had attempted to take account of in an Amendment which we had down on the Committee stage but which the Government felt unable to accept.
Certainly no one wants the Parliamentary Commissioner to be a one-man appeal court, but I think that in a court of law one would not be led to expect that this is how it would be viewed if the word "unreasonable" appeared in the Bill. It is perfectly clear that the Parliamentary Commissioner is not being advised simply to revise, on the basis of a man entitled to an equal opinion, the decision of the Department, if he is being empowered to review the decision, to criticise it, on the grounds that it was, in his eyes unreasonable. My Amendment would impose a much stronger requirement than merely that a decision of a Minister did not appeal to the Commissioner as being a correct decision.

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I must confess that I am not entirely satisfied. I am not even now certain, as I thought I was to start with, that it has been the intention of the Government that the Bill should cover the cases of which I have given an example—namely, those where, although the administrative procedures have been correctly followed, and cannot in detail be faulted, nevertheless the result looked a wholly unreasonable one, as occasionally the verdicts of juries are taken to be unreasonable in courts of law. I am now not so certain that the Government even mean that cases of this sort should be included in the term "maladministration". However, whichever opinion is given by a member of the Government in this House as to what the Government themselves mean, this is not going to be final. I think the only substantial objection made to this particular Amendment is the word "arbitrary". I do not think that is very important, and since I should prefer to see the Bill with this Amendment in it, I shall ask the Committee to decide.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Schedule 2 [Departments and authorities subject to investigation]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this Amendment is simply to include in the relevant Departments the Social Survey. The Social Survey, which is at present a division of the Central Office of Information, is to become a separate department on April 1, 1967, and it is therefore necessary to add it to the list of Departments coming within the field of the Commissioner. I hope your Lordships will not press me as to what good it is going to do anybody to make the Social Survey a separate Department. It was in accordance with a recommendation of the Heyworth Committee on Social Studies. The acceptance in principle of this particular Heyworth recommendation was announced by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, in answer to a Question in this House by Lord Taylor on November 30, 1965. The intention to establish the Survey as a separate Department from April 1 was announced by my right honourable friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in an Answer in another place on February 17, 1967. Legislation is not necessary to achieve it, but it should therefore plainly be inserted in the Schedule, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 3, at end insert ("Social Survey")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, is the Social Survey an entity recognised by the law at this moment, so that we can properly insert it in the Schedule? The House will remember that we could not include in the list the Land Commission until the Act which set it up was passed. I do not know whether the Social Survey requires some statutory instrument, or order, before it is turned into a separate entity, but if it does, presumably we cannot take notice of it, as it were, legislatively, until such order has been made. Can the noble and learned Lord tell us that the Survey is capable of being independently recognised now, even before April 1, 1967?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, as I understand it, if I may speak again, it is at present a division of the Central Office of Information, and it can become a separate Government Department under the prerogative. In fact, all the main present Departments, I think, were anciently Departments of State created under the prerogative. It is a modern habit to require an Act of Parliament or an order for them. No Act or Order would be required for this.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, is the Parliamentary Commissioner himself yet a separate entity known to the law?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not think he will be until this Bill is passed. He is merely designate and in the background.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 3:

MATTERS NOT SUBJECT TO INVESTIGATION
8. Action taken on behalf of the Minister of Health or the Secretary of State by a Regional Hospital Board, Board of Governors of a Teaching Hospital, Hospital Management Committee or Board of Management, or by the Public Health Laboratory Service Board.
LORD REAY: My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment standing in the names of myself and my noble friends, to omit paragraph 8 of Schedule 3. I do not think I need to say a great deal on this Amendment, since it was debated here on the Committee stage and also

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very fully in another place. I think the onus lies on the Government to justify the inclusion of this paragraph in the Bill, and it seems to me that they have not yet discharged this onus. I do not think it can be justified by arguing, as has been argued in respect of the nationalised industries, that in the case of hospitals and hospital boards the Ministry are not answerable to Parliament: it explicitly concerns action on his behalf in this case. They cannot, I think, be made analogous to local authorities, since their Boards are appointed by the Minister and there is no element of democratic responsibility whats over in their case. It cannot be argued that it will provide small, and it has been argued vexatious, complaints of negligence against doctors, since the Parliamentary Commissioner has the protection of Clause 5(2) for cases where there is a remedy of law.
I personally do not believe in the validity of the argument that it would bring in cases of a clinical judgment for which the Parliamentary Commissioner would be unfitted to adjudicate, not because he could not equip a staff which was there qualified to deal with them, as he might have to do in other complicated professional cases, such as technology, but because the Parliamentary Commissioner is only empowered to deal with cases of maladministration explicitly. Where he spots cases of contested technical judgment, cases where he can see no evidence of anything other than a decision taken in perfectly good faith, then the Parliamentary Commissioner will surely simply opt out of the business of offering an opinion or a decision at all.
I do not accept the argument that the present complaints procedure is sufficient. Recently the Government have taken to vaunting it a bit. I do not accept this, because it is perfectly clear that this procedure is not generally known to the people who would complain at the times that they would complain, nor do I think it ever could be made known. Moreover, it operates on an ad hoc basis, and is established, as often as not, by those against whom the complaint is indirectly aimed.
It has been argued by the Government that to exclude this paragraph and to include the Regional Hospital Boards would create the anomaly of including
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in the scope of the Bill Regional Hospital management, while excluding the general practitioner service and the health service which are administered by the local authorities. But, in the first place, we already have this anomaly in so far as we have hospitals in this country already directly responsible to the Minister of Health. This was not a principle considered sufficient to warrant the exclusion of, for example, matters of transport from the Bill, where there are a variety of different roads some of which are responsible to the local authority and therefore outside the scope of the Bill, some of which are responsible to the central authority and are within the scope of the Bill. And, finally, to argue that it would be unjust to seek to remedy certain injustices on the ground that one is unable to remedy them all, seems to me sufficiently perverse to provide one with an adequate reason for rejecting this entire Bill.
On the other hand, it has also been argued by the Government, somewhat ambivalently I think, in view of the last argument I have mentioned, that the Parliamentary Commissioner would simply become overburdened with complaints. In the first place, this is a direct admission that this field is a fertile source of public grievance, and in my mind that in itself gives an overpowering reason to include it in the scope of the Bill. Secondly, I assume that the worst result of this, if the Government are right, which they might be, would simply be delay. I do not suppose that the Parliamentary Commissioner would physically collapse, like the camel under the last straw; and I think that the delay, which would be the worst thing that one could expect, is something that one should mind less about and something which the public would understand more readily than the total exclusion of this source of grievance from any chance of remedy at all.
In conclusion, I would repeat that the Government have not made a case; and, finally, I would point out that they gave no reason here on the Committee stage why the reconsideration which they had promised on the Report stage in another place that they would give to this paragraph has produced no change of mind on their behalf, and there has been no improvement in the arguments they have

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used. If the Government make a better case this time, well and good. If not, then I think it would be a strong argument for pressing this matter to a Division. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 23, leave out paragraph 8.—(Lord Reay.)
4.25 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I add a word in support of the case which the noble Lord, Lord Reay, has so cogently put from the Liberal Benches. This matter was, of course, as he said, discussed at some length on the Committee stage, and therefore I need not recapitulate the arguments I used then. I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that I have most carefully studied the arguments which he then gave us, and I recollect their being given in his most persuasive tones. But, in brief, his answer really amounted to "not yet", and I noted that part of his answer rested on the opinion of the Ombudsman himself, given informally of course. While I recognise that it is an unusual advantage for Parliament to have the advice of an officer before it appoints him, it still is not enough to persuade me that Lord Shacklelton was right.
May I just briefly recapitulate the history of this, which I think lends weight to the statement which Lord Reay made that there is a good deal of public feeling about this, and that there was the quite general expectation that the Hospital Service would be included in the scope of the Parliamentary Commissioner. Before the 1964 General Election, Labour Party spokesmen clearly indicated that they meant to bring this within his scope, and in particular I refer to an article written by Mr. George Brown in the New Statesman, which specifically stated this, and which was referred to in another place in the debates there. Therefore, it was not surprising that there was general disappointment when the Bill was originally published with this exclusion.
When this point was debated on the Committee stage in another place, the support given for bringing the Hospital Service within the scope of the Parliamentary Commissioner was sufficient from the Labour Benches, on a vote, to bring it hack into the Bill; and there-
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fore the Bill arrived back on the Report stage in another place with the Hospital Service included. There was then a considerable debate on the subject, and the Lord President of the Council, who moved to exclude the Hospital Service again, was allowed his Amendment, but it was late at night and only on the undertaking, to which Lord Reay has already referred, that this point would be reconsidered here when the Bill reached this noble House. In fact, every speech that was made from the Labour Benches, except the Front Bench, in another place on the Report stage urgently pressed the Government to include the Hospital Service.
I think all this indicates that there really is a considerable weight of public opinion expecting that the Hospital Service will be included within the scope of the Parliamentary Commissioner. If we now accept this Amendment, so that the Hospital Service is included, by excluding this subsection, we shall at any rate have declared our opinion from this House, and we shall also give another place the opportunity either to agree with us, or if they do not agree, to take it out again. But I feel that both the history of it and our general impression of the expectation is such that to include the Hospital Service really is justified. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, will continue in the gracious vein that he and his noble friends have been in this afternoon of conceding the good cases that have been put to them. I have much pleasure in supporting the Amendment.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, I have already declared an interest in this matter as the Chairman of a Regional Hospital Board on the Committee stage, and, contrary to the views of the last speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, I am a Back-Bencher and am against the Amendment; so there are certain Labour speakers who do not agree with the Amendment. I think that the complaints which arise in the Hospital Service are unsuitable, too diversified and mostly too trivial to be appropriate for ventilation to the Parliamentary Commissioner. Incidentally, nearly all the complaints have some sort of clinical element to a greater or lesser degree.
The responsibility for running the Health Service, which is a vast and complex organisation, spending over £1,000

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million every year, is divided between three sets of authorities: the local authorities, who provide the domiciliary and welfare services; the executive councils, who administer the family practitioner side; and the Regional Hospital Boards, who are charged with running the Hospital Service through their hospital management committees and boards of governors of teaching hospitals.
A patient normally finds his way to hospital via the medium of one of the other branches of the Health Service. The present Bill is so drawn as to exclude from its scope all local statutory bodies, and thus all three parts of the Health Service are outside the Bill; the local authorities are executive councils by definition, and the hospital authorities by inclusion in Schedule 3. If, therefore, the Hospital Service is to be brought within the Bill we shall have the unsatisfactory position that whereas a complaint could embrace all three parts of the Health Service, the Parliamentary Commissioner would have to confine his investigations to one part only. There seems to me to be no particular merit in this kind of arrangement and it might have the effect—and this is a very important consideration—of weakening the strong ties between the three branches of the Service.
It has become the fashion to attack the Hospital Service and it has been very difficult to obtain a fair picture in reply to criticisms. In fact, I myself have now had, very reluctantly, to insist that, so far as my Regional Board is concerned, they will only agree to broadcast in future under the auspices of the B.B.C. television services in a live programme. Our experience in the past with this medium has been, to say the least, very unfortunate. I have no complaint against the Press, having always found them very willing to publish my letters and to give a fair showing to any member of the Board or the Board's staff who has attempted to correct any unfair impression that might have arisen. For the record, I would say that the Hospital Service is a thriving organisation which is in no danger whatsoever of "folding up" or grinding to a halt "as some people seem to want us to believe. Well-established channels of procedure for complaints are already in existence, and when the
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Ministry of Health, as mentioned by an earlier speaker this afternoon, issued a general scheme for guidance in the matter of complaints in the early part of 1966, it was found that the Board's arrangements already in operation complied with their requirements.
We have recorded what has happened under the recommended procedure, and I think the figures will be of interest and enlightenment to the House. These figures relate to the nine months April to December, 1966. In my Board's area there are about 200 hospitals of all kinds, and the total number of complaints during the nine months' period was 358. Of these complaints, 51 came direct to my Board and 307 through hospital management committees. Forty-six of the complaints were found to be of a serious character, 216 not serious, and 96 trivial. Of this total it was found that 168 were justified and 190 unjustified, so that it will be felt that a fair hearing was given to the complainants one way or another. It should again be, stressed that the majority of the complaints had some sort of clinical element. It is of course very regrettable that 168 complaints were found to have substance, but the numbers should be viewed against the background which I will now give to the House. That background is: 263,000 in-patient admissions; 407,000 out-patients; 401,000 casualties, together with a further 799,000 attendances in accident and emergency departments. These figures do not include attendances for such things as X-ray and physiotherapy treatment.
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor in his speech on an earlier stage of the Bill noted very rightly that one always has to envisage a considerable "lunatic fringe". The ratio of this section of the public would not be smaller among hospital patients than elsewhere, because we actually cater for a large number of patients who are nowadays defined as "mentally disturbed". The word "lunatic", of course, has no place in the modern medical vocabulary. Complaints from this kind of patient are sometimes difficult to resolve, and I should not like to wish the burden upon the Parliamentary Commissioner. I think I ought to say that we successfully cure very large numbers of these unfortunate people.
Speaking personally, I have no particular views in the matter one way or

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another. I am just concerned with the practicalities of the situation at present. I have tried to make it clear that the Regional Boards and the Ministry of Health have well-established channels for dealing with complaints, and my impression is that the complainants are fully satisfied that their complaints have been thoroughly investigated.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: My Lords, did the noble Viscount give a figure in relation to the mentally disturbed?
VISCOUNT ADDISON: No, I did not give a figure.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: Could the noble Viscount not give one?
VISCOUNT ADDISON: No; it would take a lot of research. It seems to me that unless one is willing to consider the Department of the Parliamentary Commissioner as containing considerable administrative staff, comprising professionals such as doctors and nurses, one must feel that the Amendment would not be practicable. I speak on behalf of one Regional Board only, and there are altogether 15 of them, so that presumably the statistics which I have quoted could be multiplied pro rata. It is perhaps fair to say that mine is one of the larger Boards, but even if one were to multiply the total number of complaints in our Region by 12 instead of by 15, they would number something over 4,000 altogether in the nine months'period—that would be the potential. I hope that I have been able to convince some noble Lords of the difficulty of the matter and the disadvantages that would result if the Amendment were to be passed. I trust, therefore, that the noble Lord will see his way to withdraw it.
LORD SOMERS: I must say this in response to what the noble Viscount has said. He stated that a great many of the complaints would be of a trivial and unimportant nature; but he must remember that the complaints are going to reach the Parliamentary Commissioner through Members of Parliament, and surely the whole purpose of making that provision is so that those Members shall be able to weed out the trivial from the important complaints. I think one must admit that there have been important complaints at times—not very frequently,
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I am thankful to say—against certain maladministration in the Health Department. For that reason, I sincerely hope that this Amendment will go through.
4.39 p.m.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, as I left the Hospital Service some 18 months ago, I think that I have no longer any interest to declare. After a good deal of thought and study—because in many ways it would have been easier for me to take a contrary view—I have come to the conclusion that I ought to speak and, if necessary, vote against the Amendment. I should be very unhappy if, by saying this, it was thought that I was trying to take the side of the doctor against the very proper rights of his patient to complain of his actions. This would be inconsistent with the views I have held all my life. I have indeed always taught my students that the patient is nearly always right, and in various correspondence which crops up from time to time from the Patients' Association I frequently find myself on the side of the patients.
I am somewhat swayed, though by no means entirely, by arguments that to include the hospital service might overload the Parliamentary Commissioner at a very early stage, and make his job very difficult. There are only two arguments which seem to me to be serious on which I would personally reject this Amendment. The first is that I believe—and in a way I think the noble Lord, Lord Reay, agrees with me—that this Bill is not meant to cover the actions of individuals pursuing their proper professional activities. Also I believe, with others, that with hospital complaints it will be difficult, or almost impossible in many instances, to separate the clinical from the purely administrative. Take, for instance, from many instances which could be given, the case where a mother is prevented from visiting her child. The clinical question immediately arises, "Was it in the interest of the treatment of the child's illness that the child should not have been visited by its mother?" I can think of nothing more calculated to infuriate a complainant than to find that while half his complaints can be dealt with by the Parliamentary Commissioner, the other half cannot.
The noble Lord, Lord Reay, has said that the actions of doctors would in any

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case be excluded—I do not think he said exactly this, and I hope that I am not misinterpreting his remarks—because the patient has the right of appeal to the law. But, of course, this arises only in cases where the patient has, or claims to have, suffered harm through the wrong action of a doctor. Unfortunately, there are a number of cases where some members of my profession act in an imperious and, maybe occasionally, arrogant way, but the patient has not suffered material harm and could hardly go to law with such a case. It may be that the professional activities of, for instance, a hospital architect could be interpreted as actions on behalf of central Government, but in my view to equate the actions of doctors and nurses in caring for their patients with administrative actions carried out on behalf of central Government would be to introduce a new and possibly disastrous look at professional duty.
During all the years when I served in the hospital service, when I was treating a patient it never occurred to me that I was performing an administrative act for or on behalf of central Government. It may be that unknowingly this was precisely what I was doing, but I am glad to say that it never occurred to me during a consultation. If I take this view as a responsible doctor or ex-doctor. I have to be satisfied that the patients' rights are met in another way. The circular issued by the Ministry of Health a year ago goes some way to meet this and should be given a further trial.
My view—and this really brings me to my second point—is that if the patients' rights are not adequately met by present regulations this is not the way to put them right, for the reason already given—if for no other—that it separates different parts of the profession. Again, I can think of little more infuriating to the complainant than to find that the part of his complaint which relates to the hospital doctor comes within the ambit of the Parliamentary Commissioner, but that after being discharged home to his general practitioner it is no longer possible for the Parliamentary Commissioner to deal with exactly that same complaint or the continuation of it. Finally, I am comforted to remember that should noble Lords in a majority agree with me, and should it later be
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found that we were in fact wrong, this can be amended by an Order in Council.
4.46 p.m.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I feel very strongly that this Amendment ought not to be pressed to a Division. With respect, I think that it would do a great deal of harm to have it pressed to a Division, whatever the result. One or two factors must be considered here. First of all, all of us who have served in another place know the type of complaint which one receives about the hospital service. I do not want in any way to exaggerate—in fact, I want rather carefully not to exaggerate; but quite a high proportion of complaints, at any rate, fall into one of two classes. One is of complaints which have either little substance or no substance, and are often motivated by some deep element of emotion which leads people to feel things in a way which, if they were considering the position more calmly, they might not feel.
The other class of complaints seem to arise from a sort of general suspicion of doctors. I respectfully entirely agree with what was said by the noble Lord who has just sat down, who knows more about this, or at any rate from a different angle, than I do. The Ombudsman's business is to deal with maladministration, and if a doctor makes a mistake in diagnosis or treatment, or in any other exercise of his professional skill, clearly that is not maladministration. Who is he maladministering—himself or what? So that if the Ombudsman had any responsibility in this matter, he would have to confine himself to maladministration and to keep off the whole clinical aspect of the matter. There would have to be not only the true distinction, but also the distinction as it might appear to the patient concerned, because all these cases—and one must recognise this—contain a very strong element of emotion, suspicion and the rest of it. Even where there is a wholly reasonable case, one cannot put that aside.
That is the first point and, as I see it, it involves a distinction which, whatever reality it may have in the law or in the terms of an Act of Parliament, has singularly little reality in what we are now considering; that is, the mind of the patient affected. He does not draw

1369
this kind of distinction, and if the Ombudsman is obliged to draw it it will make things very difficult for him. I use the word "Ombudsman" (I know that it is not the right one) for the purpose of convenience.
There are two other points which seem to be rather conclusive in this case. The first is that no one has yet said, except very tentatively, that there is anything wrong with the working of the present arrangements, which have been working for some considerable time. I quote from a Written Answer given by the Minister in another place on December 8, 1966. The object of these arrangements, he said, is:
"to ensure that all such complaints"—
that is to say, complaints by and on behalf of patients in connection with the hospital service; it is very wide—
"are received sympathetically, dealt with promptly, and seen to have been fully and fairly discussed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. Commons, 8/12/66, col. 372.]
Leaving aside for a minute the distinction between maladministration and lack of professional skill or judgment, what more could the Ombudsman do than is already being done in this way? The noble Lord who moved this Amendment fully realised this, because all he said about it, I think—and I took a note of his words at the time—was to object that the present procedure is not widely known. I do not know how that can be. I should have thought that if anyone wanted to complain he would find out how to do it quite quickly, and that it was in everyone's interest—at least, everyone who was acting properly in the matter—to see that he knew at once the right way to get his complaint dealt with. After the part I have quoted, there is a whole column of the OFFICIAL REPORT of another place setting out the procedure. I will not weary your Lordships by reading it but it sets out a quite careful procedure designed to deal with different types of complaint, both as regards their seriousness and as regards their general character.
I think I am allowed, in this somewhat personal Chamber, to say that we have a remarkably good Minister of Health at the moment, and I think that everybody, apart from Party, recognises it. I am quite certain that the present situation would not have continued for so long as
1370
it has done if there were obvious improvements to be made. I am sure the Minister would have known about any deficiencies. He is the kind of man who finds out for himself, and he is quite undeterred by any minor obstacles in his way, as everyone knows. I noticed that in another place there were a number of complimentary references of this character—and that is important when we are considering what is happening at present.
My Lords, what we are really considering to-day, as I see it, is not a question of whether this type of complaint should never be investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner (to give him his right name) but whether this should be stated in the Bill at the moment. This particular paragraph, of course, was put back on Report stage in another place, and, at the same time, in the course of the same sitting, a clause was introduced to allow the Minister of the day, by an Order subject only to the Negative Resolution procedure, to take it out. That is to say, if you take the paragraph out, you let the letter of it in, because there are excluding paragraphs; and accordingly it would be open to the Minister of the day at any time to make this Order, to put back what it is now sought to exclude from the Bill as it is, and thereby to do what is intended to be done by this Amendment.
But there is a difference. This is an experiment (I am talking about the Parliamentary Commissioner generally, and this Bill), as I think was generally admitted by everyone on Second Reading. In the circumstances, I should have thought that, given the necessary, inevitable character of the complaints; given the difficulty of dividing in practice between maladministration and lack of professional skill or judgment; and given also the fact that there is other machinery working at present, and that it does not follow that either the other machinery or what the Parliamentary Commissioner might do would be the ultimate solution—given all that, and this being, I repeat, an experiment, I ask: is it wise to try to put this rather doubtful field of investigation into the Bill now?
It seems to me that it would do a great deal of harm. We are dealing not just with ourselves, not even just with the medical profession. We are dealing with a large number of sick, hurt and aggrieved

1371
people, and one wants them to be dealt with in the right way. One certainly does not want to see a way which may be the wrong way put into the Statute when there is machinery for putting it in later if a further trial should prove that it would be proper to insert it. I beg your Lordships to bear in mind that it is a further trial of two things. The first is how the experiment of the Parliamentary Commissioner works—incidentally, if he were to try to do what is now proposed, it would add considerably to his staff and his cost—and the other is what exactly is happening in connection with the present procedure, as was described in the Written Answer on December 8.
I go one stage further. I think that in the world we live in to-day, in this country, the professions, be it the teachers, the lawyers or, in this case, the medical profession, are very properly subject to review. I think one must be very careful about this. One is dealing with matters of very great importance, not only to the individuals concerned but to the community, and one is dealing with a facet of our life which seems to me to be singularly difficult to deal with and singularly easy to make a mistake about. I would say one thing to your Lordships—and I am afraid that I have been a little long: I earnestly hope that nobody will think that this is a way of "getting at" the Government, or of defending the Government, or any nonsense of that sort. It seems to me to be a very serious matter. I have no doubt whatever of the right answer, and I earnestly hope that there will not be a Division, whatever the result might be.
4.57 p.m.
LORD GRENFELL: My Lords, I want to say just one word—and, as the House will know, I am chairman of a hospital management committee. We get complaints. Of course we get complaints—all hospitals do. But usually one finds that these are due to misunderstandings, perhaps between a doctor and a mother or father; or it may be that one or other is a little irrational. Parents and friends are always rather irrational when their loved ones are in hospital.
What happens is that they either write or come to me, or to the group secretary, and we discuss the matter. Usually, with just a little understanding, we can clear
1372
the matter up in a very few moments. I think it would be disaster if an irrational person, worried about somebody in hospital, with some small complaint, could rush off to the Ombudsman so that it all came to light, with the danger of the matter being blown up to such a degree that it was difficult to settle it. If it can be left with the hospital management committees and the boards, and so on, I am sure that that is by far the best way. I hope that this Amendment will not be pressed.
LORD AIREDALE: Before the noble Lord sits down, may I point out that nobody can go "rushing off" to the Ombudsman? If anyone feels he has a complaint he must first rush off to a Member of the House of Commons; and a Member of the House of Commons will not rush off to the Ombudsman if he thinks that the matter can be dealt with more easily without the necessity for the Ombudsman to investigate it.
LORD GRENFELL: I quite understand that, but surely it is easier to come straight to the hospital concerned. Some people may not realise this and will go straight to the Member of Parliament, who will feel that he has to take it on further. I am sure it is right that this should not occur.
EARL FORTESCUE: Even if the question of medical skill is excluded? It appears to me—and I think it will appear so to others—that there are a number of things that can happen in the Health Service in which the Ombudsman might well intervene. Such a case recently came to my notice. It concerned a woman with a broken leg. When she saw her doctor there was no inquiry as to the home circumstances, and no notification to the district nurse. Later, the doctor ordered physiotherapy, which was only available five miles away. There was no mention of transport. When the question of transport arose the woman was told, "Oh yes, there is plenty of transport". In fact, although ordered the transport frequently did not turn up; and there was no machinery whereby the doctor could know that the woman was not getting the physiotherapy that he had prescribed. I think that might be within the province of the Ombudsman; it is purely administrative.
5.2 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I think this paragraph in Schedule 2has probably caused as much controversy as any issue we have debated in the Bill. It has certainly given rise to a great deal of discussion. I hope that in the process of this discussion there has been a certain amount of enlightenment seeping in, although I failed to detect this in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Reay, who I thought moved his Amendment in somewhat excitable language.
I should like to make another attempt to explain to him the purpose of the Bill—and this is a Bill that the Government have introduced. It is to enable the Parliamentary Commissioner to investigate complaints of maladministration in connection with action taken by or on behalf of a central Government Department and authorities listed in Schedule 2 of the Bill. It has been made clear all along that the scope of the Commissioner does not extend to services for which there is an autonomous local statutory authority. Indeed, no such body is listed in Schedule 2 of the Bill. It is not included in the Long Title of the Bill, although that could be amended. I should like to apply this basic principle to the subject we have been discussing to see how it affects the various bodies which are responsible for the administration of the National Health Service. This is not without relevance to the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Fortescue.
As your Lordships know, there are three main parts to the National Health Service; and my noble friend Lord Addison dealt with them in a very knowledgeable speech. They are: the general practitioner services arranged by the local executive councils; the local health authority services, run by the local authorities; and the hospital service, run by the hospital authorities. Both the executive councils and the local authorities are local bodies set up under the National Health Service Act. As such they do not act on behalf of the Crown, and they are therefore automatically excluded from the scope of the Commissioner. Hospital authorities are also local bodies set up under the National Health Service Acts. Their staff are not civil servants any more than the staff of local health authorities or executive
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councils—or for that matter general practitioners, opticians, dentists or chemists who work within the Health Service. They are not just the local offices of a central Government Department. I stress this again. They are not part of central Government administration in the way that the Tax Office is or a local office of the Ministry of Labour or Ministry of Social Security. But technically these hospital authorities do act on behalf of the Minister of Health or the Secretary of State for Scotland. To ensure uniformity of treatment therefore it was decided—though this was not the sole reason—to make specific provision to exclude hospital authorities from the scope of the Commissioner—hence paragraph 8 of Schedule 3.
But first let me make it clear that this exclusion in no way affects the position of the Ministry of Health itself so far as the Commissioner is concerned. Like any other central Government Department or authority listed in Schedule 2, any failure within that Department in the exercise of their administrative functions in connection with any part of the National Health Service, including the hospital service, will be susceptible to investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner. Among these functions will be the Ministry's responsibility for the special hospitals—Broadmoor, Rampton and Moss Side. Also included in paragraph 8 is the Public Health Labaratory Service Board; but since no noble Lord has referred to this, I will not take up your Lordships' time by dealing with it fully.
The most important of the reasons against including the hospital service is that it is only one part of the National Health Service. The noble Lord, Lord Reay, has said that it was unsound to argue that if you cannot do justice to all you must refrain from doing justice to one part only. This is an attractive argument, but this is not the sole reason for excluding the Health Services. I will try to give the reason for this. There would be really serious practical difficulties if we were to apply the provisions of the Parliamentary Commissioner Bill to one part of the Health Service. In most cases, patients receiving hospital treatment normally begin by consulting their family doctor. Following the completion of hospital treatment they may

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need to avail themselves of the services provided by the local health authority. Thus, for the same ailment, patients may need to use the services provided by all three parts of the National Health Service—and not necessarily one at a time.
In the event of complaints involving the whole chronicle of events it would be a really startling proposition if the Parliamentary Commissioner were able to investigate only that facet of the complaint relating to the services administered by the hospital authority and not the services which are the responsibility of the local health authority and the local executive council. Even this might in certain types of cases—psychiatric and geriatric, for example—prove to be difficult to do in practice because the borderline of responsibility between the hospital authority and the local health authority is often not easy to distinguish. A further point which must be borne in mind is that by the very nature of the service concerned, complaints—and this has been made very clear by a number of noble Lords; and it was very valuable to have had the opinion particularly of the noble Lord, Lord Platt—will frequently involve problems of clinical judgment.
I suggest that there are special difficulties here. Whereas it is possible to conceive of a system in which they can be overcome, the difficulties are of a kind which we must face up to before we amend the Bill in the way suggested. When the Minister of Health or the Secretary of State has before him a complaint about a hospital he is able to call on the advice of his own medical staff; and, if necessary, the staff can comment on what is said from a clinical point of view. In theory one could also give the Parliamentary Commissioner some medical staff and he could be advised by them. But we should then have no less than three successive medical opinions on hospital cases involving clinical judgment. There would be the opinion of the hospital doctors themselves; there would be the opinion of the Ministry of Health doctors, and there would then be the opinion of the Parliamentary Commissioner's own medical advisers in a matter of professional clinical judgment. If there were a difference of opinion, it would be very difficult to say who was right and who was wrong, and there would certainly
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be no hierarchical relationship. It is rather important to stress that there would be no hierarchial relationship to settle the matter. We have to recall that central Government is hierarchical, coming up to the Minister. Here we have a very different type of organisation.
Another alternative would be that, when the Commissioner came up against a clinical question he would say that he had no expertise in that field and must therefore forbear to comment. He would have to accept the word either of the hospital service or of the Ministry of Health doctors. This again does not seem to be the kind of arrangement which the Bill contemplates, or indeed which I believe any noble Lord would wish, and it seems unlikely that it would be accepted without protest by claimants and be damaging to the image and reputation of the Parliamentary Commissioner.
Clinical judgment enters into so many hospital complaint cases that the inclusion of hospital authorities in the Bill, on the basis that the Commissioner could do nothing about clinical judgment, would really lead to its being regarded as a sham. And it is important to bear in mind that there is a very wide variety of complaints which hinge on the issue of clinical judgment. I have already mentioned that the Commissioner will have within his scope certain directly administered State institutions, and questions of clinical judgment might arise. But these are exceptional and they are organised in a very different way from the National Health Service. If it is suggested that the Hospital Service is brought in only in respect of complaints which concern non-clinical matters, I should like to ask the noble Lord how he distinguishes between a clinical and a non-clinical matter. Frequently they are inextricably mixed. Even if we were able to isolate the non-clinical elements of a complaint, they could seldom be investigated effectively without also going into the clinical side.
For instance, a very obvious complaint about whether a patient needed treatment would involve a clinical judgment and could not be separated from a dispute as to whether the facilities of the hospital were offered or denied to a patient. There might be a complaint from a patient that he had had to wait for a long time in

1377
the out-patient department and that the appointment system was faulty. But the effectiveness of any investigation into the matter would be limited severely if there was no assessment of the clinical considerations likely to underlie the delay. For example, priority might have to be given to emergency cases, and the doctors might possibly be called away suddenly to visit patients in a ward; or there might be some event which was not foreseeable.
I am not saying there is no maladministration in this field; I am saying that in many cases it would involve a question of clinical judgment. There might be a complaint about delay in admitting a patient to hospital several weeks ahead of his operation, or there might be complaints of favouritism. The question whether a patient should be admitted to hospital, and if so when, rests on clinical judgment, not only in relation to the patient concerned but also in many cases in relation to the needs of other patients.
Under Section 3 of the National Health Service Act 1946 the duty of the Minister to provide a hospital service is limited to such as he considers necessary to meet all reasonable requirements; that is to say, there is a discretion. There might be a complaint that a particular patient had been refused some treatment, or some drug, at a particular hospital, but again this is fundamentally a matter of clinical judgment in regard to the needs of the patient.
I would make the further point, which has already been made by noble Lords (particularly in a notable speech by my noble friend Lord Mitchison, and there were interesting references by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, from his experience), that there is already a system for dealing with complaints concerning the Hospital Service. This has recently been developed further. As my noble friend Lord Mitchison said, a circular was issued by the Ministry of Health giving comprehensive guidance on the procedure to be followed in the handling of complaints, and there is power in certain circumstances to set up an ad hoc independent tribunal including both a doctor and a lawyer. Again, I am not saying that this procedure could not work alongside that of the Parliamentary Commis-
1378
sioner, but I would strongly urge your Lordships to give this system a trial and not complicate the Bill at this stage.
My Lords, if we bring this large area into the Bill, we are undoubtedly adding very greatly to the burden of the Parliamentary Commissioner. Apart from the arguments on merit which I sought to put forward, I would urge your Lordships to confine the activities of the Parliamentary Commissioner to the central Government at this stage which has always been the purpose and object of the Bill. I know that the Liberals have attempted to bring in local authorities, and that they have a somewhat enthusiastic desire to extend the Bill much more widely than was originally intended. In this matter they can speak with a clear conscience because when they were the Government—which was a very long time ago—they did not put themselves in the position of refusing to introduce a Bill to set up a Parliamentary Commissioner. But I find it rather surprising that the Conservatives should support them.
As noble Lords have pointed out, this is not a Bill on which there should be Party political controversy, and I am quite certain that were the noble Lords who are supporting the Liberals in office to-day, they would not dream of imposing this additional responsibility on the Parliamentary Commissioner. Do they in fact want doctors, who operate as professionals in their own field, to become in this respect like civil servants? There was an absolute guarantee to doctors when the National Health Service was set up that they would not be civil servants. The procedures applying to civil servants are the kind which are appropriate for administration and which would not be appropriate for doctors.
I hope very much that if the noble Lord, Lord Reay, decides to press this Amendment to a Division your Lordships will reject it. This is a Bill which is generally welcomed. At times the welcome has been a bit muted, but I hope that we shall give it a send-off. The Government have been pretty accommodating in your Lordships' House. We have treated matters here purely in terms of the practical operation of the Bill. This Bill could come into effect very soon. If this Amendment is accepted and not subsequently rejected by the House of Commons it will undoubtedly mean that

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the setting up of the Parliamentary Commissioner will be delayed. We hope that the Parliamentary Commissioner will begin to operate possibly round about April 1, and I make a plea to noble Lords opposite not to vote for this Amendment.
This is a matter of practicality only, this is not a major Party political issue. I cannot see any virtue in sending this back to the Commons only to have them reject it again. If your Lordships decide to divide on this Amendment, I hope that as many of your Lordships who have listened to the arguments from the noble Lord, Lord Platt, and the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, and others, will bear in mind that the great weight of experience in this House has been against the inclusion of the Hospital Service in the Bill. I hope that the Government will be supported and that we shall not have to send this Bill back with this Amendment to another place.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, may I say that if he uses the argument that doctors must not be treated as civil servants, will that not prevent him from ever acceding to a proposal of this kind?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, if the noble Lord would like me to go on with this I will do so. The objections are very serious. There has been no discussion with the doctors. If a doctor works as a civil servant, he is a civil servant, but a doctor in the hospital service is not a civil servant. I must express my personal opinion. Although undoubtedly this Government and subsequent Governments will consider this again, I am very doubtful whether the hospital service can be brought within the ambit of the Parliamentary Commissioner as at present envisaged.
LORD REAY: My Lords, I do not think that it will be necessary for me to attempt to meet the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. I have already stated my opinions on the questions to which he replied, and it is not surprising that nothing new has come up. There is one question I should like to ask the noble Lord. He implied that it has all along been the intention in the Bill that local statutory bodies and the hospital service should be excluded, and also that other Amendments would be
1380
necessary if this paragraph were deleted. Is that his current opinion, or is it undoubtedly necessary?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I do not understand the noble Lord's reference to other Amendments.
LORD REAY: In the Long Title, for example.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I drew an analogy with the local authorities and pointed out that the hospital service is dissimilar to the central Government Departments, which are servants of the Crown, and that hospital boards are not like regional offices of a Government Department. None the less they operate on behalf of the Ministry of Health and technically they come within the Bill and the Long Title.
LORD REAY: My Lords, the noble Lord inferred that it was a technical matter, but I think it is debatable whether it is technical. The effect is that they are answerable to a Minister in Parliament. They are not within the ambit of the local authorities in so far as there is no democratically elected element in their management. To this extent they are unique, but the argument still remains for considering that the Parliamentary Commissioner's power should apply to them and to their activities. The noble Lord envisaged the clinical difficulties which we must face. I must accept that a great many complaints will be concerned with these difficulties. The Parliamentary Commissioner will not investigate these. He will see inmost cases that there is no reason to suspect that a decision taken by a doctor in a case would not be taken in other than in good faith, and presumably it would be outside his competence to provide an opinion on the matter.
This Amendment had a great deal of support in another place. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, wished to pray in aid the support of the doctors, but I think that this is largely a statistical accident. In another place there were managers of Regional Hospital Boards who supported this Amendment, and it was carried in Committee. In pressing this Amendment I would say that it implies no attack on the hospital service as a whole. I say this in view of a remark made by the noble Viscount, Lord Addison. If one objects to anything,

1381
perhaps one objects to the complaints procedure in that it does not go far enough as it is now operating. As I said, this procedure can never be made known to people who want to complain, and it is the wrong type of complaint procedure. Moreover, there may be complaints against the working of the complaints procedure inside the hospital service and it would need somebody like the Parliamentary Commissioner to investigate these.
If the Bill were passed with this paragraph excluded and with the hospital service in, this would be an earnest of the Government's intention to carry the activities of the Parliamentary Commissioner into the local area; and this is something which the Government have indicated they would consider doing in regard to local authorities as a whole. I see no reason to wait in this respect. The Government have withdrawn to the extent that they have now made it possible at a later stage to include the hospital service. I think that the Bill would get a better send off if we were to include it immediately, and I would press this Amendment.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask whether he is prepared, if this Amendment is accepted, to accept the inevitable consequence that the setting up of the Parliamentary Commissioner will be delayed?
LORD REAY: By how long?
LORD SHACKLETON: Months, possibly.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I add one word before we part with this Amendment?
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, may I remind the noble Lord that we are not in Committee.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: May I ask leave of your Lordships to make one comment before we come to a decision about this? I was joined by noble Lords on the Liberal Benches in moving this Amendment. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for making out the case against the Amendment so cogently. I recognise that it is a powerful case, but there is the
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exceptional case of complaint against the hospital service. Somebody has made a serious complaint, it is rejected, and there is no way of following it up.
LORD SHACKLETON: I must point out to the noble Lord that his right to speak under Standing Orders does not give him the right to put in new matter. He is familiar with that, and I feel bound to point it out. I do not wish to restrain him, because I am sure that he wishes to be helpful to the House, but if he looks at Standing Order No. 28 he will see that this is so.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I am not aware that I am bringing in any new matter. I am only making a comment on the noble Lord's remarks. If I am not entitled to do so of course I will sit down, but I was not under the impression that I was out of order. I have a comment to make on one or two replies of the noble Lord which would be helpful to the House in reaching a conclusion.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the noble Lord puts me in a difficult position because I am taking part in this. The last thing I want to do is stand on procedure, but I notice a certain restiveness on the part of noble Lords. Standing Order No. 28 says that no noble Lord may speak twice on any Motion, whether on a Bill or other matter unless it be to explain some material point, no new matter being introduced, and that not without the leave of the House. This does not apply to Committee. I am sure that the House would give the noble Lord leave to speak. Although I am quoting from the Companion, it precisely follows the terms of the Standing Order and it is very specific. There is a tendency among us always to think that Report stage is the same as Committee. With that, I will leave it to the judgment of the noble Lord.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his explanation and information. The last thing I wish to do is to strain the patience of the House, especially when I think our cause is a good one. Therefore I will proceed no further.
5.31 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 11) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 47; Not-contents, 59.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L. [Teller.]

Ellenborough, L.

Margadale, L.

Albemarle, E.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Massereene and Ferrard, V

Ashbourne, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Merrivale, L.

Asquith of Yarnbury, Bs.

Ferrers, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Oakshott, L.

Brecon, L.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Ogmore, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Gridley, L.

Reay, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Runcorn, L.

Byers, L.

Harlech, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Carrington, L.

Hawke, L.

St. Helens, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Henley, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Colyton, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Sandford, L.

Denham, L.

Jellicoe, E.

Strange of Knokin, Bs.

Derwent, L.

Killearn, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Drumalbyn, L.

Kilmany, L.

Teynham, L.

Dundee, E.

Kinnoull, E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Greenway, L.

Platt, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Grenfell, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Ampthill, L.

Henderson, L.

Popplewell, L.

Archibald, L.

Hilton of Upton, L. [Teller.]

Raglan, L.

Arwyn, L.

Hughes, L.

Rhodes, L.

Balerno, L.

Hurcomb, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Beswick, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Royle, L.

Blyton, L.

Kirkwood, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Bowles, L. [Teller.]

Latham, L.

Shackleton, L.

Brockway, L.

Leatherland, L.

Sorensen, L.

Burden, L.

Lindgren, L.

Stocks, Bs.

Caccia, L.

Longford, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Stonham, L.

Cawley, L.

Maelor, L.

Strang. L.

Champion, L.

Mitchison, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Crook, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Effingham, E.

Morrison, L.

Walston, L.

Fleck, L.

Moyle, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Pargiter, L.

Willis, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Peddie, L.

Ypres, E.

Granville-West, L.

Phillips, Bs.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

DEER (AMENDMENT) (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
5.39 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Commitee.—(The Duke of Atholl.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET moved, after Clause 1, to insert the following new clause:
". Subsection (2) of Section 23 of the said Act (unlawful taking or killing of deer) shall
1384
be repealed and replaced by the following subsection:—
'(2) Subject to Section 33 of this Act, it shall be an offence to take or wilfully kill deer otherwise than by shooting, and shooting for the purposes of this section means discharging a firearm or using ammunition, as defined in the Firearms Act, 1937, other than as prohibited by Schedule (Prohibited Firearms and Ammunition) to this Act.'"
The noble Viscount said: With your Lordships' permission, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 5 and 6, together with Amendment No. 1, as they are consequential on this Amendment. In moving the Amendment, I wish to make it perfectly clear that I in no way seek to be controversial or to suggest anything which might hinder the passing of this excellent Bill. I merely wish to encourage your Lordships to be humane, and there is nothing controversial in humanity.
The object of the Amendment is to try to prevent the use of inadequate

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weapons for the killing of deer. As the Deer (Scotland) Act stands, almost any weapon may be used, presumably more in the hope than the expectation of success. So far as I can establish, the noble Marquess, Lord Willingdon, first raised this point some years ago, but regrettably little impression seems to have been made. However, in 1963 Parliament saw fit to prohibit most unsuitable weapons in the Deer Act of that year, which applies to England but not to Scotland. I cannot understand why, if it is thought that a ·22, for example, is unsuitable for English deer, it is considered suitable for Scottish deer. They are the same deer and the same weapon, and it seems to me to be quite illogical.
The cruelty that has been perpetrated on deer by ignorant people who attempt to kill them with shot-guns and the like literally has to be seen to be believed. These noble beasts, which once inspired Landseer to paint a masterpiece, who grace the glens and corries where they make their home, in billowy seas of shifting mists, whose angry roar of challenge to their rivals breathing defiance to the world is an inspiration to all, are peppered like vile rats. They are seldom killed; the shots of smooth-bore guns merely penetrate the skin and inflame the flesh. The wounds may become gangrenous or, if by chance the shot is taken close enough, a leg or a shoulder may be broken. This makes the winter even harder for the poor beast—a winter during which it would probably perish in a slow, lingering death. If they survive this attempted butchery, they hobble round the hills maimed and handicapped.
Much the same argument applies to a ·22 riffle. The weight of the bullet is far too small—even the latest type, which some people pretend is sufficient—to do its job properly. It has about the same effect on a stag as a No. 6 shot cartridge has on a goose. On more than one occasion I have killed a stag (or an apology for a stag) with several ·22 bullets lodged firmly in and around the shoulder. On the last occasion I personally removed nine lumps of lead, each of which would have been sufficient to have killed the beast if a suitable weapon had been used. As it was, the beast was crippled and underweight, the meat was inedible, and the sight disgusting. As a nation which prides itself on its sportsmanship, we
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ought to be ashamed of ourselves for allowing, or continuing to allow, this sort of thing to go on. I should perhaps say a word about the restriction of solid bullets. If such a bullet is fired from a high velocity rifle, it has a tendency to go clean through the animal, which means in all probability that the quarry is wounded, and any other animal which happened to be in the line of fire might get killed instead.
I have heard several arguments why this Amendment should not be pressed. I am told that it could be inserted into the Criminal Justice Bill, which is now on its way to your Lordships' House. I am told also that the Government will not agree to the Amendment because the farmers and crofters would get upset, which might defeat the whole Bill. I do not agree with these arguments, although some of them may have a certain amount of validity. To take the first point, I think there would be a certain danger that the noble Lord who presumably will be conducting the Criminal Justice Bill in this House might well seek to defeat an Amendment on the lines I am now suggesting, on the grounds that it was more applicable to a Deer Bill and should be incorporated in that. Therefore, I should find myself back in square one.
I see no reason why this Amendment should unduly affect the farmers and crofters. The only argument is that it might cost them some money to obtain weapons which are legal. I believe a lot of them have only shot-guns and think they are adequate for the purpose, but for the small sum of about £65 it is perfectly possible to buy a B.S.A.. ·276 rifle. I do not think it is asking too much for the sake of decency, on the one hand and, on the other hand, the knowledge that a farmer possesses a suitable weapon. I cannot agree that this Amendment would cause the whole Bill to be defeated in another place. If the clause was not approved there it could always be taken out, but at any rate your Lordships would not lay yourselves open to the charge of inhumanity.
I would add that I have the support of the Deer Society and the chairman of the Red Deer Commission, who himself states in a letter to me that he did not think anyone could possibly object to a clause restricting firearms. To sum up, I

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ask your Lordships to give this Amendment your approval on the grounds that it brings the Scottish Act more into line with the English Act, and that it will put an immediate end to the wanton cruelty that is annually inflicted on deer, who deserve a better fate. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 1, insert the said new clause.—(Viscount Mountgarret.)
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I should like briefly to support my noble friend on humane grounds. It is quite illogical that we should have this prohibition on unsuitable firearms for deer in the English Act but not in the Scottish Act. Like my noble friend I have shot stags which, when they were skinned, were found to be full of buckshot and ·22 bullets, and it is really inhumanly cruel. I do not wish to delay your Lordships, so I will say no more on that aspect. I can quite understand that perhaps the present Bill is not the correct one in which to insert this Amendment, but I hope that in the not so distant future Her Majesty's Government will seriously consider this matter and bring in legislation to correct this absurd anomaly. I most heartily support my noble friend in this Amendment, which is moved entirely for humane reasons.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I have listened with great sympathy to both my noble friends who have spoken, and I agree with almost every word they say. Personally I think the use of inadequate weapons on deer is extremely cruel and ought to be stopped as soon as possible, but I am afraid I cannot recommend your Lordships to let this Amendment go through in this Bill. Contrary to what my noble friend Lord Mountgarret says, I think it is almost certain that were this Amendment to be inserted in the Bill, the farming interests in another place would see that it got no further because, regardless of cruelty, most farmers at the moment find that the shotgun is the most effective weapon against marauding deer. This is, of course, a pity and is something we all deplore, but none the less it is a fact of life.
I should also like to point out to my noble friend that, under his Amendment, one could not use a shot-gun against roe deer. I think I should have the support
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of most people who have woodlands in Scotland when I say that there is seldom any practical way of keeping roe deer under control except by shooting them with heavy shot from a shot-gun. Since the roe deer is much smaller than red deer or fallow deer, if it is sufficiently close, and if the shot-gun is fired by someone who is a reasonable shot, there is no reason why the deer should not be killed stone dead. It is very difficult in thick cover and thick undergrowth to control roe deer in any other way. The brief I had from the Deer Society specifically excluded roe deer from their provisions that shot-guns should not be used against deer. Having said this, I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his Amendment, but if he does not I must ask your Lordships to vote against it.
Loan SOMERS: May I say a word or two in support of this Amendment? I am rather surprised at the attitude the noble Duke has taken. It is always surprising to me to hear people say that they entirely approve of everything that has been said, and that the Amendment is going to improve a most undesirable situation, and then to find that they suddenly end by saying, "But I hope he will not press this Amendment, and that it will not be carried", simply because we dare not press any Amendment which we think might not be agreed to in another place. The respect which I have for another place is very genuine, but I feel that it is time that we stopped being so afraid of expressing our own opinion that we never say anything which we feel would not receive wholesale approval in the other place.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: With due respect to my noble friend, he is really completely off the rails. If this Amendment did go to another place it would probably be agreed to by the Left Wing of Her Majesty's Government. There are other reasons. I feel quite sure that in the future Her Majesty's Government will bring in legislation to put this situation right.
LORD SOMERS: I entirely agree with the noble Viscount. I am merely commenting on what the noble Duke said.
LORD SWANSEA: May I intervene briefly? I have the greatest sympathy with my noble friend who moved this

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Amendment, but I think that it does not go far enough. I have never been able to understand why the restrictions on firearms defined in the 1963 Deer Act did not also apply to Scotland. I hope that if the noble Viscount sees fit to withdraw his Amendment at this stage, and reintroduces it at a later stage, defining the prohibited firearms and ammunition as laid down in the 1963 Act, it will gain much wider support.
5.54 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: I had not intended to intervene in what is a very interesting private quarrel on the other side, but there is a misconception on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Somers. The suggestion by the noble Duke was not made from any fear of what another place might do, but was simply a recognition of the facts of life. This is a Private Member's Bill, and at this stage in the Parliamentary Session its chances of getting through the machinery in another place are very slim. Its chance is improved considerably if it concerns only items to which no one has objection. It is not for me to speculate whether this Bill would receive support from the Left Wing on the Government side, or meet with violent opposition of the Right Wing of the Opposition side: it needs only one objector, and it is lost.
What noble Lords have to decide is this. Do they wish to make a gesture, with which we can probably all agree, and the effect of which is that nothing will be done to deal with this problem, because the Bill will not get anywhere, or are they willing to accept the facts of life and pass a Bill which will get through in another place, and then say, "Let us press as hard as we can for any form of legislation in which this may be done, but accept the regrettable fact that putting it into this Bill will not bring it into operation one day sooner than if it goes into the appropriate measure"?
Some noble Lords may feel that a humane gesture is worth the loss of all the other items in the Bill. What the noble Duke has done is to introduce a Bill to implement one specific item on which the Red Deer Commission asked for legislation. It may well be that they wish legislation on this: it may be that they wish legislation on other matters. But the point upon which the noble Duke has based his Bill is what the Red Deer
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Commission have asked for. I would strongly support him in his plea that we should not, for the sake of a humane gesture, throw away the advantages which we may well secure from the passing of this Bill.
VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET: I am glad to feel that I have some support on this side for the basis of my Amendment, but I cannot wholly ignore the desires of my noble friend the Duke of Atholl and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. I agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Somers, said: that if you feel strongly about something, you should push it through; and if it is accepted let another place deal with it in the best fashion they think fit. I am very inclined to ask your Lordships to come to a decision on this point, because I certainly agree with it.
The noble Lord, Lord Swansea, said that I ought to have restricted the firearms in line with the 1963 Act. I think I am right in saying that in fact they are already so restricted.
Loin SWANSEA: Except in regard to shot-guns. That was the point I had in mind.
VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET: Shotguns were allowed, I think, only for roe deer.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: The English Act prohibited the use of shot-guns of less than 12 bore. But it permitted the use of shot-guns of 12 bore, and greater, with suitable cartridges.
VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET: Then the 1963 Act is equally wrong in this respect. Next year, no doubt, there will be a Report from the Red Deer Commission in regard to 1967, and no doubt it will contain certain matters on which they will require us to pass legislation. If they do not on that occasion ask for restriction of firearms, I shall look forward to bringing up this point again, and possibly following it through with a bit more force. For the present, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2:
Amendment of section 33 of the Act of 1959
2. Subsections (2) and (3) of section 33 of the said Act (exemptions for certain acts)

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shall be repealed and replaced by the following subsections:—
(3) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 21 of this Act, or of any order made thereunder, it shall not be an offence—
(a) for an occupier of agricultural land or of enclosed woodlands, or for any person authorised by him in writing in that behalf, to take or kill during a close season any deer found on any arable land, garden grounds or land laid down in permanent grass (other than moorland and unenclosed land) forming part of that land, or on such woodlands, as the case may be, and
LORD BURTON LORD BURTON moved to leave out, "Subsections (2) and (3) of section 33 of the said Act (exemption for certain acts)", and to insert:
"(1) In subsection (1) of section 33 of the said Act (exemptions for certain acts) for the words from "prevention" to the end of the subsection there shall be substituted the words "purpose of preventing suffering by an injured or diseased deer, or by any deer calf deprived of its mother".
(2) Subsections (2) and (3) of the said section 33".
The noble Lord said: The object of this Amendment is to ensure that one may legally kill a calf out of season which has for some reason or other lost its mother. Your Lordships may well have found the Amendment on the Marshalled List somewhat complicated. I certainly did, and this is all the more reason for my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, and his officials at the Scottish Office who have drafted the Amendment as it now stands. I am sure this must be an entirely non-controversial Amendment. It has been introduced to legalise what has been a general practice for many years, and which only became illegal by the Deer Act 1959 by what was probably an oversight. If a hind dies or has to be killed for some reason or other, on humanitarian grounds alone, let alone good deer management, it is obvious that any calf it may have under one year old should be humanely destroyed. If it happens that the calf has to be killed during the hind shooting season, then as the law stands at the moment anyone shooting a calf stands a fifty-fifty chance of killing a stag out of season. I think my Amendment should rectify this position, and accordingly I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 10, leave out from beginning to ("shall") in line 11 and insert the said words.—(Lord Burton.)
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I am sure we all agree that where possible a humanitarian practice should be enshrined in the law and should not be made possibly the subject of a prosecution. It is undoubtedly an humanitarian practice to kill the calf of a deer when it is under one year old. I am sure that the fact that this was made illegal in 50 per cent. of the cases by the Deer Act 1959 was an oversight at the time. I think the sooner this is rectified the better, and therefore I would ask your Lordships to accept the Amendment so well put forward by my noble friend Lord Burton.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
6.4 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD moved, in the proposed new subsection 3(a), to leave out "enclosed woodlands" and to insert "woodlands enclosed by a deer fence". The noble Lord said: My object in putting down this Amendment is to try to have the phrase "enclosed woodlands" defined as regards deer. So far as I can ascertain there is no definition of enclosed land as regards deer. As the Amendment says, I should like to include the words "woodlands enclosed by a deer fence" to define enclosed land regarding deer. This is perhaps too strong for agricultural land at the moment, but with regard to woodlands you can have mature woodlands which are surrounded by tumbledown or old rickety pieces of fencing. The deer can have free access into those woodlands, and therefore they can be shot out of season.
In the Second Reading debate I also drew attention to the fact that some farmers I can think of have made a habit of ploughing up pieces of land in the hills and sowing some rye grass, rape, or white turnip and putting a few old fence posts and strands of wire around it so that it becomes enclosed land. Of course, in winter-time every deer comes on to that patch from miles around and farmers can shoot a great number with great profit to themselves and do great damage to the sporting interests of the estate. Of course, you then have a decreased rental on the sporting rights. We

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have seen in the official reports (probably most of your Lordships read the Field newspaper) that in the deer ground in large areas of the Highlands there has apparently been a great decrease in the numbers of deer. It is not, of course, solely due to the unsatisfactory position regarding enclosed land; there are also other reasons which I need not go into now. Certainly none of the reasons is owing to the proprietors of the deer forests of the sporting tenants.
I hope that at some future date, not too far distant, when we have more legislation on the subject of deer, Her Majesty's Government will have this phrase "enclosed woodlands" properly defined legally. As it now stands, it is most unsatisfactory. I do not intend to press this Amendment, but I beg leave to move the Amendment in the hope that I may have some reply from the noble Lord opposite as to his opinions on this matter.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 12, leave out ("enclosed woodlands") and insert ("woodlands enclosed by a deer fence").—(Viscount Massereene and Ferrard.)
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I have listened with great interest to my noble friend, and I see exactly what he is trying to get at. Perhaps I should first declare an interest, in that I am convinced that if this Amendment were carried it would cost me an enormous sum of money to fence the woodlands in the way which my noble friend apparently considers necessary. It also has several other disadvantages, and perhaps I may briefly enumerate them. The term "enclosed woodlands" has been in common use since at least 1939 and, so far as is known to the Red Deer Commission and other bodies, has not given rise to any difficulties from the point of view of definition.
It has been suggested that some so-called "enclosed woodlands" are not really enclosed; and this, I think, is the problem at which my noble friend is aiming. I would also point out to him that as drafted his Amendment would apply only to killing deer during the close season. The occupier of the woodlands would therefore still have the right to kill deer on enclosed woodlands but not on deer-fenced woodlands during the other parts of the year. This would in-
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troduce into the Bill an anomaly which I think would be undesirable.
It would also have the disadvantage that presumably if woodlands were to be enclosed by deer-fencing they would have to be deer-fenced all the way round. It is my experience—and I think that of most people—that this is not common practice. It is unnecessary and would add a great deal of expense which forestry can ill afford at the moment. Normally, one deer-fences woodlands on the side where they are most likely to be accessible to the deer, the side which is open on to the moorland; woodlands are not normally fenced where they are accessible only from arable land, because one presumes—in many cases probably wrongly —that the deer do not have access to this arable land. In order to be within the terms of my noble friend's definition, I think it would be necessary to deer-fence the woods on all sides.
The Amendment would also introduce difficulties, because in many places woodland and arable land are muddled up, and it would mean that you might be able to shoot deer out of season once they got on to the arable land but not when they are actually in the woodlands. This would lead to difficulties, and I think such a provision would be almost impossible to enforce. I am pleased, and grateful, therefore, to hear that my noble friend does not intend to press this Amendment, which, as I say, seems to me to be slightly impracticable. However, I fully sympathise with the thought behind it.
LORD HUGHES: The noble Viscount asked for my comments. All I wish to say is that I will adopt everything the noble Duke has said, with the exception of his opening remarks. I have no personal interest in this matter, and I should not be involved in any expense if the Amendment were accepted.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I certainly have no intention of running my noble friend into tens of thousands of pounds' expenditure by reason of erecting deer fences. In Germany or Austria, mature woods are not fenced at all. They are not fenced because the deer do little damage to mature woodlands—they do, perhaps, 5 per cent. damage. I wanted this Amendment to apply to young plantations, but as the

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Bill now stands, in mature woodlands, which cannot be really harmed by deer, one can shoot the deer out of season. However, having made that point, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
6.12 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD moved, after Clause 2, to insert the following new clause:
Prohibition of sale of venison during close season
".— (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Act of 1959 as amended by this Act, if any person sells the carcase or part of the carcase of:—

(a) any stag, being a red deer, or any hind, being a red deer, during the respective close seasons for deer of such descriptions and species specified in section 21(1) of the Act of 1959; or

(b) any deer of any species and description other than red deer named in an order made under section 21(2) of the Act of 1959 during the period fixed by such order in respect of deer of that species and description

he shall be guilty of an offence and shall beliable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £20 and in the case of a second or subsequent conviction to a fine not exceeding £50 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months or to both such fine and imprisonment.
(2) For the purposes of this section the expression 'Act of 1959' means the Deer (Scotland) Act 1959 and the expression 'red deer' has the same meaning as in the Act of 1959."
The noble Viscount said: In putting down this Amendment I was also anxious to air the subject of the killing of deer out of season. This Amendment would cure two evils. It would stop the present abuse of the law in regard to poaching, which is extremely excessive out of season owing to the fact that the deer are far easier to approach in that period. The other reason is that poaching out of season and the indiscriminate shooting by poachers, as it almost always is, leads to great cruelty. The shooting of hinds heavy in calf, the shooting of hinds with calves at foot, with the calves dying, the wounding and shooting of deer of the wrong age, and so on, lead to great abuses. Here, again, I would hope that at some future date Her Majesty's Government would follow the custom on the
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Continent, where they are far ahead of us in many of these matters relating to game preservation.
As I mentioned on Second Reading, I should really like to see here the tagging of deer carcases. Here is a field where the Red Deer Commission could take over, as is done by the Forstmeister in the various regions of Germany. The deer forest owners would apply to the Deer Control or Commission before the season commenced for a certain number of tags relative to the number of hinds and stags which they required to shoot, and they would have to fix them to the carcases. These seals cannot be used again. We should therefore completely eradicate the profitable market in the sale of out-of-season venison. It works perfectly adequately on the Continent, and I cannot see why we cannot have it here.
I should also like to see the RedDeer Commission adopt the same system regarding marauding deer. Any proprietor, and the Forestry Commission, too, ought to be answerable to the Red Deer Commission for the shooting of their marauding deer. Here again, the carcases would have to be tagged. Dealers dealing in venison would have to be licensed to deal only in tagged venison. It is only by doing this that we can prevent the enormous illegal killing of deer which, as I have said, brings the law into great disrepute. I shall not press this Amendment because this Bill is not suitable for my Amendments, but I hope that in future something like this can be done, because it is the only way we can do away with this horrible practice of the indiscriminate poaching which leads to great cruelty and is doing such damage to the deer stocks in the Highlands. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 2, insert the said new clause.—(Viscount Massereene and Ferrard.)
VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET: I wish to support this Amendment of my noble friend, and I hope that he does not seek to withdraw it, because I feel that it is even more important than the other Amendments which have been proposed. There is one additional aspect of this point which would lend more force to his already quite lucid argument. The annual amount of venison exported is currently running at about £425,000 a year. This is a highly competitive business, and if we allow ourselves to fall

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into the trap of thinking that our venison is superior to that of others it will not belong before we lose this most valuable contribution to our exports. The prohibition on the sale of venison out of season would greatly help to maintain the high quality.
It is, of course, quite understandable that many hill farmers and crofters sell the carcases of marauding deer which they shoot in order to help to recompense themselves for the damage they have suffered. Marauding deer are invariably in poor condition, and the meat is well below any form of acceptable standard. Of course, if they were in good condition they would not be marauding deer; they would have no need to trespass at all. By prohibiting the sale of venison out of season we should remove from the market these carcases which are being sold, and only prime venison would find its way abroad, and that would help to maintain the present high standard.
If poor venison continues to be sold, there could be a severe risk that we should lose this export market. If venison could not be sold, owners could not afford to maintain the staff to cull their deer. This in turn would lead to unemployment and further depopulation, rents could be affected, and rates and taxes might have to be found from elsewhere if these deer forests were no longer forthcoming. They could only be found from the remaining inhabitants; namely, hill farmers and crofters. For these reasons I feel that it would be right to accept the Amendment.
LORD BURTON: First of all, I should like to thank the Committee for accepting the Amendment which I moved a little earlier. Although I have a great deal of sympathy with the noble Viscount on this Amendment, I feel that, in view of the arguments which have already been put forward on previous Amendments, we cannot accept it. It is obvious, from Second Reading speeches and remarks which have been made to-day, that there are many matters which require legislation to alter the law relating to deer in Scotland. I hope that it will be possible to have that further legislation in the near future. I am confident that agreement can be reached between various bodies after sufficient discussion, and that a good many of the points can
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be resolved. Even if this Amendment is withdrawn, I hope that the Government will look very carefully and consult with the Commission to see whether we cannot get agreement to try to get some of these other Amendments through.
LORD HUGHES: If the Committee will permit me, I should like to say that I am led to believe that the Red Deer Commission favour an amendment of the game laws to make this possible, but they appreciate that the amendment which is necessary is to the game laws, not to the Deer Acts. I must emphasise that, although I believe this is a conclusion at which they have arrived, they have not yet submitted any recommendation to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. I can say, however, that if such a recommendation comes from the Commission, the Government will consider it carefully.
Your Lordships will understand that in a very crowded legislative programme it would be exceedingly rash for me to make any promise about legislation in this matter. However, one never knows what opportunities will occur, and perhaps by the sort of assiduous cultivation of interests which the noble Duke has pursued on the subject of this Bill, with, I hope, the successful co-operation of his noble friends in withdrawing Amendments, there may yet be a similar field of activity for somebody else in another Bill at a later stage. However, the first thing is to see what the Red Deer Commission actually ask the Government to do in this matter. What is quite certain is that legislation is difficult enough for people to follow without starting to amend the Game Acts while Parliament is in course of dealing with a Private Member's Bill on deer.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I have listened with great interest to all that has been said by my noble friends and by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. I think that this is a problem and it undoubtedly needs some form of legislation to deal with it. I do not think that this particular Amendment is the answer, partly for the reasons which Lord Hughes outlined and partly for other reasons. As I understand it, the main object of this Amendment was to prevent bad quality venison from being exported abroad. I think my noble friend Lord Mountgarret

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regarded that as being a great point in favour of this Amendment. I think, too, that it is largely up to the dealers to stop bad quality venison from being exported abroad.
I gather that yesterday the Red Deer Commission and representatives of the dealers held a meeting in order to try to get some agreement on this matter and on suitable amendment to the Game Act 1831, as extended to Scotland by the 1860 Act, for the registration of dealers and for the power to look at dealers' books. If this was done, and if legislation was passed on these lines, I feel that it would go a long way towards getting over the second difficulty which my noble friends have enumerated, and that is the poaching of out-of-season venison. I feel that if the Red Deer Commission had a right to inspect game dealers' books they would be able to see which dealers were dealing in excessively large numbers of out-of-season venison and from whom they were obtaining it. This would enable them to keep track of where this venison was coming from and to see that the people concerned were really playing the game and acting within the spirit of the 1959 Act.
I am sure that, if this Amendment was passed, the National Farmers' Union of Scotland would feel that we had broken faith with them in relation to the 1959 Act. We must remember that the 1959 Act was a measure which was agreed between the various interested bodies, and one of the reasons why the farmers agreed was that the extra damage they were likely to suffer from marauding deer would to a certain extent be compensated by the price which they were able to obtain from the sale of these deer as venison. I also feel that in these days, when we need to maximise our assets, to put a complete ban on the sale of out-of-season venison would be very uneconomic as well as unrealistic. This venison is perfectly all right for making into dog and cat food, and I cannot believe that it would be a good thing to ban its sale for at any rate these purposes. I hope that my noble friend will, as he
1400
said—and I am grateful to him—withdraw his Amendment, because I believe that while the Red Deer Commission are in consultation with the dealers it would not be a good moment to press such an Amendment. I hope that other noble Lords will allow my noble friend to withdraw it.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: Before withdrawing this Amendment, I should like to point out that my main reason for putting it down was completely humane. If any noble Lords here had seen some of the sights I have seen of deer which have been maimed out of season by poachers, I am sure they would feel as I do. The other reason why I put the Amendment down was that while you can sell venison out of season, it is a great temptation to small farmers, and perhaps some large farmers, to lure deer on to their holdings during the close season to shoot them for sale. It can be extremely profitable, and I know instances where farmers have done this on purpose. With those few remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: Does the noble Viscount wish to move Amendment No. 5?
VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET: Yes, I do. When moving Amendment No. 1 I asked your Lordships if I could move Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 at the same time.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: The noble Viscount cannot move more than one Amendment at a time. I understand that Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 are consequential on the first Amendment, which I think the noble Viscount withdrew, so I wondered therefore whether he wished to move No. 5.
VISCOUNT MOUNTGARRET: Not moved.
House resumed: Bill reported with an Amendment.

AGRICULTURE BILL
6.30 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Walston.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL. OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 37 agreed to.
LORD WALSTON LORD WALSTON moved, after Clause 37, to insert the following new clause:
Recovery of possession of farmhouse vacated on amalgamation and let on regulated tenancy
".— (1) The following provisions of this section shall apply where—

(a) as part of an amalgamation to which a scheme under section 26 of this Act applies, the occupation of a dwelling-house is relinquished by a person who, at any time before he relinquished it, was responsible (whether as owner, tenant, or servant or agent of another) for the control of the farming of any part of the land comprised in the amalgamation, and

(b) the dwelling-house is thereafter let on a regulated tenancy otherwise than to, or to the widow of, that person, any other person who relinquishes his occupation of a dwelling-house as part of the amalgamation, or any person who is or at any time was employed by the landlord in agriculture.

(2) If—

(a) not later than the commencement of the regulated tenancy, the tenant has been given notice in writing that possession may be recovered under this section, and

(b) apart from the Rent Acts, the landlord would be entitled to recover possession of the dwelling-house, and

(c)the court is satisfied that the dwelling-house is required for occupation by a person employed or to be employed by the land-lord in agriculture,

the court shall, in proceedings commenced by the landlord at any time during the period of five years beginning with the date on which the proposals for the amalgamation were approved by the appropriate Minister, make an order for the possession of the dwelling-house, whether or not it would have power to do so under section 3 of the Act of 1933, and section 5(2) of the Act of 1920 shall not apply in relation to the order.
(3) In this section—
"the Rent Acts" means the Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions Acts 1920 to 1939, or any of those Acts, and "the Act of 1920" and "the Act of 1933" mean respectively the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Act 1920 and the
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Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions (Amendment) Act 1933;
"employed" and "agriculture" have the same meanings as in the Agricultural Wages Act 1948 or, in Scotland, the Agricultural Wages (Scotland) Act 1949;
"landlord", "tenant" and "tenancy" have the same meanings as in the Act of 1920;
"regulated tenancy" means a tenancy to which the Rent Acts apply by virtue of section 1 of the Rent Act 1965; and
"order for possession", in relation to to Scotland, means decree of removing or warrant of ejection or other like order."
The noble Lord said: It may be convenient, if your Lordships agree, to discuss together the new clause which stands in my name and the Amendment to it in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford. When two farms are amalgamated under this Bill, there may be cases in which one of the farmhouses falls vacant on the departure of the outgoing occupier. The man who is going to farm the new unit will probably need one house for his own occupation. He is probably already in occupation of it, but he may be undecided, at the time when the amalgamation takes place, whether he is going torequire the second house for the proper operation of the amalgamated holdings, or whether it can reasonably and conveniently be let to somebody who is not engaged in agriculture.
In such a case, of course, the farmer would know that if he let the vacant house to anyone else the tenancy would be subject to the provisions of the Rent Acts, so that he might be unable to recover possession when he needed the house in connection with farming the unit. So it could well be that in such circumstances he would consider it only prudent to keep the house unoccupied until he had made up his mind whether or not he was going to use it.
When this matter was discussed in another place, the argument was advanced that it would be wrong to allow good agricultural houses to remain vacant in this way, and very possibly to deteriorate as a consequence of being unoccupied. So the Government undertook to examine the whole problem and this new clause, which has now been set down in my name, embodies our proposals for dealing with the special case of the farmhouse which falls vacant as a result of a farm amalgamation under this Bill, and which is thereupon let on a regulated tenancy.
We have provided, first, that the tenant should be told at the time of the letting that the special provisions of the clause will apply, and that if the provisions of the clause are satisfied the court shall make an order for possession notwithstanding other provisions in the Rent Acts which might otherwise prevent this. Your Lordships will, of course, be aware that the Government place importance on making quite certain that, wherever possible, farmers who give up their holdings for amalgamation under this Bill shall be allowed to remain in occupation of their farmhouse if they so wish. This principle has not been questioned at any time, so far as I know, during the passage of this Bill.
Alternatively, the landlord may offer the outgoing occupier the other farmhouse instead—perhaps because his old house is the better one on which to base the amalgamated homestead. The object of such an arrangement would be defeated if the landlord who had allowed the outgoer to stay were then given powers to dispossess him. I think your Lordships will agree that it is essential that this class of person should enjoy the protection of the Rent Acts, and we have framed the new clause accordingly. It is also proposed to exclude from the special powers in the clause lettings to past or present agricultural employees of the landlord. Your Lordships will know that such persons are already excluded from the similar provisions of Section 16 of the Rent Act, 1965. Repossession from such tenants is dealt with by Section 33 of that Act. The Government's new clause puts lettings to farm workers under it on the same footing as under the 1965 Act.
The power to recover possession is limited to a period of five years from the time when the amalgamation was approved by the Minister, and this is the provision which the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, seeks to delete by his Amendment. I have personally given a lot of thought to this matter, because I confess that I felt there was a great deal of force in the noble Lord's Amendment. But I have come to the conclusion that five years is both a reasonable and an ample period, during which the needs of the individual holding should become abundantly clear. I feel that if
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the landlord has not exercised his option during that time, the house should be treated in the same way as any other rural dwelling which is not used for letting to agricultural workers.
The Government consider that the amalgamator—the man who has taken on 'the two holdings—must make up his mind in a reasonable time whether or not he needs the house. Ideally, of course, he should make it up at the time of the amalgamation. He should decide then which of the houses he wants to use, as if he does not do so the amalgamation will to some extent suffer. I accept, though, that it is imposing too much of a burden on him to insist that he makes up his mind at the very moment of amalgamation, or within a few months. He may well want some time to decide whether he needs any other of those houses for a worker, and, if he does, to install a worker in it. But I do not think it would be reasonable to insist that he should have a permanent option to repossess the house for general agricultural purposes; and especially not to serve as a farmhouse again. I feel that he should show within a reasonable time of the amalgamation that the house is, in fact, wanted for a farm worker.
The Government are concerned that amalgamations under the Bill should not allow a house which is needed for a farm worker to lie idle, even for a limited time. Nevertheless, we must protect those who have given up their homes to allow an amalgamation to proceed. We must also ensure that the extension of this class of temporary tenancy is firmly linked to the needs and difficulties arising from the amalgamation. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will agree that by this new Amendment we have struck a reasonable and fair balance between these objectives.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, for putting down his Amendment, and I have explained why it cannot be accepted at this present time. I do not know whether he would like at this stage to explain some of his reasons for feeling, in spite of what I have said, that it is perhaps a desirable Amendment.
Amendment moved—
After Cause 37, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Walston.)
6.39 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD moved, as an Amendment to the Amendment, in the proposed new subsection (2), to leave out "during the period of five years beginning with the date on which" and to substitute "after". The noble Lord said: May I thank the noble Lord, Lord Walston, for explaining the purpose of his new clause and for discussing the merits of my Amendment to it? I should like, first, to welcome his new clause, which is substantially the same as the one that I put down earlier on the Order Paper and subsequently withdrew. This reflects the view expressed by the Conservative spokesman in another place, that this was a provision which should be made: that when an amalgamation took place the spare farmhouse constituted a special case. I was disappointed that in another place the Government divided against the proposal and defeated it, but I am delighted that wiser counsels now prevail, and that the Government see the wisdom of making provision to meet this case, and to extend the provisions of the 1965 Rent Act to cover the spare farmhouse.
The new clause moved by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, goes rather further than did my new clause, because it makes special provision for the retiring farmer or his widow to continue to live in the spare farmhouse if they wish to do so. I quite accept that that is both humane and sensible, and the proper thing to do. In fact, unless such was done there probably would not be an amalgamation at all, so it is an entirely sensible thing to do. But I am not entirely happy with the five-year limitation, because I think it might well frustrate the very purpose for which the clause sets out to make provision.
I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Walston, that if the farmhouse is vacated by the farmer who had the holding before, five years should be enough for the amalgamator (as the noble Lord called him) to make up his mind whether or not he wants the farmhouse for the future running of the amalgamated holding. But where it seems to me the five-year limitation may frustrate the whole arrangement is where the retiring farmer or his widow stays on and continues to live in the farmhouse, because the term of five years runs from the time
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of the amalgamation, and the retiring farmer might very easily stay on for many more than five years. He might stay on for 10 or 15 years before he left his vale of sorrow and went to a happier place; and by that time the farmer who was farming the holding and waiting to get the farmhouse would have lost the possibility of getting control of it. In these circumstances, while I see the point in the noble Lord's mind, I think that this five-year limitation is a limitation which may destroy the purpose of the new clause. That is the reason why I put this Amendment down.
I know that the feelings I am expressing are strongly shared by the National Farmers' Union, who I think have already written to the noble Lord about this point. I realise that this new clause has only recently arrived on the Order Paper, and that there has not been much time to work out all the implications of it. In the circumstances, I wonder whether the noble Lord would consider taking back this new clause now and giving further consideration to it before the Report stage, to see whether or no he really feels that the five-year limitation should be kept in. I feel that there is so little between us on this. We both want the substance of the clause, and what it sets out to do; and the only difference is on the five-year point. I wonder whether, in those circumstances, the noble Lord would be prepared to give further consideration to it. I beg to move.
Amendment to the Amendment moved—
Subsection (2), line 11, leave out ("during the period of five years beginning with the date on which") and insert ("after").—(Lord Nugent of Guildford.)
LORD WALSTON: As the noble Lord has said, I agree that this is a new Amendment and that there has not been much time to think about it, although a great deal of thought has gone into its preparation. I would be misleading the noble Lord if I said that we would reconsider the principle of the five-year period. I think that has been gone into with great care, and that we have achieved the right balance. However, there may be circumstances of the type that he has mentioned, in which the farmer lives for some time afterwards and the amalgamator would like a certain

1407
period of time after the death or disappearance of the other farmer, or the occupier of the second farmhouse, in which to consider his plans.
I think there could be some argument for making some form of extension in that respect, and therefore I should be glad to give further thought to this. I think it might be more convenient if the Amendment in my name—that is, Amendment No. 30—were agreed to now, but subject to the proviso that more thought will be given to it, and that a subsequent Amendment might be produced on Report stage to meet the point raised by the noble Lord.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: I thank the noble Lord for going that far to meet my point, and in those circumstances I am happy to beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 38 [Provisions relating to Northern Ireland]:
6.46 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: The next Amendment is consequential upon the previous Amendment, No. 30. It provides that the new clause added by Amendment No. 30 shall not extend to Northern Ireland, where the existing law already enables dwelling-houses to be repossessed in the circumstances specified in the new clause. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 45, line 9, at end insert ("and section (Recovery of possession of farmhouse vacated on amalgamation and let on regulated tenancy)").—(Lord Walston.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 38, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 39 to 43 agreed to.
Clause 44:
Rural Development Boards.
44.—
(2) Those special problems and needs include the special difficulties in the formation of commercial units of agricultural land in such areas, the need for an overall programme for guidance in making decisions as to the use of land in such areas for agriculture and
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forestry, so that those two uses are complementary, the need for improved public services in such areas in step with their development for agricultural and forestry purposes, and the need for preserving and taking full advantage of the amenities and scenery in those areas in the course of their development for those purposes.
(8) The provisions of subsections (51, (6) and (7) of this section shall not apply to Scotland, and on the establishment of a Rural Development Board in Scotland, the Secretary of State shall cause a notice referring to the provisions of this Part of this Act controlling sales of land and controlling afforestation to be lodged at the principal office of the county council of every county in the area of which any part of the Board's area lies, and the notice shall be available for inspection free of charge at all reasonable hours.
LORD BALERNO LORD BALERNO moved, in subsection (8), after "country", where that word occurs a second time, to insert:
"and at the office of every burgh and every district council".
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 33, which stands in my name, and with which the name of my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard is associated. As regards the formation of Rural Development Boards in Scotland, while notice of the intention to form a Board is fairly adequately provided for by intimation in the local papers for two successive weeks, the local papers are not a terribly good medium, because they do not always circulate to the farms. 'The agricultural Press—one of the two farming papers—is more likely to be read by the people concerned than are the local papers.
The point I wish to bring to the attention of your Lordships' Committee, and which I wish to make by this Amendment, concerns subsection (8) of Clause 44, where it is required that a notice referring to the establishment of a Rural Development Board in Scotland is
"to be lodged at the principal office of the county council of every county in the area of which any part of the Board's area lies,…"
The purpose of my Amendment is to extend this requirement to include district councils, as well as any burgh that is within that area.
There are great distances within certain counties in Scotland. If I may give an illustration, many of your Lordships who have perhaps not been to Scotland will be acquainted with Dr. Finlay's Casebook, in which case Tannochbrae will be

1409
vivid in your minds. To quote the opening words of Clause 44, it is comprised of typical "rural areas of hills and uplands". Very few people from Tannochbrae would wish to go to Perth, or would have occasion to go to Perth. They will go down to Stirling, which is unlikely to be associated with Perthshire in connection with a Rural Development Board. But from Tannochbrae to Perth is really a comparatively short distance. One must appreciate that Perthshire extends considerably further from Perth than Tannochbrae: it goes right up to Aberfoyle, across to Loch Katrine, almost to Loch Lomond; then it comes to the River Falloch, which runs into Loch Lomond. Anybody who lives in the valley of the River Falloch will certainly go down Loch Lomondside (his line of communications is down Loch Lomondside) into Dumbartonshire and will go several miles further on the other side of Glen Falloch. So the distances are great; and some of the small farmers are not accustomed to going great distances other than to their markets. Certainly the people from Glen Falloch would not be in the habit of going to Perth in ordinary circumstances; it will be a big job for them.
A further instance in an area which might be covered is the Cabrach, in Aberdeenshire. To my mind, the Cabrach, which borders Aberdeenshire and Banffshire, forms an excellent area for a Rural Development Board as envisaged in this clause. It is full of small farms and crofts of 30 to 40 acres; and the farmers there are not necessarily in the habit of going to Aberdeen, except perhaps when visiting their sons and daughters at the university.
A kind fairy has been helping me with this particular Amendment. I had not thought about the burghs in the area of the Rural Development Board. But they have been inserted, and I hope that the good will that has improved my intentions will permeate the Government Benches and that we in Scotland shall receive favourable consideration for this peculiarly Scottish case—for this is a Scottish clause, affecting Scotland only.
Amendment moved—
Page 50, line 28, after ("county") insert ("and at the office of every burgh and every district council").—(Lord Balerno.)
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I should like to support my noble friend in this Amendment. He talked about the great distances in Perthshire, but they are as nothing compared with the even greater distances in Argyllshire. When we have a General Election, the ballot boxes from Argyllshire usually take three or four days to reach their destination. Some have to come by rowing boat from the small islands. It would be extremely difficult for any of the residents in these outlandish places to go to the county capital. I would say that Argyllshire, even more than Perthshire, is a county of crofters and smallholders and it would be impossible for a great many people anxious to go to the county offices to travel the distances required. Therefore I support the Amendment.
6.54 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: The noble Lord, Lord Balerno, did an excellent conducted tour of Dr. Finlay's Casebook territory. But it runs in my mind that in one of the recent episodes Janet made an expedition away from Tannochbrae—though I do not remember where she went. When the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, brought in Argyllshire I thought we were going to get a similarly well-conducted tour of Argyllshire. Instead, he contented himself with reminding us that it takes four days for the bad news of the results of a General Election in Argyll to reach us. However, I will now come a little more relevantly to the Amendment.
I think it is correct that the purpose of the Amendment (and of the one following in the name of the noble Viscount) is to make more widely known any establishment of a Rural Development Board. May I, at this point, take the opportunity of saying that in future I shall refer to such a Board merely as "the Board"? The Amendment would also apply to conferring powers of control over land transfers and afforestation on the Highlands and Islands Development Board. The Government have no plans at present to set up a Scottish Board. This has been said more than once; but we have not said that we will not at any time set up a Board. We can only state this as the likely position. It is

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quite proper, in dealing with a Bill, that we should proceed on the basis that the unlikely may in fact take place. I agree that if such a Board should be established the fact should certainly be made known to all those who may be affected. But I think that this is provided for in paragraph 5 of Schedule 5, which refers to the advertisement of the making of the Order and the deposit of a copy of the Order where it is to be available for inspection. I would remind your Lordships that this follows the procedure set out in Schedule 5, concerning advertisement of a proposed Order, objections, public inquiry and finally Affirmative Resolutions by both Houses of Parliament.
The lodging with the county council of a notice under Clause 44(8) serves a different purpose altogether. It is designed to enable the purchaser of land in Scotland to ascertain from an authoritative source at any given point of time whether any of the land is subject to the powers of control under this Part of the Bill either by such a Board or by the Highlands and Islands Development Board. I would remind the Committee that normally the purchaser of land looks to the Register of Sasines for any possible limitation. This, of course, would not be found there. It is for this reason that it was thought that the purchaser of land, his agent or his lawyer, would not find it a burden to make inquiries at the county council. So we are dealing with two quite different aspects. I think the purpose the noble Lord seeks to achieve is already accomplished in the other part of the Bill. This serves adequately the purpose intended, the more limited one of the actual purchaser of land.
I started on an irrelevancy. If I may, I will finish on another by replying to a question which the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, put to me yesterday. He asked whether a piece of mobile equipment which was neither a harvester nor a tractor would be eligible for grant. In order that the noble Baroness may know that we are not completely hidebound in these matters, that we are not firmly immersed in the end of the last century or the beginning of the present one, I can say that the answer to the question of the noble Lord. Lord Balerno is, Yes, if the machine is to be used for agriculture; if
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the machine is self-propelled; if it is licensed, and, finally, if it is not normally capable of exceeding a speed of 30 miles per hour. So there is now one additional piece of equipment which is mobile and yet acceptable. Having given the noble Lord these glad tidings, I hope it will encourage him to accept my explanation in relation to this Amendment, that he will find it possible to withdraw his Amendment, and that the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, will not find it necessary to move the next Amendment.
LORD BALERNO: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for his reply and especially for clearing up the point which I raised yesterday. It does rejoice me to think that when this Bill becomes an Act I shall be able to apply for a grant for a self-propelled lawn mower which collects the grass, which makes it a forage harvester.
LORD HUGHES: If it is used for agriculture.
LORD BALERNO: I think that if you live on a farm you can make a case for it being used for agriculture. After all, you have to keep the sward down in the the cause of good husbandry. It would make a very pretty point to argue with the Scottish Department of Agriculture.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: May I ask my noble friend Lord Balerno whether he thinks that the amount of the licence fee would be as much as or more than the grant?
LORD BALERNO: To the noble Duke I would say that, if the machine would relieve me in my old age of the amount of sweat that I now pour out by rushing after a lawn mower which I have to follow on my legs (for if it were a self-propelled machine I should expect it to be one on which you could ride as the Americans do), it would be an article which I have for several years wished that I could secure. I am grateful to the Government for managing to make it possible for me to do so.
With regard to the Amendment, sometimes a crofter wishes to acquire further land from a neighbour who has died. This

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happens not infrequently and if this subsection is not amended it will mean that the crofter would have to make a very long journey merely to discover in the first instance whether or not the land is acquirable. I should have thought the Government could concede this point. The fact that subsection (8) applies only to Scotland means that there is a possibility of Rural Development Boards coming to Scotland. But, in view of the assurance of the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, I feel that the matter is not of sufficient immediacy to justify my pressing the Amendment. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: The purposes of the Amendment is to delete the reference to the Minister of Land and Natural Resources. Your Lordships will know that, as from February 16 this year, the functions of the Minister of Land and Natural Resources, so far they related to forestry matters in England were transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. This Amendment, and, if I may mention it now, those to Clauses 45, Nos. 50, 51 and 53, are necessary to delete references to the funtions of the Minister of Land and Natural Resources in respect of the appointment and duties of Rural Development Boards. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 50, line 33, leave out from ("to") to end of line 37 and insert ("Wales, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State for Wales acting jointly").—(Lord Hilton of Upton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 44, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 45:
Functions of Rural Development Boards
45.—
(b) in consultation with such local authorities and other bodies as appear to the Board to have an interest, to draw up a programme for action to meet those problems and needs and, so far as the programme will entail expenditure by the Board, to submit to the appropriate Minister for his approval proposals for that expenditure,
7.5 p.m.
LORD MOLSON LORD MOLSON moved, in subsection (1)(b), after "in consultation with", to insert " planning authorities and" The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. The effect of it would be that the clause would read:
"It shall be the function of a Rural Development Board…in consultation with planning authorities and such local authorities and other bodies as appear to the board to have an interest…".
It is strange that all through this Bill there is practically no reference to planning authorities. It maybe because the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has never had very much to do with planning law. Generally speaking, agricultural buildings are excluded from the restrictions and restraints which are imposed upon other buildings. It appears to the amenity interests desirable that there should be close and friendly discussion between the agricultural authorities and the planning authorities. That would appear to be particularly the case in these hilly districts where Rural Development Boards are going to be set up.
The effect of the Amendment will be two-fold. In the vast majority of counties the planning authority is a committee of the county council. I think it reasonable that Rural Development Boards should consider the county councils as one of the local authorities which should appear to have an interest in any of the programmes of development which they advance. But the effect of these words would be to make it obligatory on the Rural Development Boards to consult. In respect of two of the National Parks the matter is more important. Planning Boards have been set up in respect of the High Peak and also the Lake District and they are independent of the local authorities. I am sure it is extremely desirable that in those hilly districts, which would appear to be particularly appropriate for Rural Development Boards, other considerations besides purely agricultural ones should be taken into account and the planning authorities should be consulted by the Rural Development Boards. This does not in any way give a veto to the planning authorities on what the Rural Development Boards wish to do, but it makes certain

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that there shall be consultation between them. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 51, line 1, after ("with") insert ("planning authorities and").—(Lord Molson.)
LORD WALSTON: As is usually the case, I find myself in very strong agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Molson, has said; but, with respect, I suggest to him—I hope that he will be persuaded by what I am about to say—that there is no need for the Amendment because the matter is already covered in the Bill as it is drafted. The subsection already provides for local authorities and other bodies that have an interest to be consulted by Boards when drawing up their programmes. What is more, all planning authorities which have an interest, whether they be local authorities or not, will be consulted by the Boards and any necessary planning consents obtained. I can assure the noble Lord that the Boards will be subject to the control of the planning authorities, and in no circumstances will the Board be able to override a planning decision. I hope therefore that the noble Lord will agree that in view of these assurances his Amendment is unnecessary and that he will be prepared to withdraw it.
LORD MOLSON: I am extremely happy to hear the Parliamentary Secretary's statement. Naturally I accept it. I think that the drafting of the Bill is not as clear as it might be, and after my friends and I had looked at it we did not think that this matter was covered. However, the methods of Parliamentary draftsmen remain to me as obscure as they were some thirty years ago when I first began to study legislation, and I accept the assurance the Minister has given on behalf of the Government that in all these cases the local planning authorities and other bodies interested in planning will invariably be consulted. In view of that assurance, I ask your Lordships' permission to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: This Amendment is consequential on those de-
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leting the references to the Minister of Land and Natural Resources in so far as they relate to the functions of a Rural Development Board in England. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 51, line 21, leave out ("England and").—(Lord Hilton of Upton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 45, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 46 agreed to.
Clause 47:
Promotion of amalgamations and boundary adjustments by Rural Development Boards
47.—(1) Without prejudice to the generality of section 45 of this Act, a Rural Development Board shall have power to acquire, hold and dispose of land in their area for the purpose of effecting amalgamations of agricultural land and reshaping agricultural units, and power for the said purposes to enter into transactions involving loss, including—
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: It has always been the intention that under this clause a Board should have powers to acquire land only by agreement. The clause gives the Board the same powers as the Minister to enter into transactions involving loss for amalgamation purposes and to apply Schedule 3 by deed to holdings amalgamated in this way.
During the passage of the Bill through another place, the Government undertook, provided there were no legal difficulties, to give favourable consideration to the proposal that the wording of the Clause should leave no room for doubt that the Board had power to acquire land only where the owner agreed. During my speech on Second Reading I stressed this same point. I am happy to be able to put forward this Amendment, which I hope your Lordships will find acceptable. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 52, line 28, after ("acquire") insert ("by agreement").—(Lord Hilton of Upton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 47, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 48:
Control of sale of certain land
48.—
(3) The Board shall not refuse consent unless they are satisfied that the land to which the application relates, if acquired by them in accordance with this section.—
(c) is land which, in the opinion of the Board and the Forestry Commission, ought to be planted by the Forestry Commission, or
(4) The Board shall, within two months of receipt of an application duly made for consent under this section, serve on the applicant notice of the manner in which the application has been dealt with; and, except where their decision is to grant their consent, the notice shall give the reasons for their decision.
7.13 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE THE EARL OF DUNDEE moved in subsection (3)(c) to leave out "the Board and". The noble Earl said: Perhaps your Lordships will agree to my speaking to Amendments Nos. 39 and 40 together, as they are on the same point. They would have the effect of slightly amplifying the powers of the Board to interfere with free sale. I am aware, of course, that some of your Lordships do not particularly like that power, but as we are accepting it I feel that it is reasonable and fair that it should apply equally to public and private forestry. As it stands, the clause appears to discriminate against private forestry, because the Board are allowed to refuse a licence for a sale on the ground that it might be desirable that the land should be planted by the Forestry Commission and not on the ground that it might be desirable that it should be planted under a dedication scheme.
As many of your Lordships are probably aware, under the forestry programme of 1943 private planters so far have rather more than fulfilled the target which was set them. The Forestry Commission, for various reasons which are not their fault, have not succeeded in doing that. I think that the Government generally would agree with me that the Forestry Commission and private forestry ought to do a great deal more planting than they are doing, especially in areas containing a large proportion of marginal and hill land, where forestry is required to prevent further de-population, or to
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encourage the re-population, of the area. That is the kind of area in which it is contemplated these Boards should be set up.
It seems to me that there are three good reasons why private forestry, as well as the Forestry Commission, should be considered under this clause. The first is the possibility of competition. There is no necessary harm—in some cases, it might even be a good thing—that a private planter, or a group of private planters, should be allowed to compete with the Commission in making an offer for a piece of land. They may think that they are able to give a better price, or to do the planting better. I think it would be unfair that the Board should be allowed to create a monopoly for the Forestry Commission by holding up the sale merely in order that the Commission may get it at a fixed price, with no competition. I think that is one good and valid reason.
The next reason, which I know more about, is that it would encourage co-operation, not competition, between private planters and the Forestry Commission. I myself have never competed with the Forestry Commission in seeking land for planting, and I have often co-operated with them. On two occasions within the last ten years I have acquired land for planting which the Forestry Commission agreed ought to be planted but which, for various reasons, they did not wish to acquire and plant themselves. They agreed that the land was suitable for dedication, and with their knowledge I acquired the land, which in each case was a considerable area of several hundred acres. I planted the land under dedication schemes, which means, of course, that they are controlled in the public interest.
I have also done the reverse. Whenever I want to get rid of any land which I think ought to be planted but which I cannot plant, I always offer it to the Forestry Commission, at least in the first instance. On one occasion, I was not able to plant some land which I felt ought to be planted within a short period of time. The Commission, who agreed that it should be planted, found it inconvenient that they themselves acquire it, and I therefore sold it to a private individual,

1419
who I understand intends to get a dedication agreement. This is exactly the kind of thing which, in my view, might happen in numerous cases in the areas where these Boards are most likely to be set up.
In an area as large as Wales, or wherever it is proposed to set up these Boards, this sort of co-operation is desirable. It is possible, as the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, pointed out, that a Board might be set up in Scotland; and when it was mentioned during the Second Reading debate that the Secretary of State had no intention at present of setting up a Board for Scotland, a Member of your Lordships' House, who was English, asked indignantly: "What has Scotland done to deserve this favour?" In Clause 51 you find many reasons for that. I am trying to make it better and easier for these Boards to be set up, although I do not want one in Scotland, and we are glad to know that there is no intention of extending their powers to the Highlands Development Board. But in an area of the size of the Highlands Development Board, or any area with possibilities under this Bill for a Rural Development Board, it would be difficult, without this co-operation between private owners and the Forestry Commission, for the Board to keep under continual review all the applications for licences to sell which they receive, and to make sure in every case that no land which ought in the national interest to be forested is not lost to forestry by being acquired, perhaps, for some economic purpose. That is the second reason.
The third reason is that if the clause is left as it is now it will give a discouraging impression to private foresters. The whole of Part III gives the impression that the Government are deliberately discriminating against private forestry in favour of State forestry, but we need the full co-operation of both. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, is just as anxious as I am for the afforestation programme to be substantially increased in areas of this kind in Scotland, and in many parts of England, too. I am pretty sure, also, that he will not be able to indicate to-night the possibility of any concession on this Amendment, which, in my view, is an important one and has a real bearing on the prospects of carrying out our forestry programme.
The arguments that I have advanced, if I may be allowed to say so, are based on some personal knowledge and experience. I can hardly believe that these points have all been thought out as fully as perhaps they ought to be by the Departments which prepared this Bill. If the noble Lord could tell me that he will give them the opportunity of considering, before Report stage, these arguments which I have put forward, I should be prepared to wait until then before pressing the matter further. My object is not to create controversy about forestry, but to accelerate our planting programme. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 54, line 18, leave out ("the Board and").—(The Earl of Dundee.)
7.23 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: I am very conscious of the fact that the series of Amendments in relation to forestry which have been put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, are motivated solely by his desire that forestry should play an increasing part in helping the economy of the country, and I find myself so much in agreement with him that I am afraid we are both in danger of being labelled as people who are unduly biased in favour of forestry, and therefore to be suspect in relation to the other uses of the land. The noble Earl has a little more freedom in this respect than I have. I have to try to steer a careful course, and therefore I must to a certain extent limit my enthusiasm for this subject which comes as naturally to me as it does to the noble Earl, although I do not have the benefit of his wide personal experience of the subject.
I wish to speak separately to the two Amendments, although they are related. If I may deal first of all with Amendment No. 39, we cannot accept this Amendment, although I apreciate the purpose of it. The effect of the noble Earl's Amendment would be to allow the Forestry Commission to be the final arbiter, with the Board merely acting as their agent. The Board is the executive body charged with the duty of meeting the problems and needs of their area, and they will be concerned with the co-ordinated development of agriculture and forestry. They will also see that the needs of private forestry are not overlooked.

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A Board when drawing up their programme will decide that certain areas should be planted with trees, either as part of the Forestry Commission's programme or by private planting. As regards private planting, Clause 48(3)(b) is intended to facilitate this by empowering a Board to refuse their consent where land is earmarked for afforestation or more detailed redevelopment and the land is not in the Forestry Commission programme. If the Board subsequently purchase the land, at the request of the vendor, they would be free to sell some or all of it for private afforestation and to use the balance, if any, for amalgamation purposes or to carry out boundary adjustments of neighbouring units.
Clause 48(3)(c) is complementary to Clause 48(3)(b) and empowers a Board to refuse consent to a sale, so obtaining the chance of buying the land if the owner so wishes, in cases where the Board and the Forestry Commission both consider that the land should form part of the Forestry Commission's programme. This will of course be co-ordinated with the Board's programme by virtue of Clause 45(3). Nevertheless, I think it right that the Board should satisfy themselves in each individual case that the land should be part of the Commission's programme before refusing their consent.
The reasons for which a Board may refuse consent are clearly defined in subsection (3). Under subsection (3)(c) a Board may refuse consent to a proposed transfer of land which if acquired by the Board ought in the opinion of the Board and the Forestry Commission to be planted by the Commission. A Board will decide that certain areas should be designated for afforestation or for co-ordinated development of agriculture and forestry, but they have no power to compel people to plant, nor have they power to purchase the land in question compulsorily. The noble Earl's Amendment would enable a Board to refuse consent to a transfer of land which is considered suitable for planting by a private owner under a dedication covenant or agreement. If land is suitable for private afforestation, with or without a dedication agreement, there is no need to bring it within the ambit of this clause.
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I wish to go on to read what I have here, because this relates to the Bill as it stands, and as until this afternoon we contemplated it should remain, and then I will go a little further. If a private owner wishes to plant trees and has come to a tentative understanding with the Forestry Commission about a dedication scheme, the owner should make an application to the Board for a tree-planting licence. If an area is considered suitable for afforestation under a Board's general development plan, I am sure the licence would be readily forthcoming. I shall return to this point in a moment or so. If it is the noble Earl's intention that the Board should, under this paragraph, refuse consent and so obtain the chance to acquire land which could suitably be planted by private persons, I am advised that this could already be done under the powers of paragraph (b).
I can assure your Lordships that paragraph (c) is in no way giving favourable treatment to the Forestry Commission. It merely makes provision for the particular case where a Board refuses consent to a proposed transfer because both the Board and Commission consider that the land, if acquired by the Board, should be planted by the Forestry Commission. The most likely case is where a plot of land adjoins an existing Forestry Commission plantation.
I read out the words about the position where there was an understanding with the Commission that there was to be a dedication scheme and that the owner should make an application to the Board for a tree-planting licence. The noble Earl has a succeeding Amendment on this, No. 46, but there is a Government Amendment, No. 45, which goes part of the way to meet the point of the noble Earl's Amendment No. 46.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: May I ask whether the noble Lord is reading from a paper which is going to be circulated, or from something which is going to be put in the Bill?
LORD HUGHES: No, I am reading from the brief with which I have been provided. I am now in a position to say that I am prepared to accept Amendment No. 46, which the noble Earl will

1423
be moving, subject to some Amendments which will have to be made upon it on Report stage. These are of a minor nature, but I think the knowledge that his main Amendment is to be accepted will make it easier for the noble Earl to withdraw these Amendments and perhaps not to move some other Amendments which were, in a way, second best to his No. 46. In these circumstances I hope the noble Earl can accept my assurance that what he wishes to retain under these two Amendments is in fact within the purpose of the Bill at the present time, and that his general object of encouraging private afforestation will be helped forward by what the Government intend to do with his Amendment No. 46.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for what he is doing to meet me in this matter. I understand from what he has just said that paragraph (b) of subsection (3) of this clause definitely puts the interest on private forestry, so far as this clause is concerned, on a par with that of public forestry.
LORD HUGHES: May I perhaps read the point once again? If it is the noble Earl's intention that the Board should, under this paragraph, refuse consent and so obtain the chance to acquire land which could suitably be planted by private persons, I am advised that this could already be done under the power of the preceding paragraph (b).
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I am grateful to the noble Lord and glad to have that on the Record. Since my purpose is to help things on, I ask leave of the Committee to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I put this Amendment down because it seemed to me that two months would be rather a long time for an applicant to wait, particularly if the sale was caused by the death of the owner and the heirs were pressed in any way for leave to get the estate sold. If the noble Lord can give me a convincing reason why it should be as long as two months, I shall certainly be willing to consider what he says. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 54, line 27, leave out ("two months") and insert ("one month").—(The Earl of Dundee.)
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: I think this is a point of some importance. I can foresee difficulties being caused and I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, if he is going to reply to this, would give some agreement that the Board should, if possible, give the reply within one month? I can see that on occasions it might be difficult for it to give the reply within one month, but I should have thought that in 90 per cent. of the cases it would be possible. If the noble Lord can commit the Boards of the future by saying that, wherever possible, they will give the reply within one month, it will be a great help.
LORD HUGHES: I think the answer which I am about to give will be satisfactory to the noble Earl and the noble Duke. The period stated is the maximum period, and it is the opinion of the Government that in the vast majority of cases—without mentioning a particular percentage: I would not really expect that the noble Duke would be far wrong—it would be easy to reach a decision in a much shorter period than two months. But, after all, we are prescribing a period in a Bill and it ought to cover all the cases with which the Board may have to deal. There is the possibility that some cases will be so complex that a longer period will be needed, and we think the period of two months is sufficient to cover any contingency with which the Board may be faced. I hope, therefore, that the noble Earl will feel able to withdraw his Amendment.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: In view of the noble Lord's explanation, which I am glad to have, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 48 agreed to.
Clause 49 [Control of sale of certain land: exceptions and supplemental provisions]:
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: The purpose and effect of this Amendment is to define the "National Parks planning authority", which is to be exempt from

1425
the control of land transactions exercised by a Rural Development Board. This Amendment is proposed because the Government now feel it is desirable to define in this Bill a "National Parks planning authority", about which it appears there might otherwise be some doubt. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 58, line 4, at end insert ("and, 'National Parks planning authority' means a local planning authority whose area consists of or includes the whole or part of a National Park".—(Lord Hilton of Upton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 49, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 50 [Schemes for co-ordinated amalgamations and reshaping of agricultural units]:
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: This Amendment is necessary to delete references to the Minister of Land and Natural Resources in so far as they relate to the powers of a Rural Development Board in drawing up schemes for co-ordinated amalgamations and reshaping of agricultural units in England. These powers will now rest with the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in England, and with that Minister acting jointly with the Secretary of State for Wales, in Wales. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 60, line 30, leave out from ("to") to end of line 34 and insert ("Wales, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State for Wales acting jointly"). —(Lord Hilton of Upton.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 50, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 51 [Control of afforestation]:
7.40 p.m.
LORD HUGHES LORD HUGHES had given Notice of Amendments to subsection (1), the first being after "granted", to leave out "to him". The noble Lord said: I would suggest to your Lordships that this Amendment should be considered with Amendment No. 61 and associated with it Amendment No. 62 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee. This Amendment No. 44, is a drafting Amendment, and is required because of the proposed
1426
Amendment to subsection (5) of the clause which is contained in the Government Amendment No. 61. The Bill as it stands provides that in cases of transfer of land, either by normal sale or a death, the new owner should apply for a fresh planting licence so that the Board would have the opportunity to review their decision. However, do consideration of the arguments that were put forward in another place the Government think it reasonable that tree planting licences should pass with the land.
The Amendment provides for this to be achieved by a simple endorsement of the licence by the Board at the instance of the new owner and with the agreement of the licensee. Additionally, we have provided for transfer at the Board's discretion in cases where the interest taken by the new owner is not identical with that of the old owner under this same simple endorsement procedure. This Amendment really gives effect to an undertaking given in another place that we would look at this matter again. I think it meets in a rather ingenious way the point which was raised in another place, and in a way which will be completely satisfactory to all concerned. I hope it will be acceptable to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 60, line 37, leave out ("to him").(Lord Hughes.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I had always found it difficult to understand why a licence should be attached to an individual and not to the land in respect of which it was granted and, as the noble Lord has said, one of the Amendments which I put down, which I do not suppose we can reach to-night, was designed to redress that. But I have no doubt that what he has said will alter the position in regard to my Amendment, and perhaps it will not be necessary for me to move it. I am very grateful to the noble Lord for having met us to this extent.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: I must inform your Lordships that if Amendment No. 45 is agreed to I cannot call No. 46.
LORD HUGHES: I indicated that I was not proposing to move No. 45, as I intended to accept No. 46.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE THE EARL OF DUNDEE moved in subsection (2)(b) to omit "on the establishment of a Rural Development Board". The noble Earl said: The noble Lord has very greatly shortened the course of these proceedings by his kind indication in advance that he was prepared, subject to certain qualifications which he will no doubt tell us in a few minutes, to accept this Amendment. This Amendment, No. 46, is the one to which I attach the greatest importance. I would have spoken at some length upon it, but I shall now confine myself to a few very brief remarks in view of the noble Lord's indication that he is willing to accept it.
I feel in general—and I think it is worth saying this—that most people in this country, including anybody who is likely to be on any board, including most of the general public, have really no conception of the scale on which afforestation ought to proceed in Great Britain. We are still the most hopelessly badly wooded country. Ten years ago when the last Census was taken we had only 3·9 million acres of woods, of which only about half were properly stocked, compared with 28 million acres in France—and France is a fairly rich agricultural country as well. I felt, and feel still, although I am delighted to hear what the noble Lord has said, that Clause 51 in general might have been specially designed by some person who was particularly anxious to stop the progress of afforestation in Great Britain.
That is how the clause has always struck me, and that is the reason why I took part with others in going on a deputation to the Secretary of State for Scotland more than a year ago, a deputation which was very glad to have the assurance to which the noble Lord has referred to-night, that the Secretary of State did not intend either to create Rural Development Boards in Scotland or—and this was the important point—to transfer these very vexatious powers of interference with private forestry to the Highland Development Board, which can be done under this Bill. We cannot help feeling that, although the present Secretary of State, we are glad to know, does
1428
not intend to do this, there will be nothing in the law to prevent his successor, if he takes a different view, from doing so. That is the reason why I put down a whole series of Amendments to this clause, simply for the purpose of avoiding putting a spoke in the wheel of private forestry. I have had a great deal of experience of how difficult it is to persuade private owners to do as much planting as they ought to do, and I think all our legislation ought to be aimed solely at encouraging and never discouraging afforestation.
The general conception of most people is the traditional one that forestry should be confined to a few little patches of ground here and there which are not much good for anything else. I will not go into the Zuckerman Report, which I think many of your Lordships have studied—I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has done so. It pointed out again and again, in passages which I had intended to quote but will not do so now because it is not so necessary to rub them in, how desirable it was that a great deal of our marginal land should be planted, and that the benefits to the nation from afforestation in so many areas would be very much greater than the continuation of poor uneconomic attempts at continuing agriculture. The Report deplored the fact that the Forestry Commission have not been able to sustain the tempo of the programme embarked upon as a result of the 1943 White Paper. It gave good reasons for regretting what it called that deplorable fact. That was ten years ago, and since then there has been no acceleration. On the contrary, it was accepted by the late Government in 1960 that we should have to scale down our target, which I thought was a very deplorable thing.
In order to get things right, especially in areas like the Scottish Highlands—and also, I am sure, in many areas in England and Wales which may become subject to these Boards—it is essential, if we want to stop de-population and retain there a proportion of young people, to get very large-scale planting done. I am afraid that the Boards appointed under Part III of this Bill are bound to consist of a great many people who do not know much about forestry, and, not

1429
unnaturally, the whole force of inertia is always against it.
Both among the public and officials—and, of course, among a great many landowners—there is a feeling that they do not see why they should alter traditional scenery. It is difficult for them to appreciate the national benefit of forestry, especially as many of them will not see in their own lifetime the benefits of planting. I feel with the greatest intensity that any legislation which imposes any restriction on planting is bad in the interests of this country, and that is why I do not like anything much in this Clause 51 and why I hope to amend it.
However, the noble Lord has indicated that he is willing to accept this Amendment, No. 46, and I feel that by exempting dedicated land a very large part of the objection is removed, because in my opinion most serious planting ought to be dedicated. I do not say there are not cases in which it would be a great pity to interfere with private planting in small areas which are not being dedicated, but the acceptance of this Amendment would remove a very large part of my objections, because I am always in favour of giving people inducements to dedicate. This, of course, would be a kind of negative inducement to do so. Therefore, I thank the noble Lord most sincerely for what he has said. I also think that one or two of my noble friends may wish to say a word on this Amendment before I withdraw it.
Amendment moved—
Page 60, line 41, leave out from ("is") to ("subject") in line 42.—(The Earl of Dundee.)
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY: Better arrangements for combining forestry and farming, and the best choice of land crops and trees for each, would of course be very acceptable. The nature and tone of the clauses which bring forestry into an agricultural Bill have been most disappointing and alarming to anybody who helped to promote forestry and to practise it. I was hoping that this Amendment, and also subsequent Amendments, would all be accepted, and I am very grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said in advance. Otherwise, the effect on persons willing to help by growing timber
1430
would be very damping. Surely in a forestry Bill such an attitude to farming would never arise or be allowed. Licences for planting, and control of what species anyone may plant, are appearing for the first time. Surely, the case for this is very weak, and must have a restraining effect on expansion of forestry and on the increase of planting. Also, these clauses have given an impression of an attitude which is unfriendly or indifferent to private forestry, even while ignoring it in relation to State forestry. Ministerial assurances have been given about equality for both, and these are welcome, as is their encouragement to forestry. But the wording in the Bill is important and we are complaining of its effect. An improvement is necessary if confidence is to be restored.
We feel, further—and I should like to pursue this—that evidence of a more helpful attitude to private forestry at a very early date is needed, just as much as for farming. The blame for the wording of these clauses must surely be due to a lack of attention or consultation between the Government and the forestry associations, and also with the Home Timber Advisory Committee and the Forestry Commission. I hope that this matter can be remedied soon, in order to correct the harm done by such weak support for forestry in this Bill, and in other ways. I hope that one result of our disagreement in these matters will be a closer association between the representatives of Government and the forestry industry. But who is the Minister responsible for forestry? If there is one, surely he will give stronger support for forestry?
I should like to support very briefly my remarks about the inadequacy of attention to forestry, and to refer to three special items: the refusal of a grant for new roads necessary to make planting possible on land now too difficult of access, and to reduce costs of extracting timber. Secondly, the refusal of investment grants or allowances for machinery and equipment. Thirdly, the exclusion from this Bill, or recent ones, of co-operative activities. In all these cases, and others, valuable help has been given for farming but is denied to forestry; and there is nothing to show that the

1431
treatment is not deliberate. I hope that the Minister will go further in accepting the Amendment, and will endeavour, so far as he can, to bring the Minister responsible for Forestry into closer touch with the industry.
LORD HUGHES: First of all, the noble Earl, I think inadvertently, said that he would withdraw his Amendment.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: May I apologise? I thought the noble Lord said that he was going to accept the Amendment, in a different form, on Report stage; that I should have to withdraw it first. If he means that he will accept it now, I am, of course, even more delighted, and shall be glad to consider any necessary adjustments on Report.
7.57 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: It is a very pleasant experience to find one's goodies are so good that they cannot be believed on first hearing! In fact I am proposing to accept the Amendment as it stands. What I must say is that it may be necessary, on further examination of it, to have a consequential Amendment on Report stage. This would be only for the purpose of ensuring that there was satisfactoryliaison between the Commission and the Board in relation to these areas of land.
Having said that, I wish to rebut what the noble Earl and the noble Duke have said regarding the purposes of this clause. It has been interpreted as being anti-forestry. It is not. The whole purpose of these Boards is to ensure the most satisfactory use of land within the area of a Board by having co-ordination of activities to ensure that all aspects are considered and that the best use is made of the land. I think that forestry stands to gain by such a co-ordinated approach, because in the past it has been one of the complaints of those who were devotees of forestry that agriculture proceeded from the basis that the natural purpose for land is that it should be farmed, and that everybody else must prove his case against that. The purpose of the Rural Development Board is to consider all the uses to which the land in these areas
1432
may be made, and forestry will therefore start off from a better footing, perhaps, than it has ever done before.
But we cannot proceed from one extreme to another. If it was unsatisfactory that forestry had to prove its case against agriculture, we cannot just go to the other extreme and say that forestry must be accepted as the natural thing in other areas and that other factors are not to be considered. Therefore, we wish to have Clause 51 for its co-ordinating activities. The reason why I have accepted Amendment No. 46 is that we think we see the way to do this without conflicting with these co-ordinating activities, while at the same time removing a misconception that it was intended to be an obstacle.
The second thing the noble Earl said with which I disagree was his reference to the cutting back of the programme in 1960: he said there has not been any acceleration since. He has forgotten the fact that the present Government have twice accelerated. We in Scotland were immediately able—and I must remember that I am not speaking as a Scottish Minister at the moment—within an overall programme to accelerate in 1964, by taking advantage there of a short-fall which England and Wales could not at that time use. There has since been a further expansion in the total programme, and the matter is again being looked at. So, while the accelerator may be being pressed a little too gently for the noble Earl's liking, the foot is definitely on the accelerator to some extent.
I hope therefore (and I believe that this is probably the last piece of Business which the Committee will do to-night) that the noble Earl will be able to go off and consider the matter, in the knowledge that he has achieved his main objective, and pursue assiduously the task of scrutinising his other Amendments in order to see how many of them he can withdraw so that we may the more speedily get down to the ultimate form of his successful Amendment at the next stage.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY: Before my noble friend speaks, may I say that the interpretation to which the noble Lord refers is quite widespread outside this House, and

1433
I hope that his words will restore confidence to the industry.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: I think we have made reasonable progress and that this might be an appropriate moment
1434
to resume the House. I therefore beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.
House adjourned at three minutes past eight o'clock