Lords Sitting of 23 April 1968

Preamble
Reassembling after the Easter Recess, the House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Derby.

PRESTWICK AIRPORT
2.36 p.m.
LORD KILMANY: 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 proposals and appeals for assistance have been received by them from Prestwick Airport Development Association, and to what extent it will be possible to respond to these requests.]
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the Government received on Thursday, April 18, a report on services at Prestwick from the Prestwick Airport Development Association, and these proposals are being studied.
LORD KILMANY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that there is a feeling throughout Scotland that not enough is being done to develop the potential of Prestwick Aerodrome, and will the Government do all they can to encourage B.E.A. and B.O.A.C., and also foreign airlines, S.A.S. and K.L.M., to use it as much as possible? Further, will the Government look into the possibility of removing the restriction on independent British airlines which I believe now prevails and which does not allow them to open new routes through Prestwick?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as I think the noble Lord knows, I have followed the affairs of Prestwick for twenty years and at no time during that period has there been anything but a feeling that we were not doing enough for them. I sympathise with the feeling and I should like to see Prestwick developed. So far
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as S.A.S. and K.L.M. are concerned, it is entirely a matter for decision by the companies themselves. As for the independent airlines, I think it is simply a matter of licences being granted through the A.T.L.B.
LORD KILMANY: My Lords, surely the noble Lord agrees there is scope for Government influence in this matter?
LORD BESWICK: Yes, my Lords, and I think the noble Lord will agree that the Government have done what is possible, and the Airports Authority are also doing what is possible to provide the facilities. Use of the airport is entirely a matter for the commercial companies.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, will the noble Lord use his influence with B.E.A. to ensure that when Glasgow Airport is blacked out by fog Prestwick is used, in preference to passengers being sent all the way through to Edinburgh?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am not sure of the mileage concerned, but I will see that this point is considered.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: It is about twice the distance.

SOUTH WEST AFRICA AND THE UNITED NATIONS
LORD BROCKWAY: 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 support is being given to the United Nations Committee appointed to take over the administration of South West Africa.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD CHALFONT): My Lords, none by Her Majesty's Government. As the then Foreign Secretary told the General Assembly on September 26, 1967, we regret that in dealing with the problems of South West Africa the United Nations has not been prepared to confine itself to action which is clearly practical and positive.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, in thanking my noble friend, may I ask him this question? Even if the Government disagree with the decision of the

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United Nations, is there not some obligation on them to assist in its efforts? And in this case, where the United Nations Mission has even been refused admission to South West Africa, is it not very desirable that Her Majesty's Government should take steps to recognise the authority of the United Nations?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, it is difficult to know what Her Majesty's Government can do that they have not already done. As I said, the two resolutions of the United Nations under which the action was taken and with which my noble friend will be familiar are resolutions which we think are just impracticable; they cannot be put into effect. That has been shown to be the case by the very fact that the United Nations Mission concerned has failed to gain entry into South West Africa, and I think that any further action that is called for is the business of the United Nations. I see nothing in this case that Her Majesty's Government can do.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, are not Her Majesty's Government represented in the Security Council of the United Nations, and does not this situation demand that there should be a review of this whole position, in which the United Nations may reach decisions but has not the power to implement them?
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware—I am sure the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and every other lawyer will be—that you cannot pass a law or resolution to compel a man to touch the sky?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, whatever may be the powers of the United Nations in this particular respect, I think my noble friend will agree with me that this is not a case where an individual State can take action. This is now a case for action by the General Assembly or the Security Council. I agree that we are members of both the Assembly and the Security Council, but I think it is very unlikely that a majority vote for any new move in this matter could be obtained in either body, and any action by Her Majesty's Government would, I fear, prove abortive.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, in view of the fact that Her Majesty's Government regard this expedition as impracticable, are they making any protest, or do they intend to make any protest, at the amount of money spent by this Mission? There were reports that they were chartering aeroplanes and staying in very expensive hotels; and it seems that the funds of the United Nations, which are in the red, might be put to better purpose. Would Her Majesty's Government consider making some protest at the expenditure of the funds of the United Nations in this way?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am not sure from where the noble Lord has obtained his information about these expenses. In fact the Mission concerned could not get an aircraft to go to the territory because the charter companies were afraid that it would he impounded. I think there must be some slight misunderstanding on that point. Whatever may be the expense incurred, or possibly about to be incurred by this Mission, Her Majesty's Government have shown their view about this by abstaining on both the resolutions which brought this Mission into being. I really think there is no more that we can do in this direction.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, in those circumstances, I should have thought that there was all the more reason for Her Majesty's Government to protest at funds being expended in this way. Will they protest?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I do not think I can undertake on behalf of Her Majesty's Government that we will make a protest until we have clearer facts about this matter. Her Majesty's Government have no facts of the kind that the noble Lord has mentioned with regard to expenses. If he has really hard facts, perhaps he will let me have them and I will take up the matter.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, if these gentlemen paid their hotel expenses, their aeroplane fares to South-West Africa, and so on, out of their own pockets, would he inquire what expenses they incurred?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, this really is another question, and one that

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is quite wide of the original Question on the Order Paper. I repeat that I am not quite clear what the noble Lord means by "the expense of aircraft to South West Africa", because, as I say, the Mission has been unable to charter any aeroplane to South West Africa; the charter companies will not charter them.

THE MIDDLE EAST: MR. GUNNAR JARRING'S MISSION
2.44 p.m.
LORD ROWLEY: 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 to what extent progress has been made by Mr. Gunnar Jarring, the United Nations mediator, in his efforts to bring Israel and her Arab neighbours to a Peace Conference in Cyprus.]
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, the United Nations Secretary-General reported to the Security Council on March 29 on Mr. Jarring's Mission. A copy of the report is in the Library of the House. I think my noble friend will agree that it would not be for me to go further than the Secretary-General has done in commenting on Mr. Jarring's progress.
LORD ROWLEY: My Lords, while Mr. Jarring continues to do his best to bring both sides to the conference table, is it not urgently necessary that United Nations observers be deployed in the Israeli-Jordan sector? Would not my noble friend agree that the stationing of United Nations observers in the Suez Canal sector and the Israeli-Syrian sector has been most effective in maintaining peace since the cease-fire took place?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that the United Nations observer forces have been most useful in this respect. I agree with him, too, that Mr. Jarring is dealing with problems that have eluded solution for twenty years, and none of us, I think, expected him to achieve success overnight. So far as the stationing of an observer force on the Israeli/Jordan cease-fire line is concerned, I answered
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a Question by my noble friend on that matter on March 25 last. There is nothing much that I can add to what I said then, except that Her Majesty's Government would support any proposal of this kind if it were practicable. But I know that my noble friend will agree that in the absence of agreement from both sides it would not be practicable; and that agreement is not yet forthcoming.
LORD ROWLEY: My Lords, may we take it that our representative on the Security Council is ready to make the proposal at the Security Council?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, as my noble friend will know, the question of when proposals are made depends a good deal on the estimate that my noble friend in New York makes of whether such proposals are practicable. But he certainly has all these factors in his mind.

BUSINESS
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making a Statement on European Space Policy at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon. We have a considerable amount of business to get through to-day, and dinner will be served from 7 to 8.30 this evening, though it is not intended to adjourn the House It is intended to take the Report stage of the Social Work (Scotland) Bill until 6.30 p.m. this evening, and then to start the Second Reading of the Health Services and Public Health Bill.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether, in the event that the Report stage of the Social Work (Scotland) Bill is not completed by 6.30, it is his intention to go on after the Health Services and Public Health Bill?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, yes. I know that the noble Lord and his friends are anxious to be helpful about this, but I thought we would make a final decision when we see what progress has been made. If we find that only a matter of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour is required after 6.30, then we shall take that time, but otherwise it may be for the general convenience of the House if we continue the Social Work (Scotland) Bill after the Second Reading of the Health Services and Public Health Bill.

PORT OF LONDON BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

SOCIAL WORK (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
2.48 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Clause 1 [Local authorities for the administration of the Act]:
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN moved, after subsection (3) to insert:
"() The functions under this Act which prior to its passing were exercisable by the council of any large burgh shall, on such date or dates to be appointed by the Secretary of State in accordance with section 97 of this Act for the coming into operation of this Act for the purposes of any of those functions, be transferred to and vested in the council of the county within which that burgh is situated."
The noble Marquess said: My Lords, to a large extent this Amendment is consequential on the removal from the Bill of the large burghs, to which your Lordships agreed on the Committee stage. I think it is right that the necessary transfer functions which this will involve, namely, from the burghs to the relevant county councils, should take place on the day or on the dates which the Secretary of State appoints for the coming into force of the various parts of the Act. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 5, at end insert the said subsection.—(The Marquess of Lothian.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2 [The social work committee]:
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the effect of this Amendment is to add a reference to Section 10 of the Matrimonial Proceedings (Children) Act 1958. There is already a reference to Section 12, and as Section 10 makes similar provisions it is felt appropriate to quote that also. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 27, leave out ("section") and insert ("sections 10 and").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, after subsection (2)(d), to insert:
"() Part III of the National Assistance Act 1948".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, since last we discussed this Bill the Health Services and Public Health Bill has been laid before this House. Part II of that Bill substantially amends Part III of the National Assistance Act. This Bill, in Schedule 7, repeals for Scotland most of Part III of that Act, but leaves in operation certain parts of Part III of the National Assistance Act—for example Section 22, except subsection (1), which relates to charges to be made for residential accommodation and which is referred to in Clause 86 of this Bill; Section 26 which deals with local authority payments for accommodation provided by voluntary organisations; and Section 28 which relates to Exchequer contributions to local authorities. Could the noble Lord tell us whether all these three sections could not with advantage be incorporated in this Bill? Then there is Section 25 of the National Assistance Act, which in urgent cases enables the Minister of Social Security to require local authorities to provide accommodation for individuals. I imagine that that would properly remain part of the social security legislation.
One of the puzzling features of the repeals is that Section 26 is to be amended by Clause 44 of the Health Services and Public Health Bill (which we are to discuss later to-day) which relates in turn to Section 21 of the National Assistance Act, and that is one of the sections which is repealed by this Bill. I find all this extremely confusing. I had understood that the welfare of old people was covered by this Bill. Clause 49 of the Health Services and Public Health Bill makes provision for the promotion by local authorities of the welfare of old people, and together with Clause 64 covers the powers of the local authority under Section 31, which was amended by the 1962 National Assistance Act, and that deals with the provision of meals and recreation for old people. I understand that that Bill will also repeal Section 31 for Scotland.
The noble Lord will agree that all this is rather perplexing, and I wonder whether the Government intend to introduce further Amendments to this Bill in another place once the Health Services and Public Health Bill has been passed by this House. Is it not intended that one of the functions of the social work committees shall be the welfare of old people? If so, ought not the requirement in the Third Schedule to the National Assistance Act, placing a duty on local authorities to establish a committee for the discharge of their functions under Part III of that Act, to be repealed? Should not those responsibilities be transferred to the social work committees? Should not also the functions of local authorities under Part II of the Health Services and Public Health Bill be included in this list of functions and be entrusted to social work committees? I feel that this would be a great convenience if only because it will be found, when we come to consider the Health Services and Public Health Bill, that almost every clause in that Bill has a Scottish application. If we could take out a good many of those clauses and put them instead into this Bill, it would make for great simplification for those who have to administer the law in Scotland. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 30, at end insert—
"() Part III of the National Assistance Act 1948".—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the Amendment as it stands is unnecessary because the reference in Clause 2(2) relates to the functions of the local authority. In fact, the local authority will have no functions remaining under Part III of the National Assistance Act, so we should be making a reference to functions which do not exist. However, there are provisions of Part III which will remain in relation to the calculations of certain payments, and so on. I must admit that there is some attraction in the noble Lord's suggestion of a rewriting of the provisions which will remain and of incorporating them together. However, it is a most complicated operation to undertake. Although the noble Lord touched on this matter at Committee stage, I am afraid that it has not proved possible to see a way through. But I certainly undertake that if it should
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prove to be possible for this matter to be done in a tidier way, and a way which would make it easier for those who have to work the Act, the Government will seek to pursue it in another place. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will accept that we are anxious to make this as simple as possible, but we feel that the present Amendment would not go towards accomplishing his object.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for what he has said. Having tried to find my way through this, I certainly realise some of the difficulties. However, I should be grateful if he could answer the major questions which I have put to him, which were as follows. Is it in fact intended that under this Bill the old people shall be the responsibility of the social work committee? This is a point of real substance on which we should like to receive an answer. Secondly, there are undoubtedly parts of the National Assistance Act which will remain part of the functions of the local authorities, although I gather that the removal of subsection (1) of Section 22 removes that as a substantive provision and makes it merely a sort of machinery provision. I very much hope that the noble Lord will be able to answer these points and also say whether is intended that, since the Health Services and Public Health Bill is certain pass through this House before this Bill gets through another place, it will be possible to make Amendments in this Bill in another place, incorporating what is appropriate.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord's first question about old people is, "Yes". The situation in regard to the Health Services and Public Health Bill is undoubtedly complicated at the moment, but when the Bill becomes law the procedure thereafter will be much simpler—I think almost certainly using the method indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I cannot help saying that I think this is an odd way of legislating, but I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.0 p.m.
LORD FERRIER LORD FERRIER moved, after subsection (3), to insert:
"() Each social work committee shall as far as possible include persons of experience belonging to the principal Churches or faiths in the area."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this Amendment I would express the hope that the Government will find it acceptable. My noble friend Lord Balerno, whose name is also on the Marshalled List, would have been here to speak to this Amendment, but he occupies an important position in the World Council of Churches, which is meeting in Newcastle to-day, and consequently is unable to be here. Your Lordships will recall that his Amendment was withdrawn during the Committee stage. This Amendment, which I have of course discussed with him, is on different lines; otherwise, I should not have put it forward and taken up your Lordships' time. But this Amendment has been put forward not only after studying what the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said in Committee, but after consultation with other noble Lords of different persuasions. I was not altogether convinced by what the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said, and I took an opportunity which presented itself of discussing the matter with important and responsible officials of the Church of Scotland on the social work side. Indeed, without their strong support I should not have put this Amendment forward for your Lordships' consideration.
The Amendment speaks for itself, so I need not add much more, except to say that I personally feel that too many people are unaware of the extent of the social work which is done by the various Churches. Further, it is done so unostentatiously that their experience, their skills, and their organisations are not fully appreciated by the public in general. For that reason a provision of this nature should appear in this Bill. I repeat the point which I made in Committee: that the presence on one of these committees of a churchman or a churchwoman (because in this Amendment I do not mean only ordained ministers) would be of great advantage. It would put at the disposal of such a committee not only the Churches' wide organisation, which is in touch with every facet of the life of a community—hence the last three words of the Amendment—but also an
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organisation with intimate local knowledge, and people of dedication and ready-made skills. I trust that this Amendment will prove acceptable. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 3, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Ferrier.)
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I do not know what my noble friend Lord Hughes is proposing to do about this Amendment, and I hesitate to oppose the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and his noble friend Lord Balerno, because I know of the intense interest which both of them have in this Bill, particularly in relation to the future position of the probation service in Scotland. But I feel that it will be unfortunate if this Amendment is pressed.
I should like to remind your Lordships of a point which I tried to make at an earlier stage. Under this Bill we are going to be committed to two-thirds of the members of the social work committee being members of the local authority. This means that only one-third of the social work committee will be recruited from outside the local authority. With the greatest respect, I think there are far too many interests which need to be represented on the social work committees for us to run the risk of filling them by members of the various religious denominations, because we know (we have experienced this in social work in England and Wales) that immediately provision is made for the inclusion of a member of one particular denomination, then, not unnaturally, and quite rightly, all other denominations want to be brought in. I speak as an active member of the Anglican Church in England and I am not opposed to that. But what I am primarily concerned about is that we bring on to the social work committee people who can serve it from the widest possible field of representation.
The noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and his noble friend Lord Balerno know my concern in the same way as I know their concern. This is an entirely new field, and we want to have on the social work committee men and women who can lend themselves to the whole question of selection and training, in-service training and further training, so that a really comprehensive and effective social work

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organisation can be created, even though some of us are unhappy about its being under the local authority. If we are to have the best possible social work organisation under the control of the local authority, we must have on the local social work committee people who can bring a vast experience and wealth of knowledge from other social work activities in the area and in the community, who are going to concern themselves with standards, with attitudes, with selection, with training, with further training, with in-service training and so on.
I would go so far as to say that the one-third of the social work committee which will be recruited from outside is probably not going to be large enough to do that. Therefore, I should not want to tie the social work committee down, because of the probability that in that event the majority of the one-third to be recruited from outside might come from one particular field of interest. It is because of that that I hope the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, may agree not to press this Amendment.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, perhaps some other noble Lord will want to speak; but on a technical point, the noble Lord who has just sat down mentioned persuasions. I would draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the Amendment is very widely worded. It does not mention any particular persuasion; indeed, it does not say that the party concerned should necessarily be of the Christian church. It is not intended that there should be any picking out of the Church of Scotland in this matter.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: I do not want to continue this discussion because of the pressure of time, but the Amendment does say,
"shall … include persons of experience belonging to the principal Churches".
So I envisage—although I may be quite wrong—that there may be three, four or five people.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: My Lords, I very much hope that the Amendment may receive favourable consideration from Her Majesty's Government. It enshrines a principle which exists in my own county. I cannot believe that in this matter there would be any difference
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between an English local authority and a Scottish local authority. It is our practice, when we set up case committees in Devonshire, to seek, so far as possible, and so far as is reasonably convenient, to include representatives of the principal religious interests involved. I do not mean that we insist on every single religious body being represented. There is never any trouble over that. But these denominational representatives have served a double purpose. In the first place, they have been able to represent to the committee the point of view of the religious body to which they belong; and, secondly—and this is equally important—they have been able to represent to their religious authorities the point of view of the committee, to give their religious authorities the facts of the case, which to my own knowledge has prevented friction on various occasions.
I am perfectly certain that if I were free to give your Lordships examples, your Lordships would realise that there is great value in this widely drawn, permissive Amendment. I take a very strong view on the confidential character of case work, and I find it difficult to give your Lordships any definite instances. I merely ask you to accept that I am speaking from experience; and I am therefore grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, for his Amendment.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, I also am an Elder of the Church of Scotland and can very much appreciate the motives which lie behind the moving of this Amendment. I was glad that in moving his Amendment the noble Lord made it quite clear that it did not refer exclusively to clergymen, but referred to churchmen and churchwomen. It helps me to adhere to the point of view which I expressed at Committee stage, that the Government cannot accept this Amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, are two excellent examples in your Lordships' House of the point of view of a Church being capable of being represented, and very adequately represented, among a variety of other interests put forward by the noble Lords concerned.
We attach importance to having on these committees people of the kind

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which the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, has in mind, but we do not think that it is necessary to specify that there should be certain representatives, or
"persons of experience belonging to the principal Churches or faiths in the area",
to ensure that. I do not know what is the position South of the Border, but it would certainly be virtually impossible in Scotland for the members of the local authority not to include at least some people who were active in one or other of the principal religions in the area. So I think the omission of these words by no means implies that the Churches' point of view would go by default.
Our real difficulty about accepting the Amendment is the one which my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell has put forward: that it would create difficulties, in view of the limited number of places which may be available to co-opted members. My noble friend spoke as if every committee was in fact going to include co-opted members to the extent of one-third of its number. In fact, the provision is that it "may" include one-third; and in some cases the local authority might co-opt fewer than one-third of the committee, which would make the position even more difficult. The position in which Her Majesty's Government find themselves in this matter is that there are so many voluntary and professional organisation which could be so very helpful in carrying out the work of the committee that it is virtually impossible to lay down which of the very many interests which could properly be co-opted are the ones which in every case would be the best. The position must inevitably vary from one local authority to another.
What the Government feel is that, while giving the strongest possible support to the principle of co-option, we must leave it to each individual local authority to co-opt in any particular case the individuals who are most likely to be helpful in carrying out the work of that committee; and that help must obviously take the direction of supplementing the knowledge and experience which is going to come from those who are on the committee as elected members. In some cases it may well be quite clear that there should be a representative of the Church of Scotland, or a representative of the Episcopal Church in Scotland or a representative of the
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Roman Catholic Church, but in other cases it might well be that the appropriate person to co-opt is somebody who has had first-class experience in probation work or who has done a great deal of work in relation to children in one or other of the voluntary organisations.
I think that in his Amendment the noble Lord is not really going further than to express a preference—he has been very fair; he has included the words "as far as possible", so he is really just expressing a preference. But as soon as you express a preference in a Bill for one particular type of co-opted representative you make it a little more difficult, at least by inference, for others to be appointed. I know that this would not be in the noble Lord's mind, and I therefore hope that he will agree with me that, things being as they are in Scotland, the Churches are more likely to be represented by people who are appointed in other capacities than perhaps some of the other organisations are, and that we are not really treading on dangerous ground in deciding to leave this to the wisdom of each local authority in its own particular area. I hope that with this general expression of agreement from Her Majesty's Government with the objects which lie behind the Amendment, the noble Lord will find it possible not to press it.
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR: My Lords, may I ask one question? Would it be possible for a member of a local authority who was very active in one of the religions or faiths to be co-opted on to the committee?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, it would not strictly be necessary for him to be co-opted. If the local authority particularly wished that man to be a member, he would be an appointed member of the committee.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for the conciliatory way in which he has approached this Amendment, and also to thank other noble Lords for what they have said. I am also obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for drawing attention to the words "as far as possible" as they occur in the Amendment. Of course, the debate has so far mentioned only the Christian faith. The word "faiths" also occurs in the Amendment,

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which is intended to cover people of, say, the Jewish faith. Wide as it is, my Lords, with the words "as far as possible", and "Churches or faiths", I personally feel that the Bill would be improved if a provision such as this was inserted. But, dogged as this Bill has been at every stage by pressure for time, I do not propose to press the Amendment, and I am going to beg your Lordships' leave to withdraw it. But it is for your Lordships to say. If your Lordships do not grant me permission to withdraw the Amendment, then I shall certainly press it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 [The director of social work]:
3.19 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is an Amendment which I had down at the Committee stage, but we agreed that consideration of it should be deferred until we had considered an almost identical Amendment to Clause 35. The noble Lord was good enough to accept that Amendment, and I hope he will now accept this one. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 19, at end insert—
(" and if he considers none of the applicants to be qualified for the appointment he shall require the local authority to re-advertise the vacancy, and the local authority shall comply with the requirement with or without any change in the terms and conditions of service offered.")—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment formally.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 23, after ("person") insert ("from among those").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES LORD HUGHES moved, after Clause 12, to insert the following clause:
"12A. Where, by virtue of the last foregoing section, a local authority make arrangements or provide or secure the provision of facilities for the engagement of persons in need (whether under a contract of service or otherwise) in suitable work, that local authority may assist such persons in disposing of the produce of their work."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the effect of this Amendment is to ensure that local authorities, in securing the provision of work for handicapped persons, con-
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tinue to have explicit powers to make arrangements for payment for that work and to assist in the disposal of its produce. Most of the existing powers, contained in Section 29(4) of the National Assistance Act 1948, are comprehended by the wide powers given to local authorities by Clause 12 to provide assistance to persons in need, which of course includes the provision of suitable work for persons who are blind and otherwise handicapped and suitable facilities to enable them to carry out that work. The new clause makes clear that the arrangements for payment in respect of such work may be under a contract of service or otherwise and that the other arrangements for providing work may include arrangements for the handicapped persons concerned to dispose of their produce. The importation of the term "contract of service" allows regular payments (and not simply emergency cost payments) to be made.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 12, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Hughes.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am grateful for what the noble Lord has said. Many of us will be familiar with the arrangements made under the National Assistance Act. This clause seems, in some respects, to be rather less wide. It enables the local authorities to assist such persons in disposing of the produce of their work. That would imply, presumably, that they are selling the work on their own account, even though they may have been under a contract of service. I am not certain how far this goes. The brackets seems to have been added in some way afterwards and do not seem to go with the rest of the clause. Perhaps the noble Lord would have another look at it.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I think that the clause as it stands includes everything which the local authority would need to do, but I should be quite happy to have another look to see whether any amplification or extension of it is necessary. Of course, that would have to be done in another place. Perhaps the noble Lord would have another discussion with me afterwards on what he has in mind, so that I may pass it on to my right honourable friend.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 13 [Domestic help and laundry facilities]:
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 8.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 30, after ("adequate") insert ("of").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, it may well happen that arrangements will have to be made for somebody to be looked after at home and that it will not be possible for that person to be looked after unless provision is made for domestic help. As the clause stands at present, it is only if the person is actually present in the home that such arrangements can be made. I am told by experts in this matter (so I take it there is a basis for it) that this has caused difficulty in the past. My Amendment would help alleviate that difficulty and allow arrangements to be made in advance. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 32, after ("presence") insert ("or the imminent or proposed presence").(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I have come to the conclusion that the insertion of these words is desirable. I am therefore happy to accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is simply to draw attention to a difference in drafting between a subsection of the Health Services and Public Health Bill and a subsection of this Bill which are otherwise identical. I do not know the effect of this difference; but, as I read this Bill, a charge for services by the local authority to those who are able to pay the full charge could not be greater than the full charge; whereas, as drafted in the other Bill, a charge greater than the full charge could be made. I do not know whether it is ever the practice to make a charge greater than the full charge; but as both Bills apply to Scotland for the time being I draw attention to this difference. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 41, leave out from beginning to ("those").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, having regard to the meticulous way in which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has gone through the Bill it is not unreasonable that he should draw attention to this apparent anomaly. The fact is that the Health Services and Public Health Bill is a United Kingdom Bill, and to the extent to which it is making amendments to the National Health Service Act 1946 and to the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1947, it is following a particular pattern. In this case it is following the pattern of the 1946 Act. But I would remind your Lordships that in the case of the 1946 and 1947 Acts, the later Scottish Act differed from the earlier English Act in the insertion of a provision that in fixing their charges local authorities in Scotland (in addition to taking account of the means of the person using the service) are under an obligation to take into account the cost of the service to the local authority.
In producing this Bill applicable to Scotland we have elected to follow the pattern which has worked in Scotland, without complaint so far as I am aware, for some twenty years. The effect of this will be that when in due course this Bill becomes law it will reinstate the position in Scotland as it will have been from the passing of the Act in 1947 until the passing of the Health Services and Public Health Bill. Undoubtedly it is the case, as the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has said, that if these words were taken out it would, in theory, change the position—but only in theory. We are not aware of any local authority in Scotland which has decided to make a profit out of some of the users of the service in order to help it recoup its losses in relation to others. I admit it is theoretically possible for somebody to charge more than the actual cost; but in practice I think it is unlikely to happen. I hope the noble Lord will find it possible to withdraw his Amendment.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, whether he could help some of us on this matter? In reading this Bill and in reading the Health Services and Public Health Bill that we are about to discuss, one finds provisions which one might say overlap but which are expressed differently. I quite agree that the Health Services and Public Health Bill is a

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United Kingdom Bill; but there are certain parts which it is stated do not apply to Scotland. If we are to have differences such as have been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, we shall either have to change the Scottish Bill or include words in the United Kingdom Bill indicating that this will not apply to Scotland. Otherwise we shall get into a hopeless muddle.
LORD HUGHES: No, my Lords; there will not in fact be any difficulty. The only difficulty is the purely temporary one, that a Bill coming before your Lordships' House later this afternoon, the Health Services and Public Health Bill, will become law before the Social Work (Scotland) Bill. There will be a period when the United Kingdom provisions in these matters will be the law of Scotland, but when the Social Work (Scotland) Bill eventually passes through Parliament what will apply in Scotland will be what is in that Bill. So the anomaly is a purely temporary one.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. If I understand his meaning, it is as good as saying that he expects that when the Social Work (Scotland) Bill goes to another place an additional Amendment to disapply Clause 13 will be introduced, and that the intervening period will be the period between the time when the Social Work (Scotland) Bill comes into operation and the earlier time when the Health Services and Public Health Bill comes into operation. If that is so, I accept the position. I think that the words in the Scottish legislation are superior. I did not move this Amendment in order to have them moved out, but to draw attention to the position. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.33 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved to leave out subsection (3). The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment raises very much the same points as was dealt with in the last Amendment. Here we have in two separate Bills two Clauses—both, oddly enough, Clause 13—which are virtually identical. The subsection which my Amendments seeks to leave out says:
"It shall not be a requirement that any matter relating to the discharge of their func-
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tions under this section by a local authority shall stand referred to their social work committee."
Already, under the National Assistance Act (I think in Section 31), we have in being a provision of this kind. I should like the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, to comment on this.
I do not think it desirable that there should be two committees dealing with the same matter, on the one hand domestic help for the sick, and, on the other, domestic help for the aged and others in need. I am sure that that is not the intention, and I think that here is provided a good opportunity for the noble Lord to say that the whole thing will be drawn together under one committee, whatever that committee may be —in some cases it may be the health committee, and in others the social work committee—and that this provision merely leaves the matter to the choice of the local authority. If that is so, I willingly accept it; but I want to make certain that there is no possibility of two committees handling the quest on of domestic help.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for putting down what I think I am correct in saying is essentially a probing Amendment to elicit the position which will exist. As I think most noble Lords will be aware, at the present time it is as a health function that the local authorities can furnish the assistance given by these domestic helps. As such, it has been organised very successfully by the medical officer of health, and generally it will come under the auspices of the health committee. For the first time, we are specifically importing into the duties of the local authorities the need to give this assistance not oily on health grounds but also on social grounds.
As the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, made clear, it would be a disaster if we were to legislate for the creation of two separate systems of domestic help. It would be equally disastrous if we made the mistake of starting off by disrupting a service which has been very successfully organised under the medical officer of health by insisting on its transfer to the social work committee. We think that it may well be—and I think in the interests of tidiness it will be—desirable if in due course this responsibility becomes

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a function of the social work committee. But that will be a matter for a local authority to decide, in the course of time and in the light of its own experience. At any rate in the beginning, it seems to the Government desirable that the organisation should continue in its present form with the social work committee making perfectly clear to the health side, if that were necessary (though one would not imagine that it would be), the opportunities and obligations to give assistance on social grounds.
We think this is a case where, instead of saying that the responsibility shall go here or there, we should leave it to local authorities to make certain that what is working well at the present time shall continue to work well. If it is felt that it can be made better by putting responsibility on to the social work committee, rather than on to the health committee, I have no doubt that the local authority will do so. But, equally, if they felt that it would be better left with the health committee I have no reason to believe that it would not work in that way also. I am quite certain that no local authority would commit what would be the undoubted folly of setting up two services under two separate committees.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, will realise that this will be a difficult point to deal with. During the Second Reading debate I said that I was certain that however much one tried to organise services under one particular department, there was bound to be a great deal of difficulty on what might be called the frontier. After what the noble Lord has said I am still doubtful whether he means that if the medical officer of health is in charge now, he will be supported if he declares it his right to go on supplying those services. And, of course, we shall get into the sphere of the home-help and the rest of it.
Having read this Bill and the next Bill, which will make things even more difficult for us, I think we should like to know what is to be the decision about which department is to carry out this work. I know that it seems extraordinarily stupid when looked at from the outside, and that people will say, "What does it really matter? So long as the work is going on, why bother?"
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But among the various departments of a local authority there is a sense of pride and interest. Members of various departments may feel that something is being taken away from them, and that leads to friction. Above all, we want to stop that friction, and the idea of the social work department was to stop friction. But unless something is clearly laid down, both in this Bill and in the Bill which is to follow, we shall have a great deal of friction. I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, can make clear that if at the present time the medical officer of health is in charge of these services he is to be permitted to continue that responsibility.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, proposes to answer that question.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I should be very willing to answer, but under the terms of the procedure in your Lordships' House I am not permitted to speak.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, the noble Lord can do so by leave.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, if your Lordships wish, I shall be delighted to do so. I am conscious that we are working to a timetable, and I do not want to appear to be jumping up at every opportunity. I find myself in complete agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Horsbrough. The most important thing is to avoid the creation of friction. I also agree with her that normally the best way to avoid friction is to place responsibility firmly on the shoulders of one body or committee. But this is a case where I think it is better to leave it to the movement of time to accomplish this rather than attempt to do it at one operation by transferring it straight over to the social work committee. This is a field where local authorities will fairly soon see whether it is to be an advantage to make this the responsibility of the social work committee, and it is not without the bounds of possibility that this could be done with the willing co-operation of the medical officers of health. The noble Baroness almost shakes her head, and perhaps both she and I are thinking of particular medical officers of health, but we ought not to legislate for the exceptional individual. We must leave it to the good sense of the

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local authorities. I find it difficult to disagree with what the noble Baroness said, yet I think it would be a mistake to attempt to force the pace a little too hard.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for what he has said. I am sure that it is right not to force the pace, but I also think that my noble friend is right in saying that we should indicate what the object is. I have no doubt in my own mind, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, that in the end, as we are dealing with people in need and this includes medical need, it will be for those responsible for health to see what domestic help is required, and for those responsible for need to supply it. In other words, undoubtedly it would be the social work committee that would supply this. I merely express my own view, but I suspect that this is also the view of the noble Lord, had he felt able at this stage to express it. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 [Duty of local authority to provide for orphans, deserted children, etc.]:
3.43 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN moved, at the beginning of subsection (3), to insert:
"If, at the time when a child is received into the care of a local authority under this section, the whereabouts of any parent or guardian of his is unknown, it shall be the duty of the local authority to take all reasonable steps to discover them, and".
The noble Marquess said: My Lords, this Amendment is an attempt to find an acceptable form of words to cover a point which my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn raised on Committee. I think it is reasonable and just that a local authority should have an obligation to take reasonable steps to discover the whereabouts of parents and guardians who cannot be
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immediately found. So much of this Bill depends on the co-operation of parents that it seems extremely important that every effort should be made to bring them into its operation. I have no doubt that most local authorities do everything they can to find missing parents and guardians, but I feel that it would be useful to have this provision in the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 28, at the beginning insert the said words.—(The Marquess of Lothian.)
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I should like to support this Amendment strongly. I have had great experience of the difficulties of tracing the parents of some children who come into care. It requires a lot of patience and time and the co-operation of many authorities, and sometimes ever, this is not sufficient. It has always been a mystery to me how people can terally disappear and be untraceable, although the local authorities, the police, probation officers and child care officers are all searching for them. I suppose that they change their names and disappear into limbo. It adds to the complications of dealing with children and doing the best one can for them if one cannot trace a parent who can give authority for taking certain steps; and I think that this is a wise provision to put in the Bill. It is important that the committees should be encouraged to take this trouble, however long it takes and expensive it is, because it is vital to the well-being and future of children coming into care.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I should have been delighted to be able to assure the noble Baroness that she had persuaded me to accept this Amendment. Unfortunately I have already indicated in correspondence to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, that I was prepared to accept it, so it would be quite wrong to leave the noble Baroness with the impression that she was responsible for my conversion.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

EUROPEAN SPACE POLICY
3.46 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, with permission, I should like to repeat a Statement which is being made by my right honourable friend the Minister of Technology in another place about European Space Policy. The Statement is as follows:
"As the House will know, the Government have been considering the report of the Advisory Committee on Programmes set up by the 1967 Rome Space Conference to make proposals for the development of a European space programme. This Report—known as the Causse Report—is due to be discussed at the European Space Conference to be held in Bonn, this summer, and all the Governments concerned were asked to make their views known on its recommendations in time for preliminary discussion by the Committee of Alternates at a meeting which had been fixed for to-day.
"Our examination of the Causse Report has paid particular regard to its evaluation of the economic benefits of the proposed programmes. On the main issues raised, our conclusions were as follows.
"First, as to launchers, a further development programme of the ELDO launcher, beyond that to which we are committed, and which ends in 1971, cannot now be justified. The development and production costs of ELDO launchers would have been prohibitive, and the potential applications for them, both limited and speculative. We therefore decided not to undertake any additional financial commitments to ELDO.
"Secondly, as to the CETS project for an experimental TV relay satellite, the Causse Report states clearly that this could not yield a commercially viable project unless at least all the research and development costs, both of the satellite and the launcher, were completely and totally written off. Whatever the long-term merits of such a project, we consider that in present circumstances it would not be an economically justifiable use of scarce resources and that for this reason it would not be right for us to participate in the project.
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"Thirdly, as to the scientific programme, we decided to agree to some increase in expenditure in this field over the next three years—though not to the full extent recommend by the Causse Report. Allowing for other claims on the funds available for science, we can support an average increase of not more than 6 per cent. per annum on the 1968 ESRO budget of 250 million francs.
"Having reached its conclusions, the Government decided it would be right to let them be known as soon as possible. It therefore communicated these to the other Governments concerned and to ELDO and ESRO last week. Because of the likelihood that this would then become public knowledge, I thought it right to issue a short Statement at the same time.
"The Government realised that these discussions would be a disappointment to some and be criticised by others. But it would be quite wrong to conclude from them either that we were opting out of space or turning our backs on Europe. Every Government is having to decide for itself whether these proposals represent an economically justifiable use of scarce resources. In our view it really would not make sense for Europe to develop its own total independent capability, regardless of cost and benefit. The Government have, of course, weighed the political arguments in favour of the Causse proposals for ELDO and CETS, but do not consider that they outweigh the strong economic arguments against them. We shall all have to think about what limited capability in space technology will enable us all to take up economically justified applications as and when they emerge.
"These decisions follow directly from our general approach to European collaboration and the problem of the technological gap between the United States and Europe. We are concentrating upon the development of industrial policies which will promote collaboration between European industries. The efforts of Government should be directed to reinforcing the industrial potential which Europe already possesses.
"European scale industries are essential if we are to generate the vast

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sums required for research, development and marketing to allow Europe to compete industrially on more or less equal terms with the advanced technological industries of the United States. This need is urgent and critical to the very existence of certain industries with great growth potential, such as computers, electronics, airframes and nuclear energy.
"The Government's proposal for a European Centre for Technology is expressly designed to explore the further possibilities of collaboration between industries and to identify the obstacles to the development of European industrial capability designed to meet the assessed needs.
"Joint inter-governmental European projects, on many of which we are engaged, have a role, provided they are soundly based, promise benefits commensurate with the expenditure involved and are relevant to Europe's broad industrial objectives. But projects which are economically unsound do not become desirable merely because they are undertaken internationally. The Causse proposals did not pass the necessary tests of cost and benefit, and we believe they are inconsistent with the need to concentrate limited technological and financial effort on those areas which will contribute most to strengthening Europe's industrial capabilities, which must be done if Europe is to develop its economic and political potential to the full."
3.53 p.m.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to my noble Lord the Leader of the House for having made in your Lordships' House this Statement which has also been made in another place. However, I am sure that most of your Lordships very much regret that we should now be deciding not to go on making a full and continuing contribution either to ELDO or to the other organisation, CETS, just at a time when the Government are advocating an extension of technical co-operation in Europe, which we all welcome. It seems tragic that we should now be pulling out of two European technological organisations which do exist—we may be thinking of others—even if we all know that ELDO has had its problems. Would the noble Lord not
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consider it to be more economic that we should continue on a European basis rather than that European countries should do so on their own? Is he aware of France's national space programme, which is much more extensive than our own? Is he aware, also, that Canada has the intention of launching, or has launched, her own domestic communications satellite? Should we not do so, too? All this is very disappointing to those who have advocated increased expenditure in space for commercial purposes, especially in view of the Prime Minister's earlier statement about
"science being harnessed to socialism in the white heat of the technological revolution."
May I say one further thing? I do not think that we should necessarily accept all the economic arguments of the Causse Report—of which, incidentally, there is only one copy in your Lordships' House, and most of us have not had an opportunity of reading it. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether it is likely to be published. It may well be that in the long term these projects would prove economic. I am extremely disappointed about it, even if glad that the scientific programme is not to suffer and that the Government are continuing to press ahead with European co-operation in other industries.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, would not the Government agree that the essential reason why ELDO has yielded, apparently, disappointing results is because it is run by a group of national experts, each of whom regards problems primarily from the national point of view, and, therefore, there is no consequential provision for an authority who would take the necessary decisions in the interests of the group as a whole? Would the Government not agree that this is the essential reason why it has not functioned very satisfactorily? Secondly, are the Government aware that the very responsible French newspaper, Le Monde, is saying that the decision to withdraw from ELDO after 1971 means that the Government are not serious in their proposals for the creation of a European technological community? Finally, I should be grateful if the Government could tell us what exact economy they think will be effected by withdrawing from ELDO after 1971.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, perhaps I may—
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I reply to the two noble Lords who have spoken, and then the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, can say what he wants to say; otherwise I may forget the points they have made? I appreciate that the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, spoke more in sorrow than in anger. We have both had a great deal of interest in space research and have frequently discussed this question, and he will know that I am one of those people who for a long time, long before there was any space research, believed that it would come in our lifetime. But I must say that of all the decisions on cuts which the Government have taken I have less regret on this particular issue, for a number of reasons. We have assessed this realistically, and both in relation to CETS and ELDO—and the noble Earl will remember that the Estimates Committee raised some big question marks, particularly against CETS, but also against ELDO—I am convinced that this is the right decision.
The noble Earl went on to refer to various national programmes. There is no intention at present, so far as I know, to do other than continue with the Black Arrow programme. Nor are we opting out of an interest in space. We shall have to see what happens when the Conference have met and what they decide to do. On the point about the Causse Report, I will do what I can to help the noble Earl. I agree that it is a lengthy Report. But the arguments and the analyses for which we had asked pointed firmly to the direction in which we have now taken our decision.
Replying to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, there have of course been criticisms of the particular ELDO set-up. I would rather not go into them, although I was interested to note what the noble Lord said. The potential saving (I am not sure whether these figures have been made available for publication) after 1971 in relation to the further increased expenditure will run into a good many million pounds, and this is money which it would be folly to expend if we believe that there are better uses for the money and the resources.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, referred to Le Monde. I can only say
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that responsible newspapers in this country, like The Times, the Guardian, the Daily Mail and others, have all welcomed the Government's decision. I would stress —and I hope the Statement made it clear —that this is in no sense a withdrawal or weakening of our determination to co-operate in Europe, and to co-operate technologically. But co-operation, to be of any use, must be towards useful ends.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, two sentences only, which I do not think the noble Lord the Leader of the House will resent. I seldom dissent from the views expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, but upon this occasion I am entirely on the side of the Government. Far from being disappointed, I am absolutely delighted by the decision they have taken. Sooner or later we must face up to the fact that this country is not in a position to invest vast sums of money in international schemes most of which will probably come to nothing. There are two words in the English language to-day which absolutely terrify me, and they are "space output". I venture humbly to suggest that we have quite enough to do at home and in this country, and quite enough problems to compete with, without cavorting off into space output, because what we shall probably find when we get there is exactly what we have gone to see—space, and nothing more. Therefore, I say that I think Her Majesty's Government are wise to go carefully and cautiously at the moment, and to watch very carefully any projects and keep them at a severely utilitarian and practical point.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, are the Government aware that it is this sort of to-ing and fro-ing that gives colour to the accusation to which we are frequently subjected: that we are not very reliable partners? Could the noble Lord tell us what has happened in the matter of ELDO to make it so uneconomic and undesirable, when only a short time ago it was apparently considered worth doing? What developments have occurred to make it so uneconomic?
Secondly, have the Government taken into account in their calculation the very considerable technical drop-out which arises from these new technological developments? I have been assured by American friends that an immense

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amount of technical drop-out occurs which forms the basis of very useful industries, including export industries, in America. I wonder whether the Government have taken account of that. Arising out of that point, is it the case that ELDO will continue without the British; and, if it does, will our competitors in Europe get drop-out which we shall not be able to receive?
LORD IRONSIDE: My Lords, would the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, say whether the firing range at Woomera will be affected when we finally pull out of ELDO? Can he also say whether the Government consider that launching facilities are adequate for ESRO, when they go forward to some of the new satellite projects which will no doubt still require substantial launching facilities? Can he say whether we are to be totally dependent on American launching facilities, or have the Government considered possibilities of manufacturing launchers under licence here in Europe for, for example, firing at Woomera range?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, first of all may I say that I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, for his realistic approach. It really does sum up the attitude of the Government. This is a decision that was taken after the very lengthiest consideration, and I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, that there have been doubts for quite a long while. Indeed, I even went so far as, tentatively and hesitatingly, to express them myself in this House a year or more ago. But what has been the decisive factor has been the evaluation of the costs and benefits in this particular case.
There have been troubles in ELDO. The costs have been liable to go up; there has been the failure of the French stage, which has been quite a factor. There has been the need to develop the perigee apogee stage, which adds further costs. The important point I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, is that, although no one is more interested than I am in regard to spin-off, drop-out, fallout, whatever it may be, it is rather limited in this instance, and the British part of the programme was the least interesting part. It was based on Blue Streak, which was itself based on an
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American rocket. Therefore, the losses in this regard are less than they would be in other areas. I am personally more interested in Black Arrow from this point of view.
The noble Lord asked whether ELDO will continue. I cannot answer that question, but we are committed to financial obligations to ELDO up to 1971. I must say that I think some of this money will be wasted. However, this is the arrangement that was entered into, and we are unable to drop out—and we should not contemplate doing so; but it may be that other European countries will consider the position again.
As for the ranges, I cannot answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Ironside. This problem of ranges and launching sites is, as he is aware, a very complicated one. Woomera suffers from certain disabilities, particularly when it comes to launching in a particular direction, say to put up a geostatic satellite. One of the matters that have been exhaustively considered is other possible sites, but it is a very tangled and difficult issue, and I would rather not try to give a firm opinion today. On the point about hiring or using launchers obtained from the United States, of course we have had satellites put up by the United States, but this is one of the factors which will have to be considered in the future.

SOCIAL WORK (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
4.7 p.m.
Report stage resumed.
Clause 26:
Supervision and care of persons put on probation or released from prisons etc.
26.—
(3) A probation scheme shall make provision with regard to the following matters—
(c) arrangements for the co-operation of the local authorities with the courts, and such arrangements may include the appointment of one or more sheriffs having jurisdiction in their areas to the social work committee and to any sub-committee thereof
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, with permission I would seek to move Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 together. The

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purpose of these Amendments is to give consistency to Clauses 12, 25 and 26. Your Lordships will recollect that at the last stage similar Amendments were moved to Clause 25. Because of the way we decided to proceed in relation to Clause 26, no Amendments on this point were then moved to that clause. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 27, leave out ("care and").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 14.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 28, after ("guidance") insert ("and assistance").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, in speaking to Amendment No. 15 I would also direct your Lordships' attention to No. 25. As subsection (1)(b)(i) of this clause stands, it is doubtful whether it covers persons moving to Scotland who are subject to the supervision of a court in England and Wales. The aim of the Amendment, which would generalise the provisions relating to persons subject to probation and fines supervision orders, is to ensure that such persons are covered. Amendment No. 25, which removes subsection (8), is a necessary consequence of Amendment 15. I beg to move Amendment No. 15.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 29, leave out from ("under") to (",and") in line 32 and insert ("supervision by order of a court made in the exercise of its criminal jurisdiction by virtue of any enactment").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL moved, in subsection (1)(b)(i), to leave out "and". The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is in effect consequential on Amendment No. 18, and I suggest it might be for your Lordships' convenience if I speak to No. 18 at this stage. Paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of Clause 26 requires local authorities to provide first for the supervision of people on probation or under some similar order, and, secondly, for the supervision of people released from confinement who
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are required to be under supervision; that is to say, it refers to compulsory or statutory after-care. The purpose of these two Amendments is to add to the duties of the local authority that of providing voluntary after-care to any discharged prisoner who wants it. In England and Wales the probation and after-care service already has the duty of providing voluntary after-care. I realise that this is not so in Scotland at present, but clearly it seems to be a desirable extension of the functions of the Scottish service, and provision should be made for it in this Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 32, leave out ("and").—(Lord Hamilton of Dalzell.)
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I should like to support the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell. It seems desirable that provision should be made in the Bill for the voluntary supervision of persons who are discharged from prison if they are willing to seek help, should it be available. Those of us who have had some connection with, and have some knowledge of, what is happening in England and Wales at the present moment, realise that a tremendous amount of work is possible among those who submit themselves to the voluntary after-care of a probation officer and of a probation service after leaving prison.
We are naturally concerned, and always have been, that people who go to prison should not, if it can be avoided, find their way there a second, third or fourth time. While it is desirable that the provisions set out in Clause 26 should exist, I think it is equally important and desirable that there should be provision in the Bill for the voluntary supervision of persons leaving prison who feel that they need help at that particular time. I am not suggesting that this kind of help should be available indefinitely. Perhaps it should be limited to some months after they come out of prison. This is the time when they need the advice and help and guidance and care that the community can give them through the probation service.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether I am right in assuming that if this Amendment were not made, the assistance that

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it seeks to give would still be available under Clause 12, where there is a duty on every local authority to make available advice, guidance and assistance to anybody who wants it? Nevertheless, I suggest to the noble Lord that this would be a proper part of a probation scheme, and this is really what we are talking about here. For this reason I support the Amendment.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the intervention of the Recess has deprived me of an opportunity which I should have liked to take to consult the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, about this Amendment, because the view which I have formed on the advice I have been given is just that which has been expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, in relation to Clause 12. The reason why I am asking your Lordships not to make this Amendment, and I am inviting the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, not to press it, is simply that it is not necessary. We accept entirely what is suggested in the Amendment, but the position is that in Clause 26 provision is made for the doing by the new social work departments of the present function of the probation service in Scotland in relation to persons over 16, and that Clause 12, as the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has said, places on local authorities the duty of giving advice, guidance and assistance to persons released from detention who were not subject to compulsory supervision and so did not come within Clause 26.
As your Lordships are aware, in the past Parliament has not taken kindly to the expressing of the same duty and the same power in different clauses of the Bill, and it is solely for that reason that I am unable at this stage to accept the Amendment. However, I should like to take the opportunity of discussing this matter further with the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, so that if he can persuade me that there is some reason why we should say the same thing twice—once perhaps generally, and the second time more specifically—I would be happy to pass these views, and any opinions which I have formed as a result of them, on to my right honourable friend for consideration in another place.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for the way
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in which he has received this Amendment The reason why I thought these words should come in here was that this is the clause which sets out the way of preparing probation schemes, and it seemed desirable that all matters which might need to come under a probation scheme should be in one place. Presumably this is what local authorities will look at when they are framing a probation scheme, and it seems more satisfactory that all the points should be set out in one place. However, I appreciate that if it is possible for this to be done under Clause 12, that is an argument for not putting it in again. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his offer to have a discussion with me afterwards, and I shall be glad to take advantage of that offer. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment which makes it clear that the supervision of persons released from prison or detention includes the supervision of persons required by an English provision to be supervised who remove to Scotland. The words "condition or requirement" import the necessary terms from the English legislation; namely, the Criminal Justice Act 1961. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 37, after ("State") insert ("or of a condition or requirement imposed").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this Amendment and Amendment No. 21 go together. They are drafting Amendments which are designed to make it completely clear that subsection (3)(a), (b) and (c), are not the only three matters that may be covered in a probation scheme. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 7, leave out ("and").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.19 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD moved, in subsection (3)(c), to leave out from "courts" to the end of the subsection. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I rise to move Amendment No. 20, which I should have moved during the Committee stage, and I apologise for

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being absent on that occasion. The purpose of the Amendment is simply this. I think the sentence,
"arrangements for the co-operation of the local authorities with the courts,"
should end there, because local authorities are perfectly capable of deciding who shall be members of their committees, whether it be the social work committee or the group dealing with probation (or what was probation), and I should like to see the last four lines deleted. I believe the local authority can perfectly well choose, among its members or from outside, who it wants to have on its committees.
With regard to the appointment of sheriffs, I can only speak from experience. I am the chairman of a probation committee on which we have two sheriffs. We invited them; we were not told to do so by the Secretary of State or anyone else, but we thought it was a good idea. Nobody could say that we should or should not have these important people on the committee. If we are to have a co-option—now, I am glad to say, limited to only one-third of the committee—then I think we should be allowed to co-opt whom we please. If it should be sheriffs (which it may well be), that is in order, but if it should be someone else the Secretary of State perhaps thinks ought to be co-opted, we are still free to do what in our opinion is best for our own areas. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 9, leave out from ("courts") to end of line 12.—(Baroness Elliot of Harwood.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I find myself in considerable difficulty in relation to this Amendment because I think that I am going to be open to the charge of being inconsistent. When the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, sought to have churchmen specified as people who should be co-opted, the argument which I put forward was the danger of saying that particular people should be in; and here the Government are specifying that sheriffs may be—not "must" be, but "may be—in. I had quite overlooked the fact that I now have on this a brief which encourages me to resist the Amendment from the point of view that it is felt that there is advantage in pointing out in this way the need for close co-operation with the courts and that
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this is one way in which it can be achieved.
I had hoped that the Third Reading could be a completely formal procedure, and that we should be able to avoid moving any Amendments at Third Reading. I am prepared to consider this as an exception. I should like an opportunity to consult my colleagues further about it. It seems to me that the attitude I am being encouraged to take is inconsistent on this matter, and I should like to know whether there are better reasons for this inconsistency than appear at the moment. If your Lordships would not take the resubmission of this Amendment by the noble Baroness on Third Reading as an encouragement to put in a whole host of others in company with it, I would invite her not to press the Amendment to-day but to put it down again for Third Reading, when I hope to be able to give at least a completely consistent answer on it.
As your Lordships will appreciate, this Bill is not my own direct departmental responsibility, and the difficulty I am in is that I am not aware to what extent this may be in as a result of direct consultation with the sheriffs, and it is only that which prevents me, as it were, going against my brief and accepting the Amendment. If there is any sort of undertaking with the sheriffs that this is a desirable thing to do, I am quite certain that the noble Baroness would not wish these words to be taken out. But I do not want to mislead her by suggesting that is the position, because I do not know. If the noble Baroness will withdraw the Amendment, I should be happy that this should, if necessary, exceptionally, come up again on Third Reading.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, in view of what the noble Lord has said, I have pleasure in withdrawing this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD HUGHES: I beg to move Amendment No. 21.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 12, after ("thereof") insert(";and
(d) such other matters as the local authority considers relevant to the service to be provided ".—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL moved to add to subsection (3):
"() arrangements for the provision of a welfare service within prisons".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this Amenment is to add to the functions of local authority social work departments that of providing a prison welfare service. I shall not be at all surprised to be told that this is not the right place or the right way to achieve this purpose, but if Her Majesty's Government will accept the principle I shall be happy to leave it to them to decide how to implement it.
Prison welfare work in England and Wales is already the responsibility of the probation and after-care service. In Scotland it is the responsibility of the After-care Council, but under subsection (7) of Clause 7 of this Bill that Council will cease to exist, and I am not clear what is envisaged for the future. Prison welfare work is a matter of increasing importance in the new types of prison regime which are being introduced, and I believe that the same people should be responsible for it as for probation and after-care work and that the Bill should provide for this. The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, may suggest that this work would come under the umbrella with which he has provided the local authorities under the last Amendment, but I do not feel that this could be so. A prison welfare service could hardly be reckoned part of a probation scheme, and if prison welfare is to be considered at all as one of the duties of a local authority social work department it should be specifically provided for. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 12, at end insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Hamilton of Dalzell.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, subsection (2) of Clause 26 provides that there shall be a probation scheme only for the purposes of subsection (1); namely, the making of reports to courts and the statutory supervision of, and the provision of advice, guidance and assistance for, persons under compulsory supervision. The scheme will not affect the provision of a welfare service in prison. As the noble Lord has stated, the positions in England and Wales and Scotland are different at the present time. The prison welfare service is a long-established group of civil servants work-
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ing this job, and it is at least open to doubt whether they would view with any enthusiasm being transferred from the Civil Service to the local authority work service.
I cannot therefore, in asking the noble Lord to withdraw this Amendment, give him an assurance as to what would happen. All I can say is that the field is quite open. The Government are free to consider in future, in consultation with the local authority associations, whether social workers from the new social work departments should be seconded to the welfare service in prisons and other penal institutions in Scotland. It would not be necessary to have any statutory provision to make this possible. I do not want in any way to mislead the noble Lord. I cannot at this stage commit Her Majesty's Government to the attitude that will be adopted, but what I have said is possible, and I hope that de noble Lord will find it possible on the partial assurance I am able to give him, to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: My Lords, I hesitate to overdo my encouragement of the Scottish system to follow that of England. In most respects Scotland is ahead of England, but it seems to me that this is one of the few cases where Scotland is behind. The purpose of the Amendment was that, if Scotland wished to follow England, it would not be necessary to have amending legislation to this Act in order to achieve it. I understand that this is not so, and that if such a change were desired it could be done under the provisions of the Bill as it stands. On that assurance I am happy to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.30 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved to leave out subsection (6), and to insert instead:
"(6) For the purposes of their functions under this section every local authority shall appoint one or more officers holding such qualifications as the Secretary of State may prescribe, and every such officer may perform such other functions of the local authority under this Act as the Social Work Committee may direct.
Provided that where two or more local authorities have exercised their power to combine by virtue of section 119 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947 for any of the purposes of this Act including the purposes of this section the expression "local authority" in this section shall include any joint authority established for those purposes."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this Amendment is to try to secure the compromise that I indicated might be possible between the two views: on the one hand the view that the probation service should continue as it is at present, and, on the other, the view that it should be absorbed completely and disappear into the social work service. The effect of this Amendment is, I hope—at any rate, it is intended to be—to require the local authorities to
"appoint one or more officers holding such qualifications as the Secretary of State may prescribe",
which would of course be the qualifications of probation training and experience, or if you like, training or experience. In this way it would be possible to retain the probation service as an ancillary unit, so to speak, within the social work department. But by reason of the second part of that sentence of the first paragraph of this subsection, they would not then be confined to probation work; they would be able also to do such other social work for the social work department as the local government committee may decide.
Because we do not know how this is going to work out, this may be a most satisfactory alternative. The factors are these. At the moment, there is no doubt at all that although probation officers may do the same basic training as other social workers, they have special training in addition, and no doubt for those who are going to deal with people sentenced to prison or put under probation this additional training will continue to be necessary. So it seems to me there is room for officers with this special training. In any case, so far as legislation is concerned, am I not right in saying that the legislation does not provide for probation officers as such? They are always referred to as "officers specially designated", and so on. I think that this is right, and on that assumption I have drafted my Amendment in that way.
The second part, the proviso, relates merely to the possibility of one or more local authorities combining together, in which case it would seem appropriate that it should be the social work committee of the authorities that have combined for this purpose, or even especially for die purpose of the probation scheme, who
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should be able to appoint an officer with these qualifications—"such qualifications as the Secretary of State may prescribe".
I do not know whether this compromise commends itself to your Lordships. On the one hand, there is a lot to be said for a sharp cleavage, and, if we are making a lot of changes anyway, it could be said that it would be a good thing to "go the whole hog" and absorb the probation officers straight away. On the other hand, it may well be that it would be better from the morale point of view, and indeed from the point of view of the service as a whole, to keep probation officers as such in being for the present, and possibly for a long time.
We shall have to see how this works out. The fact remains that once the service is absorbed into the social work department it will be difficult to change it, even though the thing does not work too well. It is with this in mind, as a kind of hedge which I do not think can do the service any harm, that I am suggesting this compromise solution. I do not pretend that the Amendment is necessarily correctly worded, but I hope that its purpose is at least clear. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 20, leave out subsection (6) and insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I should like to support this Amendment moved by my noble friend because I think that here he has put his finger on something of considerable importance. I was not here when Clause 26 was debated, and I am a little sorry that the complete elimination of probation for adults was carried. However, as it has been carried, and as the probation service is in toto part of the social welfare service, I think it is most important that there should be people in the social welfare service who are definitely what I would call trained probation officers. As we know, they have a basic social training. That is perfectly understood. But when it comes to law and the courts, and to the technical problems which do not affect people who are, let us say, dealing with adoption or with any other kind of social work treatment, then I think it is most important to have people who, although not called "probation officers",

509
have the training, the equipment, the knowledge and the understanding of what it is to work with the courts and with the sheriffs as well as with panels or in the social work department.
This is something that I should like to see incorporated in the Bill—a point made most strongly—that among the social workers in the social work departments there shall be people specially designated for, and understanding and knowing about, the courts, probation, after-care and so on. It is most important, and I hope that the noble Lord will consider this as being, as it were, a half-way house between those who are keen that the whole social work department should be treated as one unit and those who feel that there are special items in the social work departments which should be dealt with by someone trained for that purpose. I beg to support the Amendment.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, I, too, should like to support this Amendment. I am not going to say what I said on Committee. It goes a long way towards supporting the views that I expressed then. I think it is a good compromise and I should like to support it.
4.37 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I should like to say how much I appreciate the extent to which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has worked to try to find a compromise between the two extremes, if I may put it that way—the Bill incorporating probation service and the Bill as it would have been with Clause 26 left out. I am sorry, however, that I am not in a position to accept this Amendment, and I should like to say in some detail why this is so. In the first place, I must resist the idea that particular responsibilities of the social work department are such that they should be carried out by officers with qualifications specified for the purpose. If we were to accept that, then we must accept it that a case could equally be made, and probably would be developed in the same way, for similar specifications for officers dealing with children with special types of handicap, or where family case work is concerned—all important departments which are to come under the umbrella of the social work department.
510
If we were to do this, it would cut completely across the principle of the Bill that the present resources of trained personnel should be brought together in an integrated department which would be responsible for meeting all requirements by the best use of all its resources. If that is not achieved, all that we are doing is merely to create an agglomeration of existing skills, working only in their traditional fields; saving something in administration perhaps, but not opening the way to constructive use of all professional skills. It is the Government's view that the arrangements set out in the Bill are adequate for this purpose; and care has been taken to see that the provisions will not produce a stereotyped plan applicable throughout the country. It will be possible for the probation schemes to vary according to local circumstances and their preparation requires consultation with the sheriff in the locality; and they must also be approved by the Secretary of State. It is certainly envisaged that arrangements will be made under the schemes for the appropriate representation of the, social work department at individual courts.
Secondly, it will be the responsibility of the social work department and their director of social work to carry out all the functions placed on the local authority by the Bill, including the function of providing a probation service for adults. It is recognised by the scheme-making provisions of Clause 26 that special arrangements are desirable to help to establish the new service in its work with the courts so that its potential can be developed and in due course the greater and more varied resources available can give an even better service to the courts than does the present probation service. It would be inappropriate to go beyond this by ruling, as the Amendment proposes, that officers must be specially recruited to a job whose main function, unless they have time to spare, relates only to probation. This would undermine the overall responsibilities of the director, who must be trusted to ensure that his department includes all the necessary specialist skills the work demands. It would be undesirable to create within his department a group of officers who might appear to have some special statutory status which the director would not have.

511
Thirdly, the idea that, when the new departments take over the probation responsibility, the work should continue to be carried out mainly by the officers who are now qualified for the purpose is accepted, but we should not wish to preclude the possibility—as the succeeding Amendment in line 23 would appear to—that officers with other skills might, under supervision, acquire probation experience and share in the work. To enable this would require a wider interpretation of the word "suitable" than noble Lords probably intend. This, we think, is the right way round, not as the two Amendments suggest, to recruit specialist probation officers and to allow them, at discretion, to be used in other parts of the integrated service.
I am sorry that, in spite of the work which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has put into his Amendment, it has produced no change in the Government's views on this matter. As I hope I have made clear, the effect of this Amendment or any similar Amendment would be to cut across the principle which the Government hold to be important in the creation of this new social work department. Therefore, I hope the noble Lord will not press the Amendment.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: My Lords, I am somewhat confused by what the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has said. During the Committee stage the noble Lord rebuked some of us for referring to the abolition of the probation service, and said that there was no question of the probation service being abolished; all that was to happen was that it was to be transferred to the local authority. I inferred from what the noble Lord said that the service would function under its own arrangements, with its own training, and so on, and that the only difference would be that it would come under the local authority. That seems to be different from what he has said to-day, since it appears that the probation service is to be abolished and that its members will be merged into the great new department which is being set up.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord has not been able to go along with this Amendment. I am not sure that I can accept all the arguments which he has adduced. It is
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always possible to put forward the view that if one makes one exception then one must make others, but that is not necessarily a logical argument. It may be, for example, that one has to give a doctor a special status on a job, but it does not follow that everybody else should have a special status as well. The same applies to probation officers, who deal with a different class of person. There are all the social-work people who deal with those who are within the law, and at present one has a different set of people to deal with those who for the time being have put themselves outside the law, or who are subject to the restrictions of the law. I feel that this is an easy dichotomy to maintain, and I should have thought that it could be maintained. It is conceded by the noble Lord that if social workers were to be transferred to probation work they would need to receive additional training. I am not at all sure that, even if it were right, this would be possible under the probation scheme. If one is to make the special arrangements which the noble Lord says are desirable to give a new service to the courts, then the courts will expect that the people who are to give that service will have had the appropriate training. By "training", I do not mean simply academic qualifications, but training in the job.
I do not think that we ought to press this matter further at the moment, though I feel certain that the Government will be pressed further in another place. I hope that the noble Lord will ask his right honourable friend to give further consideration to this matter. He instanced a group of officers with a special statutory status which is not enjoyed by the director of social work; but surely it often happens that the boss, the person in charge, has neither the specialist qualifications which are possessed by others on his staff nor their special statutory status. The mere fact that there is a doctor on his staff would not enable the person who employs him to sign a certificate of death. It would be absurd to say that the boss should possess the sum of the special statutory status enjoyed by his employees. That will not stand up as an argument. The noble Lord has put forward some rather shaky arguments in reply to this Amendment. I do not think that it would be right for us to put this matter to the vote, but if my noble friends think otherwise I will go into the Lobby with them.
4.50 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 23) shall be agreed to?
4.57 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is a "fall-back" Amendment, if I may put it in that way, intended to ensure that the people who do probation work shall have the proper qualifications, or at least the training to do it. The noble Lord said at the last stage that he would consider this Amendment, the effect of which would be simply to add the words:
"with suitable training and experience for the function to be performed "
to subsection (6), which says
"Any function required by any enactment to be performed by a probation officer shall … he performed by an officer of the appropriate local authority."
I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 23, at end insert ("with suitable training and experience for the function to be performed.").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 43;Not-Contents, 58.

CONTENTS

Albemarle, E.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs. [Teller.]

Milverton, L.

Auckland, L.

Falmouth, V.

Molson, L.

Audley, Bs.

Ferrier, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Fortescue, E.

Newton, L.

Boston, L.

Fraser of North Cape, L.

Polwarth, L.

Carrington, L.

Goschen, V.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Conesford, L.

Grenfell, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.[Tellers.]

St. Helens, L.

Craigmyle, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Cromartie, E.

Hawke, L.

Sandys, L.

Daventry, V.

Hives, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Drumalbyn, L.

Horsbrugh, Bs.

Stonehaven, V.

Dudley, L.

Jessel, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Killearn, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Lothian, M.

Younger of Leckie, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Arwyn, L.

Granville-West, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Beswick, L.

Greenway, L.

Popplewell, L.

Birk, Bs.

Henderson, L.

Raglan, L.

Blyton, L.

Heycock, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Bowles, L. [Teller.]

Hill of Wivenhoe, L.

Rowley, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Hilton of Upton, L. [Teller.]

Royle, L.

Campbell of Eskan, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Rusholme, L.

Chalfont, L.

Hughes, L.

Segal, L.

Champion, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Serota, Bs.

Chorley, L.

Latham, L.

Shackleton, L.

Clwyd, L.

Leatherland, L.

Silkin, L.

Collison, L.

Lindgren, L.

Snow, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Longford, E.

Sorensen, L.

Cranbrook, E.

McLeavy, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Maelor, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Morrison, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Moyle, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Noel-Buxton, L.

Tayside, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Phillips, Bs.

Walston, L.

Williamson, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I do not intend to say much in relation to this Amendment, because I cannot accept it, for the same reason that I put forward in rejecting the previous Amendment: that it cuts across the principle of the Bill that people should be trained for the functions of the department. As I have told the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, there is a technical fault in the Amendment. That does not matter a great deal, because if that were all that was wrong it could be easily rectified later. But the Amendment as worded would, in fact, cut out some of the people who are doing the job at present, by virtue of tin; insertion of the word "and". The Amendment refers to suitable training and experience", and although some of the people who are doing the job at the, present time have ample experience they do not have the formal training. That, however, is incidental. We cannot accept the idea that there should be categories of

515
people with training for particular functions. This Amendment is merely a variation of the previous one, and I cannot advise your Lordships to accept it.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, the Minister says that in these departments we must have people who have not been trained just for a particular part of the work but are able, as I gather, after training, to take on any of the work. That surely is quite impossible. Are we to believe that the same person can be a home-help, also supplying facilities for laundering, and at the same time do the work of a probation officer? There must be differences; and I think we have to face the fact, if we are to get a good service, that we must have some people who specialise in certain work and others who will undergo a different type of training.
I want to see as much flexibility, by way of taking on one job after another, as possible; but there is a limit, and I think we have reached that stage if we think that in these social work departments everybody must have exactly the same skills, must have exactly the same training, and must then do first one job and then another. I think it is quite impossible. They will not do these jobs well. I could mention various other forms of social work to indicate how some could do one job but not another, but I give as an illustration the example of a person who is going to work as a probation officer and a person who is going to work as a domestic help.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I should like to challenge the Minister on one point. He says that there are people in the probation service today who are working without having had any training. It is a long time now since I was Chairman of the Advisory Council for Child Care in Scotland, but at the same time there was set up the Probation Training Committee (as I think it was called) for Scotland. That must be ten or fifteen years ago now, and I know that all probation officers taken on to-day (incidentally, I am myself chairman of a probation committee), and all probation officers who have been taken on in the last years, have been through this training. Some of them, of course, are fully experienced social workers who take the
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additional probation training over and above their social work degree or diploma, or whatever rank they have attained at university; others take simply the training of the probation officer. Quite honestly, I think that if, in these social work departments—and I am as keen as anyone about making them a success—you are not going to say that a person working in the courts and with adult people should have a training different from that of those who are dealing with child care, you really are going to get in the most terrible muddle.
I very much hope that the Government will give further thought to this. They may not accept these Amendments now, but such a provision really is necessary, because otherwise you are not going to have people prepared to train to deal with the courts and to do what the sheriffs require of them as well as to undergo that generic training in social work which, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, is also wanted. I hope that the Government will think about this again, because I am quite sure that a social work department would be very much better if it had among its many members several who had special skills—and a training for probation and dealing with the courts, although it might not be specified as such, is one of the skills that is quite essential. At the present time, in my opinion, the probation service in Scotland is composed of trained people, and it is through the Probation Training Committee for Scotland that this training has been secured.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I recognise that there may be a defect in the drafting of this Amendment inasmuch as, although what my noble friend who has just spoken has said is true of all who have entered the probation service in the last two decades, at any rate, there probably are some people who were appointed straight to the job without having had any formal training as probation officers; so to that extent the Amendment might exclude them from consideration for appointment. Nevertheless, I think the purpose of the Amendment is quite clear. I urge the noble Lord to put words of this kind into the Bill. It really seems to me absolutely essential.

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If the noble Lord wants to pronounce an epitaph on the working of this Bill, let him repeat what he has said—and I noted his words as closely as I could. He said: "The principle of this Bill is that people should not be specially trained for the functions they have to perform". That is what the noble Lord said. If, in this age of specialisation, that is the basis on which the Bill is going to be worked, then I am certain it will not be very successful, for, as we have tried to point out, there are special skills in dealing with people who have put themselves beyond the law. So although the noble Lord is not able to accept this Amendment—and I understand the reasons why—I urge him to put some words into the Bill to make certain that the people who are to perform these duties vis-à-vis the courts will have such special training as will commend them to the courts and enable them to do the jobs that the courts will expect.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, if your Lordships would permit me to reply, I think there are points here which must be answered. I do not want to appear to be sitting silent because I have no answer. Of course the noble Baroness is right when she talks about the need for having specialist skills inside such a department. Of course that will be so. What the Government object to is saying that a particular job shall be done only by a person with a specialist skill. May I give two examples? A specialist probation officer may be able to give valuable help to a handicapped child who is not delinquent. Nothing in the Amendment which has been put forward would stop that from happening. But, conversely, the position might well be that a medical social worker would be the best person to help a particular handicapped child who has been at some stage delinquent—and, if the Amendment were accepted, that person would not be regarded as having the specialist skill. Of course there will be different skills in the department, and we want to be able to make use of them. It has never been suggested that we are going to take all the specialist training and put it into a mincing machine, and that only one particular type of skill will come out. But because people choose to specialise in a particular way—and that may be the bulk of the work they do in the department—it does
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not follow that they are not qualified to be used or that they cannot be used in other directions. It is because we feel that either to have accepted the previous Amendment or to accept this one would deprive the department of the best use of the different specialist skills that are available to it, and would in fact frustrate the creation of a proper social work department, that the Government are so adamant in resisting this Amendment, as they did the last one.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this is a consequential Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 27, leave out subsection (8).—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
5.9 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "a local authority," and insert the Secretary of State". The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this Amendment is to secure that instead of the reporter being appointed by the local authority he should be appointed by the Secretary of State. The duties of the reporter are much more similar to the duties of, say, the sheriff than they are to the duties carried out by local authorities. In particular, he will have the duty of advising the children's panel on whether they should issue a warrant. We have been over the arguments, and I think it should be possible for me to move this Amendment with extreme brevity. I merely say that I still feel that it would be a decided improvement if the reporter, instead of being appointed by the local authority, as is the director of social work, were somebody able to deal on a much more independent basis, on a much more clear-cut basis, as an officer of the Secretary of State working together with an officer of another Department. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 9, leave out ("a local authority,") and insert ("the Secretary of State").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the reason which I advanced against accepting this proposal previously was the one

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put forward by the Kilbrandon Committee; namely, that it is essential to the panel concept that children's hearings should be emphatically local and not have any appearance of being part of a national judicial system. They must be local bodies able to consider children against their local environment and able to work closely with the local authority services. There must be close working relations between the reporter and the director of social work. The Kilbrandon Committee suggested that the panels and the reporter should be appointed by the sheriff—that is the Sheriff Principal. It was decided, however, that this did not seem to be the best method of achieving the aim that the panels should be fully representative of their locality, and the sheriffs themselves expressed unanimously the wish that they should not be given this responsibility because they felt that they were not in the best position to achieve the objective. We cannot therefore accept the Kilbrandon Committees' suggestion about the method of appointment. Having regard to the expression of the Committee that the emphasis should be on the local nature, we think it right that the appointment should be made by the local committees rather than by the Secretary of State. I find myself in the somewhat unusual position that on this occasion I am arguing that the gentleman in Whitehall—or in St. Andrew's House—is not necessary the one who knows best.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am afraid that I remain obstinately—if the noble Lord so wishes—unconvinced by this argument. Of course, it will be a local service because the members of the children's panel will be drawn entirely from the locality. But in view of the special functions to be performed, I think it highly desirable that there should not be too close a working arrangement between the reporter and the director of social work; I think it right that they should be professionally and functionally separate. For that reason, I think it would be a better solution for the reporter to be appointed by the Secretary of State rather than by the local authority.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 36:
Reports of cases of children who may require compulsory measures of care and the interim detention of such children in places of safety
36.—
(2) A constable or such officer as aforesaid may take to a place of safety any child in respect of whom any of the offences mentioned in the First Schedule to the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 has been or is believed to have been committed, and any child so taken to a place of safety or any child who has taken refuge in a place of safety may be detained there until arrangements can be made for him to be brought before a children's hearing under the following provisions of this Part of this Act, and where a child is so detained the constable or officer shall forthwith inform the reporter of the case.
(5) Any warrant issued or renewed by a children's hearing under this Part of this Act shall have the like effect as a warrant of apprehension issued by a sheriff under the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act 1954, and the person named in the warrant may be apprehended as a person unlawfully at large in any part of the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, and any enactment relating to the execution of a warrant issued by a sheriff as aforesaid shall, with any necessary modifications, apply accordingly.
5.15 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN had given Notice of an Amendment in subsection (2), to leave out "the reporter of the case", and insert:
"the parent, if he can be found, of the detention and the reason therefor and give the reporter details of the case."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it will be remembered that when we came to this point on the Committee stage we were in the curious position that the noble Lord was about to accept my Amendment when my noble friend Lord Iddesleigh—whom I am glad to see has just taken his place—thought that there might be difficulties about this; and we did not at that time pursue the Amendment. The end of Clause 36(2) reads as follows:
"… where a child is so detained a constable or officer shall forthwith inform the reporter of the case."
It will be remembered that on the last occasion I wanted the parent also to be informed; but as my Amendment was drafted the effect of it would have been that the parent would have had to be given all the information about the case as well as being informed that the child

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was detained. My Amendment on the Marshalled List tries to overcome this difficulty by making the subsection read:
"— inform the parent, if he can be found, of the detention and the reason therefore and give the reporter details of the case."
The noble Lord and I had a word about this Amendment beforehand. He pointed out that there may be difficulties about informing the parent of "the reason therefor" because the child might be implicated, for example, in an offence which also involved an adult and because further police inquiries might have to be made. If that is so—and if it is in order for me to do so—I would move the Amendment merely in the form:
"… the parent, if he can be found, of the detention and give the reporter details of the case."
I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 15, leave out from ("inform") to end of line 16 and insert ("the parent, if he can be found, of the detention and give the reporter details of the case.")—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: My Lords, I seem to have been the cause of noble Lords on both Front Benches having second thoughts. That is a great impertinence on my part; but I think their second thoughts are very much better than their first. I am still not entirely happy about making statutory and mandatory a process which will in almost every case be done without any statutory need. But I will not oppose it. I congratulate the noble Lords concerned on their agreement, and venture to hope that my intervention will have improved the Bill to a slight degree.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, described his intervention, causing the occupants of both Front Benches to have second thoughts, as an impertinence. I would describe it as an accomplishment. But, unfortunately for the Amendment, my second thoughts are against it. My first thoughts, as noble Lords know, were to accept the Amendment because I had not completely foreseen the police and other objections that might arise. As the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, was tabled it was even more unacceptable, because the inclusion of the words "and the reason therefor"—
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which he has now struck out—could have frustrated almost completely police procedure in certain cases where there might be a member of the family involved in an offence against a child.
I hold the view expressed by noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh: that there could be cases where it would be undesirable to make it a formal requirement that the police should inform the parents. As the Bill stands, the formal way of dealing with it would be that the reporter, and through him the director of soc al work, would be the channel through which the parents should be informed of a child's detention. Under Clause 36(2) the police must inform the reporter forthwith, and where a child is detained the reporter must arrange a children's hearing to sit on the first lawful day after the commencement of the child's detention. For this purpose the parent must be informed, so that as soon as the reporter receives notification from the police he must put in hand the machinery for convening a children's hearing and for ensuring that the parents are present. So in every case the parents are going to be told. It could complicate the position—I cannot put it more strongly than that—in the occasional case if there were a formal requirement compelling the police to give this information to the parents. For that reason alone, even with the return of the Amendment to the form in which it was at the last stage, I cannot advise your Lordships to accept it.
5.20 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am sorry about this, because it might easily happen that a child would be taken into care or detained, say on a Saturday evening, possibly when coming back from a football match, and presumably the reporter would not be available until the following Monday morning. It seems to me quite wrong that in the meantime parents should be left in doubt of the whereabouts of their child. I do not think this can be the final answer. We have whittled it down to merely informing the parent that the child is not lost but is in detention. The parent has a right to know, and I am a little surprised that the noble Lord should find that there could be any exception in a case of this kind, except where the parent is himself taken into detention, or perhaps is incapable of acting because he is in a mental home.

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But I cannot see why, in every other case, a parent should not be informed if his child is detained.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, if we do not do this, surely we shall get into the most serious trouble. Some parents may be desperately worried if a child who they thought had gone to a football match or to the cinema does not return home. They will go to the police, and unnecessary hardship will be caused to them. I cannot see the argument against stating in the Bill that parents must be told if a child is in the hands of the police or cannot return home for some other reason. Not to inform the parents seems to me cruel and unnecessary. I cannot understand why the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, should not include this, simply as an ordinary safeguard against parents being agitated and worried. The child might be quite frightened if it were on its own in the hands of the police. I am amazed that the noble Lord is unwilling to make this Amendment, which is quite simple and straightforward and ought to form part of the Bill.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, it is because it looks so simple and straightforward that it is difficult to persuade your Lordships and the noble Baroness that it is right not to make the Amendment. If the Amendment were accepted, the police would in every circumstance have to notify the parent of a detention. There could be circumstances in which that would be undesirable. I have mentioned the case where a member of the family is concerned, and it could well be that notification in the way suggested would be the very thing that would frustrate the proper carrying out of proceedings. The parents might weigh the advantage of allowing a culprit to escape against the desirability of proceedings being taken.
Dealing with the case of which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, spoke, of a child being taken into custody after a Saturday football match and the parents not knowing anything about it until the following Monday, I would remind your Lordships that a hearing must take place on the Monday, under the terms of the Bill, because that would be the next lawful day. Proceedings would therefore have to be put in hand
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so that, even in such a case, the latest time at which the parents would know would be when arrangements for the hearing were being made on the Sunday. I should like to point out that we are talking about exceptional cases. Of course, in ordinary circumstances the police would do the job in the same way as they do normally. We wish to protect the right of the police, in the proper execution of their duty, not to do this if it would frustrate the proper carrying out of their task. Obviously, it would be in very exceptional circumstances that this would occur, but the last thing on earth that we want to happen would be that something could not be carried to its proper conclusion because the provisions in the Bill required us, as it were, to "tip off" someone in a way that would frustrate police proceedings.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
5.27 p.m.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH BARONESS HORSBRUGH moved, in subsection (3), to leave out "issue" and insert "apply to the sheriff for". The noble Baroness said: My Lords, first I should like to say how much I regret that I was not able to be present during the Committee stage proceedings. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for my absence, but I had made an appointment a long time before, and it was quite impossible to change the date. I am very grateful to the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, for moving the Amendment which I had put down to deal with this very difficult and, as I think, very important subject of who can issue warrants for the apprehension of these children, or anybody else.
I read carefully and with great interest the reply given by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, and his reasons for not accepting the Amendment. I hope the noble Lord will understand that I do not wish to be in the least rude if I say that it seemed to me he made out an exceedingly good case for accepting the Amendment. He spoke of the various powers and of the times when a warrant could be issued. I feel strongly that warrants should be issued not by members of the hearing but by the sheriff. We are told in the Bill that warrants issued by members of the hearing would have the same effect as a sheriff's warrant. They could issue a warrant for an officer of the law to go to a child's home and take the child

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away and put him somewhere else, because the officer thought that the child might not attend the hearing which was to take place. During the course of the hearing, if it went on for several days, a warrant could be issued to enable a child to be put somewhere in order that he should not run away while the case was being conducted. If a child did run away after having been put into what is called a residential home under compulsory care (we are told that detention is no longer a punishment but that, instead, there is compulsory care) a warrant could be issued for his apprehension. That, my Lords, is the outline given by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, during the Committee stage.
I think that most noble Lords would agree with me that these are great powers. Most of the people with whom I have discussed the matter feel that it would be much better that a request should be sent to the sheriff to issue a warrant. In every other case of dispute an appeal can be made to the sheriff. At the beginning of the hearing, if there is no dispute about the facts—in other words (although we must not use court language), if the child pleads guilty—the hearing can go on, but if the child or the parent challenges the facts the hearing cannot go on until an appeal is made to the sheriff to decide. In every case, except on this most important point of issuing a warrant, the appeal is to the sheriff. It is left to these individuals. I have nothing against these people. I am certain that they will do their best, but they have not the training and the standing.
Suppose that a policeman went with a warrant to a child's home and said that he was going to take the child away, and put him somewhere else because he might run away before the hearing. If the parents want to find out on whose authority the policeman is taking him away, and are told that it is on the authority perhaps of Mrs. "So-and-so" next door, I do not think that that will carry very much weight—indeed, it will be much resented. It has been said—and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said this on Committee stage—that we were giving the hearing a tremendous amount of responsibility. They can decide on treatment or training. They can send a
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child to a residential establishment—the term "approved school" is to go. Why not give them the power of issuing a warrant as well? But in all those cases the parent or child can appeal to the sheriff. It is a strange thing that on this one point it is left entirely to the members of the hearing.
I would ask the noble Lori, Lord Hughes, to consider this point again, because it goes wider than this Bill. It gives these people more responsibility than the majority of people in this country would think was right. Perhaps the noble Lord will tell me what is the reason for this peculiar arrangement. From what he said, it almost: sounded as though it was to give them a little more importance. I hope very much that another decision will be taken. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 24, line 6, leave out ("issue") and insert ("apply to the sheriff for").—(Baroness Horsbrugh.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I must admit to a certain feeling of surprise at the way in which the noble Baroness has moved this Amendment, and particularly at the interpretation which she has placed on what I said on Committee stage. Let me say right away that I never said, and certainly never intended that it should be taken from anything I did say, that we were conferring the power to issue a warrant only in order to increase the importance of the members of the children's hearing. The power to issue warrants is being given because we consider it an essential part of the powers which the children's hearing should have in order to carry out their duties.
One would have thought from the way in which the noble Baroness deployed her case that the giving of this power to lay people was a completely new departure. Of course it is not. Many lay people have this power at the present time. A justice of the peace, a bailie and a police judge can issue a warrant. These are lay persons just as are members of the children's hearing. So that conferring power of this kind is certainly not a departure of principle.
I think that the noble Baroness is wrong in saying that this is the only case where

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the sheriff has not to make the decision and that all other major decisions are taken by the sheriff. The noble Baroness made it appear as if almost everything had to be decided by the sheriff before the hearing dealt with the matter. That is not so. There are circumstances in which an appeal to the sheriff will lie. In this case, if a warrant for interim detention is issued and if the parents want to appeal to the sheriff, they must be heard within three days, so that there is adequate safeguard against wrongful detention. We are seeking to create a new piece of judicial machinery and it is desirable that there should be the same opportunity for it to carry out its functions as any other piece of machinery we have. It goes no further than that. If we were to accept this Amendment we should be bringing in for the first time a case where the sheriff would be the first instance and not simply on appeal. For that reason, the Amendment is ill-founded.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, surely the sheriff would not be the first instance. It would be that an appeal had gone to him about a particular difficulty —that they thought the boy was going to run away, or something of that sort—and he would then be asked to issue the warrant.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Baroness is confusing an action taken by the children's hearing with an appeal, which appeal does go to the sheriff.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I think my noble friend has stated a strong case here, and one cannot just let it go at what has been said. The difficulty here is that these children's hearings will issue warrants in cases even when they are unable to dispose of the case, or when they have reason to think that the child may run away in the meantime, and cases of that sort. This is a matter which seriously interferes with the liberty of the subject. In cases like that I think there can be no reason that this is for the protection of the child, the protection of the child's reputation in the future, and that sort of thing, and there is no reason why the matter should not go to the sheriff. This is not going to the sheriff for judgment; it is going to the sheriff for the protection of the individual. The
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children's hearings are not there for the protection of the individual. This is not their purpose. They are there for the care of the child, which is a totally different purpose.
It seems to me that you cannot divide this out and say that beyond a certain age the protection of the individual lies with the sheriff, and below that age it lies with the children's panel. Here it is the sheriff who has to make up his mind as to whether or not a warrant should be issued. The noble Lord is quite right in saying that elected bailies and police judges can issue warrants. He is also right in saying that justices appointed by the Secretary of State can issue warrants. But I know of no case where warrants can be issued by persons who are simply appointed as a panel by local authorities. The bailies are elected persons; the police judges are elected persons; and the justices are appointed by the Secretary of State. I know of no case where appointed persons—admittedly here they are appointed by the Secretary of State—can issue warrants. I should have thought that in cases of this kind, when the case of a child has to go to the children's hearing, the appropriate person to ensure that the child is kept in safe custody before that hearing by issuing the warrant, should be the sheriff. The child, so far, has not been proved to have committed any offence, and pending the decision of the children's hearing the appropriate person should he the sheriff.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Lord is under a certain misapprehension here. In the first instance, it is not correct to say that bailies are elected. He said that they were elected persons, and that is true. But the electors do not choose bailies. The electors choose councillors, and the assembled council decide who are to be the bailies: and in this case the warrant is capable of being issued by a bailie. But that is by the way. The noble Lord says that he knows of no case where it could be done other than by a person appointed by the Secretary of State. But the panels are appointed by the Secretary of State. So in this case the requisite which the noble Lord is putting forward as a justification in certain cases for the issue of a warrant does apply, because the panels are nominees of the Secretary of State.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 31) shall be agreed to?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this Amendment fulfils an undertaking which I gave at the last stage that consideration should be given to the limitation. The clause as drafted places no restriction on the period during which a child might be detained in a place of safety and would now oblige a hearing to consider his case within seven days of the date of the commencement of the child's detention. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will find this Amendment acceptable.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 12, at end add—
("() A children's hearing arranged for the purposes of the last foregoing subsection shall meet within a period of seven days from the date of the commencement of the detention of the child, and no child shall be detained under that subsection after the hearing has met or beyond that period.")—(Lord Hughes.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I do find it acceptable. I think the period
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 45; Not-Contents, 47.

CONTENTS

Auckland, L.

Ferrers, E.

Newton, L.

Audley, Bs.

Fortescue, E.

Oakshott, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Robertson of Oakridge, L

Blackford, L.

Grenfell, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Boston, L.

Gridley, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller]

Carrington, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

St. Helens, L.

Conesford, L.

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Cromartie, E.

Hawke, L.

Sandford, L.

Daventry, V.

Horsbrugh, Bs.

Sandys, L.

Denham, L.

Inglewood, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Drumalbyn, L.

Killearn, L.

Somers, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Lothian, M.

Strathcarron, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Margadale, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Falkland, V.

Milverton, L.

Swinton, E.

Falmouth, V.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Younger of Leckie, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Beswick, L.

Henderson, L.

Royle, L.

Birk, Bs.

Heycock, L.

Rusholme, L.

Bowles, L.

Hughes, L.

Segal, L.

Champion, L.

Hunt, L.

Serota, Bs. [Teller.]

Chorley, L.

Kirkwood, L.

Shackleton, L.

Collison, L.

Leatherland, L.

Silkin, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Lindgren, L.

Snow, L.

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Longford, E.

Sorensen, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

McLeavy, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Feversham, L.

Mitchison, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Fleck, L.

Phillips, Bs. [Teller.]

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Plummer, Bs.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Popplewell, L.

Tayside, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Rhodes, L.

Walston, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Greenway, L.

Rowley, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

of 72 hours I put down earlier was possibly rather short. This will give an additional latitude, and I am obliged to the noble Lord for meeting the point.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 41:
Conduct of children's hearing and summary application to sheriff for finings
41.—(1) Subject to the provisions of sub-sections (7) and (8) of this section, at the commencement of a children's healing, and before proceeding to the consideration of the case, it shall be the duty of the chairman to explain to the child and his parent the grounds stated by the reporter for the referral of the case, and to ascertain whether these grounds are accepted in whole or in part by the child and his parent.
(2) Thereafter—
(a) where the child and his pare it accept the grounds stated by the reporter for the referral the hearing shall proceed;
(8) The acceptance by a parent of the grounds of referral shall not be a requirement to proceeding with a case under this section where the parent is not present.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment which I hope, with the first line of Clause 41(1), may go some way towards meeting the criticism which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, made in Committee about the positioning of subsection (8) as an afterthought in the clause. Of course, the real answer to that criticism is in the first line of the clause, which directs people's attention immediately to the subsequent subsections. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 30, leave out ("and to ascertain") and insert ("for the purpose of ascertaining").—(Lord Hughes.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I was wondering whether the noble Lord was dealing with the clause we have before us. I may be quite wrong but I cannot quite connect what he has said with the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (2)(a), after "accept" to insert "or if his parent is not present the child accepts". The noble Lord said: My Lords, these are essentially drafting Amendments. I am bound to say that I think it is very much better, if it is at all possible, to know what is being said straight away without having to look at the end of the clause to find out that something rather different may be meant. In this particular instance we have on page 26, line 33:
"(a) where the child and his parent accept the grounds stated by the reporter for the referral the hearing shall proceed."
And the next subsection is very much the same. Then we find at the end of the clause:
"(8) The acceptance by a parent of the grounds of referral shall not be a requirement to proceeding with a case under this section where the parent is not present."
It seems to me that it would be very much simpler in both paragraphs (a) and (b) to say:
"Where a child and his parent accept or if his parent is not present the child accepts, the grounds stated by the reporter for the referral the hearing shall proceed."
I quite recognise that the particularly wary reader of this subsection will have been warned in subsection (1) that he must look at subsections (7) and (8) but he will have probably forgotten it before he gets to subsection (2). In any case,
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I am sure that my drafting is very much better than that of the Bill in this particular instance. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 33, after ("accept") insert ("or if his parent is not present the child accepts ").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: I must accept that at the conclusion of the last Amendment the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, rather startled me by trying to plant in my mind the idea that I was talking about the wrong Amendment. That was not in fact so, because I was dealing with the same clause and I referred to the criticism which he made and which he has now repeated namely, that it is not a good thing to wait until subsection (8) to find out that this concerns the acceptance by the parents of referral, et cetera. I pointed out that the previous Amendment went some way to meet the objection. In any event, the real answer to the objection which he then made, and which he has repeated in these Amendments, is that the very first words in the clause are "Subject to the provisions of subsections (7) and (8)". So people's attention is directed to the position right at the very outset.
It really boils down, in the question of Amendments 40, 41 and 42, to what one considers the best way of wording it. I think the argument used, or at any rate implied, by the noble Lord was that there is a certain inelegance about the way in which the clause is drafted at the present time.
I am not seeking to decide which is the more delightful way of wording the clause: what I am putting forward is that the clause, as it has now been amended, is a perfectly straightforward way of dealing with the job and is preferable to the wording which the noble Lord has endeavoured now three times —twice in your Lordships' House and once privately—to get me to accept. I remain of the opinion that Clause 41, as now amended by Amendment 39, is perfectly satisfactory, and that it would not be an improvement to accept Amendments Nos. 41 and 42.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am sorry about that. May I just read subsection (8):
"The acceptance by a parent of the grounds of referral shall not be a requirement to proceeding with a case under this section where the parent is not present".

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I compare that with this:
"where the child and his parents accepts or if the parent is not present the child accepts".
I must bow to the noble Lord's ideas on this matter, but I must say that I should like to see his taste improved. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 43 [Disposal of case by children's hearing other than by discharge of referral]:
6.2 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this Amendment is designed to ensure that the powers which a local authority will be able to exercise on behalf of a child under a supervision requirement (which, under Clause 43(5), has to be administered by the local authority) will be the same as those they can exercise for a child in their care on a voluntary basis. It seems reasonable that a local authority should be able to use these powers, which include the assumption of parental rights, the furtherance of the child's best interests, the making of financial and other arrangements for the education and training of children over school age, the after-care of children who have left the care of the local authority, and related matters. The power to discharge or vary the supervision requirement remains with the children's hearing. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 29, line 3, at end insert—
("and a child who is subject to such a supervision requirement shall, for the purposes of sections 15 to 19, 23 to 25, 27 and 28 of this Act, be in their care:
Provided that where the performance of a function under any of the said sections in relation to the child requires, or would be facilitated by, the variation or discharge of the supervision requirement, the local authority shall recommend a review of the requirement under this Part of this Act.)—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 52 [Legal aid in proceedings before the sheriff and any appeals to the Court of Session]:
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved to leave out "a decision of". The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this Amendment is to secure, or was to secure, that an appeal could be made not only against the decision of a children's hearing but also against the procedure in a children's hearing. I am grateful to the noble Lord for having pointed out to
534
me that this Amendment is in itself defective, and the right place to have made it would have been in subsection (1) of Clause 48, and not here, because this merely picks up the proceedings on which appeals may be made, and Clause 48 lays down what those proceedings are.
The reason I have put this Amendment down is that in various parts of this Bill there are provisions as to what the children's hearing must do, how it must conduct itself. If it does not conduct itself in those ways, it seems to me that most certainly an appeal should lie. I do not know what other remedy exists unless an appeal lies. This Amendment may not be in the right place, but I would invite the noble Lord to have a look at the matter again, because if it is true that there is no other remedy in a case where a children's hearing does not proceed correctly, and a decision is reached, it may be that it would not be possible to challenge the decision but it might be possible to challenge the procedure at the hearing, if the Bill were in those terms. I recognise that it many cases, perhaps even in most cases, it may be sufficient to challenge the decision. But as the Bill lays down how the children's hearing shall proceed, it seems to be more than conceivable that sot nothing can go wrong on procedure, and it should be possible to challenge that procedure on appeal, as well as to challenge the decision. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 32, line 20, leave out ("a decision of").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I think, briefly, that the point which the noble Lord makes is whether an appeal against a decision includes an appeal against the procedure by which the decision was arrived at. I would confirm that that is our intention: that the appeal should lie in the wider field. We think that the wording covers both points, but I cannot give a firm assurance that it does. By the time I had ascertained what the noble Lord wanted, time did not permit me to consult the Lord Advocate, whom I should wish to consult in this matter. But I firmly give the assurance that if the Lord Advocate advises that the wording —the word "decision"—could in fact he interpreted as meaning the decision only, and would not cover the wider field, we will in another place undertake such

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Amendment as the Lord Advocate advises as necessary to achieve that purpose.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord, and I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 57 [Prohibition of publication of proceedings]:
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved to add to the clause:
"(4) This section shall extend to England and Wales and to Northern Ireland."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is an Amendment again to restore words that were taken out by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, at the last stage, but also to add other words. The clause in question, Clause 57, deals with the prohibition of the publication of proceedings. The words that were taken out were:
"This section shall extend to England and Wales".
The reasons why they were taken out are, first of all, because Clause 96 says:
"The following provisions of this Act shall extend to England and Wales, that is to say—… section 57".
So in fact Section 57 does extend to England and Wales. The second reason was that Northern Ireland was also coming into this and Amendments are later to be moved to bring it in.
It is so unusual to have a clause in a Scottish Bill of this kind which applies to England and Wales that I think it is most important that on the face of the clause in question, and in the Bill, it should be made quite clear that this shall extend to England and Wales. It is even more unusual with regard to Northern Ireland. It should not be left to somebody to have to look up what is not even really an Interpretation Clause but a somewhat unusual clause, in a Scottish Bill at any rate, at the end of the Bill, to find out whether this applies to England and Wales or whether it does not. It is very unusual in a Scottish Bill, and there is a very strong case for putting these words fairly and squarely in the Bill so that those concerned with these matters—and of course the Press and radio, the B.B.C. and I.T.V., will be very much concerned with them—may be
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forewarned straight away as soon as they see this in the Bill. They will then be able to see the obligations that are laid on them by this clause, and the fact that the clause applies to them, most exceptionally, at one and the same time. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 34, line 7, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, in the usual way what is done in the Bill by listing in Clause 96 the clauses in what is essentially a Scottish Bill which apply outside Scotland is a useful and tidy arrangement by means of which it is possible for people to see right away the extent to which the Bill has an application outside the borders of Scotland. From that point of view it is preferable to having scattered through the Bill the relevant pieces of information in such a way that if anyone wanted to find out the extent to which the Bill applied outside Scotland then, in the absence of Clause 96, they find it out only by reading through the whole Bill. Having said that, I think that because of the effect that this particular clause has on Press and television—it might be the only part of the Bill at which the Press or television authorities would have an occasion to look—a useful purpose would be served by having a repetition in this case, and, exceptionally, I should be prepared to agree that there should be this statement in the clause itself. For that reason only I am prepared to accept this Amendment.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, and I am sure he is right.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 62 [Registration]:
6.12 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN moved, in subsection (4), to leave out "other person" and insert "person under the control of that person". The noble Marquess said: My Lords, this Amendment is another attempt to find a suitable form of words to meet the point I raised in Committee. On that occasion the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, actually satisfied me as to the purpose behind the last few words of this subsection. He gave me

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a number of examples, but looking at the subsection again it seems to me that the wording is too wide and too imprecise and would have wider implications than the actual example he gave. I think he spoke of the possibility of an assistant matron who might have committed an offence in relation to a particular establishment and who still remained in the employ of the matron of that establishment. This Amendment is designed to narrow down the clause to the more precise type of example given by the noble Lord. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 8, leave out ("other person") and insert ("person under the control of that person").—(The Marquess of Lothian.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, what the noble Marquess has just said shows the disadvantage of getting an Amendment withdrawn by citing a particular example of what can be done, because if the Amendment is then moved in another form, as it now has been so moved, the temptation is to seek a further example to induce the further Amendment to be withdrawn. It is not really a highly satisfactory way of dealing with it. One could go on ad infinitum in trying to get variations of the Amendment and of the example. We prefer to leave the clause as it is because there could be circumstances—and I am not going to cite a case—where the conditions requiring the possible cancellation were not caused by the person having control of the establishment or by a person under the control of that person. It could be someone who in fact had no business to be there, who had been given no authority by the person running the establishment and therefore could not be considered to be under his control; but the very fact that a certain thing applied might be clear enough indication that the place was not being run in a proper fashion, and yet if one were not able to make use of that circumstance it might be impossible to deal with the matter.
I pointed out on a previous occasion that this is a power which is likely to be used only in the most extreme cases by an authority, and it is a power which quite rightly is hedged by the right of appeal. In those circumstances it is most unlikely that any local authority will act unreasonably in the matter, and if they did act unreasonably the appeal tribunal would
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put things right. In these matters we are dealing with the improbable, the thing which is most unlikely to arise but which we cannot say with certainty will not arise. Therefore we consider the prime consideration should be the interests of those who are in the establishment rather than those who are running the establishment, so long as there are due safeguards for those who are running it. In those circumstances, even without a specific example I hope the noble Marquess will once again be kind enough to withdraw his Amendment.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that further explanation. I will not press him for examples on this occasion and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 64 [Appeals against refusal or cancellation of registration]:
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved to add to the clause:
"(6) In any proceedings under this section a person who appeals to an appeal tribunal may be represented by another person."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, on the Committee stage we discussed Schedule 4 paragraph 6(2), which says:
"The power under this paragraph to make rules as to procedure includes power to make provision as to the representation of one person in any proceedings by another person by another person."
Two issues emerged from that. The first was how we should secure that a person should have a right to be represented by another person, and the second was, given that right, what the rules of procedure should be. They seemed to me to be two entirely separate issues, and at the time I suggested the first was a substantive provision and therefore ought to be in the body of the Bill. I have accordingly put it in the body of the Bill and I hope the Amendment is quite clear. This is, of course, referring to people who lose their registration licences. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 39, line 18 at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Lord places me in a certain difficulty.

539
At the last stage I undertook that we would consult the Council on Tribunals about this matter with a view to getting their advice whether the point should be covered in rules or by an Amendment in another place. I have followed up that undertaking and the matter has been placed before the Council on Tribunals but we have not yet received their advice. It seems to me at the very least it would be rather discourteous to the Council on Tribunals if, having sought their advice whether we should amend the Bill or whether it should be done by rule, we then went ahead and amended the Bill. It might appear that we were not very interested in the advice which they might give. I am certain that that is not the intention in anyone's mind and I am prepared to undertake to implement whatever advice we may be given. Of course, if the advice is to amend the Bill it will be done in another place.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that explanation. I did not know the terms on which he had approached the Council on Tribunals, and I agree to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 69 [Escape from a place of safety, or from the control of a person imposed by a supervision requirement]:
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out "escapes" and insert "absconds".—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 51.
Amendment moved—
Page 41, line 38, leave out ("escapes") and insert ("absconds").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
6.20 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved, in subsection (2), at the beginning to insert:
"Subject to the provisions of subsections (6) and (7) of section 43 of this Act".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am not quite certain how far this Amendment is necessary, in view of the next
540
Amendments the noble Lord is going to move himself, but as the clause now stands there is still no alternative to taking the child who escapes from a place of safety back to the same place of safety, whatever the circumstances may be. Yet there may be circumstances in which it is undesirable to do so. In order to get over that, I have suggested the words "Subject to the provisions of subsections (6) and (7) of section 43 of this Act", and these subsections enable the director of social work to direct that the child shall be required to reside in a different place. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 42, line 1, at beginning insert the said words.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is quite right in associating to some extent this Amendment No. 52 with the Amendments I shall be moving, Nos. 53 and 54. Those Amendments are an alternative way of dealing with this point. They clarify the position in the light of the discussion which we had at the last stage on the methods of dealing with children who abscond from a place of safety or from a person under whose control they have been placed under a supervision requirement. If I may continue speaking to those Amendments, I think it is the best way of proceeding. The first Amendment, to page 42, line 7, is drafting. It removes from Clause 69(2)(b) the reference to a child subject to a supervision requirement requiring him to reside in a residential establishment who would, if he absconded and was brought back. be dealt with under Clause 70. The new subsection (3) provides that if the occupier of the place of safety from which the child has absconded is unwilling to receive him back the child is to be placed in a place of safety until his case comes before the children's hearing. This would inevitably be a different place from the original place of detention as, by definition, a place of safety must be willing to receive a child. This provision is comparable to the new provision in Clause 39(5) for cases where a child fails to attend a hearing of his case and is detained.
Secondly, if the person under whose control the child was placed is unwilling to take him back the child is likewise to be placed in a place of safety. If that

541
person is not suitable to be given control of the child, again the director of social work has power under Clause 43(6) to transfer the child to another person or another place. Subsection (4) provides that a children's hearing arranged to hear the case of a child to which this clause refers must meet within seven days from the date of commencement of the child's detention. I hope, therefore, the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will withdraw his Amendment No. 52 and concur in due course in my Amendments Nos. 53 and 54.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation, but I am still not absolutely certain that my Amendment could not be useful in addition to the noble Lord's Amendments, because, as I said, it is mandatory in the clause as it stands that the child arrested in pursuance of this section shall be brought back, and this says, in the case a child brought back in pursuance of the last foregoing subsection, that he shall be brought back to the person under whose control he has been placed unless that person is unwilling to accept him. I do not want to press this Amendment, but I wonder whether the noble Lord would be good enough to have another look at it. It is unsatisfactory to put in a mandatory provision and say it can be overridden. It does not look well. I think the subsection ought to say "Subject to the other provisions in the clause". I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 53.
Amendment moved—
Page 42, line 7, leave out from ("placed") to end of line 9.—(Lord Hughes.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 54.
Amendment moved—
Page 42, line 10, leave out from ("if") to the end of line 15 and insert (", in the case of a child required to be brought back in pursuance of the last foregoing subsection,—

(a) the occupier of the place of safety, or

(b) the person under whose control he has been placed,

is unwilling to receive him, the child shall be placed in a place of safety until the dis-
542
posal of his case, or as the case may be, until he can be brought before a children's hearing for a review of the supervision requirement to which he is subject.
(4) A children's hearing arranged for the purposes of the last foregoing subsection shall meet within a period of seven days horn the date of the commencement of the detention of the child, and no child shall be detained under that subsection after the hearing has met or beyond that period.")—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 70 [Escapes from residential establishments]:
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 55.
Amendment moved—
Page 42, line 18, leave out ("escapes") and insert ("absconds").—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 56.
Amendment moved—
Page 42, line 19, leave out ("escapes") and insert ("absconds").—(Lord Drumalbyn)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 75 [Parents of a child subject to an approved school order or a committal order moving to Scotland]:
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this is an Amendment which the Home Office wish us to insert to restrict the reference in Clause 75 to children committed to care to avoid its covering committals to care as a result of matrimonial proceedings. The point, I am assured, has no Scottish relevance. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 45, line 16, leave out ("or") where secondly occurring and insert ("under Parts III or IV of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 or Part II of the Education Act 1944, or committed to the care").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 58 and 71 are related. Originally it was thought unnecessary to include in the Bill a provision about the transfer of assets, as the probation service (the service primarily concerned) operates from the offices of local authorities and there is little properly to transfer, apart from equipment and possibly cars. I am now advised that it

543
would be better to have a transfer of assets clause. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 83 insert the following new clause:
Transfer of assets and liabilities
(".Where any functions are transferred to a local authority by virtue of this Act all property, rights, liabilities and obligations relating to the performance of those functions which immediately before the date of the coming into operation of this Act were the property, rights, liabilities and obligations of the body or person from which the functions are transferred shall on that date be transferred to and vest in the local authority or, as the case may be, the local authorities to which the functions have been transferred, and the provisions of Schedule (Transfer of assets and liabilities) shall have effect for the purposes of this section.")—(Lord Hughes.)
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I was slightly puzzled by this Amendment when I first read it, and even more puzzled when the noble Lord acquiesced in Amendment No. 1, because it seems to me they might be read to cover the same point. I do not quite understand why this Amendment would not cover the case of functions transferred by one local authority to another local authority; that is, the case of large burghs whose functions would be transferred to counties.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, it is perhaps merely for the avoidance of doubt.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am glad the noble Lord acquiesces that it is for the avoidance of doubt.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 84 [Transfer and compensation of officers]:
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this Amendment is proposed for the purpose of removing any doubt about the position of certain officers of local authorities who transfer from one superannuation scheme to another as a result of the provisions of the Bill. It has to be clear not only that the provisions of one superannuation scheme can be extended to an officer transferring to another scheme but also that the Secretary of State has powers at
544
the same time to amend the second scheme so that it is deemed to contain such provisions as are necessary to give effect to the extensions proposed. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 49, line 29, at end add ("or for modifying in respect of such officers, as may be so specified, the provisions of the said Acts or any such scheme.")—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 87 [Duty of parents to notify change of address]:
6.30 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: This is a drafting Amendment. Paragraph (c) of subsection (1) is unnecessary, as only persons under paragraphs (a) and (b) would have orders or decrees made in respect of them under Part VI. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 51, line 40, leave out from ("requirement;") to end of line 44.—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, subsection (2) has been redrafted to ensure that it covers all the children under subsection (1). The references to children transferred in line 5 are wrongly restrictive. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 52, line 3, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
("(2) The parent of a child to whom the foregoing subsection relates and who knowingly fails to comply with the requirements of that subsection shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine of ten pounds; but in any proceedings under this section it shall be a defence that the accused is residing at the same address as the other parent and had reasonable cause to believe that the other parent kept the person responsible for the supervision or the care of the child informed of the address of both parents.")—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 93 [Interpretation]:
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this Amendment is the result of an assurance which I gave in Committee about the definition of "establishment". I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 54, line 4, at end insert ("not being premises controlled or managed by a Government department,").—(Lord Hughes)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 96 [Extension of certain provisions of Act to England and Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man]:
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this Amendment extends certain provisions of the Bill to Northern Ireland. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 57, line 12, after ("Ireland") insert ("that is to say—

section 36(5)

section 57

Part V

Schedule 6.

(3) The following provisions of this Act shall extend to".—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Amendment of Part IV of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937]:
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. The word "maintained" is an error. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 58, line 26, leave out ("maintained") and insert ("detained").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this Amendment makes the new Section 43 more like the existing Section 43 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act by providing that when a child is to be brought before a court the local authority which is to be notified, and which has to provide reports and so on, shall be the local authority of the area in which the court will sit and not of the area in which the offence is alleged to have been committed. We have come to the conclusion that this is a more convenient arrangement. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 58, line 39, leave out from ("the area") to the end of line 41 and insert ("in which the court will sit").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES LORD HUGHES moved, after paragraph 6, to insert:
"() For section 50 there shall be substituted the following section—
Child charged jointly with person who is not a child.
When a child has been charged with an offence jointly with a person person who is not a child the provisions of sections 52 to 54 of this Act shall not apply to summary proceedings before the sheriff in respect of the charges.
() In section 52(1), for the words from the beginning to the words "a juvenile court", second occurring, there shall be substituted the words—
"Where summary proceedings are brought in respect of an offence alleged to have been committed by a child the sheriff shall sit either in a different building or room from that in which he usually sits or on different days from these on which other courts in the building are engaged in criminal proceedings; and no person shall be present at any sitting to which this subsection applies".
() For subsection (2) there shall be substituted the following subsection—
(2) The power to make rules conferred on the High Court of Justiciary under section 76(1) of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act 1954 shall include power to make rules as respects the procedure in cases to which the foregoing subsection applies.
() In section 53(5), for the words from the beginning to the words "juvenile court", there shall be substituted the words "Any direction in any enactment that a charge shall be brought before a juvenile court shall be construed as a direction that he shall be brought before the sheriff sitting as a court of summary jurisdiction, and no such direction "."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, these Amendments to Sections 50 and 52(1) and (3) of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 are designed to ensure that a child who appears before a criminal court after the coming into operation of the Bill shall be entitled to no lees protection than he has now by virtue of the existing provisions of these sections. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 59, line 14, at end insert the said paragraphs.—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES LORD HUGHES moved to add to paragraph 7:
". In section 57(2), for the words from the beginning to "harm" there shall be substituted the words "Where a child is convicted on indictment"."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is designed to widen somewhat the power in Section 57 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 to enable serious offences by

547
children to be appropriately dealt with by the sheriff or by the High Court. At present, Section 57(2) provides that if a child or young person is convicted on an indictment of attempted murder, culpable homicide, or wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm, and the court feels that none of the other ways in which the case may be legally dealt with is suitable, then the court may sentence the offender to be detained for a specified period. The Amendment enables a court to pass this type of sentence in any case of conviction on indictment, and not just in a conviction for one of the offences previously mentioned. We think that if the decision has been taken that the offence is of a sufficiently serious nature to have brought about the position that it should be on indictment this is a reasonable basis on which these penalties should apply. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 59, line 24, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 68 and 69 I will move together. These two Amendments are designed to retain, for one purpose only, the existing power, contained in Section 58 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act, 1937, of a court to impose short terms of detention. It is felt to be necessary to keep this power of detention as a deterrent and as an ultimate sanction when a child will not pay fines, damages or expenses which may be imposed on him by the court. It is not a power that is often used, and in future it may be used even less; but we think that it is a deterrent which can usefully be retained. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 59, line 25, after ("58") insert ("the words from the beginning to "imprisonment or" shall be omitted and").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 69.
Amendment moved—
Page 59, line 27, leave out from ("the period") to the end of paragraph 8 and insert (", not exceeding one month, as may be specified in the order in a place chosen by a local authority in whose area the court is situated.").—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Appeal Tribunals]:
LORD DRUMALBYN: This Amendment concerns a minor point. The Bill refers to the "representation of one person in any proceedings by another person by another person." Whether the gramophone record has got stuck or there has been some other mistake, I do not know. But if this is not intended, the wording, I feel, ought to be changed. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 63, line 26, leave out ("by another person") where secondly occurring.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords. I beg to move the new Schedule after Schedule 4.
Amendment moved—
After Schedule 4, insert the following new schedule—

SCHEDULE

  TRANSFER OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES
  1. Every agreement to which the transferor was a party immediately before the date of transfer shall have effect as from that date in favour of or against the transferee as if the transferee had been a party to the agreement instead of the transferor.
  2. Where the functions of the transferor are transferred to more than one transferee the property, rights, liabilities and obligations of the transferor shall be allocated in such a manner as relates to the allocation of the functions transferred to each of the transferees.
  3. Any legal or other proceedings to which the transferor is a party which are pending on the date of the transfer may be continued on or after that date as if the transferee instead of the transferor had been that party.
  4. The Secretary of State may make regulations for facilitating the transfer of any property, rights, liabilities or obligations in pursuance of this Act.
  5. In this Schedule—

  (a) "transferor" means a body or person from whom a function has been transferred under this Act and from whom any property, right, liability or obligation has been so transferred, and

  (b) "transferee" means a local authority to whom a function or any property, right, liability or obligation has been so transferred,

  and "transfer of function" includes the giving of a function to a local authority which was previously performed by another body including another local authority.")—(Lord Hughes.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Schedule 6 [Minor and Consequential Amendments]:
  LORD HUGHES: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. It changes references to "remand home" to "place of safety". I beg to move.
  Amendment moved—
  Page 65, line 25, at end insert—
  (" Criminal Appeal (Scotland) Act 1926
  . In section 9(4)(d), for the words "remand home" and "home" there shall be substituted the words "place of safety".") —(Lord Hughes.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I do not think we have any further comments. If it is convenient to the noble Lord and to the House, we do not object to the remaining Amendments being put en bloc.
  LORD HUGHES: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for that suggestion, which will enable us to finish within our time limit. If it is acceptable to your Lordships, therefore, I will move that Amendments Nos. 73 to 88 be accepted en bloc.
  Amendments moved—
  Page 66, line 10, after ("110(1),") insert ("in")
  Page 66, line 2, after ("officers") insert ("nominated")
  Page 66, line 2, after ("words" ") insert ("an")
  Page 66, line 9, leave out ("director of social work or officer representing him") and insert ("officer of the local authority who is to supervise the probationer")
  Page 66, line 13, leave out sub-paragraph (5)
  Page 66, line 21, leave out from ("or" ") to end of line and insert ("officers" there shall be substituted the words "any officer" ")
  Page 66, line 28, leave out ("they think") and insert ("it thinks")
  Page 66, line 33, after ("words"") insert ("a")
  Page 69, line 2, at end insert—
  ("() After subsection (4) there shall be inserted the following subsections—
  () Where in the case of a person who has been committed to prison under the last foregoing subsection, the sheriff is satisfied that his detention in prison is no longer necessary, he may revoke the commitment and commit the person to the local authority in whose area the court is situated, and the authority shall have the duty of placing him in a suitable place of safety.
  550
  () In section 30(1), in the subsection substituted thereby for section 9(4) of the Criminal Appeal (Scotland) Act 1926, in paragraph (d) for the words "remand home" and "home" there shall be substituted the words "place of safety ".")
  Page 69, line 20, at end insert—
  ("() In paragraph (4)(a), for the words from "the probation officer" to "salaried probation officers" there shall be substituted the words "the local authority named in the order, the local authority".").
  Page 70, line 5, leave out from ("10,") to end of line 15 and insert ("for subsection (4) there shall be substituted the following subsection—
  "(4) On the making of an order under this section committing the care of a child to a local authority, Part II of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 (which relates to the treatment of children in care of local authorities) shall, subject to the provisions of this section, apply as if the child had been received by the local authority into their care under section 14 of that Act, so however that—

  (a) the exercise by the local authority of their powers under sections 5(3), 19 to 21, and 59 of that Act shall be subject to any directions given by the court; and

  (b) section 22 of that Act (which relates to arrangements for the emigration of a child under the care of a local authority) shall not apply.".")

  Page 69, line 26, leave out ("under")
  Page 69, line 29, leave out first ("of")
  Page 69, line 35, leave out ("or,")
  Page 73, line 37, at end insert—
  ("Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Scotland) Act 1965
  .—(1) In section 15, in subsections (1) and (3), for the words "children's officer" there shall be substituted the words "director of social work".
  (2) In subsection (4), for the words "Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937" there shall be substituted the words "Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968".")
  Schedule 7, page 74, column 3, leave out line 33, and insert—
  ("Section 51.
  Section 53(2) and (3)")—(Lord Hughes.)
  On Question, Amendments agreed to.
  LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move en bloc Amendments Nos. 90 to 97. I beg to move.
  Amendments moved—
  Schedule 7, page 75, line 36, at end insert ("and (9)")
  Schedule 7, page 75, line 41, leave out ("therein") and insert ("and")
  Page 76, line 33, leave out from ("subparagraph" to end of line 35 and insert ("4(b), the words "named therein",")
  Page 76, line 37, at beginning insert ("an")
  Page 76, line 38, after ("home") insert ("or in")
  Page 76, line 39, after (" "other" ") insert ("and paragraph 7")
  Page 77, line 24, at end insert ("Section 69(1)(b)")
  Page 77, line 35, at end insert ("In section 145(42) the words from "but does not" to "1937".").—(Lord Hughes.)
  On Question, Amendments agreed to.

HEALTH SERVICES AND PUBLIC HEALTH BILL
6.40 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. On July 5 this year the National Health Service will be twenty years old. The opportunity we have today in debating the Health Services and Public Health Bill is one of the very few occasions in those years when the House has had before it a measure concerning the statutory provisions under which the services operate. Indeed, this is the first Bill whose provisions comprehend the whole range of our health and welfare and public health services that we have had in this period, and that is in itself a tribute to the wisdom and foresight of those who planned and put through the original legislation. But I should not wish to suggest to the House that the measure now before us, although wide-ranging, is designed, as was the 1946 legislation, to transform the organisation of the health services in this country, nor is the spirit of our debate to-day likely to revive echoes of the famous debates which preceded that legislation. For the Bill we are discussing is concerned mainly with making a number of relatively minor improvements to the organisation of services within the terms of reference of the administrative structure set up under the 1946 National Health Service Act, the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1947 and other legislation, principally the National Assistance Act 1948 and the Public Health Act 1936. Taken as a whole, they should make it easier to provide the patterns of service that are needed to-day and to make the optimum use of the re-
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sources available within the framework of the services as they now exist.
As noble Lords will know, the Minister of Health has announced that he has set in hand a full and careful examination of the administrative structure of the medical and related services and that he intends to publish tentative proposals in the form of a Green Paper, which will provide full opportunity for public discussion and consultation. The Bill we are considering to-day does not seek in any way to anticipate the results of this review, and of course it would be wrong and premature to introduce through this Bill any major changes in the administrative structure of the health and welfare or public health services. Almost inevitably the Bill contains a large number of miscellaneous provisions. It was rather unkindly described in another place as a rag bag. I prefer to call it a bran tub, with something good in it for everybody. It contains a large number of valuable provisions, and my purpose this evening will be to describe some of the more important of these. Most of the clauses have an application North of the Border as well as in England and Wales; but some of the provisions apply only to Scotland.
The opening four clauses of the Bill are concerned with private patients in National Health Service hospitals. Mention of private practice is apt as a general rule to lead to the instinctive adoption of emotional and partisan attitudes, and noble Lords will doubtless know that these clauses have proved no exception. But I hope that I can satisfy the House that these provisions should in practice prove non-controversial. Clauses 1 to 3 of the Bill replace the existing provisions which are contained in Section 5 of the 1946 Act and the corresponding section of the 1947 Act, except for the transitional matters dealt with in Clause 3. Clause 1 deals with private residential patients or in-patients, and Clause 2 with private non-resident patients; that is to say, out-patients and day patients.
These two clauses make the two main changes. First, they remove the present requirements that accommodation for private patients must be special accommodation set aside. The purpose of this change is to introduce greater flexibility in the use of accomodation for private patients so that within the total amount

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of accommodation authorised by the Minister at a particular hospital a private patient can be accommodated in that part of it most suited to his medical needs, instead of as at present having to be accommodated in a bed that has been designated for use by private patients—a pay bed. Secondly, the clauses enable pay bed charges to be determined on a national basis for different classes of hospitals. At present these charges have to be based on the cost at the individual hospital with pay beds and calculated for each hospital by the hospital authority according to a complicated set of regulations. Apart from the work involved, the present system can give rise to anomalies in that there may be variations in charges between similar hospitals with similar accommodation, often in the same area. Under Clause 1(3) the Minister will be able to group together hospitals of similar types into classes and determine hospital charges on a national basis for each class.
Since hospital charges for private resident patients are to be fixed on a national basis and not by individual hospital authorities, and since Clause 1 sets out the factors to be taken into account by the Minister in determining charges, there is no longer a need for these charges to be determined under regulations, and accordingly this requirement has been dropped. Similarly, charges for private non-resident patients, dealt with in Clause 2, and for amenity beds, dealt with in Clause 4, are to be determined by the Minister without the need for regulations. Lastly, the power of the Minister to prescribe limits to the fees that hospital doctors and dentists can charge their private patients treated in National Health Service hospitals is not renewed; the actual limits prescribed were removed by the Pay Bed Regulations 1966, with effect from January 1, 1967.
Fears have been expressed, on the one hand, that the changes made by these clauses may be either detrimental to private practice in National Health Service hospitals and, on the other hand, that they will prove unduly encouraging of it. Neither should be the case. Apart from the changes mentioned the clauses make no substantial change in the present position. They neither increase nor decrease the powers of the Minister to control the extent of private practice in National Health Service hospitals and
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they preserve the existing safeguards to interests of non-paying patients.
I now turn to Clause 5 of the Bill. This clause empowers the Minister to constitute a new alternative form of management for hospitals providing teaching facilities for medical education. Under existing legislation the Minister of Health may designate hospitals providing teaching facilities as teaching hospitals, and a hospital or group of hospitals so designated must be managed by a board of governors appointed by the Minister and responsible directly to him. If the Minister does not designate them as teaching hospitals, then they must at present be managed by a hospital management committee appointed by the appropriate Regional Hospital Board according to the constitution laid down in Schedule 3 to the 1946 Act. Under this clause, the Minister can provide for a new form of administration for hospitals providing teaching facilities by designating them as "university hospitals". Before making such a designation the Minister is required by the clause to consult the university concerned, and while the body responsible for the management of a university hospital will be a hospital management committee appointed by the Regional Hospital Board the order which the Minister will make designating the university hospital may provide for modification of the constitution of the hospital management committee to manage that hospital. The Minister will therefore be able to ensure that the university is adequately represented on the committee. Orders made under this clause will he subject to annulment.
I should make it clear that the Minister is not seeking to create this new form of management because of any dissatisfaction with the existing relationships between Regional Hospital Boards and boards of governors—on the contrary, he is aware that there is close and beneficial co-operation between them. He has made it clear that it is not his present intention to use the clause to make sweeping changes in the administration of teaching hospitals already controlled by boards of governors. However, the Minister believes that he should be free to consider other forms of administration, and in particular he considers that the creation of new medical schools provides an opportunity to link these new centres of

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medical education more closely with the Regional Hospital Boards who are responsible for the overall planning of the hospital services in their region.
The House will be aware that the Government have approved the creation of medical schools at the Universities of Nottingham and Southampton. At Nottingham both the University and the Sheffield Regional Hospital Board are in favour of the new hospital which will be associated with the medical school being managed as a university hospital, and it is likely that it will be so designated. Southampton may very well also become a university hospital. The title "university hospital" has been chosen to make it plain that these hospitals should have a standing and esteem no less than that of existing teaching hospitals as centres of teaching and research. The fact that through this new form of government they will be more closely associated with the rest of the hospital services in their region will be an additional advantage. The Government are confident that this experiment in hospital management will prove to be a successful and fruitful development.
There are a number of other clauses in the Bill concerned exclusively with the hospital service. I will not describe these in detail, but I should like to mention briefly Clause 65, which was added to the Bill in another place. This clause empowers the Health Minister to give financial help to visitors to patients in the special hospitals or in the State hospital as it is called in Scotland. These hospitals—Broadmoor, Rampton and Moss Side in England, and Carstairs in Scotland—are different from National Health Service hospitals in that they do not serve a local catchment area but admit patients from anywhere in the respective countries. Consequently, in many cases relatives and friends have to make long and expensive journeys to visit patients. At present the usual form of financial assistance available to visitors is in the form of rail vouchers which entitle users to return rail tickets at one and half times the single fare. This clause would enable the Minister to give assistance to visitors travelling by public road services, which many people use because it is more convenient and
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cheaper. Regular visiting is, of course, very important both for the patient and for his family; this clause will help encourage and perhaps increase regular visiting, and I am sure the House will welcome it.
It would perhaps also be opportune at this stage, before leaving those parts of the Bill concerned with the hospital service, to describe the purposes of Clauses 31 and 32, which relate to the disposal of goods and services produced by the Minister for the hospital service. These two clauses have been viewed with some concern by commercial and manufacturing interests and it may be helpful if I explain their purpose—which has been the subject of some misunderstanding.
Clause 31 enables the Minister to make services available outside the hospital and specialist services. It is already the practice of hospital authorities to sell surplus services. For example, some hospitals provide pathological services for private hospitals or nursing homes, meals-on-wheels for local authorities, laundry services for homes for old people or handicapped people run by local authorities and voluntary bodies, and some provide services of sterile supplies to local authorities and doctors. This clause gives explicit statutory authority to this practice. It was thought desirable to obtain this authority because the 1946 Act provides that services are to be free of charge except where the Act specifically provides for the making of charges. Moreover, as the Act already authorises the Minister to dispose of certain specified services or goods in this way, the existence of these limited powers could be held to exclude a more general power, although such a power is in fact already being exercised by hospital authorities.
Some fear has been expressed that as a result of this clause hospitals may launch out into all manner of activities that might bring them into competition with private enterprise. But I do not think there need be any cause for alarm here. Some examples of the kind of services being provided have already been given and there is certainly no present intention of making any general extension of these arrangements. The clause gives the Minister discretion as to the terms on which surplus services may be made available. This discretion is required since it is conceivable that in some cases it would

557
be perfectly proper to make services available other than at full cost; but it is, and will continue to be, the normal practice to charge for these services on the basis of full cost, including overheads.
Clause 32 will enable the Minister to sell or give away or otherwise dispose of any goods that he produces in the hospital and specialist services and that become surplus to the requirements of those services. This is a simple and straightforward power to get rid of any surplus that may from time to time arise in hospitals. The clause will also enable the Minister to prescribe goods which he wishes to produce in excess of the requirements of the hospital and specialist services, so that he may dispose of them to recipients either engaged on other aspects of the National Health Service or completely unconnected with that Service. This part of the clause, like the previous clause, has given rise to some disquiet lest it be used to introduce unfair competition with suppliers of various items used in the hospital service. The Minister has, however, made it clear that his intention is solely to be able to meet any need that may arise outside the hospital service for special types of articles that may not be readily available from commercial sources in the quantity or quality required. Artificial eyes, sophisticated surgical appliances and specialised components of artificial limbs are the sort of articles that the clause is designed to cover, and the Minister's power to operate will be limited to those classes of goods that he has prescribed by regulations, subject to annulment by either House. As with Clause 31, it will be the normal practice for charges to be based on the economic cost of providing any goods supplied, including overheads.
I now turn to the provisions in the Bill dealing with the local health and welfare services. First, I come to local health services. In the Bill as first published Clauses 10 and 11 provided for the extension of existing National Health Service legislation so as to allow local health authorities to employ midwives, health visitors and district nurses to attend women elsewhere than in their own homes, which is the limit of their existing duty. The purpose of promoting more efficient deployment of staff and encouraging close co-operation between
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local authority staff and family doctors —for example, by the "attachment" of local authority nurses, health visitors, and midwives to general practice—has been further met by Amendments made in another place which would enable such staff to be used outside the areas of their employing authorities. Clause 10 would now also allow local health authorities to make arrangements with hospital authorities, whether within or outside their areas, so that their midwives might work in hospitals where this would help to provide a better service.
Clause 13 concerns the domestic help service. Its effect is twofold: to make the provision of domestic help a statutory duty and, secondly, to empower local health authorities, in the discharge of their duty to provide a domestic help service, to arrange for articles belonging to the household to be laundered either at the house or elsewhere. The clause also empowers authorities, subject to the approval of the Minister of Health, to recover from persons availing themselves of the service or of the laundry facilities provided, such charges as the authority consider reasonable having regard to the means of the recipient. In practice all local health authorities already provide a domestic help service under existing permissive legislation. In the Government's view, however, it is logical to make the provision of this important service a statutory duty in common with that of similar local authority services.
As a result of a Government Amendment which was adopted in another place, the clause now provides for persons who are handicapped as a result of illness or congenital deformity to be included as an additional category of persons eligible for domestic help. As has already been explained by the Minister of Health in another place, owing to the present economic situation the Government have decided that the implementation of the clause shall be deferred for the present under the provisions of Clause 78 of the Bill. This does not, however, represent any change of intention by the Government.
In Clause 59 the opportunity is taken to tighten up the law relating to child minding by amending the Nurseries and Child Minders Regulation Act 1948. At the end of 1949 the number of places

559
for children provided by people who looked after them in their own homes amounted to only 1,744, but over the following 17 years the number shot up to nearly 35,000. Many of these women are providing useful service, but there is no doubt that the standards of others fall short of what ought to be expected. The Government are particularly concerned about some child-minders who do not come within the scope of the Act at present but who clearly need to be supervised by the local health authority, and those minders who, being unregistered, are breaking the law.
The Ministry of Health carried out extensive inquiries of local health authorities in 1965 and 1966 about the operation of the Act, and as a result of these and other evidence—I would mention particularly the Report produced last summer by the late Dr. Simon Judkin, to whom I am sure we should all like to pay tribute for his work for the pre-school child—it is proposed to give local health authorities greater powers of control over child-minders and to increase the penalties for evasion of the Act. In legislation of this nature it is important not to give public authorities greater powers over the individual than is necessary; but the Government are convinced that because of the unsatisfactory conditions in which some children are being cared for they are justified in seeking Parliament's approval to the amendments to the 1948 Act proposed in this clause.
The provisions dealing with local welfare services are found in Part II of the Bill. They are particularly concerned with services for the elderly and would allow authorities to provide places for the elderly and the handicapped in certain commercially run homes; they also provide authorities with a general power to promote the welfare of the elderly. At the moment a local authority can meet its obligation to provide residential accommodation for elderly and handicapped persons by placing them in homes which it runs itself, in homes run by other authorities, or in homes run by voluntary organisations. While the number of such homes is steadily increasing, the demand for places is rising too, and it has been necessary to find new ways of satisfying this demand. Clause 44 aims to do so by permitting authorities to make arrange-
560
ments for the provision of accommodation with the proprietors of those commercially-run homes which are registered with a local authority under the National Assistance Act 1948. It will also enable authorities to provide a wider range of choice for intending residents. An authority making such arrangements will pay an agreed charge to the proprietor and will in turn recover from the resident, in the usual way, as much of the charge as he can afford.
While Clause 44 will, initially at least, have a rather limited application, the general power to promote the welfare of the elderly proposed in Clause 45 will eventually enable large numbers of the elderly to enjoy a much wider range of statutory welfare services, including—and this pleases me very much—preventive services. At present these are limited to meals, whether in a person's own home or at a luncheon club, and recreational or occupational facilities. If the elderly person is also physically or mentally handicapped, as I fear many of them are, he, or more often she, can take advantage of the arrangements made by authorities under their general power to promote the welfare of this class of persons provided by Section 29 of the 1948 Act, as extended by the Mental Health Act 1959. If, however, he is merely suffering from the general infirmity of old age he can derive no benefit from these arrangements. Clause 45 removes these restrictions and will enable authorities to provide for all elderly persons a comprehensive range of services comparable to those available to the handicapped. They will, for example, be able to adapt the home of an elderly person and provide him with services, such as help with gardening or decorating, and personal aids to enable him to cope more easily with ordinary everyday life at home.
They will also be able to give advice to the elderly and to take measures to prevent deterioration in health and living conditions. In particular they will be able to contribute towards the cost of providing warden services in special housing for the elderly—a vital and expanding service, the development of which appears to have been delayed in some areas by doubts about welfare authorities' powers to make such contributions. A further power they will have will be to provide a wide range of visiting services for the elderly aimed at finding those in need of welfare services,

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ascertaining the services they lack, and providing them with practical assistance and advice. What is perhaps even more important is that authorities will be able to arrange for visits to be made to elderly persons solely with the object of preventing them from becoming isolated from the general community and of retaining their interest in life.
Authorities' arrangements for providing services under the clause will be subject to the Minister's approval. Clearly it will take them a little time to determine what these services should be, and the Minister has no intention of pressing them to make early decisions. Indeed, the present financial restrictions on local authority expenditure will, I am afraid, dictate that the development of these services will come only gradually and in accordance with authorities' own assessment of where their priorities lie.
Finally, may I say that in developing their services in the directions to be permitted by the clause, authorities will have to rely very heavily, probably much more even than they have done in the past, on voluntary help. Visiting the elderly is a field in which the voluntary organisations are already doing a tremendous amount. Any extension of visiting on the scale now envisaged must clearly draw extensively on the valuable experience they have gained, and must depend very largely on the services that trained volunteers can contribute. It is only fitting, therefore, if I may anticipate matters slightly, that the existing powers of local authorities to assist voluntary organisations—both financially and by making premises, equipment and staff available to them—should be consolidated and extended by Clause 64. This gives authorities a wide ranging power to assist such organisations operating anywhere in the local health and welfare field.
If I may continue on this tack for a little longer, may I mention that Clause 63 gives the Minister, for the first time, a complementary power in the same field. This will put on a statutory basis the payments he is already making to voluntary organisations in the field covered by the local health and welfare services and enable him, again when the financial climate improves, to extend the range of his assistance.
I come now to those Parts of the Bill concerned with what are often called the
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executive council services—the services provided by doctors, dentists, chemists and opticians who are in contract with executive councils. Clauses 16 and 19 and Schedule 1 are concerned with the ophthalmic services. These are currently designated "supplementary ophthalmic services" because in 1946 they were expected to fulfil a merely temporary role until hospital ophthalmic clinics could take over all testing of sight and supply of optical appliances. In the event the hospital eye service has concentrated on meeting the more specialised requirements, whilst the "supplementary ophthalmic services" have catered for the bulk of our ordinary needs. The Bill recognises that they will continue to do so permanently and renames them, in consequence, "general ophthalmic services".
No changes in the scope of these services are involved, but there are necessarily some in organisation. In the 1946 Act provision was made for the ending of these executive council ophthalmic services in each area as the extension of the hospital service made them redundant. Until then they were to be controlled by special ophthalmic services committees acting as agents of each executive council. In Scotland there are particular reasons for retaining the joint ophthalmic services committees, but in England and Wales it is appropriate that the ophthalmic service committees should be abolished and a permanent service should be controlled directly by executive councils, with the three groups of practitioners involved represented on the councils themselves. This, together with consequential additions to retain the balance of membership, is the reason for the changes in the membership of executive councils proposed in Schedule 1.
As long as the ophthalmic services were considered to be on a temporary basis there was no need to authorise their provision in health centres; Clause 18 now proposes that this should be possible. This brings me to a number of provisions relating to health centres in Clauses 18, 19, 21 and 22. Since 1949 it has, been possible for doctors to practise privately in health centres, and experience has shown the advantage of a limited degree of private practice in certain circumstances. It is possible that similar extensions to the other services provided

563
there might prove beneficial to the patients attending a particular health centre. When it is possible to provide ophthalmic services at a health centre, it may be felt that they will operate at a considerable disadvantage if, for example, a patient finds that he is obliged to go outside in order to purchase a spare pair of spectacles or a private frame.
Similarly, a patient might find a health centre less attractive if after he had been given a private prescription by his doctor there, he could not have it dispensed at the centre pharmacy, or if he had to go outside the centre in order to obtain the ordinary household remedies which we encourage him to buy for himself. Consequently the Bill makes it possible for dentists, opticians, and pharmacists to engage in private practice at health centres if the Minister so determines in the case of a particular centre, and to such an extent and under such conditions as the Minister determines in each case in the light of local consultation.
Ophthalmic services have not, as I have explained, been provided in health centres previously, and the only pharmacists there have been employed by the local health authorities, even though they are providing executive council services. The professional representative bodies concerned have indicated that they would find it more appropriate for persons providing general ophthalmic and pharmaceutical services in health centres to be in contract with the executive councils, and the Government have thought it right to respect their wishes in this, and put them on a par with the doctors and dentists. Consequently, Amendments were made in another place precluding the employment of both opticians and pharmacists by local health authorities for the provision at health centres of services under Part IV of the 1946 Act, but with a saving clause for those health centres where pharmacists are already so employed.
Clause 24 will enable executive councils to supply goods and materials to persons providing general medical, dental, pharmaceutical and general ophthalmic services under the National Health Service Act 1946. As the clause has given rise to some anxiety among the professions providing the family practitioner services,
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and indeed among certain of the industries supplying goods to the National Health Service, it may be helpful for me briefly to explain its purpose and scope. The clause is primarily designed to remove any doubt as to the legal basis of the present arrangement whereby disposable sterile syringes and needles purchased by the Minister of Health are supplied by executive councils to medical practitioners. This arrangement has been generally welcomed by doctors, and I am confident that they will be glad to see it now placed on a firm legal basis. The clause will also enable councils to supply such other goods and materials to practitioners in the future as may appear necessary or expedient to the Minister. No extension to the existing arrangements is in fact intended at present, but there may be a case in the future for supplying additional items in order to improve standards or to save cost by centralised purchasing arrangements.
My Lords, the powers conferred by the clause may be exercised only by the laying of regulations, which on every occasion would specify the class of goods to be supplied and the category of person (whether doctors, dentists, chemists or opticians) for whom they were intended. This of course means that there would be full opportunity for prior discussion, and if necessary Parliamentary debate, before any class of article were listed for provision to practitioners by executive councils. There is, moreover, no question of the clause imposing an obligation on practitioners to apply for or to use such goods as might be supplied. I hope that what I have said will allay the anxiety which has apparently been expressed that the powers conferred by Clause 24 might be used to compel practitioners to make use of centrally supplied goods or materials of a nature or on terms which would be unacceptable to them.
Before leaving that part of the Bill which deals with executive council services, I should like to refer briefly to Clause 25. This clause was included at the Report stage in another place. It was not proposed by the Government, but the intentions of the clause were acceptable to the Government and the Minister recommended its acceptance on that basis. Clause 25 applies various provisions of the Patents Act relating to the Crown use of patented inventions, in particular

565
Section 46, to the services provided under Part IV of the National Health Service Act 1946 and the comparable Scottish Act. Part IV services are those administered by executive councils. The main purpose is to enable the Health Departments to authorise, for the purpose of the general medical and pharmaceutical services, the purchase of patented drugs bought from unlicensed sources, the terms for the use of the patent being subject to either agreement or determination by the court. The Health Departments already have a comparable power in relation to drugs and other patented inventions supplied for the hospital service, since it was decided in the Pfizer case that the latter was a service of the Crown.
In its review of the relationship of the pharmaceutical industry to the National Health Service, the Committee of Inquiry, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, concluded that the Health Departments needed to have a procedure to which they could resort if negotiations on prices of pharmaceutical products failed, that Section 46 of the Patents Act 1949 was an appropriate instrument for this purpose, and that it would be right to extend its application to the general medical and pharmaceutical services. The Committee hoped, as do the Government, that revised arrangements for regulating prices will greatly reduce the chances of Ministers having to resort to the use of these powers, but we think it right that they should be available, on the basis envisaged by the Committee, as a procedure of last resort. It was primarily because of this that the Government were prepared to accept the clause. Since then, the Government have had the opportunity to look at it more closely, and I think I should tell noble Lords that as drafted the clause does not entirely meet its purpose. The Government will accordingly be proposing Amendments at a later stage of the Bill to get it right.
So far, my Lords, I have dealt with provisions in the Bill concerned with the personal health and welfare services provided under the National Health Service Acts and the National Assistance Acts; but the House will have noticed that the Title of the Bill refers also to public health, and it is to some of its provisions in this field, mainly that of notifiable
566
disease and food poisoning, that I now propose to refer. For England and Wales, the majority of the new provisions are those set out in Part III of the Bill. I will not attempt to describe all of them—there will be opportunity at Committee stage for this—but will, instead, confine myself to two of the clauses.
Clause 47 deals with the definition of "notifiable disease". The present definition of "notifiable disease" in the Public Health Act 1936 includes a number of diseases to which, because of advances in medical knowledge, it is no longer considered necessary to apply all the precautionary and preventive provisions of Part V of the Public Health Act 1936—as must be done in respect of all diseases included in the statutory definition of "notifiable disease". For this reason, the Minister proposes that membranous croup, erysipelas, scarlatina (or scarlet fever), enteric fever, typhoid fever and diphtheria should be removed from the definition. To be added to the definition is one disease, plague, at present notifiable under regulations to which I now refer.
I should explain that the diseases listed in the revised definition are not the only infectious diseases about which information will be sent to medical officers of health by general practitioners and other doctors attending patients. The Minister of Health is empowered by Section 143 of the 1936 Act to make regulations with regard to epidemic, endemic and infectious diseases generally, and by any such regulations to apply, with or without modifications, to any disease to which the regulations relate whichever of the precautionary and preventive provisions of Part V of the Public Health Act seem to him, on medical advice, to be appropriate. It is under these regulations that information is already sent to medical officers of health about cases of a number of other diseases, including, for example, tuberculosis, poliomyelitis, measles and whooping cough. Of the diseases now to be removed from the definition of "notifiable disease", the Minister proposes that scarlet fever, typhoid fever and diphtheria shall be made subject to the notification procedures, and information of cases of those diseases will continue to come to medical officers of health.

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The other public health clause that I want to mention is Clause 68. Section 172 of the 1936 Act provides for court orders for the removal to hospital of a patient suffering from respiratory tuberculosis, and empowers the court to direct the local authority to make a contribution to the maintenance of the patient's dependants. The provisions for these maintenance contributions have been criticised by local authorities, on the ground that the maintenance of the dependants of such a hospital patient is the responsibility of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, as is the case with the dependants of a patient suffering from tuberculosis who voluntarily enters hospital or of a patient suffering from any other notifiable diseases removed to and retained in hospital under Sections 169 and 170 of the Public Health Act 1936. For these reasons, the Government are proposing the repeal of Section 172. Subsequently, any legal action needed to secure the removal and retention in hospital of a patient suffering from respiratory tuberculosis can be taken under the provisions of Sections 169 and 170 of the 1936 Act, which will be applied to tuberculosis by regulations to be made under Section 143 of the 1936 Act.
My Lords, I have so far dealt with the provisions in the Bill which, broadly speaking, are concerned with one or other arm of the service, but before I sit down I should like to refer briefly to two clauses which do not fit readily under any of the heads I have so far used. The first, Clause 62, is concerned with training. When making training arrangements for persons working, or contemplating work, in the health and welfare services, Ministers have had to rely mainly upon a power inferred from a duty to provide services: for specific powers, such as those under Section 48 of the 1946 Act, which covers certain types of training for practitioners in the Part IV Services, are very limited. A few instances have arisen where doubts have been expressed about the legal basis of current practices, and further doubts arise in relation to some of the increased opportunities for training that are being planned for the future. It is essential that proper training be provided for those engaged in the health and welfare services, whether as direct employees or as contractors, and that the
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continuation and development of those services be assured by the availability of an adequate number of suitably trained persons. Clause 62 seeks to clarify the position and, by empowering the Minister to provide training direct, and one health or welfare authority to undertake the training of persons providing or intending to provide a service for another such authority, ensures that training can be organised on a rational and economic pattern of mutual aid. For similar reasons the clause allows for the making of reciprocal arrangements with Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The final provision I wish to describe is Clause 33, which provides specific powers for the supply to severely disabled persons of the invalid carriages and the associated benefits that successive Ministers have made available since 1948 under general powers in the 1946 Act. The clause also provides new powers for the supply of motor cars instead of invalid carriages, thus enabling the Health Ministers to extend even further the excellent service that they already provide for the severely disabled. But it will not, of course, be possible to make full use of the new powers overnight. They will be there for Ministers to use to introduce improvements, stage by stage, as the resources available to the Health Service permit.
My Lords, what I have said this afternoon has, I am afraid, no doubt appeared rather disjointed and lacking any obvious common thread or argument. But this is probably inevitable when describing a miscellaneous Bill of this kind. But I hope that, by very reason of the wide-ranging nature of the provisions in the Bill, I shall at least have been able to find in it something to please everyone. There is indeed much in the Bill which will be helpful to the development of the health, welfare and public health services—services which we all, I know, on whatever side of the House we may sit, wish to see developed and strengthened and on whose efficiency we all at one time or another must rely. I am confident that noble Lords will wish to give a general welcome to the Bill. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(Baroness Phillips.)
7.23 p.m.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Baroness for her very thorough exposition of this very long Bill. She said that it is a miscellaneous Bill. It is, my Lords, very miscellaneous indeed. I am going to be rather more selective in the choice of the clauses on which I am going to speak because I suspect that probably the greatest service I can do your Lordships at this time of night is to be as brief as I decently can. As well as being a miscellaneous Bill, this is very largely, of course, an enabling Bill. Some of the powers which it gives to the Minister are pretty sweeping, and so a great deal will turn on how the Bill is used when it becomes law. That is something on which we shall have to keep a fairly critical eye from time to time.
The noble Baroness said that the description of the Bill that she preferred was "a bran tub with something for everybody". That is a reasonably accurate description, but I think that a more accurate one would be to say that it is a stodgy pudding with a few plums. On the whole, however, the stodge is mostly palatable and wholesome; and, whatever may happen at later stages, I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading this evening. I congratulate the Minister on succeeding in getting this Bill into this Session's legislative programme, because it strikes me that it is not really the sort of Bill that is likely to arouse a great deal of enthusiasm in the breasts of those Ministers whose duty it is to advise Her Majesty on the contents of the gracious Speech. I would go so far as to say that the promotion of this Bill confirms me in my belief that Mr. Robinson is the most successful departmental Minister in this Government—and the best. That is not, perhaps, much of a compliment; but it is a compliment.
My Lords, that is the only Party political comment I propose to make; because anyone who has served in the Ministry of Health knows how extremely difficult it is, with the best will in the world—or even with the worst will in the world—to inject Party politics into the activities and policies of that Department. I personally would not have it otherwise. Nevertheless, the opponents of pay beds in hospitals and of private
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practice generally have from time to time, since the inception of the National Health Service sought to represent this as a significant Party political issue. Personally, I think it is an issue that should be treated absolutely pragmatically.
All Ministers of Health, from Aneurin Bevan onwards, have recognised that there is a demand, a fairly substantial demand, for amenities which can be purchased by payment over and above that which is automatically paid for in taxation. This being so it has always seemed to me—and seems to me still—that, precisely because the National Health Service is a national service and a monopoly, it ought to recognise the existence of this need and do its best to meet it, so long as it can do so economically and efficiently. The demand for pay beds in hospitals fluctuates from year to year. I rather think that it is going through a period of decline at the moment. I should not like to prophesy what the demand is likely to be in ten or twenty years' time, but there is no doubt that the number of people taking out insurance policies to cover private treatment is growing all the time. I believe that something like 4 per cent. of the population is now covered by insurance policies for private treatment purposes. That is something of which I should have thought any Minister of Health is bound to take notice, and to try to meet, whether he likes is or not.
My Lords, the important thing about the clauses in the Bill dealing with pay beds—and I was glad that the noble Baroness drew attention to the point—is that they do not alter in any substantial way the power of the Minister to increase or reduce the number of pay beds in National Health Service hospitals. This is a power that he has always had, and I am certain that it is a power that he must always have. But the important thing that these clauses do is to put an end to the designation of pay beds for particular purposes, for particular specialities. I am sure that that is a sensible reform; because designation has led to unnecessary under-occupancy of beds.
Clause 5 is the biggest plum in the pudding. It enables the Minister to create new teaching hospitals administered by the Regional Hospital Boards instead of by independent boards of governors. I welcome this power in the

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Bill, but I am bound to say that I do not much like the name "university hospitals" which is proposed for these hospitals. It seems to me to be somewhat pretentious, and it suggests either that there will be something different in the role of these new teaching hospitals from the role of the existing teaching hospitals—which I am sure is not meant to be the intention—or, if it does not suggest that, that in some way or other these new teaching hospitals are going to be superior to the present teaching hospitals, but I do not believe that is the intention either. I should have preferred a more modest name, such as regional teaching hospital or district teaching hospital. However, I recognise that this is not really a substantial point.
My Lords, I know that some people connected with the great teaching hospitals are afraid that this clause may be a threat to their continued existence; that it may be the thin end of a rather large wedge. I sincerely hope that is not so, and I doubt whether it is. So far as I know, the Minister has always had the power to de-designate teaching hospitals without having to lay an Order before Parliament. If I am right about that—and I think I am—it seems to me that what is in Clause 5 does not add anything to the powers which the Minister always has had in this respect. I am not going to say any more about this matter now. I think that my noble friend Lord Cottesloe will be saying something about the position of teaching hospitals later on.
I welcome Clause 5 particularly for two reasons. The first is that I am all for variety and experiment in the National Health Service, and being a native of those parts I am particularly glad that Southampton is probably going to be one of the first towns where the experiment is to be conducted. I hope that the experiment will be tried there, because then the university hospital will be administered by the Wessex Regional Hospital Board, which I happen to think is an extremely efficient organisation. Certainly it attracts to its service consultants and specialists of all kinds whose calibre is second to none in the country.
The second reason why I welcome the clause is that for a long time I have felt that members of hospital management
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committee and Regional Hospital Boards do not receive the recognition that they deserve. When I was at the Ministry I tried very hard—I admit without any success—to think up ways in which they could receive more recognition than they do. The fact that this clause is in the Bill will give the members of these bodies the knowledge that they are now deemed worthy to establish their own teaching hospitals, and that will be a good boost to morale. I do not share the anxieties of those people, and there are some, who doubt whether the Regional Hospital Boards will have the ability or perhaps even the inclination to rise to the occasion.
I think that on the whole the changes in the powers and duties of the local health authorities are sensible. I particularly welcome Clause 13, which imposes on the authorities the statutory duty to provide a home help service. As the noble Baroness said, all local health authorities in England and Wales provide a home help service, but I am fairly certain that there are parts of the country where this service has not been developed to the extent that it should have been. With the substitution of this duty for the former power—and I realise that it will not become effective just yet—there will be an added inducement to those local health authorities who have not done so to develop their service as they should.
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Sandford will comment on some of the clauses with which I do not propose to deal. I intend to comment on only two other clauses. The first is Clause 25, which brings the general medical and pharmaceutical services within the definition of "services of the Crown" for the purposes of Section 46 of the Patents Act 1949. I was interested to hear from the noble Baroness that although in another place the Government liked the drafting, they do not like it in your Lordships' House. We shall be most interested to see what Amendments are put down by the noble Baroness. She probably realises as well as I do that the pharmaceutical industry regard the clause, at any rate as it is now drafted, as a serious threat to their interests and to the development of and research into new drugs. They are also, I think, of the opinion that they ought to have been

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properly consulted about this clause. It may be that my noble friend Lord Cawley will say something about this clause, and that other speakers will wish to do so either now or at some later stage in the discussions on the Bill. The astonishing thing about the clause is that nothing was heard of it until the Report stage in another place, when it was moved by a Private Member, not a Minister; whereupon the Minister of Health promptly advised the other place to accept the clause.
The other clause about which I wish to make a few remarks is Clause 33, which clarifies the law on the position of single-seater invalid carriages and enables the Minister to provide cars instead of carriages for the severely disabled. I realise that this new power can be used only sparingly to begin with because of the cost, but I am delighted that the Minister has taken this power and I am sure that a very large number of people will be equally delighted.
My Lords, this Bill makes a large number of fairly minor alterations to the structure of the National Health Service. For good reasons, which she gave, the noble Baroness did not say anything about the structure, but I am not precluded because of that from doing so myself. I am an enthusiastic supporter of the National Health Service. It is a developing organism and its basic structure should not therefore be considered to be immutable; but I am sceptical about the extent to which its efficiency can be improved and its weaknesses eradicated by organisation. For instance, the principal weakness, or what I think is the principal weakness, is the sometimes inadequate co-operation between the component parts, which is very largely a question of individual personal relationships. I have never found that such relationships are much affected by changes in organisation. There is always a way if there is a will, but if the will is not there the way gets obscured.
I was sorry to learn that one of Mr. Richard Crossman's new responsibilities is to be to try to evolve a merger between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry concerned with pensions and National Insurance. I read that in the newspapers At one time this was the policy of my
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own Party. I hope very much that they have lost it, but whether they have I do not know. The point is that unless you split up the National Health Service and regionalise it in some way, it is bound to be a very large, bureaucratic organisation. To my mind this makes it essential that the man at the top, the Minister, should have the time to be, and to be seen to be, a human being and not just an automaton.
My Lords, the Minister of Health is constantly involved in delicate negotiations with important bodies of all kinds, and not least with the most powerful "trade union" in this country, the medical profession. He has also to deal all the time with very complicated details, and it seems to me that to ask him or her, as the case may be, to be responsible as well for pensions and insurance is asking too much of one person, unless you want that one person to be no more than a figurehead. So I hope very much that Mr. Crossman will conclude that a merger is undesirable. I have no doubt whatever that it would not be in the interests of the National Health Service. I apologise for a scrappy speech but it is a scrappy Bill, though on the whole not too bad a one.
7.40 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, on this St. George's Day I think it is right to look back for a moment, as the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, and the noble Lord, Lord Newton, have done, on the 20 years of the National Health Service. I was Member for Croydon in another place at that time, and as Member for a town like Croydon with so many excellent hospitals, I had to consider the Bill carefully. I discussed it on many occasions with Mr. Aneurin Bevan, the Minister, and with Mr. Herbert Morrison. Mr. Bevan wanted to have a centralised system with nominated representatives, while Mr. Morrison, being a great local government man, was keener on having a system under which, by and large, the hospitals would come under the local authorities. Mr. Bevan's system prevailed. I think we can say, with certain qualifications here and there, that we have a magnificent health service in this country. I do not know of any country of a comparable kind which has a better and very few with as good, so I feel that it calls for some congratulation to-day.

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I am cognisant of the necessity expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Newton, for brevity, and though I could go through many of the clauses of the Bill and give my views on them I do not propose to do so. I am going to confine myself to one issue which I think of the highest importance and which has been touched on by both speakers before me. It has caused a great deal of anxiety in the pharmaceutical industry and I should not be doing the House justice if I did not refer to it. I must declare my interest. I am the director of a research-based pharmaceutical company. In Clause 25 of the Bill an important principle is at stake. It goes far beyond the Bill and even beyond the National Health Service and the pharmaceutical industry. It might apply to industry as a whole and to all products and manufactures which are made in this country. The history of the clause has been touched on by both speakers so I need not go into it at great length. Section 46 of the Patents Act 1949 was intended to enable the Government in a time of national emergency, such as war—and we must remember that that was the time of the Korean War, when there was a great deal of unrest in the world—to take over patents at short notice and then argue about the costs later. The idea was to use patents of a defence nature and not to take over pharmaceutical products. It was the great apostle of private enterprise, Mr. Enoch Powell, who extended that principle to pharmaceutical products. In 1961 he misused Clause 46 by awarding contracts to firms who had not been licensed by the four patentees concerned, on the basis that the contractors would import the drugs in question from manufacturers abroad. Similar contracts were relet in 1962 and 1964.
When the Pfizer Corporation case against the Ministry of Health came before this House in its appellate capacity, some caustic comments were made by noble and learned Lords, particularly by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, who said, referring to this procedure of the Crown:
"Such a definition of the powers of the Crown to use or authorise the use of patented inventions, seems to me to be alarmingly wide and to make a formidable incision into the supposedly valuable monopoly rights which the Crown has granted to the patentee."
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That was in 1965. This Government terminated the use of Section 46 for the products for which it was in operation. The Minister said, on Report:
"As a result, I probably got a better bargain for the National Health Service."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, col. 100; 1/4/68.]
If that was so, it seems odd that the Government now want to take extended powers to do what Mr. Enoch Powell had started to do in a more limited way.
The Banks Committee is now undertaking a general review of the patent system and of Patent Law. This Bill did not originally include this clause at all. A Labour Back Bencher in another place moved it on Report stage; therefore it was not discussed in another place on Second Reading and Committee, and it was passed after a Division. I was much interested to hear from the noble Baroness that the Government are not satisfied with this clause and propose to amend it in Committee, and I shall be interested to know what the Amendments will be, because I am not satisfied either.
May I suggest a few considerations which the Minister might bear in mind before the Amendment is put down? First of all, the voluntary price regulation scheme which is now in operation is an agreement between the Health Departments and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry to maintain an agreed basis for determining satisfactory prices for medical speciality products supplied under the National Health Service. On the whole it works well. My own company, among others, go before this Committee. There is keen argument and discussion and eventually a price is arrived at. Recently, Sir Derrick Dunlop, Chairman of the Committee on Safety of Drugs, said:
"The pharmaceutical industry has made enormous contributions to our society. Professor Chain, of penicillin fame, recently reviewed the 66 most valuable compounds introduced to medicine since aspirin in 1899. His analysis showed that only nine of these came from universities and research institutes."
The rest came from scientists in the pharmaceutical industry. Of course, the universities, the Medical Research Council, the research institutes and the pharmaceutical industry work very closely together.
The Ministry and the industry are at this moment in a discussion on the future of costs in the Service. It seems to the

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industry that this is an odd time in which to introduce this clause, which is a sort of bludgeon, into the discussions which are taking place. I do not know what the industry thinks about it. Here I am speaking for myself. But I think that there is a great danger here which goes far beyond the pharmaceutical industry. What is a patent? It virtually originates from the Statute of Monopolies of 1623, which gave a monopoly to the true and first inventor, the purpose being to reward him for his knowledge, his skill and patience, for his imagination above all, and for his expenditure of time and money. If this clause in its present form remains—or substantially remains, bcause I appreciate that it may be altered—then the power may discourage the companies from the vast expenditure on research, development and production: because there is a vast expenditure. It has been thought that for every one successful product on the market in the pharmaceutical industry 99 have been commenced, discussed, considered and had money spent on them. Eventually only about one out of every hundred gets into the hands of the medical profession.
On top of that there is the great cost of production, and the cost, once it is produced, of attaining and keeping the standard, cleanliness and quality of the particular pharmaceutical product. The pharmaceutical industry considers that it does not deserve this treatment. It feels that there has been some breach of faith, or will be if this clause as it stands is allowed to remain, because the Minister gave an assurance that the recommendations of the Sainsbury Report would be discussed with the industry before a decision was taken, and no detailed discussion has taken place. It was also believed by the industry that a Bill would not be introduced to deal with patents of pharmaceutical products until the Banks Committee had made its Report.
The Sainsbury Report said in paragraph 13:
"In many ways the industry has admirably served the public interest."
I have quoted the view of Sir Derrick Dunlop. It is a vast export earner on a rising scale. Last year the export value of the products was £80 million. Of home sales and exports the figures were (and one must remember that we are
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dealing only with a segment of the industry when we are dealing with Clause 25) that 39 per cent. of the product goes to the National Health Service, 27 per cent. to export, 17 per cent. to household medicines, and 17 per cent. to other places, parties or persons, mainly veterinary. So we are now dealing with 39 per cent. of the output of the industry.
The cost of the research and production I have mentioned. My own company spends 10·6 of its annual turnover on research alone, and it is estimated that British industry this year will spend some £14 million on research. In the last 25 years, as the Sainsbury Report pointed out, there has been a vast expansion in the relief of serious diseases which in my young days, and in the young days of many of your Lordships, were killers—illnesses like tuberculosis and diphtheria. One can remember how many children—one's own playmates—died of those killer diseases. The other day one of my grandchildren had chicken pox, and thinking back to my own days I took a serious view of it. But to-day it is a comparatively minor matter, and he was running about in no time. Not only have these formerly killer diseases been relieved, but in many instances, as we know, the demands on the hospital services have been enormously reduced through the use of drugs. If we take mental illness, for example, we find that in the last few years there has come into operation treatment through drugs which was quite unheard of a few years ago. A patient can be treated and cured, or at least maintained in comparatively normal health in his own home, in a way which would have been quite impossible ten years ago or perhaps even five years ago.
I do not at this moment intend to delay your Lordships any longer, except to leave this one thought with you. Anybody who is connected, in however humble a capacity, as I am, with the industry cannot help but realise that the industry is on the threshold of a vast expansion in contributions to human and animal health. The scope is enormous. Take, for instance, foot-and mouth disease, which caused a terrible lot of animal suffering, hundreds of thousands of animals to be slaughtered, and brought vast losses to the farming community and to the taxpayer. It is to the curing of that sort of disease that one may hope

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that the pharmaceutical industry, combined with the veterinary research institutes and the university institutes, will in the next 25 years be able to make a contribution.
One must not think only of human health; one must think also of animal health. I am interested in this latter subject for family reasons, and I constantly have this question of animal health in mind. We are, as I say, only on the threshold. In other words, in the next 25 years there may well be the opportunity, for an even greater advance in human and animal health than in the past 25 years. I ask the Minister, through the noble Baroness, to consider whether it is wise to risk the great contributions that the industry could make in this field for the purpose of a clause such as Clause 25.
7.57 p.m.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, I think that, in general terms, noble Lords in all parts of the House seem to be welcoming the introduction of this Bill. It is not revolutionary, but it does seek to extend in various ways the scope of the health services of this country, and I think almost entirely in beneficial ways. As the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, has said in her introduction, it is a miscellaneous Bill; and I am glad that she said it is to some extent an interim measure, as the administrative structure of the Health Service, to which I shall refer shortly again, is under review at the present time.
I think there are several passages in the Bill which will need to be looked at rather carefully, but this I feel will be more usefully done when the Bill comes under scrutiny at the Committee stage. I am surprised that not more has been made of Clause 15, which may be said to remove another potential cause of racial tension, in that the Scots now, as well as the English, are to have the benefit of advice on family planning. I hesitate to think, as Vice-President of the Family Planning Association, of the dire consequences of unbridled reproductive activity in Scotland while the English are still reducing their families.
I find myself largely in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Newton, in the wise and non-Party reflections which he had on the question of pay beds, and the perfectly reasonable desire of certain
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people to pay for the kind of amenities in hospitals which they have in their own homes. And I endorse his view that many of the consultants in Wessex are of a very high standard indeed. I also strongly agree with what he said about the inadequacy of communication between different branches of our service being very largely a personal matter. As one who has worked as a consultant in hospitals for many years, both before and after the introduction of the National Health Service, I know that if my relations with the general practitioners outside, who were sending me cases, were not free and easy, or right and proper, as they should be, it was either my fault or their fault: it was nothing to do with the fact that we happened to be paid out of a different section of the national purse. I agree with him, too, in having very considerable fears about any merging operation between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Security; and, unless I am convinced by a great many further arguments, I hope that this will not happen.
If the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, has read my Harveian Oration to the Royal College of Physicians, he will know that I support his claim that a very large number of advances in therapeutics which have come in our lifetime have come not through the medical profession but through the pharmaceutical industry.
There are many improvements which could still be made to the Health Service, but many of them can be done without further Acts of Parliament. Although some of the rather modest reforms in this Bill are of considerable urgency—and therefore, of course, I strongly support this Bill—it is nevertheless a little regrettable that it has been introduced at the present time, in view of the recent Report of the Royal Commission on Medical Education, of which I was a member and whose very able Chairman was my master and friend, the noble Lord, Lord Todd. This applies particularly to Clause 5 of this Bill, on the whole question of the designation of teaching hospitals and this new category of university hospital. If this is regarded as a temporary expedient, while further thought is being given to the whole government of teaching and non-teaching hospitals, then I support it as an interim measure. But I hope that it will not

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be regarded as any kind of excuse, or partial excuse, for not giving the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Medical Education the fullest consideration, which I hope Her Majesty's Government will do at the earliest possible opportunity.
Many of your Lordships, of course, will already know that the Royal Commission have recommended that the boards of governors of teaching hospitals be discontinued altogether, and that Regional Hospital Boards, possibly reorganised and rearranged (and this reorganisation may particularly need to take place in London), must have an overall responsibility for the medical services in their region, and within them the teaching hospitals—or shall we say, to avoid any particular terminology, the hospitals used for teaching—should be governed by a special governing body with heavy university representation: something like the scheme which is at present planned for Nottingham and, I think, is being planned for Southampton. This, if the recommendations are accepted and acceptable, will render out of date a good deal of Clause 5, so I will not go any further into it at the present time except to reiterate that I hope that our recommendations will be very seriously considered.
In another area the Royal Commission, though primarily concerned with medical education, do of course have very important repercussions on the reorganisation of the Health Service in its recommendations for post-graduate education in which we go into the whole question of the staffing structure and the career prospects of young men in the Health Service. So I regard this Bill as very much an interim measure, and I hope that if we pass it, further consideration will be given to these matters.
The only other thing which I might have said is that in the Royal Commission we refer to the recruitment and importance of women doctors; but as this is a subject to which I understand the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, may be referring in her speech very shortly, and since she will no doubt do it more eloquently than I can, I will say no more on it, other than perhaps to give an endorsement in anticipation of most of what I think she is going to say.
8.5 p.m.
LADY RUTHVEN OF FREELAND: My Lords, in rising to address your Lordships' House for the first time, I must ask for your indulgence. I hope I shall not make any mistakes in the observance of the customs of this House. If I do, I hope I shall be forgiven.
I speak to-day on this Bill because I have been closely connected with the Health Service for over 16 years. I think this new Health Services and Public Health Bill is in many ways a very good Bill: it constitutes a definite improvement on the existing Act of 1946, for it ties up many loose ends, it introduces improvements in administrative procedures, and also gives the Minister further powers which I hope will be of value to the patients.
Having recommended this Bill to your Lordships, I should like to make a few criticisms of one or two clauses. The first clause to which I should like to refer is Clause 1. I know that the noble Baroness has spoken about this clause, but I should like to say that I know the situation in hospitals very well. The present position is that private patients can be admitted only to certain beds—either those specifically designated under Section 5 of the National Health Service Act 1946, or to beds in general wards where designation has been obtained from the Ministry for the admission of a particular patient. Presumably under this new Bill the Minister's intention is to allocate a number of private patients' beds to each hospital or group of hospitals so that patients can be accommodated in any bed, provided the number approved by the Minister is not exceeded.
This new system has many advantages. It will ensure patients being admitted to beds where they can be best treated from the medical point of view. I know it is not always possible to give proper special nursing to patients in private wards who have had E.N.T. or ophthalmic operations. I think it may be possible to treat these patients in the same way as the patients who are now given treatment for thoracic and neuro-surgery operations, nursing them for the first 24 or 36 hours in an intensive care unit before they are moved to their private ward; but I see the advantage of getting the patient into the right nursing care immediately after

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the operation. We must assume that the patient who wants to be a private patient probably wants to be treated privately for reasons such as choice of doctor, a wish for privacy, additional amenities such as extra visiting, television, and so on, and it seems unfair to expect such patients to pay for what they are not getting if they are put into a general ward.
I should like to remind your Lordships that privacy in hospitals is highly prized by patients. In our old hospitals more and more wards are being curtained, and in plans for new hospitals and when old hospitals are upgraded the old Florence Nightingale ward plan is discarded, and wards are broken down into small units of four or six beds, all curtained. It is curious that before this Bill was introduced the Minister made a survey of private beds in all hospitals and drastically cut the numbers of private beds on the grounds that these beds were not fully occupied.
On this point I should like to say that in most hospitals these private beds are not kept empty but are filled by patients who, through the nature of their illness, need privacy. So I make a plea for the patient who is prepared to pay for selectivity and privacy, for in our older hospitals there are very few single rooms attached to general wards, and as to amenities such as W.C.'s and bathrooms which we have on general wards, these can be used by all other patients. This disadvantage will not exist in the new hospitals, where there will be a large number of single rooms attached to general wards. I hope that in the regulations to be made by the Minister the arrangements in existing hospitals will be left so that boards of governors and management committees decide how Section 5 patients be accommodated, as so much will depend on local circumstances.
Also, I very much hope that consideration will be given to payments, which are not the same over the country for a private ward or for a bed designated in a ward. With regard to the charges for private patients, I think there is a great deal to be said for the Ministry's fixing national charges in certain classes of hospitals. At the moment there are great differences, as the noble Baroness said, in what a private patient pays,
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depending on the type of hospital and where the hospital is situated. The actual hospital charges for private patients are not published, but are directly related to the cost per in-patient per week at the various hospitals. The following figures indicate the sort of differences which exist. I expect your Lordships know them, but I will give them because they illustrate the differences. In London teaching hospitals the cost is about £61 16s. 5d. per week; in provincial teaching hospitals, £54 16s. 7d.; non-teaching hospitals, £43 11s. 5d. These figures are the average cost per in-patient per week in acute hospitals of over 100 beds, and are taken from the Ministry of Health costing returns for the year ending March 31, 1967.
The next clause I would refer to is Clause 5. Some time ago I believe that the Ministry discussed with representatives of teaching hospitals a clause on these lines in a future Bill. I understand that the primary reason for seeking these powers was, as the noble Baroness said, because of the new medical schools at Nottingham and Southampton. Of course, it was rather difficult at Nottingham, because Nottingham is in the Sheffield Regional Board area which already has the board of governors of Sheffield Teaching Hospital run on traditional lines. I believe that in discussions with teaching hospitals the Minister's view was that new powers were required to try out new administrative arrangements on an experimental basis. An attempt was made to persuade the Ministry that these powers should be limited to Nottingham. Understandably, I think, the Minister has taken the view that if he has to seek an alteration of an Act of Parliament he must do so in such a way as to be able to use the extended powers where he thinks they will be appropriate in the future, rather than to have a restrictive amendment limited to the present position in two hospitals and two medical schools.
I feel that, while the Minister is seeking these wide enabling powers, I should like to ask the noble Baroness who is to reply for the Government for an undertaking that the Minister intends to use them initially for experimenting with the constitutional arrangements for the newly-established medical schools and teaching

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hospitals which are to be called university hospitals, and that before he extends his powers 10 existing teaching hospitals he should not only consult the university concerned but also the board of governors of the existing teaching hospitals; also that the result of the experiments in these new university hospitals should be properly and independently evaluated, and, finally, that the unique position in London should be given special consideration, particularly in view of the Report of the Royal Commission on Medical Education, which, as the noble Lord said just now, has just been published and where many drastic recommendations on teaching hospitals, and London teaching hospitals in particular, are suggested.
I should like to say that I am a little disappointed that there is no mention of the ambulance services, which I hoped were going to be transferred from the local health authorities to the hospital authorities, which I am sure would make for more efficient running. But I hope that this is only a delay. I should like to end by saying that I am extremely glad to hear from the noble Baroness that the Minister is to have further powers to pay fares for journeys by road as well as by rail of visitors to special hospitals. I know something about special hospitals, and I know how important visitors are to the patients in those hospitals, and it will make a tremendous difference if the visitors can go by road as well as by rail.
8.15 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I am very pleased to have the opportunity of congratulating the noble Lady on her maiden speech. She has acquitted herself excellently, if I may say so without appearing to be patronising, and I am sure that the House was very impressed by the fact that she had studied the Bill well and was able to approach it with specialised knowledge—indeed not only with specialised knowledge but, obviously, with practical knowledge of hospitals in which, I presume, she has worked. I am quite sure that I am voicing the opinion of noble Lords on all sides in telling her that we look forward to her next contribution to a debate of this kind.
We have had this Bill described in all kinds of ways, but I think we should remember that, for some reason, it is the policy of Government Departments to
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accumulate reports on anomalies and grievances over the years; that these reports are collected together and, are dealt with in what is called an amending Bill. We have this curious Bill before us today. I feel very strongly that if as a result of some omission in an Act an obvious injustice becomes apparent, this injustice should be remedied forthwith. In this case 17 years have elapsed since the last amending Act. It is an absolutely remarkable feat of a Government Department. I should have thought that this long time lag must have been responsible for causing pain and distress to untold numbers of people who might have benefited by many of the recommendations which are embodied in the clauses of this Bill. Nevertheless, I must say, having been in at the debate upon the inception of the National Health Service, that the magnificent contribution of that Service remains outstanding, despite the attempts on the part of some people to introduce prescription charges.
I, like others, of course, muss pursue a kind of obstacle race and leave out reference to certain clauses while emphasising others, and as usual I am tempted to digress. The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, tempted me once more. The noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, told me the other day that never more was he going to take part in a pharmaceutical debate; he had retired from that area. Whenever I raise this question he gets up and says. "This is the noble Lady's ritual dance". The noble Lady has now performed the "ritual dance" for many years in both Houses, and, of course, when I have this invitation to the dance from the Front Bench of the Liberal Party to-day I must intervene.
The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, said something that has been repeated over and over again in both places year after year since the introduction of the National Health Service. He told us how important the contribution of the pharmaceutical industry has been to the National Health Service. No one denies that the pharmaceutical industry has some brilliant young men working for it, but what we object to intensely time after time—and this is why Clause 25, which I welcome, has been embodied in the Bill—is that the pharmaceutical industry makes colossal profits, out of all proportion to the contribution it makes.

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As I went to my front door this morning, I saw 18 glossy advertisements which had been put through the door with my letters. I agree that there are two doctors in our house, but the cost of sales promotion is absolutely disproportionate. And do not think that I am, as the noble Lord says, performing my "ritual dance": I am echoing what the Estimates Committee said. The Estimates Committee sits in another place to examine the estimates of Government Departments and to examine the estimates of the National Health Service. It has proved time after time that the pharmaceautical industry over the years has used the National Health Service as a milch cow. That is what we object to. Having said that once more, I must return to my main comments. But the reason I get so annoyed is because I know that all this money that is wasted could be used in other ways. We have heard to-night from the noble Baroness who introduced the Bill that some of these clauses which embody important recommendations cannot be brought into force yet, for economic reasons. That is why some of us feel that some of this money which is spent on drugs that are entirely unnecessary could be diverted into other channels.
Having taken up time in saying that, I want now to say that I welcome—and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, will "smack me down" after I have said this—Clause 5, which at long last transfers the administration of some hospitals concerned with teaching from the arbitrary direction of the boards of governors to the less hidebound Regional Hospital Boards.
The noble Lord, Lord Platt, said he would leave it to me to say something about women medical students. The noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, may criticise this provision in Clause 5, but may I say that the case I can put to him, to support what I have just said, is the record of the treatment of women medical students by the medical schools over the last hundred years. I hope that now there is this little light at the end of the tunnel we shall take the power from some of the governors and transfer it to a body which, in my opinion, is more democratic and more generous in its treatment of women medical students. I hope that perhaps he also will change his mind.
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The noble Lord knows as well as I do—and again I must digress, despite the lateness of the hour—that here in this country we have doctors from Pakistan and from India, countries which are desperately in need of doctors themselves, yet in the medical schools of London only a small percentage of women medical students are allowed.
In another place a discussion is going on at the moment in regard to race discrimination, when the most disgraceful sex discrimination exists in this country, particularly in the teaching hospitals of London. If the women of this country, the able girls from our schools, had been permitted, to go into the medical schools, we should have had so many first-class doctors that we should have been able to leave the Pakistanis and the Indians to their own countries. I welcome Clause 5, because at long last we are going to take the power from the governors of the hospitals and give it to the Regional Hospital Boards.
I also welcome the change in policy effected in Clause 10, which is in the interests of the midwifery service. Those things are quite revolutionary in the field of medicine, because the domiciliary midwives are to be allowed to work in our hospitals and thus, with the general practitioners, they will be more closely related to the hospital service. I am also glad to think that this will help to remove any lingering prejudice concerning hospital confinements.
We come back to the question of home-helps. Your Lordships will recall that the noble Lord, Lord Byers, put down a Motion on welfare just before the Recess, and many of us raised these matters on that occasion. Many of the points we raised then are embodied in this Bill. The provision which makes it a statutory duty of local authorities to provide home-help services and laundry facilities is long overdue. For years speakers in health debates, in both Houses, have emphasised the need for a comprehensive domiciliary service, and the nub of a domiciliary service is the assistance given by an efficient home-help, particularly where the patient is old and infirm.
Again, I am exceedingly sorry to learn from my noble friend that this service may have to be deferred. She said, "This is what we want to do, but it

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may have to be deferred because we have not enough money". The home-help is the key worker in a home in which both the man and the wife are getting on and need some help, yet we have been told to-day that not enough money is available for that key worker.
Then, although we make the provision of home-helps a statutory duty, that will not necessarily increase the number of women who are prepared to do domestic work. Perhaps my noble friend will recall that on the occasion of the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Byers, I asked whether a method could be introduced which would be cheap and effective. I suggested that in roads where there were old and sick people women should be invited to give their services on an hourly or two-hourly basis, instead of the old people having to have the home-help service, which is often full-time and does not enable many women to help the sick. I suggested that there might be a kind of warden service, such as we had during the war, so that in an emergency a woman could still run her home, and be there for her husband's dinner, and could also give a hand along the road. That would be a practical approach to the problem, and it would be much cheaper. I did not have an answer to that suggestion, but maybe the Ministry could say that although they are unable to introduce the more expensive service they could introduce something along the lines that I have suggested.
Clause 45 deals with the promotion, by local authorities, of the welfare of old people. Again, the only question is: where are all the people who will be needed, with their various qualifications, to be found? I would point out—and the noble Baroness has mentioned it—that this clause deals not only with personal services for the old people but also with providing accommodation, converting houses and doing all kinds of things for them in the home, apart from domestic work.
I am surprised that the Minister has not put any date to this provision. He has given the power, but he has not said to the local authorities, "We expect you to do something within a certain period". If we are to be guided by experience, this will mean that those authorities which in the past have been
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slow to implement welfare provisions will again be dilatory. My noble friend knows that throughout the country there are efficient local authorities who have a well-developed social conscience, and who use their powers. But there are others who are slow; and now, of course, if the Minister fails to put a date to any of these provisions, those who have failed to make proper provision previously will continue in that way.
I now come to Clause 59, which makes amendments to the Nurseries and Child-Minders Regulation Act 1948. This clause may not appear to be related to the provisions concerned with the welfare of the aged, but it seems to me that there is a close connection, for it is agreed that the welfare of old people depends so much on the availability of a number of women, many of whom have had some special kind of training. The trained woman to-day is growing accustomed to taking marriage in her stride and to resuming the work for which she has been trained as soon as she can secure adequate care for her small children. This has resulted in a widespread demand for day accommodation for the pre-school child. I have only to remind your Lordships of the calls one hears on the radio for women to go into education and into the social services—the pressure put on married women to use their skills. And the women are quite prepared to come forward.
It has been estimated that in England and Wales nineteen times more children are now being looked after in day nurseries or by minders than in 1929. But owing to the failure of the local authorities to provide adequate facilities, women have been compelled to find childminders some of whom undoubtedly do not achieve the highest standard>. This Bill provides for more supervision in those cases where a person is paid for caring for a child. This seems highly desirable, but of course it will result in reducing the available accommodation. Therefore I say that it should be accompanied by provisions whereby the local authorities will make amends for their serious omission to provide nurseries.
Of course many of the child minders are short of the ideal. We have only to recall some of the stories of the 19th century when the children in the factories in the North were all looked after by

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child-minders and all developed rickets. But it ill-behoves the Ministry to wave the big stick at the culprits and threaten all kinds of dire penalties. Under this Bill, if a woman who takes in children has not been registered, and so on, her offence will cost her £100 and she may go to prison for three months. The real culprits are the central and local government departments, which includes the education departments, who fail to provide adequate accommodation. Private minders can thrive only if the alternative arrangements are not there. There are more than 4 million children under the age of 5, and a little under half that number are in the 2 to 4 age groups. During the war, when the Government felt it was absolutely necessary to get the services of every woman, as indeed they do to-day, they provided 1,599 nurseries in England and Wales. Now there are only 448 and the number is being steadily reduced.
I hope that the men who read my speech will forgive my saying this, but I feel very deeply about it. It seems to me that there exists a conflict between the emotional and the intellectual approach of many men in places of authority to-day. On the one hand, they recognise that the trained woman is in great demand and they are the first to describe her training as wasted if she does not use her skill. The noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, has heard that word before in medicine. On the other hand, they turn a deaf ear to her appeals for help in finding accommodation for her pre-school child without which she cannot offer her services. Successive Governments have exploited the loyalty of women, but this is more reprehensible in a Labour Government whose members have been parties to the pledges made to women over the years of more nursery schools and all the provisions calculated to lighten the load of the working woman and housewife. That has been said time after time, yet no action has been taken.
Now we have got to the stage of having to introduce a clause in this Bill which threatens those women who dare to care for the children of women whose services are desperately needed, unless they have fulfilled certain obligations. So often we have to repeat appeals here time after time. There are matters in this Bill which should have been considered long, long
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ago; but at last they have come before this House and another place. I ask the noble Baroness, who understands the points I have raised, to use her power in the right places to bring pressure to bear, because my voice has been ineffectual for many years.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, may I say one thing to the noble Baroness? She made certain strictures upon hospitals for their unwillingness to accept female persons into the medical schools. Would she not agree that in certain London teaching hospitals, notably the Middlesex Hospital at least, there is a high proportion of women nowadays?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I am glad the noble Earl has raised this point. In the old days there was a very tiny proportion—something like 5 per cent. I was educated at the Charing Cross Hospital after the First World War when they were very short of men. It only needed the men to come back for the Charing Cross Hospital to close its doors and not admit one woman. The reason why things have changed is because the University Grants Committee wagged a big stick at the governors and said, "If you do not admit women, no more money". We got in not because there was a moral change but only because it was financially advantageous to admit us.
8.35 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should not like the noble Baroness to get away with being the only person to congratulate Lady Ruthven of Freeland on her maiden speech. I think it should come from a male Member of your Lordships' House as well as from one of our most distinguished women Members. I am sure we all enjoyed her speech very much and hope to hear her again on many occasions on this subject.
This Bill is indeed a sort of rag-bag, but you cannot expect it to be otherwise because it is the first amending Bill for 17 years, and if you wait 17 years you are bound to have a rag-bag. There are only one or two points I want to bring up; I cannot possibly deal with the whole Bill at this time. One of the things I was pleased to see was in Clause 5, where at last we are going to get Nottingham and Southampton recognised as medical schools. I was very interested in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Platt,

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about what may be the future of boards of governors and Regional Boards, but there was one point that occurred to me concerning Nottingham and Southampton. At the present time one of the great advantages of the boards of governors of the teaching schools is that they have, I believe, direct access to the Minister. Will that be the same for the short period until the Report on medical education is presented and something is finally settled? Will those two university hospitals have the same privilege?
Suppose they have not, it may come, because things take some time to develop, and it may take some time for the Report of the Royal Commission to be implemented. There may be a first-class and a second-class grade of teaching hospital, which would be a most unfortunate thing, because I think the plan which has come out for Nottingham and Southampton is one which should be very much in our minds when we are planning in the future. I should like to say one kind word about boards of governors. I worked under a board for a very long time, though I do not any more. Even supposing they were to encourage more women to become medical students, the point is that a school cannot take more than a certain number of people. If you get a larger proportion of women you will not get so many men, and as so many of the women get married, because they are most charming and attractive people, and go away from the profession, the final result will be that there will not be so many doctors as there were.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, there is a balance a little bit on the other side, in that the men emigrate more than the women do.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that comment. I should like to touch on Clause 13. I am very pleased indeed that the home help service has become statutory. I do not think this will mean that there will be many more home helps, because so far as I know there are no areas where there is not a good local authority home help scheme operating at the present time. The real drawback to increasing the number of home helps is not the fact that local authorities cannot afford to pay them, but that they cannot get suitable women or men—there have been one or
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two quite good men home helps—to take on the job. Although one wants to see the practice expanded as much as possible, the fact that it becomes statutory does not necesarily mean that people will become home helps. What I think is sad, and where money may play a part, is that the laundry service is not a statutory but a permissive service. I talk from considerable experience with regard to the elderly. I think this is a service of enormous value in keeping people in their homes.
As the noble Baroness I think said, one wants to make a complete domiciliary service, and therefore one wants considerably more meals-on-wheels available. The Women's Royal Voluntary Service, the Red Cross and local authorities do a great deal in regard to these meals, but quite frequently one sees a scheme operating where the meals are available on only two or three days a week, whereas to be really effective they ought to be available on days a week at a minimum. If it could be made seven days a week, that would be marvellous, but that is not something which I think is simple to bring about.
One trouble about planning domiciliary services is that one does not really know accurately what number of people require the services. One wonders whether that information could not be obtained from a certain type of patient, certainly those who have been in hospital. When the patient is discharged from hospital, perhaps some kind of social note as well as a medical summary could be put on his notes. This could be sent to the appropriate authority, who would then know of the number of people who are coming out and would or would no: need some kind of service. At present I do not think that this is done at all, and it makes things just a little difficult.
The other clause which I should like to touch on is Clause 33, which enables the Minister to give vehicles to cli5abled persons. I think that is something which could be expanded a good deal. There are complicated and good typewriters called "Possums" which are used particularly at the spinal injury centre at Stoke Mandeville, where people who are completely paralysed, apart from their faces and heads—they may have had a fracture of their neck rather high up

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—can learn to type. If they cannot type, at least they can be left by themselves, because they can work their Possum machines with their tongues, and they can do an enormous number of things which are necessary if someone is to be left by himself. I admit that these machines are expensive, but they are nowhere near as expensive as the cost of keeping someone in a hospital of that sort. I think it was the noble Baroness who quoted the cost of keeping people in hospital. A Possum machine costs, I think, about £700 or £800, but that is not a great deal compared with keeping a person in an expensive hospital for the rest of his life. So I hope that that matter will be taken care of when this Bill becomes an Act.
One point which was made by the noble Baroness I did not quite understand—perhaps I did not hear her aright. I refer to Clause 68. I did not quite follow what is to take the place of nursing a patient with respiratory tuberculosis in a general ward. I know that one has all sorts of treatment for open tuberculosis. But I somehow feel that a person in a general ward who has open tuberculosis should be taken to some other ward. I wonder whether the noble Baroness can tell me at some time what is going to take the place of that service.
There are two other things that I should like to mention. First of all, I am pleased to see that arrangements are being made for local authorities to assist voluntary organisations. I am quite sure that that will do much to quieten some of the fears of the voluntary bodies, who are rather afraid that their work might be taken from them by the local authorities. I am sure that the need for voluntary service in the future will go on just as much as now, if not to a greater extent. I am pleased to see that it is now going to be possible to house people in nursing homes run for profit, provided they are registered by the local authority. If that sort of accommodation is available and it is properly inspected it seems to me that there is no harm in paying for people to be taken into such places.
Finally, I should like to say how sorry I am that no attempt is being made in this Bill to bring industrial health into the National Health Service. No attempt is
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being made to modify the school medical service, an extremely valuable and necessary service when it came into being. One wonders whether it now ought to be made more a part of the family doctor service. One thing has always worried me. The budgeting for hospital is done on an annual basis. The money which has not been spent by the end of March has to go back to the Treasury. Nothing can be saved in order to put into operation a project in five years' time. I think that is a point which a Bill like this, or some amending Bill, should take care of, because I am sure that a great deal of money is spent unnecessarily.
I must apologise, as I have already done to the noble Baroness, that because of a prior engagement I shall not be able to stay. I promised that I would ask her a number of questions, but as this Bill has come on rather late tonight I should be most grateful if the noble Baroness could reply to my points so that I may read them in the OFFICIAL REPORT, or possibly she may answer by post.
8.48 p.m.
LORD COTTESLOE: My Lords, I too should like to say what a great pleasure it has been to hear my noble friend Lady Ruthven of Freeland make her maiden speech in this House, and to congratulate her on what I hope is the first of many speeches that we shall hear from her. It is of course entirely right and proper that some twenty years after the passing of the Act of 1946 which brought into being the National Health Services Parliament should review, in the light of experience, the working of that Act, and other associated Acts, and should amend them to enable them to function more smoothly and effectively.
In general, in my view, this Bill will have that effect; and although it does not, and perhaps could not, attempt to solve some of the more intractable major difficulties inherent in the Health Service, some of them of great importance—such as the difficulties that are inherent in the tripartite administration of the Service as between the executive councils, the local authorities, the Regional Hospital Boards and boards of governors; and although this Bill can only scratch the surface and deal with some of the difficulties and anomalies, it is a Bill which, in general, we must all wish to welcome.

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It has the advantage of having been brought to Parliament by a Minister who for many years has devoted himself wholeheartedly to the Health Service and to its problems, as I myself have seen when for seven years Mr. Kenneth Robinson and I served as members of the same Regional Hospital Board. We may all feel fortunate, whatever our political attachments may be, that we have him in charge of the Health Service at present.
Having said that, I want only to raise one particular point on the Bill, but it is a point of such importance that I make no apology for raising it in this Second Reading debate, rather than waiting for the Committee stage of the Bill. It is in fact a point to which reference has been made by a number of other speakers. Clause 5 of the Bill is an enabling clause by which the Minister takes power to designate a hospital or a group of hospitals as a "university hospital"—a new kind of animal—to be administered under the Regional Hospital Board. It is well understood that the purpose of this provision is to enable the Minister to introduce experimentally a new form of administration for the new university teaching hospital at Nottingham, and perhaps also for a similar experiment at Southampton. No-one takes exception to a limited experiment of that kind—or, at any rate, if there are those who take exception, I am not one of them; I am entirely in favour of it.
But this enabling clause goes a great deal further than that. It would enable the Minister, if he so wished, at any time and without reference to Parliament, to make a fundamental and far-reaching change in the whole administrative structure of the hospital service. He could at any time designate any or all of the teaching hospitals which are at present administered by their own boards of governors directly responsible to the Minister, so as to put them under the Regional Hospital Boards. It has been suggested that he already has this power, but I doubt this. If indeed he already has the power, then I do not know why the clause is in the Bill at all.
I do not believe that the present Minister has in fact any intention of doing anything of the sort—indeed, he
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has said so in another place. But it seems to me to be absolutely wrong that, in order that he may conduct a limited experiment at Nottingham and Southampton, he should take not only the limited powers necessary for that purpose but these very sweeping general enabling powers. The fact that he proposes to do so has caused widespread concern among the Metropolitan teaching hospitals, 12 undergraduate teaching hospitals and 15 post-graduate teaching hospitals. This concern is, in my view, fully justified. Not only would such a change (and, as we have heard, is is not without its advocates) be contrary to the considered advice of both the Guillebaud and the Porritt Committees (I will come later to the Royal Commission under the noble Lord, Lord Todd), but would almost certainly, in the Metropolitan area, be detrimental to the exemplary standard of the service given to the public by those hospitals and to the training given in their medical schools.
I do not speak without some knowledge, as a layman, of both sides of this matter. I was for seven years the Chairman of a Regional Hospital Board responsible for 150 hospitals; and I am presently Chairman of a great teaching hospital, Hammersmith Hospital. I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Summer-skill, that the board of governors of that hospital, is no more hidebound than was the Regional Hospital Board, and the Regional Hospital Board was no more democratic than is the board of governors; and I am closely in touch through their teaching institutes with more than half the other teaching hospitals in London.
In another place, during the debates on this Bill, the Minister gave the following assurance:
"It is not my present intention to use the clause to effect sweeping changes in the administration of teaching hospitals already controlled by boards of governors."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 7/12/67; col. 1686.]
And in the Committee stage he repeated that assurance in these words:
"… and I assure the Committee that there is nothing in my mind at present concerning the possibility of using this power."
Then subsequently he said:
"I hope that I have said enough … to set at rest any fears that exist in teaching hospitals about the passage of the Bill and the clause into law or about these provisions presaging

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great and sweeping changes in their functions and responsibilities."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 30/1/68; col. 107.]
Since those assurances were given in another place the Report of the Royal Commission on Medical Education, Lord Todd's Commission, has been published, and the noble Lord, Lord Platt, has referred to that Report. I do not propose to follow Lord Platt into any discussion of the Report, except on the one relevant point. We shall no doubt have an opportunity at some other time of wide-ranging discussion on the sweeping and drastic recommendations of the Royal Commission. On the particular point with which we are dealing at this moment, the Commission recommend arrangements for the teaching hospitals generally on the pattern of those proposed for the Nottingham experiment. They thus, as it seems to me, prejudge the issue of that experiment.
It reminds me a little of a specification I once saw for a War Office trial, which started with the words, "The object of this trial is to establish the fact that …" I have far too much respect for the Minister to think that he will wish to prejudge this issue. It may indeed be that the Nottingham pattern (which derives from a somewhat similar arrangement in Scotland, not altogether free from criticism in practice, though I am advised that it works pretty well) might be suitable for a hospital region in the English provinces with only one or, perhaps, two teaching hospitals in the region. It might at the same time be utterly unsuitable for the Metropolitan area with no fewer than 27 teaching hospitals. The circumstances of the two are quite different.
In my view, this clause ought to be amended so as to limit its effect to the particular experiment which the Minister wishes to carry out. If he has no intention of making sweeping changes there is no need for sweeping powers. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, when she comes to reply, may be able to hold out some hope that the Government will in Committee bring forward a suitable Amendment to this clause. However, I am a realist, and I suppose it is not very probable that she will feel able to do so. But, in any event, I ask her to repeat categorically what I understood
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her to say in her opening speech, that the assurances that were given by the Minister in another place still stand.
9.1 p.m.
LORD CAWLEY: My Lords, I intend to follow the noble Lords, Lord Newton and Lord Ogmore, in talking about Clause 25 of this Bill, which is a very important one and is based on recommendation 11 of the Sainsbury Committee. I must remind the House that two things have happened since that recommendation was made. The first is that the Banks Committee has been appointed by the President of the Board of Trade to 'consider the question of the law on patents generally. Clause 25 as it stands deals with a series of sections of the Patents Act. It may be that recommendations will be made to recast entirely all or some of the sections, and possibly even the words "the services of the Crown" may not appear. So we can expect that Clause 25 will be a fairly short time in operation. The second thing that has happened is that there was a disastrous error on the part of Mr. Enoch Powell in the use of Section 46 of the Patents Act. I think that both of those facts modify the effect of the Sainsbury Committee's recommendation.
I need only say that there appears to be no immediate need for this provision, because the Minister has already said that it is intended to put it into effect only as a last resort. Another defect is that the clause as drafted covers only Part IV of the National Health Service Acts; it does not cover the hospital services. Noble Lords may say, "Well, that was decided in Pfizer v. Minister of Health." So it was, but it was a three to two decision, and now that the decisions of this House are held not to be binding on a future appellate committee it might be somewhat rash to say that the House will find the same way in the future. The effect if this clause became law would be that Section 46 of the Patents Act would apply to the general practitioners, but not to the hospital services. I think that the clause ought, at any rate, to be amended to make it clear that it applies to all services under the National Health Act.
I think I must say something about the result which has followed the stretching of the scope of Section 46, which was commenced by Mr. Enoch Powell and

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was continued by the present Government. That result has been rather disastrous, because it appears that there has been a great temptation to save money at the risk of patients. It is a fact that under Section 41 of the Act a bona fide seller of drugs can obtain a licence to sell a patented drug to anyone, although it is true that the Sainsbury Committee said that this was a difficult process. One can only hope that the Banks Committee may suggest some easier method than the elaborate hearings which have taken place. I must say that the elaborate hearings which have taken place under Section 41 have been occasioned largely by the fact that the opponents have challenged the bona fides of the intending licensee. But if a really reputable firm came forward I feel that the time taken in hearings under Section 41 would be very much shorter than in the past.
The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, who is not in her place, was, I believe, wrong in suggesting that the big drug companies made enormous profits, rather implying in the alternative that those people who were authorised to supply under Section 46 did not make enormous profits. That is exactly the opposite from the truth. Those small importers who are employed by the Minister make enormous profits. They may supply the drugs to the Ministry more cheaply than do the big firms, but they have no overheads whatsoever—no advertising, no research, nothing else, and they can make a colossal profit on their goods. It really is a case of bringing in other suppliers who are going to make a very good thing out of it. I think that Clause 25 as it stands is an invitation to extend the dangers of Section 46 of the Patents Act to the field of general practice, and I cannot help thinking that those dangers are very considerable.
9.7 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, this is a very late hour indeed at which to be discussing a major Bill. I certainly do not want to be critical of those in charge of our Parliamentary programme, but, after all, this is a far-reaching measure and it is a great pity that at this late hour these vital deliberations should be taking place. This is one of two major medical Bills in the present Session of Parliament. This par-
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ticular Bill has many provisions. It had a long discussion in the other place, which included twelve full sittings in Standing Committee and quite a large number of Divisions. As a result, the Bill has been very fully discussed. Although I think it is an overloaded Bill, an indigestible Bill in that it has so much content in it, there is much in it which can be fully commended.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, I should like to commend most particularly Clause 65 of the Bill. I sit on the house committee of a mental hospital, although it is not in fact one of the special hospitals to which this Bill chiefly refers, and I have read the Report of the Select Committee on Special Hospitals. It is an excellent Report and a very moving Report. I am sun!, that the provisions contained in this Bill to make available more transport facilities will improve the morale, not only of the patients, and particularly those patients who are sufficiently in possession of a sound mind to understand at least a little of what goes on around them, but also of their parents, relations and friends. At a time when something like one in every nine people in this country undergoes treatment for some kind of mental condition, possibly a very minor mental condition, at some time in their lives, this is a significant pointer. These hospitals, or some of them at any rate, are situated a very long way from public transport, and therefore it is not a ways possible for those who have not got cars of their own, or even for those who have cars, to visit their relations or friends as often as they would like.
Clauses 1 and 2 of this Bill are particularly important, especially the provisions relating to pay beds. Like, I think, all my noble friends—and, indeed, all noble Lords in this House—I have the greatest admiration for the National Health Service. My family and I use it ourselves. But there is no doubt that various schemes, such as that provided by the British United Provident Association and others, at least help to off load some of the enormous burdens put on the National Health Service. I noticed that in the proceedings in another place the Minister seemed, if not to pour scorn on B.U.P.A., to have certain reservations about it. Since I do not use the scheme myself I will not pursue that point

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further, but there are times when people like to avail themselves of private treatment, and I hope that the present Minister, for whom I have a great deal of respect, even if I do not always respect his politics, will not entirely close his mind to being more flexible on this particular clause.
The clauses relating to the welfare services are very important, but I shall not pursue them at this hour of the evening. The Bill itself is obviously one for thorough discussion on the Committee stage. Reference has been made to the new Clause 5, particularly by my noble friend Lord Cawley, who has given a full explanation of its legal contents. I must add my own, albeit mild, protest at the fact that it has been slipped into this Bill under the auspices of a private Member in another place, and not put in what I should have thought was its rightful place, in the Medicines Bill, when there had been more opportunity to allow the profession and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole to have a proper discussion of the Sainsbury Report.
I dare say the pharmaceutical industry make mistakes, and I dare say that some companies make bigger profits than is perhaps decent in these days of stringency. But it is also true to say—and I have seen this with my own eyes among pharmaceutical companies which I have visited and where I have asked close questions—that much is put into genuine research and that the outcome of that research is that many people have a shorter stay in hospital than they previously would have had. What worries me about this amendment to Section 46 is this. Who bears the blame when something goes wrong? As the Sunday Telegraph recently reminded us, we have had the harrowing story of the thalidomide tragedy. This is not the hour and I am not a qualified person to re-live this scene; but I fear that if this clause goes through in its present form and if something like this happens again, if the Ministry take the powers they have done, we shall have enormous difficulties when it comes to litigation. We all pray that this will not happen again. I think the general care which is taken by the pharmaceutical industry to-day will ensure that it will not.
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This Bill will need a great deal of looking into in the Committee and its further stages; but, taken as a whole, although I think it is an overweighted Bill, it will be another landmark in the history of our health service; and this St. George's Day is a suitable day, even though at a late hour, for giving the initial discussion in your Lordships' House to this measure.
9.16 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, I should like to begin my speech by supporting the noble Lord who has just sat down in what he has said about the hour at which this very important Bill is being discussed in this House. This is not the first time recently that words such as these have passed my lips in this House; but I feel that it is quite wrong that the somewhat cumbrous proceedings like those of the Committee and Report stages of the Social Work (Scotland) Bill should have occupied so much time. Including the Amendments to the Schedules on Committee and the 97 Amendments at the Report stage, there were 345 Amendments to a Bill of 98 clauses. Can nothing be done to see that a major Bill of this important nature is discussed in a full House at a proper time of day? I apologise for taking up your Lordships' time on this, but I feel that it is a matter of great importance.
My Lords, I now turn to the pleasure it has given us all to hear the maiden speech of the noble Lady, Lady Ruthven of Freeland, and to express the hope that we shall hear from her again. I was struck by and interested in her pointing to the fact that the Bill contains no reference to the ambulance services. I would in passing mention that these services are of very great importance in Scotland. The farther away you get from the centres, the longer the distance to hospital, the more important become the ambulance services, their cost, their frequency, the conditions of the vehicles, the heating and so on, in their contribution to the national health.
I welcome the clauses which apply to Scotland, and particularly Clause 15, which is a provision for advice et cetera on family planning. The noble Lord, Lord Platt, made some reference to that clause. I presume that this will mean that the district nurses services in Scotland will be used in connection with

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family planning advice in a way that they have not been able to be used before. I should like also to know how collaboration with the Family Planning Association, to which the noble Lord, Lord Platt, referred, is going to work out in Scotland. If it is not possible at this time to give an answer, as it were, across the table, perhaps the noble Baroness could write to me.
Speaking as a Scotsman, I also welcome Clause 19, which refers to the ophthalmic services, and to Clause 37, which provides for the payment of allowances and remuneration to members of certain advisory bodies, committees and the like in Scotland. This is reasonable and welcome if only because of the long distances which these people have to travel and the great sacrifices which they have to make. The greater the distance, the greater the cost of transport and the amount of time which an individual puts at the disposal of the State. The levels at which these people will be compensated will be moderate, and so they should be; though it is as well to remember that one of the troubles of the active professional man, or the highly paid commercial executive, or the busy tradesman who undertakes public work is that at these levels he will not be compensated for loss of earnings.
My Lords, as might be expected after the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, to whom I sent a message that I proposed to refer to her speech, I intend to refer to Clause 25. I assure your Lordships that I have very little interest to declare in the pharmaceutical industry compared with that which I used to have. I am a small shareholder but now I am "on the shelf". I hold no directorships and no executive position, but after the dozen or so years during which I enjoyed an active and fascinating connection with the industry, I feel that I have a contribution to make, and knowledge and experience which that connection gave to me which I can place at the disposal of your Lordships. No longer having an active interest in the pharmaceutical industry, I am enabled, while stepping a measure with the noble Lady in her ritual dance, to feel rather like a boy out of school. But joking apart, I have something important to say, and not only with regard to patents as they refer to the pharmaceutical
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industry. I must declare an interest as a patentee, as I have a patent of my own, but that has nothing to do with pharmaceuticals.
I should like to support what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, and I would ask the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, to give most careful consideration to the figures which he quoted, and which I have no doubt are thoroughly reliable. I was interested to hear her say that it is the intention of the Government to amend Clause 25 during the Committee stage. Like many other noble Lords, I look forward to seeing what Amendments will be proposed. I assure your Lordships that unless the Amendments alter the whole structure of the clause, I am one who will oppose it tooth and nail.
I wish to refer to the cost of drugs—I will refer to profits later—and the fact that costs are increasing. Right from the beginning of the attack on the pharmaceutical industry (which dates from the occasion when Mr. Enoch Powell invoked Section 46 of the Patents Act; perhaps it would be wrong at this juncture to refer to him as "the nigger in the woodpile") people have overlooked the fact that in return for the increased cost of drugs, which arises from the drugs themselves being infinitely more complex and more costly to manufacture, the State and the people have obtained a reward as a "contra" entry in terms of hours of work saved, lives saved and fewer bed-days in hospital which is out of all proportion to the increase in the cost of drugs, which I think I am right in saying is less than the cost of the laundry. The costs may be high, but when people talk about the value of patents, they must remember that something like 99 out of 100 prove failures. There is another element, that of risk, to which I would draw your Lordships' attention. I know of an instance where some £100,000 was spent on a pilot plant to develop a new invention of an excellent drug, and not one single ounce came from that plant because before it was complete a better drug had been discovered. This is the sort of outlay that falls upon an industry of this nature, in which research has to be followed by the running of risks. Is the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, so sure that the profits are vast?

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The noble Lord, Lord Cawley, has referred to the profits on the turnover of small importers. When we look at the dividends paid by the main manufacturing groups, we find that there are other products besides drugs, and besides those drugs which are sold to the National Health Service. There are bulk products, health drinks, invalid foods and the like. There is one very profitable line, which is hair cream. I am told that there is one drug on which the research costs were so great that although it is now beginning to sell well, some £8 million of profit will have to be made before the research costs are recouped. I beg your Lordships to take the stories of vast profits with a good grain of salt. In saying this, I do not omit the Sainsbury Report, as this is not altogether wide enough in its range on this subject.
I am sorry that the noble Baroness is not here, because she referred to the promotional expenditure undertaken by the pharmaceutical industry and to the loads of "glossies" which arrived in her letterbox. If I may say so, the noble Baroness is excessively fussy to-day. How many of your Lordships read more than a fraction of the "glossies" that come through the letterbox of a simple Peer every day? I have a son-in-law who is an architect, and he says that his letterbox is infinitely fuller of glossy brochures than any doctor's. We must face the fact that we are living in the 20th century and that this promotion, though quite unethical in regard to medicinal products in this country, is the usual way in which such products are sold, greatly to the benefit of the people in other parts of the world, particularly in backward nations.
I think it is proper to refer to another factor in promotional expenditure. The pharmaceutical representative is sometimes pictured as a sort of bagman. This is most unfair. The pharmaceutical representative of to-day is a highly skilled individual, qualified not only by experience in his trade, but almost certainly by training as well. The point I particularly want to make to your Lordships is that the representative not only goes to the doctor—and he is a very welcome caller on many doctors—with information of the latest developments in these complex drugs, but also provides
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a link in the reverse direction between the doctor and the manufacturer. The manufacturer uses the representative as a way of keeping in touch with what the doctor needs; and what the doctor needs is what the patient needs. The noble Lord, Lord Platt, made reference to the enormous contribution to curative medicine which the pharmaceutical industry has made.
I would conclude with a further reference to the main principle of Clause 25. If this sort of attitude is the attitude of the Government to reward ingenuity or inventiveness, then no wonder there is a brain-drain. This sort of attitude to patents or copyrights is a chip on the shoulder. It is total disregard of the Tenth Commandment. As soon as an invention is profitable, surely the State benefits from taxation. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, on his point about the dangers that lie ahead if the State is going to try to take a share in the profits on patents. I would go further and remind your Lordships that Clause 25 does not refer alone to medicines. It is a widely spread clause, and a much more tricky matter than appears on the surface. I am sure all noble Lords will join with me in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, when she said that Clause 25 is to be considerably amended in Committee. If patents or copyrights are to be disregarded like this, it will, as the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, said, drive research and ingenuity out of this country; and it will lead to the brain-drain to which I have referred.
LORD OGMORE: If I may intervene, is there not another matter which arises here? I overlooked this point, but had intended to mention it. Many countries who copy us will adopt this procedure, not only for pharmaceutical products, but for all sorts of manufactures, and that will be an enormous loss to our export trade. That is one of the points that I think should be made.
LORD FERRIER: The noble Lord is absolutely right, and I agree with every word that he says. In the light of what the noble Lord has said, I think it is fair to advert to the fact that one of the biggest troubles (I speak from memory) is the import of complex medicaments from Italy where no patent law exists.

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It is this fact which has brought about the profits of certain importers to which the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, referred. I am sure I am right in saying that Italy is finding that this is not worth the candle, and that they will have to change their attitude. In other words, what the noble Lord has said reinforces the point I am trying to make; namely, that this clause is the thin end of an important and valuable wedge to anybody who wishes to strike at the profitability of British industries. It would contribute to long-term loss in balance of payments, and it would make us more and more dependent in the future on the import of foreign drugs, which of course would affect the whole economic situation. But the State should not have power, I believe, to override patent rights except in grave national emergency—and, my Lords, surely it is possible that a middle course would be that independent arbitration could be adopted, or something like that. But with other of your Lordships I await with interest the Amendments which the noble Baroness has promised us at the Committee stage.
9.41 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, this is certainly a Bill which can be welcomed wholeheartedly for its intentions, the present intentions of the present Minister who, I think it would be true to say, is admired by all Members of your Lordships' House, on both sides but I do not think it is surprising that it has nevertheless aroused a number of fears and suspicions about its possible future intentions under future Ministers. If, as the Minister has explained in another place, he does not want to make sweeping changes, then, as my noble friend Lord Cottesloe has already said, he ought not to be given sweeping powers by Parliament. It is a good maxim, which was first enunciated by, I think, John Stuart Mill, that any powers the Government are given ought to be treated as though sooner or later they were going to be abused. I think this is something we may have to bear in mind, however much we may admire the present Minister, when it comes to looking at these clauses in Committee.
There were a number of matters I was prepared to talk about on the earlier clauses of this Bill, but as these have all been fully covered by other Members of
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your Lordships' House I will not touch on any of them, except perhaps to say how welcome, no matter how much overdue, is the news that the Minister is going to publish his proposed plans for an overall change of the whole administrative structure of the National Health Service. I think this is very much to he welcomed.
I should now like to come to a number of clauses which, through no fault of the noble Baroness or of the Minister himself, now amount to little mole than "window-dressing". There is this excellent Clause 13 about the home-help service—in this clause it is called the domestic-help service, but I think that home-help service is better. Then Clause 45 contains provisions for the welfare of the elderly, and Clause 64 deals with local authority grants to voluntary bodies. All these, especially when taken together, would open up tremendous prospects for a person such as the elderly, perhaps bed-ridden, widow, who so far, of all the people who might have been helped by the National Health Service, has probably been helped least.
These are all provisions to which she could look forward with considerable expectation. They provide services in a sector where they have been badly needed for a long time. But, unfortunately, even before this Bill had reached the Committee stage, we had the Prime Minister's Statement in another place on January 16 about the economic state of this country—something for which our noble Lords and Ladies opposite are responsible—and a circular from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, making it quite clear that none of the rate support grant, on which all these three clauses hinge, could be expected before 1969–70. So here is the window full of attractive-looking goods, but all unfortunately labelled, "Not for sale"—a sad commentary on our affairs. Nevertheless, there it is.
I should like now to turn for a moment to one clause on which, surprisingly, I find myself almost in entire agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Summer-skill, Clause 59—the clause about child-minders and nurseries. Here I believe we have a situation where the Government are in error in trying to legislate their way out of difficulties which have very little to do with legislation. As

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the noble Baroness pointed out, we have a situation in which there is tremendous pressure and inducement of married women to go out to work but extraordinarily little provision for their children under 5, who must be put in somebody else's care if their mothers are to go out working.
Many of the arrangements, I should be the first to admit, made to fill this gap are unsatisfactory. The main remedy, as the noble Lady pointed out so forcibly, lies in better provision. I feel that it is a great mistake to try to put so much of this matter right by legislation. The result will be that much greater and unwarranted restrictions will be put on our freedom as individuals. There will he further intrusion into our homes; further heavy burdens will be laid on the police and officials of the town hall; and I do not believe that, at the end of it, the children now suffering and being abused will be any better off. I think that this is a matter to which we shall have to return at the Committee stage, to see whether we are not able to put it right by adjustment of the clauses as they stand at the moment.
I had intended to turn to the group of clauses, including Clause 25, which give the Minister power to manufacture, sell, supply, and so on, this range of goods over the whole National Health Service. I will not go any more into this now, as it has been so fully covered, except to say that it is not surprising that there is now fear and suspicion about the Minister's intentions. The Sainsbury Report has been called in aid, particularly of Clause 25, but the Sainsbury Report contained these words, under the heading, "Powers of Minister":
"If, after Ministers have settled the details of the future system and have completed discussions with the industry upon it, it appears that the existing powers are insufficient, then the Minister should take the necessary further powers".
And more particularly, under the section headed, "Patents", Article 265, it said:
"Nevertheless, we make no proposals in this respect for we recognise the complexity of the subject and we know that a Committee"—
the Banks Committee—
"has been set up to consider the patent law and recently appointed".
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In those circumstances, it really is not surprising, if a clause is slipped in at the Report stage, with no mention of it on Second Reading or throughout Committee, that people in the pharmaceutical industry and elsewhere are somewhat bothered. I have no interest whatever in the pharmaceutical industry and I am not here to defend it; but I do not think it ought to surprise the noble Lady and the Minister if people are a little suspicious and fearful if that procedure is the one that has been followed.
I have nearly finished. The only other thing I would say, before turning to my final remarks, is a word about the general practitioner. There is no clause anywhere in this Bill dealing with the general practitioner, but I think it would be absurd to have a debate on the National Health Service and not to say something about him, because he, after all, is the linchpin of the whole Service. The Minister made a number of claims about the general practitioner situation in his introduction of the Bill on Second Reading, and used that sanguine phrase, of which we have heard a good deal in the last three and a half years, about having turned the corner. I hope that we have. But the facts, as we have them, in contrast to the hopes of the Minister are as follows—and I take them from the Minister's last Annual Report (Cmnd. 3326) and the recent Report of the Royal Commission, under the noble Lord, Lord Todd (Cmnd. 3569).
We have doctors coming into the Service, having cost £10,000 each to train. Three hundred out of the 2,000 a year coming into the Service then emigrate—15 per cent. of them—and no doubt some of the ladies among them marry, in spite of what the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill has said.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, they go on working, provided that accommodation is made available for their children.
LORD SANDFORD: But, my Lords, the situation is that the numbers in general practice are actually falling, and not even keeping pace with the population: and we have the general practitioners' lists at 2,453—higher than they have been for sixteen or seventeen years. When we recall, as the Royal Commission under Lord Todd recalled, that

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90 per cent. of all the illness is treated by the general practitioners, one is bound to feel concerned; and much as I welcome the provisions of this Bill I think this situation should cause us grave concern.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, may I intervene to say that a great deal of what needs to be done in general practice can be done without Acts of Parliament? I think this is a point which should be borne in mind.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I am grateful for that intervention. That was very much in my mind. I was not complaining that the general practitioner was not mentioned in the Bill. I was saying that I thought he deserved a mention while we were discussing the National Health Service as a whole.
LORD PLATT: Most certainly.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, may I interrupt, before the noble Lord sits down? On the question of women doctors, is it not the case that the taxation problem, in which the income of husband and wife are combined for income tax and surtax purposes, is a contributory factor to the drop-out in the number of women doctors practising to-day?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I am sure that is not for me to answer. Indeed, perhaps it was a mistake on my part to mention general practitioners at all. I said it only as an aside.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: It shows Lord Ferrier's financial mind.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I hope that I have not taken too long at this late hour. In common with all who have spoken in this debate I have an interest, as we all have, in trying to do what we can to get a better Health Service. I do not think many of us are inclined, as I felt that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, was, to bask in the popular polls of opinion about the National Health Service. The poll conducted recently by New Society indicated a fair degree of satisfaction with the National Health Service, but I am quite sure that it could be made a great deal better.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I did not mention opinion polls at all. I said that, so far as I was concerned, with certain qualifications, we had a very good Health Service.
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords; but I should prefer to say that it is a good Health Service which could be made a great deal better. Other countries spend in proportion a great deal more of their national income on their health services. For instance, Sweden spends 5·6 per cent., the United States of America spend 6·8 per cent., and Canada spends 7·3 per cent., compared with our figure of 4·9 per cent. I am quite sure that a good many people in this country would be prepared to spend more on our Health Service in order to get it better, but I believe that that could be done only under two conditions. The first is that they had a much bigger and a more direct say in how it was to be run, and a chance to pay for the kind of service that they, particularly and their families, and their professional colleagues, and, their workmates, warned to have for themselves. The second condition is that we should all have a much greater assurance that the very large amounts of money that are being paid into the Health Service are producing real value. With those few words I should like to confirm our welcome to the Bill and our wish to give it a Second Reading.
9.50 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should first of all like to thank all noble Lords who have given a generous welcome to the Bill. I would also thank noble Lords who have paid tribute to the Minister—perhaps that is unique when it is linked with a Bill—and I am sure that my right honourable friend will be happy to read the words of commendation which noble Lords have given this evening. I should also like at once to express my appreciation and admiration for the maiden speech of the noble Lady, Lady Ruthven of Freeland. As al Nays, she has upheld the reputation of the female Members of this House by being concise, brief, and putting a great deal of "meat" into her speech. I am delighted to welcome her, and I hope we shall hear her again very often. The information she gave was particularly valuable.

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Although it is late, I feel it would be wrong not to attempt at any rate to answer some of the major questions that have been raised, though I am certain we shall have long debates on certain of the clauses on Committee stage. The noble Lord, Lord Newton, I think in the first instance mentioned Clause 25, and this was subsequently mentioned by several other noble Lords. It is important to emphasise that the Government naturally have an interest in the maintenance of a strong pharmaceutical industry and would accordingly be strongly inhibited from using this clause in any way to destroy that industry. I felt there was some element of suggestion that that might be the case. It is the intention that the power in this clause will he used only as a fall-back where price negotiations break down. If agreement cannot be reached on compensation in lieu of royalties the amount would be determined by the courts; so the Minister does not have an arbitrary power in this respect.
The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, dwelt at great length on Clause 25, and, referring to the fact that I said the clause would be amended, I think he will be interested to know that the major change it is intended to make will be to limit its application solely to pharmaceutical products and appliances. There may be some other drafting Amendments, as the Minister indicated, but the main purpose of the clause, as I described it in my opening speech, will remain the same after the Amendments. I think it is rather important to mention that, in case noble Lords felt the substance was to be changed in any way.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, will the noble Baroness explain that a little further? Does she mean it does not apply to any other goods at all except pharmaceutical goods and appliances—no other goods whatever of any kind?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, that is as I understand it, but I will check it for the noble Lord before Committee stage.
The other point on which I feel the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, would like to have a reply is this. He referred to lack of consultation with the industry in connection with this clause, and I
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would tell him that the Minister has written to the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries explaining why he found it right to accept the clause at Report stage in another place. The implications of the clause, along with the recommendations of the Sainsbury Committee, are at present subject to discussion with the industry. I hope the noble Lord will accept that the Minister is well aware of any complications which may arise.
The noble Lord, Lord Platt, referred to Clause 5, as did several other noble Lords. Lord Platt particularly asked about the Royal Commission on Medical Education, on which he served with such distinction. I hope he will agree with me that the provisions of Clause 5 are not inconsistent with the recommendations of the Royal Commission. Those recommendations are going to be very fully considered by the Government, but the particular recommendations to which the noble Lord referred are very far-reaching, and it would be of course wrong for me at this point of time to prejudge Government decisions in this connection.
In reply to her first question as to whether the local hospital authorities would be able to decide where the pay beds will be, I would say to the noble Lady, Lady Ruthven of Freeland, that the reply is, Yes. The other point which she raised about basic charges in connection with pay beds in a single ward or in an open ward and so on, I would answer by saying that there will be a basic charge for each of the five different groups of hospitals for whom the Minister intends to fix national charges. The Minister intends to have flexibility in order to allow for variation in charges, where, for example, accommodation is in single rooms or in an open ward, or where extra amenity is provided. In this connection the Minister wishes to have flexibility.
My noble friend Lady Summerskill, as it were, passed the torch to me, and I hope that I shall justify her faith. At least she knows that she has a friend at court who not only has followed with great admiration everything she has done for many years but almost always concurs with her views. I would certainly not say that she is an ineffectual

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voice, but I will do my best to follow the point she has raised.
On the question of the child minders, she suggested that the Minister should perhaps not attempt to control their activities quite so rigidly. But the reports from local health authorities about the operation of the Nurses and Child Minders Act have indicated that powers needed to be strengthened to safeguard the health and welfare of children. I would merely add my own personal note, that when I as a magistrate have asked for information about the conditions of some of the child minders I have found it distinctly alarming. The point on which I should wholeheartedly agree with my noble friend is that this is only one part of the question. But the two things do not run contrary. I would say also in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, that we certainly need more facilities for caring for the pre-school child, but it would be wrong to leave undesirable conditions if legislation could put this right.
The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, asked about the question of the supply of Possum typewriters. I must say that this is a new name to me, and one which I found extraordinarily fascinating. I think the noble Lord will be pleased to know that one form of this equipment on the market is already available to Health Service patients who need it, although they have to pay for the attachments—for example, a radio tape recorder. The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, also asked about Clause 68. Since in that connection he gave me the opportunity to write to him, I will do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, referred to Clause 5, as did several other noble Lords. I noticed that the noble Lord said that the Minister could designate university hospitals without reference to Parliament. That is not correct. It is necessary for the Minister to make an Order designating a hospital as a university hospital, and the Order would, of course, be subject to discussion and could be annulled in either House. The noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, also referred to the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Newton, that he did not see why the power was necessary. Basically, it is necessary because, without the power, the Minister at present has power to dedesignate—what an awful expression!—
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a teaching hospital, without Parliamentary control, but he has not the existing power to create a new entity of hospital such as a university hospital.
I think we shall have more discussions on Clause 5, but I should like to reiterate what the Minister, to whom so many Lords have paid tribute, has quite categorically stated that he has no intention of using this clause to make sweeping changes. I feel that all noble Lords—
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I think that he has said all the time "no present intention". It is the use of the word "present" which has caused a certain amount of alarm and despondency.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Newton, to whom we pay great tribute for his own work in this sphere, would be the first to agree that no Minister would be unwise enough to say that he would never take action of any kind. I think that the word "present" is probably customary use. Since such great tributes have been paid to his integrity as a Minister, I think that we may base ourselves on that.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I think the point is that it is perfectly reasonable for any Minister to say "It is not my intention to do this" and then, if he changes his mind in due course, to say so.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Hear, hear!
LORD NEWTON: I am glad that the noble Baroness agrees with me. To say "It is not my present intention" might suggest "It is not my intention to-day, but it may be my intention to-morrow." It is the use of that word "present" which raises a doubt.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Newton. I am sure that we shall return to this matter during the passage of this Bill through the House. I feel that I could go on talking for a long time oil this lengthy Bill. I am grateful to the many noble Lords who have spoken as I myself have felt singularly unhealthy this evening since I was the victim of a rather unpleasant car accident on Sunday, and the prospect of replying to points on the whole of the 74 Clauses of the Bill seemed somewhat formidable. As we move

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through the Committee stage, and later on during proceedings on the Bill, I feel certain that we shall again debate these various clauses very fully; but I should like to thank all noble Lords for bringing their experience and wealth of knowledge to bear on this subject. I commend the Bill to your Lordships for a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL [H.L.]
10.2 p.m.
House in Committee: Clauses agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

SEWERAGE (SCOTLAND) BILL
Brought from the Commons on Thursday the 11th instant and printed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 45; read 1a.
LEGITIMATION (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments; the said Amendments to be printed.
DURBAN NAVIGATION COLLIERIES BILL [H.L.]
Examiners' Certificate that the further Standing Orders applicable have been complied with: Ordered to lie on the Table; Bill committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
MEDWAY WATER (BEWL BRIDGE RESERVOIR) BILL [H.L.]
Examiners' Certificate that the further Standing Orders applicable have been complied with: Ordered to lie on the Table; Bill committed to a Select Committee.