Lords Sitting of 17 December 1968

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Ripon):
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

HOUSING IMPROVEMENT GRANT
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: 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 when legislation to authorise the housing improvement grant foreshadowed in the gracious Speech will be introduced.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): My Lords, a Bill to give effect to the proposals in the White Paper, Old Houses into New Homes, will be introduced as soon as possible.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I ask him whether he realises that the delay since the announcement in the gracious Speech has held up planned improvements; and can he not speed up house improvement by announcing that the grant, whatever it is, will be back-dated, say to the present month?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I will certainly examine that possibility; but my right honourable friend thinks it would be better to bring all the changes proposed in the White Paper into effect at the same time, in a single package under a Bill.

SMOKELESS FUELS
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: 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 steps they are taking to remedy the shortages of smokeless fuels now becoming apparent in some parts of the country.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, there are no general shortages of solid smokeless fuels. In the early autumn there was concern over the adequacy of supplies of boiler fuel for the South-East, but both the National Coal Board and independent producers are increasing their outputs. Prospects have much improved, and should particular fuels be in short supply alternatives should be readily available.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that Answer, which goes some way to reassure me. Is the noble Lord aware that when we debated the Clean Air Bill in the summer an assurance was quoted by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power, that there was no serious fear of shortages of smokeless fuel? We now understand that supplies will be adequate for the time being. Can the noble Lord assure the House, first, that the Government will carefully watch this matter, so that there is no setback to the clean air policy, and, secondly, that the alternative smokeless fuels will not be so expensive as to put them out of reach of householders?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, it will not have escaped the noble Lord that I said that there is no general shortage of supplies. That is the Minister's responsibility and he is discharging it adequately and efficiently. The question of any possible local shortage, either of any smokeless fuels or of a particular smokeless fuel, would be a matter for the National Coal Board and for merchants. But with regard to the noble Lord's point about smokeless fuel supplies and smoke control, may I say that a Smoke Control Order would not be confirmed unless the local authority had assurances that supplies would be adequate. So far as increased supplies are concerned, it is expected that the National Coal Board and the independents, mainly Coalite and Rexco, will increase their supplies by about 20 per cent. this winter. Therefore it does not

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appear likely that there will be any shortage at all. As to the question of price, of course I cannot give the noble Lord any assurance on that score; there is no control over these prices. But if supplies are increasing there should be no reason to apprehend any artificial rise in price.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he is aware that this position was prevalent in the early 'sixties when I was Chairman of the Domestic Coal Consumers' Council; and is he further aware that, with regret, I really do not feel that the position is as rosy as he has quite honestly made it out to be? Is he aware that alternatives are not what people want, and that often these alternatives are not suitable? I wonder whether he would be good enough to look at the matter more carefully. This situation has gone on for many, many years.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am perfectly aware that this position has gone on for many years. I do not think I am taking a rosy view of the situation. The position of supplies now as compared with 1960 (as indeed is the case with demand) is very different indeed. But I cannot, without notice, answer questions about particular fuels or about individual consumer choice. I can however say, for example, about anthracite nuts and Phurnacite (I have already mentioned two other types of fuel), that supplies are at about last year's level, and the producers contemplate what I should regard as a substantial increase. Until we have actual examples of shortages it is not really fair of my noble friend to say that the position is at it was in 1960. That I do not accept.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what is the position of a consumer in a smokeless zone who finds himself temporarily unable to obtain smokeless fuel? Is he then allowed to burn the ordinary type of fuel?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, my understanding is that he would not be able to do so without committing an offence. I would suggest that the suitable thing to do, if he cannot get his supplies from his usual supplier, is to go to someone else.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, as distinct from some of the criticism that is often levelled in this connection, is my noble friend aware that the N.C.B. are to be congratulated on the may that they have turned to smokeless, fuel? While there may be temporary shortages in given areas from time to time, generally speaking it is not the fault of the producers of smokeless fuel. Is my noble friend aware how well the country is responding to this desire for cleansing the air of atmospheric pollution? Even in the mining areas there is a general, enlightened—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Speech.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the general, enlightened line of approach, that is commendable, in view of all the difficulties that have been involved?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am well aware, as my noble friend has said, of the great and successful efforts which are being made by the N.C.B. in this matter. Equally I agree with him on the importance of increasing the number of smokeless fuel zones, and I am sure that all your Lordships will support that. What I say directly to noble Lords opposite is that they would be the first to complain if we interfered with private enterprise merchants supplying these markets. Please do not put to Inc questions of that kind, because it is up to the merchants. The supplies are there. There is no general shortage. If there is a local shortage, then it is the fault of the distributors.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I understood the noble Lord to refer to Phurnacite, among other smokeless fuels, and to say that supplies this year are at the same level as they were last year. Is he not aware that in some parts of the country, certainly in the part in which I live, it has for a long time been extremely difficult to get Phurnacite, and that the merchants and distributors say that it is not their fault because they just cannot get it?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I did not say "supplies"; I said "total stocks of Phurnacite". That is not quire the same. "Supplies" implies production and "stocks" implies what you have waiting

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for delivery. The stocks of Phurnacite are about the same. I will certainly take up the noble Lord's point about the shortage in his area and do what I can; indeed, that applies to any part of the country. I shall be glad to look into that point. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, did not press this particular point about a local area. I think I know the area with which he is concerned. Certainly we do not want people to go without these supplies, and we will do whatever we can to help in this situation.

CZECHOSLOVAK REFUGEE FUND
2.40 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: 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 how much money remains in the Czechoslovak Refugee Fund and whether the fund is used to support any Czechoslovak refugees from the invasion of 1968.]
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I understand that the sum at present remaining in the Czechoslovak Refugee Fund amounts to about £27,000. Under the provisions of the Czechoslovak (Financial Claims and Refugees) Act 1940, issues are made from the Fund to the trustees of the Czechoslovak Refugee Trust, to be expended by them in assisting the emigration and settlement of refugees. I understand that the balance at present in the hands of the trustees amounts to about £120,000.
I do not think it would in present circumstances be appropriate to use the resources of the Fund for the benefit of Czechoslovaks who are in this country following the events of last August. It would be wrong to regard them as refugees. They came here with valid Czechoslovak travel papers. Many have already returned to Czechoslovakia and many more may well decide to do so. It would be wrong to do anything which might restrict their freedom to choose whether to return to their own country.
I should like to pay tribute to the many voluntary organisations and private
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individuals who have so generously helped Czechoslovak nationals in this country. A contribution of £15,000 has been made from public funds towards the Czechoslovak Student Scholarship Fund under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Newhaven.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much for that interesting reply. Could he find out, or does he know, whether the £27,000 in the hands of the trustees is being currently spent on refugees of, presumably, the 1940 era, which is a very long time ago, and whether in fact there are sufficient claims on that sum, ignoring the 1968 refugees? If there are not, would it not be a good idea to give the British Council for Refugees grants from that fund for refugees with whom it is dealing to-day? The British Council for Refugees is the organisation that deals with all the main refugee organisations. I am anxious that this fund of £27,000 should not just remain with nobody claiming it, since it dates back twenty or thirty years.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Baroness is speaking of refugees other than Czechoslovaks. In other words, I am assuming we are in agreement that the Czechoslovaks who came here in August are not refugees. I can confirm that the money being spent by the trustees is being spent mainly on immigration and other matters for the Czechoslovak refugees of 1940, and, indeed, earlier in the pre-war Hitler years. What the noble Baroness is now proposing is that the trust should be wound up and that any funds remaining should be devoted to other refugee purposes. I can only tell her that there is no present intention of winding up the Trust. At present, the Czechoslovaks in this country are not refugees in the normal sense, and in our view, the point has not yet arrived when the proposition that she now puts can be considered.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, while I thank the noble Lord very much for that reply, I am anxious that when, as sometimes happens, money is collected for a particular purpose and it is not all spent, it does not hang on for a very long time. I am anxious that

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the Home Office, if that situation arises, will take some action.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, in order to clear up any misunderstanding, I would assure the noble Baroness that the financial resources of the Trust, which of course are not very large—it is a sizeable sum of money, but not very large—are fully committed by its existing obligations. It still owns a number of properties which it is disposing of, or seeking to dispose of, to local housing authorities, but at the moment the position is far too uncertain, too fluid, to consider anything of the kind that she has in mind. Perhaps the noble Baroness might return to the subject at a future date.

SCIENCE TEACHERS AND ROYAL INSTITUTE OF CHEMISTRY
2.45 p.m.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the continuing shortage of science teachers, they will use their influence in the Burnham Committee to persuade that Committee to consider the claims of professional bodies for full recognition of their qualifications; and, in particular, to recognise Graduate Membership and Associateship of the Royal Institute of Chemistry as the equivalent of a good honours degree of a university.]
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, the Burnham Committee have for some time accepted certain professional qualifications for graduate status for salary purposes. But they have decided, as a matter of principle, that the good honours graduate scale should apply only to good honours degrees. The proceedings of the Committee and its panels are confidential, and I cannot therefore reveal what initiatives Her Majesty's Government may take.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her helpful reply. Is she aware that while the Burnham Committee do not recognise this
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qualification as equivalent to a good honours degree, the universities of the country recognise it as equivalent to a good honours degree for the purpose of proceeding to research for the degree of Ph.D.? The Science Research Council recognise it as a qualification for award for research studentships, and I am informed that the Scottish Education Department recognise it as a good honours degree in equivalent. Anyone who has examined knows perfectly well that the standard is as high as for a good honours degree.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, may I add a supplementary question? Could we have a definition of what is a good honours degree, because I understand that the purpose—
LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, I think it would be helpful if my noble friend were enabled to answer the fairly lengthy observations of my other noble friend.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I suppose the short answer might be that I was not aware of the facts which the noble Lord has given to me, but I would remind him that the qualifications of the Royal Institute of Chemistry could not be treated in isolation. If in fact there were to be recognition of professional qualifications for the good honours degree scale in the way that he outlines, it would obviously entail a major change in the Burnham salary arrangements which would raise rather complicated questions of assess-merit of a wide range of non-university qualifications. I am sure the noble Lord will appreciate that the Scottish Education Department of course is a law unto itself, but in relation to the Burnham Committee I think I must further remind him that Her Majesty's Government is a member of the management panel of the Committee and, therefore, must be part of the one voice which speaks on matters of this kind.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, may I ask a supplemental question, which is really relevant. What exactly is a good honours degree? For the purposes of post-graduate grants a good honours degree is a first or an upper second, but for the purposes of Burnham scale additions I believe any sort of honours degree or a lower second is also admissible.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, speaking from personal knowledge and subject to correction, I would agree with the noble Baroness that a good honours degree means just what she has said: that it is in fact a first or second. But in certain cases, with certain universities, I believe that a slightly lower honours degree has been accepted; but the general understanding is the first or second.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that so far the Burnham Committee have rejected the application of the Royal Institute of Chemistry even to consider this qualification?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I think we must be careful not to suggest that the Royal Institute has been subjected to any discrimination. The Institute, of course, has at the moment, a recognition of graduate membership for salary purposes. This is merely the question of the good honours degree.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, I still have not had my definition of a good honours degree, because in some cases for grant purposes, it is a first or upper second; in other cases a lower second is included.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I think the noble Baroness is referring to individual cases. I should be happier if we kept to the matter which is under discussion, that is to say, the Burnham Committee for salary purposes. I will let the noble Baroness have in writing the definition accepted by the Burnham Committee for a good honours degree.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: My Lords, is the Minister aware that for the associateship of many institutions any university degree of any class is considered adequate?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I must again repeat that we are dealing with the question of teachers' salaries, a matter which is rather outside some of the bodies which we have been discussing. Once again I feel that we are moving slightly outside the ambit of the Question.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, does it not look as if the reason that the Burnham Committee will
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not make exceptions is that they feel that this is too complicated a matter? Is it possible that that is not necessarily a good enough reason, and would the Government make representations in the Committee?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I am afraid I have nothing to add to my Answer. The Burnham Committee fully consider every question, and as the Swan Report suggested that the Committee should look into the possibility of recruiting more science teachers, they are looking very carefully into this matter.

SAINT MARY, HORNSEY BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

GAMING (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to prohibit the use of machines for gaming on licensed premises. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a. —(Lord Nimburnholnie.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

SEA FISHERIES BILL
Report received.
Then, Standing Order No. 41, having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of December 12, 1968), Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purpose of the Administration of Justice Bill, has consented to place her interest, so far as it is concerned on behalf of the Crown, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

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My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 3a.
Clause 27 [Superannuation benefits in respect of certain judicial offices]:
The Lord Chancellor moved as Amendments:
Page 17, line 21, leave out from beginning to end of line 17 on page 19 and insert—
("" 39A.—(1) The Lord Chancellor may with the consent of the Minister for the Civil Service make rules with respect to the superannuation benefits payable to or in respect of persons who have been employed—

(a) in two or more offices falling within paragraphs (a) to (i) of subsection (3) of this section, or

(b) in one or more such offices and in one or more judicial offices remunerated out of central funds.

(2) The Secretary of State may with the consent of the Minister for the Civil Service make rules with respect to the superannuation benefits payable to or in respect of persons who have been employed

(a) in two or more offices falling within paragraphs (j) and (k) of subsection (3) of this section, or

(b) in one or more such offices and in one or more judicial offices remunerated out of central funds.

(3) The offices referred to in subsections (1)(a) and (2)(a) of this section are the following, that is to say—

(a) Recorder of London;

(b) Common Serjeant;

(c) additional judge of the Central Criminal Court;

(d) recorder of Liverpool;

(e) recorder of Manchester;

(f) assistant judge of the Mayor's and City of London Court;

(g) presiding judge of the Court of Passage of the City of Liverpool;

(h) chairman or deputy chairman of a court of quarter sessions where under any enactment (whether passed before or after this Act) a person may qualify for a pension by virtue of service in that office;

(i) stipendiary magistrate in England or Wales, other than metropolitain stipendiary magistrate;

(j) stipendiary magistrate appointed under section 455 of the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1892;

(k) stipendiary magistrate appointed under section 24 of the Glasgow Corporation and Police Act 1895.

(4) Subsections (2) to (5) of section 38 of this Act shall have effect in relation to rules made under this section as they have
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effect in relation to rules under that section, as if—

(a) in subsection (2) of that section any reference to a public office were a reference to an office which is either an office specified in subsection (3) of this section or a judicial office remunerated out of central funds, and the reference to such supplemental and incidental provisions as are mentioned in that subsection were a reference to such supplemental and incidental provisions as appear to the Lord Chancellor or to the Secretary of State (as the case may be) to be expedient, and

(b) in subsections (3) and (4) of that section any references to different public offices, or to ceasing to be employed in in one public office and becoming employed in another were a reference to different offices or (as the case may be) to ceasing to be employed in one office and becoming employed in another ('office' for this purpose being taken to mean any office which is either an office specified in subsection (3) of this section or a judicial office remunerated out of central funds)."")

Page 19, line 41, at end insert ("and ' pension' has the meaning assigned to it by section 38(6) of this Act").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, the Amendments on the Order Paper in my name are not numbered, and if no noble Lord objects, I will take them together since they relate to the same matter. Your Lordships may remember that on the Committee stage of the Bill the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, complained that Clause 27 was too long, and he proposed a short formula. As I then pointed out, this is not, in a sense, a clause which is going to remain in this Bill; it is a new section which is to be inserted into a Superannuation Act, and therefore it has to fit the terms of that Act. Moreover, the simple formula suggested by the noble Lord would leave too much discretion to the Ministers concerned. With superannuation rights it is important that they should be exact and that everybody should know what his rights are. But attempts have been made to make this clause shorter, and this in fact has been done. There is no difference of substance.
The Amendments take the opportunity to tidy up three points on which the clause was not as it should be. First, they substitute for the Treasury the Minister for the Civil Service, who is now the relevant Minister for this purpose. Secondly, they tidy up a small point on the tailoring of Section 38 of the 1965

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Act to the new section concerning supplemental and incidental provisions. Thirdly, for the avoidance of doubt, they declare that "pension" has the same meaning in the new section as it has in Section 38 of the 1965 Act, The Amendments shorten and improve the clause as it stands, while keeping the effect the same. What in substance we have done is to save about 28 lines, and I hope that the House will think that that is worth doing. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, for having done his best to shorten this very lengthy clause, which has only the limited purpose of achieving transferability of pension rights for certain judges. I am grateful for what has been achieved, but I am sorry to say that I still cannot see why it is necessary to have both subsections (1) and (2) in this Amendment. They are almost identical except that subsection (1) begins
"The Lord Chancellor may…"
and subsection (2) begins:
"The Secretary of State may…"
I cannot understand why it is not possible to use the perfectly familiar device of saying "The Lord Chancellor or the Secretary of State may…", and then you have got rid of either subsection (1) or subsection (2). You have combined them into a single subsection and you have saved a number of lines on the Statute Book, which is worth while.
I regret that subsection (4) is largely incomprehensible, to me at any rate, but I realise that the general public are not going to have to wrestle with it; it is a matter which will have to be wrestled with only by those who are dealing with the limited field of arranging transferable pensions for some of the judges. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, basically is on my side in this matter and that he has done the best he can to shorten this very long clause. The noble and learned Lord probably wishes he had been able to shorten it a good deal more. But having had my say twice on this matter, I conclude by saying that I am thankful for small mercies.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord,
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Lord Airedale, I feel that there would be considerable drafting difficulties in the formula which he suggests. One would be liable to have the Secretary of State for Scotland making rules for the pension of the Recorder of London. We ought to be grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for condensing this provision and ought not to be too grudging in our thanks.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
An Amendment (privilege) made. Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL
Read 3a, and passed.

GREATER LONDON, KENT AND SURREY ORDER 1968
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I beg to move that this Order, a draft of which was laid before this 'House on November 7, be approved. It provides for the alteration of the outer boundary of Greater London and the transfer of three small areas out of Greater London and back to the counties of which they formed part before 1965.
Moved, That the Draft Greater London, Kent and Surrey Order 1968, laid before the House on November 7, be approved.—(Lord Kennet.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

FAMILY LAW REFORM BILL [H.L.]
3.1 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Commitee accordingly.
[The BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Provisions relating to marriage]:
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 3, line 8, leave out ("eighteen") and insert ("twenty").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Amendment is to alter the proposed age above which, under this Bill, it will no longer be necessary to obtain the consent either of parents or of the court to marriage. This is conveniently described in the Latey Report as the age of "free marriage", and if I use that shorthand in my speech it will be to avoid the repetition of long explanations. I believe I am right in saying that up to 1753 it was possible for anybody of 14 or over to be married without anybody's consent, but for a great many years the critical age has been 21, and it is that to-day. The Bill proposes to alter it to 18.
This does not strike me as in any sense a Party issue. I certainly would not seek to urge my noble friends to support me merely on Party grounds, and from the supporters whose names I am delighted to see on the Marshalled List it will be obvious that my Amendment has attracted what I can only describe as widespread support. I assure your Lordships that I have not gone out to canvass or lobby noble Lords or right reverend Prelates to support me, but I am very pleased indeed that those names appear with mine on the Marshalled List.
This was the major issue on which the Latey Committee were divided: what should be the age for free marriage? They arranged for a public opinion poll conducted by the Government Survey. That poll showed a two-to-one majority in favour of no change from the present age of 41—I am sorry, I mean 21; I was perhaps misled into that slip of the tongue by the person who sent a letter to the Committee urging that 50 at least should be the minimum age. What is more significant is that, among the people whose opinions were surveyed, those between the ages of 16 and 20—the people most likely to be affected—were, by a majority of almost two to one, in favour of keeping the age at 21. Nevertheless, the members of the Latey Committee, by a majority of nine to two, came out in favour of reducing the age to 18. I note
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that the signatories to the Majority Report included the noble Baroness, Lady Serota, who is perhaps going to take part in this debate to-day.
That, then, is the issue. The present age is 21. The majority of the Latey Committee recommended that it should be 18. The minority recommended that it should be 21. My Amendment, for reasons which I will explain in due course, suggests that we should reduce the age from 21 to 20. I have read the Latey Committee's Report as carefully as I could, and I spoke on it when we debated it a year ago. I regret that I was not able to be in my place and take part in the Second Reading debate on this Bill. But I am bound to say that, if I had to assess the Majority and the Minority Reports in this matter, I would say that the Majority Report was animated by optimistic theorising and the Minority Report by practical sense.
The Latey majority indicated in paragraph 163 the main reason for their recommendation. They said:
"The case for lowering the age of free marriage to 18 rests on our convict on, and that of many of our witnesses, that the young are mature at that age."
I wonder. I have no doubt that young people are physically more mature than a generation or two ago. I have littler doubt that they are sexually more mature. But are they at 18 emotionally mature'? That is the real issue before us, and the onus of proof lies on those who at one blow would reduce the age of free marriage from 21 to 18. If there exists a deep division of view about it—and there does exist such a division; if there is little evidence of pressure for the change from those who would be most affectei—and there is little evidence indeed of any pressure; if public opinion is two to one against the change, then would it not be wiser, as this Amendment propose, to go more gradually?
The Latey Report mentioned that a national newspaper conducted a survey of its own at about the time when the Committee were appointed. I grant it was the Sunday Mirror which did this, but I should hardly call that a paper with a violent bias towards conservatism and caution. According to that survey, three-quarters of young wives regret that they married so young. The Government's proposal is designed to make young marriage easier. In Scotland, where the age

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of free marriage is 16, the frequency of divorce before the age of 25 is markedly higher than in England and Wales. It is more than twice as high in the case of young men, and it is half as high again in the case of young women. I ask: is that an argument for the Government's proposal to reduce the age from 21 right down to 18 in England and Wales? Further, in England and Wales, where at the time of marriage the husband is over 20 but the wife is under 20, the likelihood of the marriage ending in divorce is twice as great as the general average for all marriages. That is shown by the Registrar-General's figures in an appendix to the Latey Report, so what I have said is authoritative. Where both the man and the girl are under 20 at the time of marriage, the likelihood of the marriage ending in divorce is three times as high as the general average.
The effect of Clause 2 if the Amendment is rejected will be to increase the number of these young marriages. How many teenage marriages are stopped by the law as it stands, obviously nobody can say. It is known that in a considerable number of cases the need to obtain the parents' consent leads to a postponement of marriage. If the man or the girl thinks that the parents are being unreasonable, application for consent can be made to the courts under the law as it stands. The Government's argument is, I think, that many parents are stupid or selfish, or are not in a position to know what is right for their teenage daughter as well as she knows herself, and that with earlier physical, sexual and, indeed, economic maturity the young should now be completely free at 18 to take the decision for themselves. If that argument were altogether sound, one would expect that a steadily growing number of young people, conscious of their own maturity, would now be applying to the courts to get past the refusal of consent by their parents. That is not the case. The fact is that the number of applications to the courts remains remarkable stable over the years—and it is still very small—at around 600 a year. Of those applications, about 350 a year are successful and about 250 fail. In that factual evidence there is nothing to suggest a growing need for a drastic reduction in the age of free marriage.
I feel sure that the Government will argue that the more that young people are given responsibility the more responsible they will become. They may ask why, if 18 is to be the age at which young people can enter into hire-purchase contracts, I am now wanting to complicate matters by urging a different minimum age for marriage without the consent of parents or the courts. Marriage is not a hire-purchase contract. Nor is marriage like voting. People enter into marriage for life. If the Party a person votes for disappoints him, he can vote differently at the next Election, and it does not leave a scar on him. I would submit that marriage failure does leave a scar, usually a lasting scar.
It is not solely a question of responsibility: it is a matter of combined responsibility and experience. In that respect, it is like taking a car out on the road. It is not enough to be a responsible sort of person: you must also have gained the experience how to drive. Yet the Government propose that a person should be fully free to enter into a marriage contract for life less than two years after he or she has left school, assuming that the school-leaving age is raised to 16, as I believe it will be. Even the Latey Committee majority quoted with approval the saying—though I think this saying was a wee bit unfortunately worded:
"What can she know of Henry, who only Henry knows?"
The Government will say that the present law strains and embitters family relationships and does harm to marriage. They may quote the opinion of the majority of the Latey Committee in paragraph 146:
"In our opinion preventing young people from marrying is no way to increase their respect for marriage as an institution".
I doubt whether this is the whole of the matter; and, having quoted that, I think I am entitled also to quote this letter which was received in evidence and was quoted by the signatories of the Minority Report in paragraph 571. It is a letter from a 21-year-old girl and it says:
"I shudder each time I think of what might have happened if I had been able to marry that 'monster' when I wanted to—my parents had the experience to judge the good from the bad and knew that in time…Now three years later I've grown un…Please do all you can to keep that age at 21. Many young marriages do work but they have

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more chance of success if they have to prove their sincerity first. I'm sure many young girls would have married ' many times before meeting the right man if the law had allowed them such freedom … But I really mean it when I say that being a young woman just past than teenage stage, we need sensible guidance from experienced people".
This is a sensitive situation; a difficult situation; a situation fraught with a great deal of potential tragedy each way. Yet this is the situation on which we have to come to a decision. The Latey Committee were assisted by a great deal of evidence—evidence from organisations as well as individuals. I think the Government will agree that it is hard to say that the balance of evidence on this issue came down markedly on one side or the other. One can quote important bodies who urged the reduction of the age of free marriage from 21 to 18. Against that, one can quote the considered views of equally important bodies urging that the age should be retained at 21.
The situation being difficult, in this Amendment I am not taking an extreme view either way. This Amendment recognises that young men and young women are growing up more quickly, and I know of no reason to take 21 as a law of the Medes and Persians that cannot be altered. Whether or not it is true, as the Latey Committee believe, that we have the age of majority and of free marriage at 21 solely because at the time of Magna Carta 21 was held to be the age at which a young man should be able to hold a heavy suit of armour and lift a lance or a sword at the same time; whether or not that is sufficient explanation why 21 is throughout most of the world the age of majority and the minimum age for marriage without consent, I cannot say. I am not therefore concerned to argue that it should be 21 here for all time. I do not believe one can afford proof of that character, any more than one can afford proof that at 18 everybody is sufficiently mature to be able to choose a partner for life.
I would put this to your Lordships. If we now suddenly move from 21 to 18 as the minimum age for free marriage, it will not be possible for Parliament ever to go back to 19 or 20 or 21. We shall have to accept the age of 18 as finally determined, and cope as well as we can with the tragedies it will produce, such
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as the staved-off tragedy describes in the letter which I ventured to read to your Lordships. If, on the other hand, we move, as my Amendment suggests, from the age of 21 to the age of 20, we are taking the action that will help to test out in practice all the theories underlying the arguments of the Latey majority. Then, if public opinion is convinced by experience that a change to 20 has done good, nothing prevents a further downward step in the light of that experience. That, as succinctly and as dispassionately as I can state it, is the issue before us this afternoon. With deep feeling that it would be wrong to stake all on a sudden drop from 21 to 18, I invite the Committee to support this Amendment. I beg to move.
3.21 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I have pleasure in supporting the Amendment moved by the noble Lord. I would say, as he has, that this is not a Party matter, that Party does not enter into it, and that this is a matter of social significance. People of different Parties have different attitudes to social questions. Here to-day we are divided in our approach to this problem which has been so ably expounded by the noble Lord opposite. I find it difficult to understand why this suggestion—this measure, as it will become if it gets on to the Statute Books—that the age of majority should be reduced in this way was embodied in this Bill without further discussion in every part of the country; because if this is passed it may have most undesirable social repercussions. It may be said that the Latey Committee recommended it; but I have been in Parliament for thirty years during which time I have heard Committee after Committee—some of them most high-powered Committees—make all kinds of recommendations, but the Government of the day have not necessarily said: "We must implement that forthwith." A wise Government must say to themselves, "Will there be some undesirable repercussions from this proposal?" And if they feel that possibly there may be, then they must mark time.
This is a tremendous step; but the curious thing is that very few people know anything about it. During the last week or two in all kinds of places I have said to people, "What do you think about it?". They have said, "We must

719
give it some thought. This is something new." I have never, in Parliament, had one letter from any adolescent, from any mother or any father or from any organisation of any kind, asking that what is now proposed should be done. I have discussed this matter with many Members of another place; but I have never been told that they have been lobbied on the subject. I have never been lobbied on the subject. Of the vast number of meetings that I have addressed on social problems never has this question been raised, never has any resolution been presented by the chairman and never have the men and women of the meeting been asked to support it. Never have I known of a women's organisation holding a conference on the matter. The protesters in our universities, when asked, "What are you protesting about?" have not in a single case ever said, "We want the age of majority reduced to 18."
Yet, suddenly, we find a Bill coming before Parliament with this suggestion in it. It seems inconsistent to me that while it is deemed advisable to raise the school-leaving age to 16—and all thinking people are urging that our young people should have every advantage in the universities and the technical colleges for higher education, which means, of course, that they would have to depend on grants and so on—at the same time the Government are prepared to allow a boy, two years after leaving school, to acquire the heavy responsibilities of marriage.
I noticed that the noble Lord talked rather about the girl who at the age of 18 might, perhaps in his mind, be encouraged to enter into some irresponsible marriage. Now although your Lordships know that I am a feminist and that I try to promote the interests of my sex frequently in this House, on this occasion I am biased in favour of the boy. I know the power of my sex when they are young. One has only to look at them in the street. Look at these magnificent girls with their marvellous mini-skirts and their straight legs walking along the street full of confidence—and the poor little boys, with their whiskers (and I am speaking biologically) desperately trying to show these magnificent mini-skirted creatures that they are her equal. They are more immature than the girl. I could
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almost say that the girl has sown her wild oats by the time she is 18. She sees the marvellous opportunity of the sense of creation, the physiological fact that she is the one who will bear children and have that sublime satisfaction; and she, at 16 or 17 or 18, it may be, is ready. Contrast her with the poor little boy of 17 or 18 who has left school at 16. If we pass this measure we are going to put a great burden on this boy's shoulders; for until now, he has been able to say to the siren: "Mother won't let me marry you", or "Father won't let me marry you."
Now we are going to have comprehensive schools; we are in favour of coeducation; we are in favour of the sexes mixing—and the girl (and I am not saying this in a disparaging way, for the sex urge is the strongest instinct next to that of self-preservation) in the co-educational schools will more or less already have marked her partner. For heaven's sake, let us give the boy a chance!—and I say this seriously. To say, "Let him stay at school until he is 16 but at the age of 18 let him carry the burdens of marriage and all that it means" is really cruel. I say this especially to my noble friend on the Latey Committee; for perhaps none of these pearls of wisdom was heard on the Latey Committee, where they thought in terms of theory and where practical common sense did not enter into it. There is a tendency to equate size with maturity. A youth may be bigger than were his parents at a corresponding age; but he is not necessarily wiser than were his parents at that age. He may have powerful biceps capable of holding a rifle, capable of doing arduous manual labour; but that has nothing to do with psychological maturity.
Marriage, in my opinion, is the most important step in life for most people. The individual you take for a partner can to a great degree determine your future. And it is as true to-day as it ever was that to marry in haste is to repent at leisure. Statistics prove this. Statistics show that the highest rate of divorce is found among those couples who contracted marriage at an early age. This provision in Clause 2 will encourage early marriages, and in consequence will encourage more divorces and all the miseries associated with them.

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I have wondered what has been behind this suggestion, and I hope that I shall not be regarded as cynical when I say that there is no doubt that there are certain people who stand to benefit from this measure. They are the commercial interests, the tallymen who infest the streets where poorer people live, and the hire-purchase companies who will exploit these youngsters. To-day the people engaged in such commercial interests must be rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of such a vast number of potential customers; these children who will be so gullible, and who may be persuaded on the doorstep to enter into contracts. The commercial interests are very pleased with this Bill. The clause as it stands does not confer any benefits on the majority of young people; it robs them of the protection which their immaturity merits.
3.31 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has pressed and developed the arguments which he advanced in debating the Latey Report a year ago and has put down this Amendment in support of those arguments. In supporting the Amendment I must first anticipate one obvious objection to it. It may seem that to lower the age of free marriage by only one year is so insignificant a change as to be worthless, and that it is better left at 21. This I would most strenuously deny. We are concerned as was the Latey Committee, to establish the right age for free marriage.
It is important to bear in mind that a considerable majority of popular opinion, as has already been stated—including those whom this legislation actually affects and a considerable body of expert opinion—is in favour of retaining the present age of 21. No one has seriously considered raising the age, and therefore 21 is the maximum age envisaged. Of the minority of the popular opinion which would lower the age, most favour 18, but a considerable body of expert opinion would favour 19 or 20. Most significant of all, there is virtually no support for any age lower than 18. We are faced. therefore, with a maximum of 21 and a minimum of 18. It is unfortunate that we should be asked to decide forthwith either for the maximum or for the minimum. I would submit that if 18 is the
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absolute minimum age this is in itself a sufficient reason for questioning the rightness of making the change to this age in the first instance. Discretion—and we are discussing the age of discretion—is not characterised by sudden changes of policy from one extreme to the other.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: Would the right reverend Prelate forgive my asking him what he meant when he referred to "expert opinion"? I found it a little difficult to understand the expression.
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: If the noble Lord will allow me to continue I shall be referring to what I meant by expert opinion presently. If he then wishes to ask a further question about it I hope that he will do so.
It should also be noted that the Latey Committee, while acknowledging the strength of the arguments in favour of 19 and 20, dismissed them on the grounds that 19 was not significantly different from 18 and that 20 was not significantly different from 21. This argument I do not find very convincing. In spite of their claim to be searching objectively for the right age, they were in fact considering only two possibilities, 18 or 21.
It is necessary to point out that 19 is significantly different from 21 and that 20 is significantly different from 18. The Latey Committee deny that they were in any way influenced by the argument that the age for military service should be the age for majority; an argument which they rightly, in my opinion, discount. But they were influenced by opinion polls which revealed that the sizeable minority against 21 was almost wholly in favour of 18. There can be little doubt that this popular minority opinion was largely influenced by the consideration of the age of military service, for the public discussion of this matter had to a large extent centred on this aspect. If, then, we discount: this popular minority opinion we find that, apart from the popular majority opinion that the age of free marriage should remain as it is, there are the bodies representing informed or expert opinion. These bodies are referred to by name in the Latey Committee Report. They are divided into four groups: those who favour 18, those who favour 19, those who favour 20 and those who favour 21.

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The case for 18 thus begins to look considerably weaker. The Latey Committee draw particular attention to what they call "the weightier institutions" who were consulted on this issue; and it is these that I mean by the term "expert". Those favouring 18 are cited as the Justices Clerks' Society; the Judges of the Chancery Court; the Marriage Guidance Council and the Church of England Board for Social Responsibility. The first three of these are all bodies whose experience and expertise relate in the main to certain categories of young people; namely, those who are in trouble and those who are in unfortunate circumstances. I gain the impression that the Church of England Board for Social Responsibility are inclined, by the nature of the work they do, to be weighted in that same direction.
It is a striking fact that the National Union of Teachers, the one body which can claim a comprehensive knowledge of youngsters, is not unanimous, and it is those dealing with the young in further education who are most apprehensive about reducing the age from 21. It is to these latter bodies of opinion that I suggest your Lordships should pay the closest attention. We are legislating for the future and two known factors about the future which we need to take into account are that the school-leaving age will be raised and that there will be a continuing increase in further education. The Latey Committee have established a strong case for lowering the age of majority to 18 in respect of the provisions which do not relate to marriage. But, as I have argued, they do not appear to me to have made a good case for the introduction now of 18 as the age for free marriage.
I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not wish it to be supposed that I would necessarily oppose young marriages as such. There are many young people who make good marriages; there are many who do not. But that is not the issue at stake. I believe, with the Latey Committee, that young people to-day are more independent and more responsible than formerly. I believe that they are capable of making responsible decisions in all those areas to which the other clauses of this Bill relate. But there is a
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world of difference between all these other decisions and the decision to marry, in respect both of the nature of the decision and of its consequences. Every other decision they make is capable of being changed, cancelled or amended in the light of experience. But marriage, if it is to remain a meaningful institution, is a once-for-all decision of ultimate importance, both in its nature and in its consequences, for the individuals concerned and for society as a whole. In this area we should not be happy to allow young people to learn by their mistakes. This is a point which the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has already made.
I note that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor—and I say this in passing—will later move in Amendment No. 11 to add the words in relation to the Hypnotism Act:
"persons under 21 not to be hypnotised at public entertainment".
And having observed one such instance, I would support the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack in respect of this. But would not the noble and learned Lord concede that some of the marriages around the ages of 18 and 19 appear to have analogies with hypnotic attraction?
In moving on this issue, we should not wish to be withholding from people a freedom for which there is any notable demand; and attention has already been paid to that fact by both previous speakers. It is not true that the country is seething with amorous young swains, smarting under the restraint of the law. The truth is that when parents dissuade teenage children from entering into hasty marriage, they are not seen by their children as wielding the stick of the law, as the Latey Report so emotively puts it. Legal enactments are normally very remote from the domestic situation. Rather are the parents seen as acting properly and responsibly, though in the mind of the young person no doubt wrongly, within the accepted social structure and it is the accepted social ethos created by the law which gives parents an influential position in this respect. But to change the law dramatically by reducing the age of free marriage from 21 to 18 will involve a radical disturbance in the social structure which could have very serious consequences for family relationships and for society as a whole.

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What the Latey Committee have demonstrated is that there are good grounds for lowering the age of free marriage, and the main burden of the argument which I used in speaking on the Second Reading of this Bill was in support of this. Above all, we must take seriously the fact that children are reaching physiological maturity much earlier. This means that the gap between sexual competence and marriagable age is becoming wider and this creates severe emotional problems for young people. Therefore, in my view, the age for free marriage ought to be lowered. The problem is: what is now the right age?
There can be no certainty about this. We have not adequate evidence, as the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, has said. I have already argued that the case for 18, so eloquently set forth by the Latey Committee, is extremely weak and that in any case it would be indiscreet to opt for what is universally agreed to be the absolute minimum. On this question, too, we can only learn by experience. This requires that whatever legislation we pass must be capable of revision. While it would always be possible to lower the age of free marriage, it is almost inconceivable that, having fixed it at 18, we could ever raise it again. That is a strong point to which the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has already referred. Therefore, in my view, there is everything to be said for lowering the age by stages. It may be that ultimately it will be reduced to 18, but at least we shall have the satisfaction of having arrived at it by empirical means and not by a precipitate and possibly disastrous leap in the dark.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I support this Amendment very strongly. I think that everything that needs to be said has probably been already said, but I would add one or two remarks. The right reverend Prelate said that young people are much more responsible today. I would question that. They are certainly more willing to assert their own opinions than they used to be, but I wonder whether in fact they are more responsible—that is to say, able to take responsibilities. My noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor put his finger on the crux of the matter when he asked, "Are young people emotionally more mature?" We have only to look at the
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antics of some of the students of our universities in the past two or three years and ask ourselves if they are mature human beings who are a3le to make the decision whether they are making a good or a bad marriage.
There is one other point. It his become rather the fashion, owing perhaps to television and films and other influences, for young people to look upon marriage as rather a pleasant experiment. They have the attitude which says, "Oh, it doesn't matter if it does not work. We can always get a divorce". Marriage should not be looked upon like that. It is a contract for life and, speaking personally as a member of the Christian Church, I believe that it is something more. I cannot feel that the attitude of the young people I have described ought to be encouraged; and it will be encouraged if we take the step which, as my noble friend pointed out only too rightly, cannot be reversed once it is taken. The Government then, if they insist on the age of 18, will have upon their shoulders the responsibility for who knows how many miserable, wrecked marriages that have become so purely because the two partners were too young to know what: they were doing.
3.48 p.m.
BARONESS SEROTA: Before turning to the Amendment which is before the Committee, I wonder whether I may, with all the humility of a relative newcomer to your Lordships' House, say with the greatest respect to my noble friend Lady Summerskill, who has a lifetime of Parliamentary experience behind her, that perhaps her speech to-day should have been made on Second Reading, or even earlier when your Lordships debated the Report of the Latey Committee generally in November a year ago.
My noble friend asked at the outset why the Government had brought forward this Bill and why there had been no discussion. I would remind the Committee that when moving the Second Reading of this Bill I said that debates had already been held, both in this House and in another place, so that the Government could get Parliament's reaction to the Latey Report. I think that even noble Lords opposite would not accuse this Government of pandering to commercial interests. I should hardly have

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thought that that was the motive for bringing this Bill forward to-day.
Turning to the particular subject of the Amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has indicated it would have the effect that the Bill which is before the Committee would lower the age of free marriage from 21 to 20, instead of to 18 as recommended by the Latey Committee. Yet your Lordships' Committee have only this afternoon, without debate and without airing any doubts or fears, given approval to Clause 1 of the Bill. By doing so, I submit that your Lordships have endorsed the principal clause reducing the age of full legal majority from 21 to 18, thereby accepting the need and the case for change, which was based on the general findings of the majority of the Latey Committee, and have shown your confidence in the maturity and responsibility of young people to-day.
It is in this context that the Government find the Amendment, argued by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, with his usual care, cogency and, indeed, concern for human beings, both illogical and inconsistent. Having decided, on the balance of all the arguments that were deployed last year, and again here on Second Reading, that the age of 21 no longer reflects the needs and maturity of young people to-day; having considered the effects of withholding responsibility from them—a point which I think weighed heavily at the time when we discussed these matters—and having decided to reduce the age of full legal capacity to 18, surely it would now be completely inconsistent to make them subject to parental or legal strictures on this most personal subject of all for two further years after society has recognised them as full adults.
In all fairness, it must be said that those who have sponsored this Amendment, with the exception of my noble friend Lady Summerskill, have all spoken against lowering the age of free marriage, either in our general debate or on the Second Reading of the Bill, and it is quite natural, in view of the importance of this matter, that their concern should centre on this particular aspect of the proposed charges. For, after all, marriage is the most important contract of all, and one which involves not only the happiness
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of the couple themselves, but also that of the children.
I would, however, assure your Lordships that this concern to ensure stable marriage and all that it means for future generations in this country is not confined to those who are hesitant about, or opposed completely to, the need for change. It is clear from reading the Latey Report (and as has already been mentioned during this discussion I was a member of the Committee) that that Committee, under the distinguished chairmanship of a Judge of the Divorce Division of the High Court, who, above all, must be aware of the tragedy of the failed marriage, stated quite clearly that marriage was the most difficult and most important of all our subjects. And in all the debates that have taken place on this subject, both here and in another place, those in favour of reducing the age of free marriage have indicated that they are equally anxious not to harm family relationships, and have reaffirmed their belief that it is the force of parental persuasion and the quality of the parent-child relationship, rather than the present strictures of the law, that stops unwise marriages. This, I think, is the crux of the argument.
I hasten to assure my noble friend Lady Summerskill that the Latey Committee did not take this as a theoretical discussion: it was given the most practical, serious and lengthy consideration. All of us are at one in not wishing to encourage early marriage. The Latey Committee leaned against early marriage. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, gave us the figures of the vulnerability of early marriage. But, as the right reverend Prelate said a moment ago, quite rightly, it is not true that all young marriages are unsuccessful; and his view was very much borne out by weighty evidence from the British Medical Association, who stressed to the Latey Committee that young parents to-day are capable of bringing up their young families with responsibility and maturity in a society which sometimes presents grave difficulties to families with young children.
The questions before the Committee today really fall into four main groups. The first question that we must ask ourselves is: Does the law, as it stands at present, stop unwise marriages? The second question is: Do parents at present refuse

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their consent in the vast majority of cases where young people wish to marry under the age of 21? Thirdly, do the courts generally endorse the wishes of the parents or of the young people in the cases of those disputes which reach them? Fourthly—and I think perhaps most important of all to-day—what would be the reaction of young people, parents and society, as a whole, to the new situation to which this particular Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, would give rise, if it were to be agreed that young people were of full legal capacity—as already agreed by the Committee under Clause 1 of the Bill—entitled to an independent domicile, full contractual capacity, and all that is set out in Clause I—in fact regarded by society as adult in almost every aspect of the civil field except that of marriage?
The answers to the first three of the questions that I have just posed have been discussed very fully indeed in all the debates that we have had on this subject, and I do not think the Committee would thank me if I were to weary them by going over those questions again. The fact remains that, whether we like it or not, there has been a continuous trend towards early marriage ever since the Second World War; that parents, in the main, are not standing against early marriage; and that in the majority of the few cases where they do—some 500 or 600 a year, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, said a little earlier—the courts in the main come down in favour of the young people rather than in favour of the parents.
None of us, as I have already indicated, wishes to accelerate this trend. But the figures that are available in the Appendices to the Latey Report, which have been given in earlier debates in this House, indicate clearly that the present need for parents to give consent to marriage up to the age of 21 is not effective in holding back this trend; and, as I have already mentioned, the courts generally find in favour of the young people. But in the new situation of this Bill, the main issue raised by Lord Brooke's Amendment, and by those of your Lordships who are supporting it, is the possible effect of having one age for full legal capacity and another, two years later, for free marriage, and whether this
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will worsen or improve parent/child relationships. Surely, if we agree that the vast majority of young people are sufficiently mature and responsible to handle their own affairs—and I think in the main there is agreement on this—and if we give them the right to do so, the acceptance of this Amendment could only introduce confusion and difficulty into a field in which there should be clarity, and create disharmony and disillusionment among the young people themselves and, more important, between themselves and their parents.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has reminded us to-day that there is no magic in the age of 21, 20, or for that matter 18, or indeed 50. We are all agreed that the concept of an age of majority represents just an arbitrary moment of time at which young people should asume full responsibility, as well as the rights of adult citizens. Parents do not stop being parents, as all of us who are fortunate enough to be Parents have learned, when their children become 21, 20 or 18: parenthood lasts far life. And it is most unlikely that, if this Bill is passed in its present form, all young people of the age of 18 will went to rush out and get married. This simply does not relate to the facts as they exist to-day. We shall surely find that most young people will naturally turn to their parents and consult their parents and need their support and advice on this very important matter for their happiness and future.
I believe that most children to-day, where they are fortunate enough to have had a happy and secure upbringing, are reluctant to go against their parents' advice. A change in the law will not change the basic responsibility of young people to find the right partner in marriage. But I wonder whether the Amendment put before the Committee now, for parents to retain a legal veto for a further two years, would help the character and atmosphere of family life, or whether this would be a further source of possible conflict and friction.
I submit that this Amendment is an unnecessary compromise in which we should get the worst of both worlds. If we take the view of the Latey Committee—and by its approval of Clause 1 I think the Committee have accepted the main burden of their findings that young people

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to-day are sufficiently mature at 18 for a full legal capacity, surely we cannot let the age we are now considering go down by stages for experiment year by year. Those who are really opposed to this change I think would be rightly justified in agreeing with the minority of the Latey Committee. They made a very cogent case for their own point of view, with which I personally do not agree. They would be better advised to stick to 21, if I may put it that way. If there is real hesitancy and doubt, one could make a strong case for 21. But 20, in my view and in the view of the Government, is neither one thing nor the other. Those of your Lordships, and I hope it is the majority of your Lordships, who agree that the vast majority of to-day's younger generation are sufficiently mature and responsible to attain full legal capacity at 18, will surely reject this Amendment and not separate the age for free marriage from the full age for contractual capacity for domicile and property purposes, with all the difficulties, disillusions, among the young certainly, and disharmony that such a division of responsibility could bring. I would urge your Lordships to reject this Amendment and to agree to the clause as it now stands.
4.3 p.m.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: I should explain that although I spoke in your Lordships' House on the Latey Report, I was not able to be present at the Second Reading of the Bill we are discussing to-day. I was, however, so shocked by the proposal to lower to 18 the age of marriage without parental consent that last week I put down an Amendment in favour of keeping it at 21. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, however, put down the Amendment which we are now debating and, in view of his far greater wisdom and experience, I withdrew my own Amendment and put my name under his. I could go along with 20, but I could never go along with 18.
May I begin by quoting the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, himself from his speech in the debate on the Latey Report? He said:
"The test must surely be: What arrangement will make for the greatest happiness?—not just the greatest happiness for the individual in isolation; not just for the individual at the moment of greatest pleasure; but for the ever-moving, ever-changing, society of
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which each individual is a component and an important part."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22/11/67, col. 1057.]
Lord Brooke could hardly have put it better. What we are discussing to-day is human happiness and the way to find the greatest happiness for the greatest number. It is on this basis that we shall decide whether to take this step into the unknown, this leap into the dark. We have, in short, to make up our minds whether or not this is an acceptable risk. Naturally, there are arguments for and against. The arguments in favour of the Bill as it now stands are, if I may say so, neither cogent nor based upon experience.
May I take these arguments, very briefly, one by one. The first is epitomised in the ex-cathedra statement by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, that (I think I quote correctly),
"People act responsibly only if one treats them as responsible".
I agree with the noble and learned Lord on almost every single act of social reform which has come before this House, but legislation of this kind is such that I, and perhaps others of your Lordships, cannot so readily accept it. With great respect to the noble and learned Lord, on what practical and empirical grounds does he say this thing? And, to reduce the argument to the absurd, could it not equally be applied to the 12, 13 or 14-year-olds? The principle seems quite simply to be one of, "Try it out and see what happens". One could, of course, apply such an argument to a parent who decided to throw his child into the water to see whether it could swim. Some children no doubt could swim; others would drown. According to the figures, one thing is certain: the earlier young people marry the more likely it is that they are going to get divorced. Frankly, I do not believe, and I do not believe that other noble Lords in the House will be so naïve as to believe, that by offering young people the chance, as it were, on a plate of making their own decisions it is necessarily going to make them any more high-minded or nobly intentioned. Why should it?
Next I come to the extraordinary argument that parents are not fit to judge upon their children's marriages because they are emotionally prejudiced. Gracious goodness! if the parents are emotionally

733
prejudiced, what are the children themselves? Are they any more likely to be capable of forming an objective judgment than are those who brought them into the world and presumably wish them well? Is anyone seriously going to suggest that a couple in love are more likely to form a reasoned judgment than are those who are at any rate distant by one remove? Finally—and this has been said before throughout this debate—do the boys and girls want this thing? Apparently not. But in the name of theory and in the name of social progress we must seemingly set our teeth and push our way forward into an unknown wilderness—with, of course, the blessing of the Observer.
And just this further thought. Some play has been made of the fact that of those young people who go to magistrates for consent in defiance of their parents, a majority are given the magistrates' blessing. These statistics are surely meaningless, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has said. Those who go to the magistrates are presumably determined young people with a good case to plead. What about the numbers who do not go to the magistrates because of the present law; because, great as is their devotion, indeed their deep love for one another, they prefer to wait rather than face the risk of opposition of their respective parents in open court? For every case which comes to the court I would reckon there are many which are argued inside the family. Parental consent as it now stands is like the fleet in being: it rarely fires its guns, but it is always there. So much for the arguments for reducing the age to 18. I suggest that these are largely emotional arguments and that they do not stand up in either logic or reason.
But, of course, the nub of the business is this. Accepting the arguments that boys and girls mature physically younger and that they are better educated, does that mean, as has been asserted at least three times, that they are more mature emotionally? Do your Lordships honestly believe that because orange juice and "O" levels have changed the human body and the human mind for the better, the same applies when it comes to maturity of judgment? Has it made them any more mature than we
734
were forty—some of us less, some of us more than forty—years ago? The young and noble Lord, Lord Feversham (alas! he cannot be with us to-day), said:
"It is pure conjecture to claim that the young might or might not be more responsible. Personally, I do not believe there has been much change in either direction".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22/11 68, col. 1106.]
There is simply no evidence whatever that boys and girls are emotionally more stable than they were in 1910 or 1810. How can there be? Certainly there was nothing in the Latey Report, except that it spoke in an airy-fairy way of the
"increasing self-reliance of young people in conducting their own affairs".
It might have been more appropriate, though no less accurate, if they had spoken of their "love affairs".
In this matter of the future for the younger generation, and, more important, for their children, far too little has been said about the children of divorcees. We are groping in the dark and we are playing with the lives of others. None of us really knows, but I fear that some of us may be motivated not only by high intentions but perhaps by a slight desire to be "with it". My Lords, it is not our job to be "with it". It is unseemly for the old to ape the young.
May I put this case briefly? If you believe in an increased divorce rate; if you believe in broken homes, which of course is what divorce means; if you believe that parents are out of date; if you believe that love conquers all; if you believe that, because of better nutrition and better education, human nature has changed; if you believe (and this is the argumentum ad hominem) that at the age of 18 you would have regarded yourselves as qualified to take the greatest single step in your lives—if you believe these things (and I wonder which of your Lordships conscientiously can believe them) then naturally you will vote against the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke. But, if you believe, as I do, that we have no right to experiment with the happiness of the younger generation, which, to use the words of the Minority Report,
"has no wish to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the permissive atmosphere of the 20th century";
above all if you believe in the dignity and sanctity of human marriage, then I

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ask you to support the noble Lord in his Amendment.
4.13 p.m.
BARONESS BIRK: In speaking against this Amendment I should like first to take up a couple of the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Arran. With great respect, I do not think that he can have some of his arguments both ways. Having argued that the number of young people who apply at magistrates' courts for permission to marry is small, he went on to say that thousands of young people do not go to the magistrates' courts because they do not want to upset their parents. I think the noble Earl ought to produce evidence to support his contention. If they do not go to the magistrates' courts it is not because they do not want to upset their parents in the court, but because they do not want to have a bad relationship with their parents, and because the matter has been talked out at home: and they are delaying their marriage for that reason.
I cannot see how any change in the law, even if the age of majority is reduced to 18, will make that sudden difference in the parent/child relationship. I would also say—and as a parent I say it somewhat regretfully—that I do not think parents have the monopoly of knowing what is right in the case of two young people in love, however unsuitable we may think the marriage would be. Nor do I think that trying to understand how young people feel—and perhaps how we felt at the same age—is an indication that one is aping the young: rather is it an indication that one is trying to understand and to reduce what is certainly a considerable degree of alienation between the generations.
In 1967, 162,145 girls under the age of 21 were married, compared with 65,956 boys, which means that there is a considerable difference between the number of girls who marry at a young age and the number of boys. If one takes the age of 18, one finds that 8,972 boys were married as compared with 31,343 girls, which is a ratio of roughly one to four. I would say to my noble friend, Lady Summerskill, for whom I have always had an enormous respect over the many years I have known her, that those miniskirted, booted, attractive young girls,
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who certainly got a response from your Lordships when she mentioned them, are not trying to get boys of 18 into their clutches: they are looking for rather older men. They do not want to marry immature boys of 18. I think it would be found that the boys of 18 who get married are, in fact, marrying girls of 16 or 17; and, even when the law is changed, these girls will still be subject to parental consent.
I agree with the noble Baroness that, on the whole, a girl of 18 is more sophisticated and more mature, and if a girl of 18 marries a boy of 18 the chances are that he is probably one of the mature 18-year-old boys. On the other hand, as happens occasionally—and it always gets great publicity—if a boy of 18 marries a woman who is much older than himself he will get a wife with all the maternity attached, and I imagine that the noble Baroness will accept that in such a case he will be in good care and well protected.
Listening to the right reverend Prelate, I thought, if he will forgive me for saying so, that both in his speech to-day and during the Second Reading debate he was not so much trying to persuade the rest of us as trying to persuade himself. I thought he accepted the concept of 18 as the age of majority—
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: May I just say to the noble Baroness that I was indeed trying to persuade her and others in your Lordships' House to my view.
BARONESS BIRK: I thought that the right reverend Prelate was trying to persuade himself even harder than he was trying to persuade the rest of us. But I agree very much with my noble friend Lady Serota, who put so well the reasons why a majority age of 20 would be getting the worst of both worlds. In addition to the point that she made, I would point out that 18 is generally the age at which the majority of young people are out at work. We must not think exclusively of the fairly small proportion who are still students, as compared with the vast numbers of people who are working and earning their living at that age.
There are so many other reasons why they are now given responsibility, and therefore 18 seems the right age. I say this with great respect to the noble Lord,

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Lord Brooke of Cumnor, because I understand the doubts which many people have about this subject. But I think it would be rather insulting to young people to say to them, "We do not think you are old enough to marry at 18, but we will just give you a drop of one year." I do not think this would show that we have any confidence in their maturity or that we believe they will rise to the responsibility we are giving them.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, took the analogy of driving, and said that one has to gain experience in order to drive. I might add that in order to drive a motor car you must have training and pass a test: you have to show that you know something about it. What we in this country need to do is to make sure that young people know a great deal more about marriage than they do at present. They should have training and guidance for it: not only in regard to the sexual facts of life, but in regard to the whole economic and emotional concept of what marriage will mean to them. I believe that in this way we should bring into being the social strategy of reducing the age of majority to 18, and we should show ourselves—that is to say, the Administration, the educational bodies and everyone connected with this matter—that young people have the guidance and the help that is necessary.
The lack of experience (of which my noble friend Lady Summerskill gave examples), is partly due, I think, to lack of years—and, of course, everybody starts with that advantage or disadvantage and then grows out of it—and is also due to the fact that we have not tried any scheme for giving real guidance and help. Young people who now reach the age of majority at 21 have not had it. So, naturally, many of your Lordships, if I may say so with respect, are arguing from that basis, whereas if we took it from a more positive point of view and said: "Yes, the age of majority should be 18, but it is up to us to see that the legislation is sustained and supported by the proper social, psychological, emotional, and every other help", then I think we should be recognising the increasing maturity of young people. Although there are no scientific means of measuring it, if one meets young people, both individually
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and in organisations, as I do, and if one speaks to lecturers and teachers, one finds a very great body of opinion that the young people of to-day are more mature and ready to accept responsibility. I think it would be quite insulting, as well as wrong, to say to them, "You are fit to take on all these other responsibilities; you are fit to sign hire purchase agreements and so on, but you are not fit to make a personal decision".
Finally, I would say, as a parent myself, that we are looking at this mystic idea of 21 just as legislators and not as parents. As parents, do we suddenly think that at 21 our children are now able to make all the right decisions and are very wise? Not at all. When they reach 21 and over we are still worried whether they are making the right decision, the right marriage. I hope your Lordships will reject this Amendment. In other debates in your Lordships' House we are always assuring the young people that they are the people who are going to take over the world and that they have so much to contribute. Let us show them we have confidence in them to use their common sense, and et us help them to do so.
LORD BOOTHBY: I have three sentences before the noble Lord puts the Question from the Chair—I know your Lordships are anxious to get a decision upon it. I sincerely believe that this is one of those gusts of irrelevant lunacy that overtake all Governments from time to time. There is no rationale behind it at all. It does not make sense. As the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, said, there is no demand for this in the country at all. There is no justification for this at all. Not a single valid argument has been brought forward in its favour, and I hope very much that your Lordships will support the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: I do not wish to detain your Lordships, but there are two points that I should like to bring out. First, we have the institution of the family in this country and it is very, very valuable. If we pass this Amendment to make 20 the age of marriage and the parents do not like it, in this permissive age what are the young people going to do? They are going to live together and marry when they are

739
20. This is immoral, and I think they should be given an opportunity to make up their minds when they are 18 whether to marry or not. Therefore, I hope your Lordships will reject this Amendment.
4.25 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Before the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, replies, may I deal with one or two of the points raised? The two out of eleven who formed the minority of the Latey Committee laid great stress on a poll taken by National Opinion Polls, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has referred to this and stressed it on each of the occasions on which he has addressed the House upon this subject. It is dealt with, beginning at page 201, in the Latey Committee's Report. The first thing to note about it is that the weighted base of all respondents from 16 to 20 was 409. I am quite prepared to be contradicted about this; your Lordships know more about it than I do. I am quite prepared to believe that modern statistical sampling has reached a very high art, but I find it, as a matter of sheer common sense, very difficult to believe that if you want to find out what 4,300,000 young men and women between school leaving age and 21 think about this matter you can really find out by asking 409.
The second thing is that the sample was not prepared for these questions. A poll was being taken of selected householders on a number of subjects and questions on the age of majority were added on at the end. Having asked these selected householders what they thought, those taking the poll said, "Have you any people under 21 here?"; and if there were, then they asked them these questions. As your Lordships know, and I know, a large majority of the 4,300,000 are supporting themselves and living away from home. It was because of the circumstances to which I have referred that when they were asked how many of the respondents under 21 were living with parents or guardians it was found that the answer was 93 per cent. That was because it was tagged on to this sample of resident householders. It seems to me, if I may say so, not at all representative of what young people think. And what is interesting is that the third who wanted some other age than 21 are in the same position as the
740
noble Lord, Lord Brooke; they thought it ought to be less than 21. When this group were asked, "What age do you think it ought to be?", 7 per cent. said 16, 2 per cent. said 17, 75 per cent. said 18, 12 per cent. said 19, and only 1 per cent. agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, that it ought to be 20.
Another point which has been made is that in Scotland for a very long time all young people have been free to marry from the age of 16 without anybody's consent, and it is said on the one hand. "Nothing awful has followed from that; there is no movement in Scotland to have parental consent above 16". On the other hand, it has been said that if you look at the figures you will find that the number of divorces after only three or four years is very much higher in Scotland than in England and this shows how unwise it is to require no consent above the age of 16. The answer to that is this. It is indeed true that for four years after marriage the divorce rate in Scotland is substantially higher than in England; but after five years it is exactly the same. The reason for that is nothing to do with the age of 16 and no parental consent. It is simply this. Your Lordships know that it is the law—and under the Divorce Reform Bill, which by a substantial majority received a Second Reading in another place this afternoon, will remain the law—that no petition for dissolution of marriage can be presented within three years of the marriage, except by leave of the court, which is granted only in circumstances of exceptional hardship or exceptional depravity. This has never been the law in Scotland.
The Scottish Law Commission were recently asked whether they would be in favour of this law in Scotland so that the law in the two countries would be uniform, and they said, "Certainly not. We have always regarded it as a load of rubbish. It does no good at all except to put off a divorce where the marriage has obviously broken down, and we would not entertain it for a moment. "That is the real reason. Here I have graphs showing the divorce rate in England and Wales on the one hand, and Scotland on the other hand, for 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1966. They all tell the same tale, showing in Scotland a larger number of divorces in the first four years,

741
and then at the end of the fifth year they are just about the same. That, I suggest, is the reason for that.
My noble friend Lady Summerskill, asked, "Where does this demand come from?" She seemed to think, and I think she has said this before, that it all comes from the hire-purchase people. May I assure her—this may be regarded as the weakness of the case—that in a sense it all comes from me, because when I was chairman of the Labour Party Youth Commission some nine or ten years ago I was amazed to find how entirely out of line the Common Law was with the Statute Law in this field. By Common Law a man of 20 was treated exactly the same as a boy of 9. He could not give a valid receipt; he could not get a passport; he could not make a contract unless a judge thought it was for necessaries; he could not make a will; he could not get a house; he could not negotiate a mortgage, and so on.
But Parliament had taken quite a different line. Parliament had said, in the days of hanging, that you could be hanged at 18, and in the days of conscription that you could be called up at 18. You can be the pilot in sole charge of an aircraft at 18, and so forth. These two things just did not fit, so much so that although you can be a pilot in sole charge of an aircraft at 18 you cannot enter into an enforceable contract to take flying lessons until you are 21, because that is Common Law. So I thought it was about time that somebody looked at this subject, particularly when as I found that there was, and there is, no factual basis of any kind whatever for choosing 21 instead of 22 or instead of 20. As your Lordships know, it comes entirely from the weight of armour in the Middle Ages, and it is literally hundreds of years since anybody in this county has applied his mind to the question: In the circumstances of the day, what is the right age at which people ought to be treated as responsible?
The noble Baroness said that nobody takes any interest in, or writes letters on, the subject. Nobody has to put in a memorandum to a committee if he does not want to. I have here seven of nine files containing literally hundreds of memoranda, and so forth, which were put before the Committee. The Com-
742
mittee sat mostly all day for 65 days, hearing 81 witnesses. The noble Baroness has said—
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, my noble and learned friend invited the memoranda.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Presumably the fact that the Committee had been set up was of course announced. The noble Baroness said that nobody writes. I have here the letters.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Which you invited.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, if there had been no interest in the subject nobody would have written them.
There are some things on which we are all agreed. We are all agreed that early marriage is a bad thing and is to be discouraged. I remember well that when the noble Lord, Lord Henley, opened the debate on a Motion which he put down to consider the Latey Report that was the first thing he said, and I said later how much I agreed with him, because young marriages are more at risk; the failure rate is markedly higher. Therefore the first thing on which I hope we can all agree is that early marriages are to be discouraged. The second thing is this. The present law does not achieve this discouragement. Of all worsen in England and Wales who marry to-day,42 per cent. do so under age. So the present law does not stop that. The truth is that none of us knows exactly what happens because the facts ate not known: that is to say, nobody knows in what proportion of cases parents are successful or unsuccessful in dissuading. Where relationships are good between parents and children, no doubt is the ordinary way they sort it out between them. But there is this large number of marriages every year where often both parties are under age.
The Committee have accepted the case that if you are looking for the right age at which young people ought to be treated as responsible it is not a question of whether they are more responsible now than they were, because we do not know that 21 was ever the right age; it has never really been considered before. But if you are looking for an age, then by passing Clause 1 and putting down no

743
Amendment to it your Lordships have accepted that for everything else except marriage 18 is the right age at which young people ought to be treated as responsible. The onus, I should have thought, was on the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, to say why marriage is an exception.
If we are all honest, I think we must admit that we do not know, because, as I have said, we do not really know what happens. We know that in some 600 cases a year young people feel sufficiently strongly about it to go off to a court—though taking parents to court is not perhaps the best way of starting married life. We know that in the majority of those cases the court finds that the young people are right and the parents are wrong. That does not greatly surprise me, because I think that two people have sometimes a pretty good idea whether they are the right people for one another, and I doubt whether anybody else has. I suggested on Second Reading that young people would be better advised to ask a teacher who knows them both well; whereas parents, of course, are so emotionally involved. They usually regard their own children as younger than they really are. A good many parents would be horrified if they knew what their children really do. Father wanted his son to marry the sort of girl he had always wanted to marry himself but had not. Mother wanted the daughter to stay at home to look after the housework. They are not in any way disinterested people; usually they are emotionally involved themselves.
I have read a great deal of the evidence which was given to the Committee, and the great bulk of the evidence which impressed me was that of people who spent most of their time dealing with young people—the Marriage Guidance Councils, people in schools, business people. I remember Mrs. Sugg, whose firm has interviewed a quarter of a million young women in the last twenty years, saying what a great change there has been lately in the type who come to be interviewed. They leave home and come to London. They are entirely independent; they live on their own. I remember that she said that only seven years ago the average age of the girls who went to work overseas was 21; to-day, the average is between 17 and 19.
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We know, of course, of the great increase in illegitimate children. We know from those who are concerned in work with them in how many cases this is because parents have refused their consent and the young people, being able to support themselves, have just gone off and lived together and had children. Is that what you want to happen? This is not in the least a question of whether we want more early marriages or fewer early marriages. The sole question is, what is the effect of parents being able to invoke the law? I can quite believe that that may have a good effect for young people of the ages of 16 and 17; but anybody who thinks that today you can control men and women of 18 or 19 is, I should have thought, misguided.
May I just remind your Lordships that in the debate on the Latey Report the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Leicester, spoke of the evidence given by an organisation used to dealing with young children, the Church of England Board for Social Responsibility. He said:
"We had all over the country, in our various diocese, social workers, whom we used to describe as moral welfare workers, and together they touch something like 25,000 cases, or are in touch with that number at any one time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22/11/67, col. 1078.]
Then he said:
"I have come to the conclusion that the real evidence suggests that the parental veto, if we may use that 'shorthand' expression, is simply not working. In the first place, quite clearly, in an enormous number of cases it is not exercised at all."—[col. 1079.]
Then he referred to 215 short case histories which had been supplied by that organisation. He mentioned one or two in particular, and referred to the 25,000 illegitimate births to women under the age of 21. Then he said:
"We notice, too, that most other forms—I think I can say 'all other forms '—of family protection cease at the age of 16. It is well known that at the age of 16 young people can leave home if they want to do so, and that their parents can turn them out if they want to do so. When in fact they do leave home, or are turned out, and somehow or other they struggle on for two or three years and then want to get married, it seems quite artificial that they have to resurrect parental authority and go back to the father and mother who either turned them out or upon whom they turned their backs, in order to have a decision on the whole of their future.
"In any case, we have no evidence at all that in a large number of cases if parental consent had been refused things would in fact

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have been any better: in other words, no exact tie-up can be proved between the divorce rate and the question of parental consent.
"So it is an extremely doubtful argument whether much can be done about the divorce rate by keeping the present rule of parental consent as it is."—[col. 1081–2.]
I should have thought what was important was evidence of that sort, or that of a conservative body like the British Medical Association containing all the family doctors, who were strongly in favour of a reduction of the age to 18, not because they wanted more early marriages. None of us wants that.
The question is, what good do you do if you cannot persuade young people not to make what parents may think is an unwise marriage? If you cannot persuade them, those of 18 and 19 are to-day in fact not capable of control. They go off, they start families of their own, and indeed, as the Latey Committee said, whereas very often there used to be a shotgun pointing at the young man's head because of a pregnancy, now there are deliberate pregnancies in order to force the parents' hand. The whole question accordingly is, what can one say, all of us being satisfied—as shown by the passing of Clause 1 and no Amendment to it being put down—that, with earlier physical development, with earlier mental development, with secondary education having started already with the Butler Education Act, young people are all much better educated to-day, and many of them better educated at 18 than their fathers are now.
Your Lordships are not, after all, judging what is wise for the children of the upper classes, but for all of them. I would ask your Lordships to vote against this Amendment because I am satisfied, for the same reasons as the Latey Committee, that on the whole this power of consent is one which cannot usefully be used and which, on the whole, does more harm than good. If 18 is now the right age for treating people as responsible, it is illogical to form an exception which they will naturally resent even more bitterly if they are treated as responsible in every other way.
4.45 p.m.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: I am grateful to noble Lords, from all parts of the House, and to the right reverend Prelate, who have spoken in support of
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my Amendment. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Serota, and to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for the care with which in their speeches they addressed themselves to it. May I say again that in a matter of this character I should not dream of urging any of my noble friends to support my Amendment solely on Party grounds. I agree with those who have said that this is as far as anything can be from a matter of Party judgment. We have heard the debate, and we should come to our individual conclusions.
The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, spoke against my Amendment, and yet I noticed that she, perhaps unawares, let slip the adjective "immature" in relation to boys of 18. When she suggested (and I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Serota, also said this) that it would be insulting to young people to insist on 20 as the age of free marriage when, under Clause 1, the general age of majority is to be 18, I really cannot understand why it should be considered insulting to young people if Parliament legislates against a proposal which, by a majority of two to one, they have themselves rejected in a public opinion poll. The noble and learned Lord sought to cast doubts on the public opinion poll. I am the last person to claim that public opinion polls are representations of absolute truth. Nevertheless, this; one seems to have been carried out with some authority, because when he referred your Lordships to page 201 of the Latey Report I looked up that page and I found at the top, "Appendix 9: Summary of a Survey carried out by the Government Social Survey". One cannot do better than that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Serota, said that she feared that disillusion and disharmony would result if we fixed this age at 20, instead of 18. She suggested that we should be better advised to stick to 21. I would say, with great respect, that it is for each of your Lordships to decide how he would be best advised; and I hope that noble Lords will feel best advised, and particularly advised by the speech of the right reverend Prelate, to support my suggestion of 20. The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, said that the right reverend Prelate was trying to persuade himself. Well, he may have been doing that as well; but, judging

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by the reception given to his speech, I thought he was remarkably successful in persuading your Lordships in all parts of the House by the cogency of his arguments.
The noble Baroness, Lady Serota, asked whether, if we do require an extra two years beyond 18 for parental consent, it will help the character of family life. I realise that all this is extremely difficult to assess, but I think that the number of cases where the character of family life might be grievously upset by an unhappy marriage contracted at 18 under the Bill as it stands would more than offset such other cases as there may be where the insistence on parental consent may cause strain within the family.
However, I thought that both the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the noble Baroness were principally seeking to demolish my arguments by reliance on the ground that there must be one age throughout. I really cannot accept that as valid. I did not speak on Clause 1 because, frankly, I agree with Clause 1. I believe it is desirable that at the age of 18 there should be a general right to enter into contracts, a general right to make wills, and so forth; but I do not think we should read off from
that that the age of free marriage should also be 18.
The noble and learned Lord quoted the British Medical Association as being very authoritative in this field. What the Association said was:
"It is difficult to state that maturity has occurred after passing any particular milestone in life. Maturity is a continuing process over a period of time, and it is reasonable to allow the assumption of certain responsibilities at an earlier age than others."
That is just the point that I am seeking to establish. It cannot be argued with cogency that because Clause 1 has been approved by the Committee our decision there on these minor matters of property and wills must govern our decision on the major matter of marriage. Indeed, I should have thought that that was made absolutely clear by the majority of the Latey Committee themselves, when they said:
"Make the wrong contract and you suffer for a year or two, and perhaps make an adult trader miserable for a few months; make a wrong marriage and you may suffer for life and spoil the lives of your children after you."
I must press this Amendment.
4.51 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 77; Not-Contents, 71.

CONTENTS

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Essex, E.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Albemarle, E.

Ferrier, L.

Newton, L.

Ampthill, L.

Fortescue, E.

Norwich, L.Bp.

Arran, E.

Grenfell, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Asquith of Yarnbury, Bs.

Gridley, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Auckland, L.

Guest, L.

Ripon, L.Bp.

Audley, Bs.

Hankey, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Barrington, V.

Hanworth, V.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Boothby, L.

Hawke, L.

St. Davids, V.

Brentford, V.

Horsbrugh, Bs.

St. Helens, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Howard of Glossop, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L. [Teller.]

Hylton-Foster, Bs.

Sandford, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Iddesleigh, E.

Sempill, Ly.

Carrington, L.

Ilford, L.

Somers, L,

Conesford, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Southwark, L.Bp.

Craigavon, V.

Kinnoull, E.

Stamp, L.

Crathorne, L.

Kirkwood, L.

Strang, L.

Cromartie, E.

Lindgren, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Denham, L.

Loudoun, C.

Summerskill, Bs. [Teller.]

Drumalbyn, L.

Margadale, L.

Thurlow, L.

Dudley, L.

Merrivale, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Dundonald, E.

Milverton, L.

Vivian, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Molson, L.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Monsell, V.

Wise, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Morton of Henryton, L.

Wolverton, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Pargiter, L.

Addison, V.

Eccles, V.

Peddie, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Evans of Hungershall, L.

Phillips, Bs.

Amherst, E.

Faringdon, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Amulree, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Raglan, L.

Archibald, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Arwyn, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

Rusholme, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hall, V.

Sainsbury, L.

Beswick, L.

Helsby, L.

Serota, Bs.

Bethell, L.

Henley, L.

Shackleton, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Birk, Bs.

Hill of Wivenhoe, L.

Silkin, L.

Blyton, L.

Hilton of Upton, L. [Teller.]

Soper, L.

Bowles, L. [Teller.]

Jessel, L.

Sorensen, L.

Brockway, L.

Kennet, L.

Stocks, B.

Brown, L.

Latham, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Leatherland, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Burden, L.

Listowel, E.

Teynham, L.

Byers, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs

Wade, L.

Champion, L.

Maelor, L.

Walston, L.

Chorley, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Collison, L.

Mitchison, L.

Wootton of Abinger, Bs.

Colville of Culross, V.

Moyle, L.

Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Moynihan, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Maintenance for children under Guardianship of Infants Acts to continue to age of 21]:
5.0 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY LORD CHORLEY moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 4, line 42, leave out subsection (4).
The noble Lord said: We now pass to a number of Amendments which are closely connected and which I am afraid your Lordships will feel are not quite as important as the matter with which we have just dealt, but which nevertheless deal with a matter of considerable importance. In this Part of the Bill we are concerned with lowering the age of majority from 21 to 18, and the Bill to a large extent is taken up with a number of provisions in earlier Acts of Parliament relating in various ways to maintenance for young people between 18 and 21, which it is desired should be kept going but which would, of course, disappear unless some safeguarding provisions were put into the Bill. In effect, Part I of the Bill is to a large extent static, and that is really what I am complaining about.
As I pointed out in my speech on this subject during Second Reading, when we
750
get to Part II of the Bill we get to a reforming area in which very considerable inroads are made into the Common Law on illegitimacy, which is in a very narrow and unsatisfactory state in the modern world. But the spirit of reform which animates Part II is completely absent from Part I. The clauses in Part I with which I am dealing in this Amendment and in the two succeeding Amendments are aimed at keeping the law quite static, keeping the unfortunate distinction between the rights of legitimate and illegitimate children which has marked the law in the past; in other words, not looking at these problems from a reforming angle. The result of this will be most unfortunate, because although it does not change the law, by stabilising it in art Act of Parliament it clearly makes it very much more difficult to change it and to reform it in the future.
I had a good deal to do with the Legitimacy Act 1959, which attempted to improve the position of illegitimate children by making legitimate by Statute a large number of children who at Common Law were illegitimate. That met with a good deal of resistance, particularly in your Lordships' House, and we could not take it beyond a certain point. But the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and myself, with assistance from various parts of the House—it was not at all a Party question—succeeded in effecting very considerable improvements in the law. Part II of the present Bill

751
adopts a different line by definitely improving the position of illegitimate children; not making them legitimate as the 1959 Act did, but improving their position and to a large extent equating them with legitimate children. But this is emphatically not done in Part I.
With those introductory sentences, may I draw your Lordships' attention to the first of these Amendments which is concerned with Clause 4? Clauses 4, 5 and 6 are concerned with maintenance for children, and Clause 4 is concerned in particular with maintenance for children under the Guardianship of Infants Acts. Those Acts go back into the last century, the current one being the Guardianship of Infants Act 1925, which was passed long before all these modern developments in connection with improving the position of illegitimate children had been dreamt of, at any rate in legislative circles. Therefore, to insist that provisions made in 1925, and indeed in earlier Acts, should be carried on into the future in this Bill, and should continue to subsist only for the purpose of protecting legitimate children and not illegitimate children, seems to me and to those who share my view altogether wrong.
This is brought out particularly in subsection (4) of Clause 4 which reads,
"No order shall be made under subsection (2) of this section"—
this is the clause which deals in detail with the position of the legitimate child, in connection with maintenance under the Guardianship of Infants Acts—
"requiring any person to pay any sum towards the maintenance or education of an illegitimate child of that person."
That is put in for the purpose of maintaining the position under the earlier Act, and I suggest that in this year of grace it is altogether wrong, and opportunity should have been taken in this Bill to put that matter right.
The draughtsmen of these two Parts of the Bill seem to have been two quite separate people who worked independently of each other. While the draughtsman of Part II was improving the position of the illegitimate child, the objective of the draughtsman of Part I seems to have been to stabilise the present unsatisfactory situation. Therefore, I am proposing to remove subsection (4), to bring into line, for the purpose of maintenance
752
under these Guardianship of Infants Acts, the position of the illegitimate child. I hope that I have given sufficient explanation of this Amendment, and I beg to move.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I agree with my noble friend Lord Chorley that these Amendments all relate in substance to the same field, and if it will not be inconvenient to him I shall deal with them together. I think my noble friend has put these Amendments down under some misapprehension. This is a Bill to do three things: first, if thought right, to reduce the age of majority in accordance with the Report of the Latey Committee; secondly, to confer certain rights of succession on illegitimate children in accordance with the Report of the Russell Committee; and, thirdly, to make provision for the proof of paternity by blood tests, and so on, in accordance with the Report of the Law Commission. It does not purport to deal with all family law, and it is not dealing at all with affiliation law.
The first of my noble friend's Amendments, which is linked with his Amendment to leave out subsection (6) of Clause 6, is, I suggest, based on a misunderstanding, because Clause 4, subsection (4) of which is sought to be omitted, is concerned only with proceedings under the Guardianship of Infants Acts, and with adapting the powers of courts to order maintenance in such proceedings to the new situation where the age of majority will be 18 but the power is to continue in respect of children up to the age of 21. There has never been any power to order maintenance to be paid to illegitimate children under the Guardianship of Infants Acts; and Section 3(2) of the Legitimation Act 1959, which extended the Guardianship of Infants Acts to illegitimate children in other respects, expressly excluded the power to award maintenance to an illegitimate child. Accordingly, Clause 4 of this Bill, in adapting the powers under the Acts, continues the existing exclusion and provides, in subsection (4), that maintenance shall not be awarded to illegitimate children. It is necessary to do this expressly because Clause 4(2) somewhat enlarges, in effect, the power to award maintenance under the existing Acts. But subsection (4) is inserted only to make it clear beyond doubt that nothing in Clause 4 affects the existing law on the subject.

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The reason why it is the policy of the law that maintenance cannot be ordered under these Acts for illegitimate children (the policy which is maintained for the purposes of this Bill) is simply that there is a quite separate code of law relating to illegitimate children and their maintenance. This code is contained in the Affiliation Proceedings Act 1957. Under that Act, the court can order maintenance to be paid for the benefit of an illegitimate child. So there is no question of this Bill penalising illegitimate children. It is simply a question of ensuring that the two codes of law are not run together, with resulting confusion. All that Clause 4 of the Bill does is to deal with applications under the Guardianship of Infants Acts and to relate them to the new law so that, whereas children will come of age at 18, maintenance under those Acts may nevertheless be provided until they are 21. It is not prejudicing in any way whatever the rights of illegitimate children. Perhaps my noble friend would be good enough to tell me whether he would like me to deal now with his other Amendments.
LORD CHORLEY: I would rather deal with this Amendment first, unless there are other Peers who wish to speak. I appreciate what the noble and learned Lord has said about the fact that deleting this subsection might not have the effect which I wish to achieve, which is to put the illegitimate child in the same position as the legitimate child for the purposes of the Guardianship of Infants Acts. I should myself have thought that it was arguable that the extension of the law under subsection (2), to which the noble and learned Lord referred, might, without the insertion of subsection (4), have had the effect of putting the illegitimate child into the same position as the legitimate child. Otherwise, the draftsman would not have put subsection (4) into this clause. He must have done so because he felt that it was necessary to have it there. But I can see that he may possibly have done so, as lawyers say, ex abundanti cautela; and the noble and learned Lord has an argument to the effect that, even if I persuaded your Lordships to take out subsection (4), it would not achieve the object which I have in mind.
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It may be that a better way of going about it would be to improve or amend the Guardianship of Infants Acts themselves, and I should like to look at that. But before withdrawing this Amendment I should like to make the point, which will come out in connection with the next matter with which we deal, that the provisions of the Act dealing with affiliations are really of a very different kind from those in the Guardianship of Infants Acts. The provisions in the Affiliation Proceedings Act 1957 are not altogether satisfactory, as I hope to persuade your Lordships when I come to move the next Amendment; and I do not feet that there are here, so to speak, two parallel systems of law, dealing in the one case for legitimate and in the other case for illegitimate children, which provide equal benefits in respect of maintenance. The provisions for illegitimate children are very much less satisfactory than those under the Guardianship of Infants Acts. Therefore, I cannot accept the argument that there are two equally satisfactory but parallel systems of law, and that the present law does not inure to the detriment of the illegitimate child. B at, as I have said, I should like to make that point in rather more detail in connection with the next Amendment, and at this moment I would merely ask your Lordships' permission to withdraw the first of my Amendments.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Modifications of other enactments relating to maintenance of children so as to preserve benefits up to age of 21]:
5.17 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY LORD CHORLEY moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 5, line 25, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
("(2) The following amendments shall be made to the Affiliation Proceedings Act 1957—

(a) in section 1, after the words "father of the child" there shall be added the words "Complaint may also be made on behalf of the illegitimate child by his next friend.";

(b) in section 2, after subsection (2), there shall be added the following new subsection:—

"(3) A complaint under section 1 may in such circumstances also be made on behalf of the child by his next friend.";

755

(c) in sections 4 and 8(2), for the words "evidence as she may produce", there shall be substituted the words "evidence as may be produced";

(d) in section 5—

in subsection (1). for the words "the child's mother", there shall be substituted the words "the child or the person having custody of his person".
subsection (2) shall be omitted,
for subsection (3), there shall he substituted the following new subsection—
"(3) an affiliation order may, on the application of the child through his next friend, be made or varied by a magistrates' court so as to entitle the person who for the time being has the custody of the child to receive on the child's behalf any payment to be made under the order.", and
in subsection (4). the words "in the same manner as the mother might have done" shall be omitted;

(e) in section 6, the words from "and payments" to the end of the section shall be omitted;

(f) in section 7—

in subsection (2), for the words "on the application of the child's mother", there shall be substituted the words "on application on behalf of the child",
in subsection (3), the words from "but shall not" to the end of the subsection shall be omitted, and
in subsection (4), paragraph (b) shall be omitted.
The noble Lord said: We now come on to the question that I mentioned a moment ago, concerning the Affiliation Proceedings Act. Here again the object of the clause in the Bill is, as it were, to preserve the position of the illegitimate child after he has reached the age of 18. The position under the existing Act, of course, is that the mother is the only person who can make an application for maintenance for the child, and she can continue doing that, generally speaking, until the child reaches the age of majority. There is one exception, which may be of some importance, where application for maintenance can be made by a person other than the mother. But it is very well known to all social workers concerned with this type of situation that in fact applications by the mother are quite rare.
Lawyers who work in magistrates' courts and in courts of quarter sessions get a rather wrong impression of the number of cases, because, of course, they see only those in which application is made. In fact, such cases are much rarer
756
than one would expect. In many cases the woman does not make an application. Sometimes the father pays; and sometimes she is reasonably well off, or her family is, and they do not want what they regard as the disgrace of going to court to ask for an affiliation order. The result, I believe, is that the majority of the mothers of illegitimate children do not apply for affiliation orders, and that no legal orders for maintenance are ever made.
The right to be properly maintained by his natural parents should be the right of the child himself, and it should not depend on what is, in a sense, the accident of whether the mother makes an application. The Amendment which I am now proposing gives the child that right. Of course, if he is under age he will not exercise it himself: he will have to exercise it, as children always do in this situation, through his next friend, who will not necessarily be the mother at all. This Amendment, if accepted, would not affect the mother's rights. She would remain in the same position and would be able to make application to the court for an affiliation order and for maintenance for herself and for the child. But it would give the child the right to make the application, through his next friend, if the mother does not take any steps to do so. Under present law, applications of this kind can be made only where the child becomes a charge upon the local authority, upon public funds. In such a case the public authority on which he has become a charge may make an application for maintenance from the father; and it may have to prove the fatherhood of the child. But in many of these cases there has never been any question about that; the father has never denied paternity. The social workers in this area of social work tell me that quite a number of public authority cases have come before the courts, and the costs to which the authority has been put for the maintenance of the child—possibly for boarding and education—are recovered from the father.
It seems to me, and to those who think with me on this problem, that it is only right and proper that this situation should be widened to allow the child to make application where the mother has not taken any steps for the maintenance of

757
the child. The child at 18 may wish to pursue further education at a university or technical college, and may be quite unable, because of the mother's failure to take the necessary steps, to get any parental assistance. The interesting thing is that if the mother becomes mentally incapable of taking any steps, or dies, or is sent to prison, then the child is given the right to make this application in his own right. Under the present Bill he will be able, after the age of 18, to bring proceedings himself and will not have to operate through his next friend. I hope that I have succeeded in persuading the Committee that there is a real case for amendment of the law in such a way as to enable the child to enforce his rights himself, without having to rely on the accident of whether the mother may or may not have wished to do so. I beg to move.
5.24 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am sorry that, largely for the same reasons as before, the Government cannot advise the Committee to accept this Amendment. This is not a Bill which seeks to make any alteration in the law of affiliation. I am far from saying that changes in the law of affiliation may not be desirable; on the contrary, the Law Commission are, in fact, considering our law of affiliation proceedings as part of their review of family law. But this Bill does not seek to touch it.
To understand the context of these Amendments I am afraid that I shall have to describe briefly the relevant provisions of the Affiliation Proceedings Act 1957, which consolidated the enactments relating to bastardy. Under the Act, the courts are empowered to order that maintenance shall be paid in respect of an illegitimate child. Section 5 provides that, except in two classes of case, maintenance so ordered shall be paid to the child's mother. The first class of exceptions to the rule are, broadly speaking, cases where some appropriate public authority has either had the child committed to its care or is giving the mother assistance in respect of the child. In these cases the public authority may get direct payment of all or part of the maintenance. The second class of exceptions is where the child is in the custody of some other person than his mother, either legally or under agreement approved by the court.
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Where this happens the person having custody may apply to the court o have the maintenance paid to him instead of to the mother. In all other cases, maintenance payable under an affiliation order must be paid to the child's mother' unless and until she dies, becomes of unsound mind or goes to prison. In any of these circumstances, a guardian may be appointed by magistrates' court to have custody of the child and to receive the money payable under the maintenance order.
Sections 6 and 7 of the Act provide, broadly speaking, that payments under maintenance orders shall not have, to be made beyond the child's 13th birthday unless expressly directed to continue until the 16th birthday: and they shall rot continue beyond the 16th birthday unless, on the application of the child's mother or the person having custody of the child, the court orders that the maintenance order shall continue in force beyond that age for the purpose of the child's education or training. The order may, in the discretion of the court, be so continued for up to two years at a time until the child is 21.
It is not within the scope or purpose of Part I of the Family Law Reform Bill I to make changes in the general code laid down by the Affiliation Proceedings Act 1957. That is a matter for the Law Commission to consider in its review of family law. But the policy of Part I—to reduce the age of majority to 18 while at the same time preserving maintenance benefits in appropriate cases until 21—makes it necessary for the Bill to amend the rules relating to receipt of maintenance under affiliation orders where the child is over 18. This is because, in the cases covered by Section 5(4) of the 1957 Act—that is to say, where the mother is dead, of unsound mind or in prison—it will no longer be appropriate, where the child is over 18, to appoint a guardian for the child under that subsection to receive the money, because the child will be of full age. This is why Clause 5(2) of the Bill provides that in those circumstances the child himself may apply to the court for an extension of the maintenance order, and the payments made under the extended order s rail be made direct to the child himself. Clause 5(2) therefore goes no further, and is intended to go no further, than adjusting

759
the existing law to the new situation created by Part I of the Bill.
These Amendments, however, go far beyond the scope of the Bill and would make substantial changes, unconnected with the age of majority, in the law relating to illegitimate children. Their main effect would appear to be threefold: first, to abolish the principle of the 1957 Act that affiliation proceedings must be begun by the child's mother, and to substitute instead the principle that they may be begun either by the mother or "on behalf of the illegitimate child by his next friend"; second, to abolish the existing rule that payments shall not continue beyond the child's 13th birthday unless directed to continue to go on until the 16th birthday; and third, to abolish the rule that no order can be made so as to continue payments beyond the 21st birthday.
For these reasons the Government are unable to accept the Amendments. No recent Committee has considered review of our affiliation law. The Law Commission is now doing so. I would hope that my noble friend, having heard what I have said, may be prepared to withdraw his Amendment in order that we can act when we know what the Law Commission says, instead of trying to deal with our substantive affiliation law in the middle of a Bill which otherwise has nothing to do with the subject.
LORD CHORLEY: Before I accept the advice of the noble and learned Lord I should like to ask him one question. He stated that it was fundamental to our present affiliation law that every application should be made by the mother. Is that really so? Is that so in the case where the child is being looked after out of public funds by a public authority? I understood that in such a case the application for maintenance could be made direct (without the intervention of the mother) by the public authority that has looked after the child.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Speaking subject to correction, I think the position is that proceedings must be started by the mother. When one comes to the question of to whom payment shall be made, then, although in general it is payable to the mother, there are the
760
exceptions to which I referred where it may be payable to the local authority or to some other person who has the custody.
5.30 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: I am very grateful for that answer because it really gives me my case. It is just asking for an extension. It is an extension to give the child's next friend the right to make an application, just as in the present case a public authority would have that right. I appreciate that this Part of the Bill is not really concerned with the amendment of the law relating to these illegitimate children, but it seems to us very unfortunate that advantage has not been taken, as it could have been very simply, of the opportunity provided.
Here is a Bill which, in the second Part, grants considerable new benefits to illegitimate children. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor does not deny for a moment that the present situation is unsatisfactory. Indeed, it has apparently been referred to the Law Commission because it is unsatisfactory. It may well be quite a time before the Law Commission produces its proposals, and we all know that even after that has been done it is very often a long time before Parliamentary time can be found to put the Law Commission's proposals into effect. I am very sorry that we are losing a good opportunity of amending the law in a way in which, as I think the noble and learned Lord would agree, is desirable. But obviously, unless he is prepared to help me, I cannot carry this any further and so I beg your Lordships' permission to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 5 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD CHORLEY: May I say another word about this clause? I am sorry to take up your Lordships' time. A week or two ago the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor very kindly sent me a letter in which he dealt with a point that I raised under subsection (1) of Clause 5 in my Second Reading speech, when I was asking for an extension of the time during which maintenance might be granted to children, particularly in connection with their university and

761
technological education requirements beyond the age of 21. In his letter, for which I am very grateful to him, the noble and learned Lord said that this was an interesting suggestion which he would like to look into.
When I first read the letter I thought the noble and learned Lord meant that he would look into the matter for the purpose of putting down an official Amendment at the next stage of the Bill. But on reading the letter again rather more carefully this morning, when I was preparing my remarks for this afternoon, I wondered whether he was not again going to suggest that it should go to the Law Commission and, so to speak, that it is rather "in the air". I am afraid that is so, but I should like to hear whether I am right, or whether we may look forward to some proposals for dealing with this question of extending maintenance beyond the age of 21 where it is required for purposes of the further education of the child.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Maintenance for wards of court]:
LORD CHORLEYhad given Notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 4
Page 7, line 12, leave out subsection (6).
The noble Lord said: This Amendment relates to exactly the same sort of point as the one I was making when I asked your Lordships to agree to the deletion of subsection (4) of Clause 4. I do not feel that there is any point in repeating the arguments. I am quite sure that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor would give me the same reply, and so, in the circumstances, I do not propose to move the Amendment.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clauses 7 to 12 agreed to.
Clause 13 [Right of illegitimate child to succeed on intestacy of parents, and of parents to succeed on intestacy of illegitimate child]:
On Question, Whether Clause 13 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD CHORLEY: I just wish to mention subsection (2) of this clause, which I discussed in my speech on the Second
762
Reading of the Bill. The subsection says:
"Where an illegitimate child dies intestate in respect of all or any of his real or personal property, each of his parents, if surviving, shall be entitled to take any interest therein to which that parent would have been entitled if the child had been born legitimate."
It seems to me all wrong that a father who, in effect, has disowned his child, has gone away and taken no interest in the child, should be able to come in—possibly after the child has made a position for himself in the world and has perhaps left quite a large amount of money and property but intestat3—and make a claim on that property, just as he could have done in the case of a legitimate child. I suggested that in a case of this kind it would be sensible that the matter should be left to the discretion of a judge.
There are, of course, cases in which there are families of illegitimate children which are perfectly stable families but in which the marriage bond is absent only because it has not been possible to get a divorce. Very often the first wife, as she would be perfectly entitled to do, would not petition. In those circumstances the family would be socially a family, even if not a family in the eyes of the law, and in such cases it is reasonable that this should operate. What I want to do (I have not been able to work out the necessary Amendment) is to make a provision by which the first case I have mentioned is dealt with and the second sort of case is left effective. I mention this now because if I can find a form of words which seems to me to do it, I should like to but down an Amendment at the next stage A the Bill. I am not sure whether that would be technically correct, but I thought I would mention the matter at this stage.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Before that point is left, I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor can clarify something for me. I should have thought that the position would not be exactly in the discretion of the court, in the terms that a judge is given discretion As to whether or not he hands over the money, and that it would be very much subject to the court's being persuaded by the person who said he was the father—it would depend on whether or not it

763
believed him. The case of the stable though illicit family is one thing—and presumably there would be very little doubt about that; but then you have the case to which, understandably, the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, takes objection: the case in which the father of an illegitimate child pays no attention to the child and then, subsequently (one would think, unless the child was unusually bright, it would be some years later), the child makes a fortune on his own and dies intestate. It is then that a court has to decide whether the man claiming to be the father is in fact the father. There would not be any possibility of taking a blood test because the child would be dead.
I imagine that what we are really faced with here is not that someone may come lightly along and lay a grasping hand on the fortune made by an illegitimate child to whom he had not spoken, or whom he had not seen or done anything about since the child was born or before. Any person making such a claim will have to produce substantial and extremely cogent evidence to show that, despite his complete lack of attention to the child, he is in fact the father. If that is the case, it would seem to be a matter which is not quite so severe and unfair as the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, suggests.
LORD CHORLEY: Perhaps I should reply to that point. I have had quite a bit of experience of this type of case in the courts, and there are many such cases in which there is no particular question of paternity. The father does not deny paternity but does not do anything to help the child. It is astonishing how many cases there are in which the mother does not apply for an affiliation order, or for maintenance. So the sort of case I have in mind is one where the father would not have any particular difficulty in proving that he had been accepted as the parent. It would be quite common, and I do not feel that it is the sort of case where it would be impossible to prove paternity.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This clause implements the recommendations of the Russell Committee relating to intestacy by providing, first, that an illegitimate child is to be entitled to take any interest in either parent's property as to
764
which that parent has died intestate, and that the parent of such a child is to take any interest in the child's property as to which the child has died intestate. It has not been suggested that the child's right to succeed should depend on whether the child had behaved well to his parents. This would be quite a new conception in the rights of intestacy. The child may have been refused consent to marriage when young, gone off and formed a union with a girl until 21 and never spoken to his father again or had anything to do with him; but that is quite irrelevant to the rights of succession. The son succeeds by virtue of blood and not by virtue of behaviour, and the same thing must apply in reverse. A father is entitled to succeed on intestacy to the property of an illegitimate son, and equally, this does not depend on what the father's conduct has been.
I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, that, in the father's case, I should imagine that the court is going to be very jealous to make certain that he really is the father; and the worse he has treated his son, the more difficult, from a practical point of view, it will be for him to prove that he is the father. These two things have to be considered. May I remind your Lordships that in the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act in the last Session, we approved of these very legislative proposals.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clause 14 [Presumption that in dispositions of property references to children and other relatives include references to, and to persons related through, illegitimate children]:
5.41 p.m.
BARONESS SEROTA BARONESS SEROTA moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 11, line 37, leave out from beginning to ("(which") in line 39 and insert—
("(4) In this section references to an illegitimate child include references to an illegitimate child who is or becomes a legitimated person within the meaning of the Legitimacy Act 1926 or a person recognised by virtue of that Act as having been legitimated; and in section 3 of that Act—

(a) subsection (1)(b) (which relates to the effect of dispositions where a person has been legitimated) shall not apply to a disposition made after the coming into force of this section except as respects any interest in relation to which the disposition refers

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only to persons who are, or whose relationship is deduced through, legitimate persons; and

(b) subsection (2)").

The noble Baroness said: Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 have been put down to remove a possible conflict between Clause 14 and Section 3(1)(b) of the Legitimacy Act 1926, and it might be for the convenience of the Committee if I gave a brief explanation of the purposes of the two Amendments together. Wherever Clause 14 applies to the construction of a disposition, it applies regardless of whether the disposition was made before or after the birth of any illegitimate child to which it relates. Thus, a gift executed on January 1, 1970, in favour of "A's children" will prima facie enure to the benefit of any illegitimate child of A, whether born before or after January 1, 1970, and regardless of whether the child has already been, or is subsequently, legitimated by A's marriage to the child's other parent. Section 3(1)(b) of the Legitimacy Act, however, is based on a different principle. It provides that a legitimated person
"shall be entitled to take any interest under any disposition coming into operation after the date of legitimation in like manner as if the legitimated person had been born legitimate".
The underlying principle is that, in the case of a gift intended to benefit A's legitimate children, the donor should be able to know at the time the gift is made whether or not a child of A who was born illegitimate would or would not be benefited.
On reflection, it was considered that, as drafted, Clause 14 might not achieve its object in a case where an illegitimate child is legitimated after the making of the disposition in question. It is said that on legitimation the child ceases to be "an illegitimate person "and that Clause 14 ceases to apply to him, with the result that his case falls squarely within Section 3(1)(b) so that he takes no interest under the disposition. Accordingly, the Amendments to Clause 14(4) state expressly that Clause 14 does apply to legitimated persons and exclude the application of Section 3(1)(b) from a disposition made after Clause 14 comes into force, save where the disposition, in spite of Clause 14, is confined to legitimate persons. I hope that, with that
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explanation, the Committee will agree to the Amendments. I beg to move.
BARONESS SEROTA: This is a drafting Amendment, consequential on the one to which the Committee has just agreed. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 42, leave out ("apply only if") and insert ("not apply in relation to any right conferred by a disposition ma le after the coming into force of this section unless"). —(Baroness Scrota.)
Clause 14, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 15 [Meaning of "child" and "issue" in s. 33 of Wills Act 1837]:
BARONESS SEROTA: I beg to move Amendment No. 7.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 38, at end insert—
("( ) In this section 'illegitimate child ' includes an illegitimate child who is a legitimated person within the meaning of the Legitimacy Act 1926 or a person recognised by virtue of that Act as having been legitimated.")— (Baroness Scrota.)
Clause 15, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 16 and 17 agreed to.
5.47 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved Amendment No. 8:
After Clause 17, insert the following new clause:
Entry of name of father of illegitimate child in the register
".—(1) Notwithstanding anything in section 10 of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, the registrar shall enter in the register the name of a person as the father of an illegitimate child if there is produced to the registrar—

(a) a declaration in the prescribed form made by the mother of the child stating that the person named therein is the father of the child, and

(b) a statutory declaration made by the person so named acknowledging himself to be the father of the child.

(2) This section shall be construed as one with the Births and Deaths Registration)11 Act 1953."
The noble Viscount said: We have been told very fairly by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that

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although this Bill is called the Family Law Reform Bill, there are good reasons for having chosen that Title instead of a longer one, and that it ought not to be taken to be an invitation to put down all sorts of Amendments to family law that we may think desirable. But there is one point which arises directly out of the Russell Report and which I do not think is covered in the Bill, on which I should like to probe and see what the position is.
In paragraphs 36 to 47 of their Report, the Russell Committee consider the inheritance on intestacy by the legitimate child from its father and vice versa. Clearly they raise the question of how to prove paternity, and they put forward various suggestions. First of all, they suggest that we might draw distinction between a claim under the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act, which is always done when a child is young and cannot be done later, and a claim under the intestacy provisions, which can be done at any time. They reject that. Then they look to see whether there might be a system whereby we could have an application on behalf of an illegitimate child to get declaration of paternity. They discuss the Danish law, whereby a local authority is responsible for investigating the birth of every illegitimate child and finding out who is the father. They reject that.
After taking all the facts into consideration, they conclude that in cases where paternity is established or not disputed, the position of an illegitimate child in relation to the father's estate, and of the father in relation to the illegitimate child's estate, should be the same as in the case of the mother. But though they talk of paternity being established, they do not make any recommendation about how to establish it. The only thing they say is in paragraph 43, where they consider that, in connection with the signing of the register of births by the father of an illegitimate child, the facilities for registration might well be revised and extended as they have been in Scotland under the Registration of Births, Death and Marriages (Scotland) Act 1945.
The other thing that we have been told about this Bill, and particularly about Part II, is that it is only following
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what has already been done in Scots law: the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor made this point a short time ago. When the Act of last year was passed to change the Scots law, they had already North of the Border the advantage of Sections 18 and 20 of the Registration of Deaths, Births and Marriages (Scotland) Act 1965. So we have the situation, which preceded the Act of last year, whereby something rather more comprehensive than is allowed in England can be done. The position in England, as I understand it, under Section 10 of the Act to which my Amendment refers, is that the registrar can only register the father of an illegitimate child in the births register, and, presumably, on the birth certificate, if both the father and the mother apply together, and they both sign the register at the same time in the presence of each other. There is no other way, so far as I can see, in England and Wales whereby the father can be registered.
There is plainly a problem in establishing who is the father of the child; and, indeed, the Russell Committee set out in paragraph 39 what they thought the situation was. They said:
"We turn then to the question of how paternity is to be established or recognised for these purposes. We reject in principle the suggestion that succession should be limited to cases where there has been voluntary recognition, whether formal or informal, though we recognise that the result of our views later expressed may be in fact to exclude nearly all other cases."
I see the point of not having a conclusive method of determining whether the child has a certain father, or whether it is somebody else, at a given stage. It may be used for the wrong purposes, and some document may have been produced and sent by the father not really understanding what the full implications may be. But that is not what the Russell Committee were saying. They were saying that they envisaged that probably the cases where advantage would be taken of the provisions of Part II of this Bill would be where there had been recognition, whether formal or informal.
With this comparison with Scottish law, I should have thought that it was directly relevant to ask the Government whether they will not make it a little easier to get some sort of recognition for the father of the child to be put into the

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formal document; and I have suggested that the registration of births is a suitable way of doing it.
I have not gone quite so far as the Scottish law (perhaps I should have done), because under Section 20 of the Scottish Act of 1965, even after the period for registration has run out, there is something called the registration of corrections, and if you apply to the sheriff in certain circumstances you can have the name of your father put in, or the father can have his own name put in. Of course, it is up to the sheriff whether he believes the story at the time, and if he does not, he will not allow it to be done. But there is a system whereby even subsequently the matter can be determined.
When we are told that there is this direct parallel with the law North of the Border, I should have thought that the Government were beholden to do something about explaining why there is no equivalent provision made in this Bill. I do not know whether we shall be told that this is a matter for the Law Commission, but the Scottish Act is quite recent, and I imagine that that was a well thought out method before it was introduced. I should have thought that the least we could do would be to have the equivalent of that, although it may be wrong to go further. I suggest that the Committee is entitled to ask the Government whether they will consider doing at least this, and possibly having the equivalent of Section 20 of the Scottish Act as well. I beg to move.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Viscount will no doubt agree that the last Amendment on the Marshalled List, No. 13, goes with this one.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Yes. I have attempted to make an honest father of myself.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It would be right to say that this is not only outside the Report of the Russell Committee, but that the Russell Committee favoured—as I imagine most of your Lordships would favour—things which assist to prove paternity; and, indeen, Part III of the Bill is nothing but an improvement of proof of paternity. It is the fact that in English law, under Section 10 of the Births and Deaths
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Registration Act 1953, the father's name may not be entered except at the joint request of both parties and on his signing the register. He has therefore to attend in person, a requirement which may well prevent a number of men from having their names entered on the register.
So far as Scotland is concerned, personal attendance is no longer required, in consequence of Section 18 of the 1965 Scottish Act, under which the father's name may be entered at the joint request of the parents if either (a) the father attends with the mother and signs, or,
"(b) there is produced to the registrar

(i) a declaration in the prescribed form made by the mother stating that he said person is the father of the child, and

(ii) a statutory declaration made by the said person acknowledging himself to be the father of the child."

It is clear, I think, that the noble Viscount has drafted his Amendment on this precedent. I should not be inclined to advise your Lordships to object to this in principle. The Amendment is not entirely acceptable as it stands, 3ecause it does not make clear at what stage the declarations should be produced or who is to produce them. One of the fundamental principles of registration is that existing entries are not, if it can be avoided, to be added to or amended save in the circumstances specifically provided for by the Act. As far as illegitimate children are concerned, registrars allow the father's name to be added subsequently if he attends with the mother and asks for this, and the Scottish Act makes specific provision for the circumstances in which his name may be subsequently recorded. But the Amendment leaves it entirely open whether the declarations are to be produced at the time of registration or later, and contains no specific provision dealing with subsequent production.
Under the current law, the father's name can be entered only if the mother is the informant because they mug t both attend together. Although the Scottish Act is not entirely clear on the point, it implies that the declarations must be produced by the mother, and in practice the prescribed forms of declaration make this obligatory. The Amendment, however, leaves it open to anyone (not necessarily a person qualified as informant) to produce the declarations, and

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appears to go much further than is needed to serve the noble Viscount's object.
I would say, therefore, that the Government have no objection to this Amendment. The actual drafting and wording is not satisfactory to them in the respects to which I have ventured to refer, but if the noble Viscount would withdraw the Amendment, I should be happy to collaborate with him in producing an agreed clause on the next stage of the Bill.
VISCOUNT COLVIL.LE OF CULROSS: I am very much obliged to the noble and learned Lord. This is a compete surprise to me, and a very agreeable one. I have almost never drafted an Amendment right yet, and I am certainly no expert on the law of registration. I am not a bit surprised that I have it wrong. I will gladly take up the noble and learned Lord's kind invitation, and meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 18 to 24 agreed to.
Clause 25 [Short title, interpretation, commencement and extent]:
LORD ILFORD LORD ILFORD moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 17, line 29, at end insert—
("Provided that section 9 shall not come into force until at least six months after the making of an order under this section.")
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is intended to remedy a defect—not a serious defect, but nevertheless a defect—which it is anticipated may arise by reason of the change which the Bill makes in the method of determining the day upon which a person attains a certain age, including, of course, school children. Under the present law, which I believe is based upon a decision of the courts a good many years ago, a child is deemed to attain a prescribed age, not upon his birthday but upon the day preceding his birthday. Under the Bill, a child will be deemed to attain a prescribed age, including school leaving age, on his birthday. At present a child whose fifteenth birthday falls on September 1, which is the first day of the autumn term, is deemed to have reached the age of 15 on the previous day, and he therefore will be free to leave school, to take employment or do anything else according to his wishes, at any time after the end of the previous summer term in July.
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Under the Bill he will not attain the age of 15 until September 1, which is his natural birthday. He will accordingly be required to remain at school until the end of the following spring term at Easter.
The local authorities have no objection whatever to this arrangement or to the proposed change in the method of determining the dates; and indeed I think it is probably more logical to determine the dates as the Bill proposes to do than it is under the existing law. But local education authorities feel that they ought to have some notice if a change is to be made. One can envisage a case where an order is made in July, in August or in September the effect of which would be that children who were expecting to leave school at the end of July and be free to take employment will find that they have to return to school and remain in school until the end of the following spring term at Easter. That situation, I think, could be overcome if some adequate notice were given to them before the making of an order.
So far as the education authorities are concerned, it would be much more convenient for them administratively to know that the order is to be made, because of course they have to make their plans for accommodating the school population in the coming school year. It is quite a problem. In the Inner London Education Authority a large number of children celebrate their fifteenth birthday every year, so many children will be affected by this change. It seemed to the authorities that it was only fair to the children, too, that they should have the longest possible notice of the change in the date upon which they have to be deemed to have attained this particular age. I hope that the Lord Chancellor will be able to tell us that that point of view appeals to Her Majesty's Government, and that some notice—and we think that six months is not unreasonable—should be given to the education authorities, not only for their own convenience but for the convenience of the children who will be affected, too. I beg to move.
BARONESS SEROTA: I am sure I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, on behalf of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, that the Committee is grateful to him for drawing its attention

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to this very practical point, which clearly is one of some concern to local education authorities. This of course will be a once-and-for-all operation, but quite clearly, for the reasons which the noble Lord has given, it will be necessary for local authorities to have proper notice of the date on which the noble and learned Lord intends to bring this particular clause of the Bill into law. Having taken note of Lord Ilford's point, and having given him an assurance that the Government will give adequate notice to the local education authorities—adequate notice and, I may say, good warning—before Clause 9 comes into operation, I would venture to suggest to the Committee that the noble Lord should withdraw his Amendment. I can give him, I think, the undertaking and assurance he is seeking. We feel it would be wiser at this stage, when the date is not yet known, simply to say that we will give due notice so that education authorities will be advised in good time when the change is going to take place, so that they can assess the effects on individual children whose liability to be in full-time education will be affected by this change in the law. They will have as long a notice as possible in advance of such a change.
LORD ILFORD: I am much obliged to the noble Baroness for what she has said. Of course, I gladly accept her assurance, and ask your Lordships' leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.5 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 18, line 3, at end insert—
("( ) section 10, so far as it relates to the Employers and Workmen Act 1875, extends to Scotland;").
The noble and learned Lord said: Clause 10(b) of the Bill abolishes, in accordance with recommendation 28 of the Latey Committee, those parts of Section 6 of the Employers and Workmen Act 1875 which empower justices of the peace to direct apprentices to perform their duties and to imprison them if they fail to comply. The 1875 Act extends to Scotland as well as to England and Wales. It is therefore necessary and appropriate to make the repeal of these provisions extend to Scotland, and the Amendment accordingly makes Clause 10(b) applicable to Scotland. I beg to move.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Does it apply also to Northern Ireland? —because, if so, I think that the words ought to come before "Northern II eland". or it ought to be made clear.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The true answer is that I have not the foggiest idea. I shall be very surprised if it does, but I will certainly consider that point before the next stage of the Bill. But I do not think it does; otherwise we should have taken the same course with regard to Northern Ireland.
Clause 25, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Statutory Provisions Amended by Substituting 18 for 21 Years]:
BARONESS SEROTA BARONESS SEROTA moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 19, line 31, at end insert—

"c. 46

The Hypnotism Act 1952.

section 3.

Persons under 21 not to be hypnotised at public entertainment.")

The noble Baroness said: It may be more convenient if I deal with Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 to Schedule 1 together. It will be recalled that Clause 1(2) provides that general expressions such as "infancy" and "minority" shall in all cases be construed in the new sense, and that Clause 1(3) provides the t in the statutory enactments listed in Schedule 1 specific references to the age of "21" are amended to "18". Since the Bill was introduced, two omissions in the Schedule 1 list have been discovered, and these Amendments put those omissions right. I beg to move.
BARONESS SEROTA: I beg to move Amendment No. 12.
Amendment moved—
Page 20, line 33, at end insert—

("1954 S.I. 796.

The Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1954.

Rules 31 and 32.

Grants of probate on behalf of infant and where infant is cc-executor.")

—(Baroness Serota.)
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Schedules 2 and 3 agreed to.
In the Title:
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: had given Notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 13:
Line 6, after ("link") insert ("and to facilitate the acknowledgement of an illegitimate child by his father")
The noble Viscount said: I put this Amendment down, as I said, to deal with the Amendment that I moved earlier. The noble and learned Lord said that he would be so good as to discuss that matter with me. I do not want to put an Amendment in the Long Title which is going to cause trouble at any stage, but it seems to me that the Long Title at the moment would not be wholly apt to deal with the matter I had in mind. I am sorry to recall the noble and learned Lord but I do not know what he would advise the Committee. Would it be better to accept this Amendment now or to consider the wording of it and perhaps put it down in conjunction with the other Amendment which will come along in due course?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If I may say so, I would suggest that the noble and learned Lord should withdraw it now and then we will conspire together about the whole thing.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: In that case I will not move the Amendment.
House resumed: Bill reported with Amendments.

ELECTRICITY (SCOTLAND) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

INDEPENDENT AIRLINES'FUTURE
6.12 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL THE EARL OF KINNOULL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the concern now felt at both the short and long term future of the independent airlines, and what action they intend to take beyond just waiting
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for the Edwards Committee to report next year. The noble Earl said: My Lords, perhaps I should say at the outset, as I believe I shall not have a chance to say it at the end, that I am glad to see there are some other speakers on the list besides the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and perhaps I should thank them in anticipation of what I hope will be a most interesting short debate.
Perhaps I may say straight away that the reason I have put down this Question tonight is because I believe that over the past year a cloud of uncertainty has been gathering over the heads of the independent airlines in regard to their future role in the industry; and I believe that this uncertainty is proving harmful both to the independent airlines and to the industry generally. This cloud has been somewhat magnified in recent weeks by the sudden and unexpected collapse of two of the independent companies, leaving increased doubts in the minds of many people. I hope very much that tonight the Government will welcome this chance to dispel some of the anxieties and uncertainties that exist and to give a firm assurance that the independent airlines will have an important role to play in the airline industry in the future.
I am sure that the causes of the uncertainty are well know to the Government. In addition to the difficult trading conditions experienced by the airlines, they have suffered, in the last two years in particular, the restriction on travelling, and also the freezing effect that the setting up of the Edwards Committee has had, and will continue to have until the Committee's Report is published, on the long-term planning of the independent companies. The second major cause, I believe is the growing feeling of hopelessness at the present unbalanced system of licensing—a fault which I suggest needs urgent correction if any independent company is to stay in the forefront of the airline industry.
As the House will know, there are today something like 30 independent airlines operating: some large, some small, varying enormously in their contribution and investment in the aviation and airline industries. They range from Strathallan Air Services, with a fleet of one Dove and two Piper aircraft, employing a staff of 12, to B.U.A., with a fleet of

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three VC 10s, ten BAC 1–11s (and a further eight on order), three Viscounts and employing over 3,000 people. All in all, the independents are at present responsible for the majority of the inclusive tour services but for only 10 per cent. of the scheduled services, the other 90 per cent. being handled by the Air Corporations.
Obviously, the very small companies are not so concerned with either the Edwards Report or the licensing system, but the larger companies are concerned because they have to budget ahead. They have to convince their financial backers of an assured future. B.U.A., for instance, in the 1970s, I am told, all being well can see a capital investment programme of over £100 million, buying in most cases British aircraft. It is with the larger independent companies that I wish to concern myself on this Question, and one of the first things I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, is whether the Government have been in contact with these larger independent companies since the sudden collapse of British Eagle and Transglobe, to satisfy themselves that the holidays of many people already booked on inclusive tours are not in jeopardy. I shall be glad if the noble Lord can also advise us whether the scheduled services which British Eagle operated in the past have all now been taken up by other companies.
One of the primary questions with which the Edwards Committee must be faced while they prepare their Report, and one which is vital to the long-term future of the independents, is the role of both the independents and the two State Corporations, and the relationship between them. The value of the independents in the industry, as I see it—and it is of immense value—is fourfold. In the first place, they offer a vital stimulant of competition to the State Corporations, and there is clear evidence that this has already proved beneficial. Secondly, they can play an important part in the fierce struggle which the British airline industry must face in the future if it is to retain its rightful share of the world market over international routes.
Thirdly, the independents play an important and valuable role as foreign currency earners. For instance, B.U.A. have
778
earned over £5 million on their South American route since B.O.A.C. opted out of it and said it was uneconomical. I am told that B.U.A. are now making substantial profits on this route, with, one may add, the help of British aircraft. When the noble Lord replies perhaps he could tell us what is the Board of Trade's estimate of the foreign currency earnings of the independents over, say, the last three to five years. This would be an interesting piece of information.
The fourth advantage of the independents, as I see it, is that they offer to the British aircraft industry an immense value of orders. Again, I believe that it would be of interest if the noble Lord who is to reply could advise us what figures the Board of Trade have for British aircraft orders placed by the independents over the last five years. It is, I believe, a sizeable sum, and it represents a market that the British aircraft industry cannot afford to lose. The best example of the importance of it is perhaps the BAC 1–11, which was virtually fathered, nurtured and baptised by B.U.A. and which is now proving the most successful aircraft that the British Aircraft Corporation have had since the days of the Viscount.
Having considered the advantages of the independents. I believe that if one then looks at the record of the two State Air Corporations, in comparison with the independents, one sees two clear things. In the first place, the State Air Corporations have in the pas been heavily subsidised—particularly B O.A.C. —and would not for long stand the test of operating as a normal commercial concern. Secondly, they have bean protected by the responsible Minister, the President of the Board of Trade, almost to the extent of "cotton wool" wrapping against competition from any home independents. I am not myself one of those who advocate the de-nationalisation of the State air corporations; I believe that the public and private sectors are complementary. But there are aspects of their record, I suggest, which must be frankly disturbing.
If one takes, first of all, B.O.A.C. one sees that in 1962 they held about 13 per cent. of the scheduled North Atlantic route. This was equal at that time with T.W.A., which held a similar percentage.

779
To-day, B.O.A.C.'s share of that market has dropped to 8 per cent. and T.W.A.'s share has risen to 19 per cent. B.O.A.C. are the only British carrier operating on that route, and they have jealously guarded that fact. While one appreciates their endeavours to show profits, I believe it is the British share of the world market on these international routes which is the prime issue that the Licensing Board and the Appeal Commission should be considering. How can we ensure that British carriers obtain and keep their proper share of the world markets? This, I believe, is the vital question. In view of B.O.A.C.'s drop in their share of the North Atlantic route, it would be interesting to know from the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, what percentage of British travellers now flying to America fly with B.O.A.C. I hope that perhaps the noble Lord will be able to answer that question later.
The other example I should like to quote is the case of the London—Algiers route. I believe I am right in saying that at one time the A.T.L.B. granted to B.U.A. a licence for that route, but with the condition attached to it, "Use it or lose it". B.E.A. appealed against the licence award, presumably on the grounds of wasteful duplication; the appeal was allowed, and B.U.A. lost their licence. B.E.A. were granted a licence, but to this day, for some reason, they have never operated that route. This protectionist attitude, although perhaps understandable to their own interests, leads one to the conclusion that the present licensing system is one of the real causes of the independents' difficulties. It is at present, in my opinion, the stumbling block to their future growth and prosperity. I believe that, unless the licensing system is given an urgent overhaul, time is fast running out and a front-line independent air line will be unable to continue to operate on an economic basis and still be able to reequip itself with the jumbo-jets and European airbuses of the future.
The requirements needed for a healthy and competitive front line independent airline are, I believe, quite clear: first, a better share of frequency of services on the domestic routes; and, secondly, a greater share of the international routes.
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I do not expect an answer from the Government on this point this evening since obviously it is one of the matters being considered by the Edwards Committee. But I should like an answer from the Government to-day on the second half of the independents' problem; that is, the delay and the freeze that has resulted from the delay in the publication of the Edwards Committee Report.
The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, will not need reminding of the words of the former President of the Board of Trade when he set up the Edwards Committee in July, 1967. On July 26 he said this:
"Whilst the inquiry must be thorough, it is also important that it should be completed quickly. I hope it will be able to make at any rate a first report, with recommendations, in Spring, 1968."
That forecast has gone sadly astray, but in view of the effect this delay is having on the independents I should be obliged if the noble Lord could give us an answer tonight to three questions. What is now the anticipated date for the publication of the Report? How soon do the Government anticipate being able to put into action the recommendations of that Report? Will the Government give an assurance that they will consult the various interested parties in the industry before introducing legislation? I believe that the best service the noble Lord could do for the independents to-night would be to answer those questions, and at the same time give a firm assurance to the independents that they will have an important role to play in the future so long as they meet the strict criteria already applied in public air transport services.
6.25 p.m.
EARL AMHERST: My Lords, considerable anxiety has been expressed on all sides of the House about the financial disasters that have overtaken some independent airlines recently. We on these Benches are extremely sympathetic with all those men and women who have lost their jobs because of these disasters, and we are no less anxious than is the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, to know what now may best be done to see that this sort of thing does not happen again. As your Lordships know, the Government have set up a Committee known as the Edwards Committee, which has very wide terms

781
of reference, to examine the economic and financial aspects, together with the prospects of the British civil air transport industry.
I cannot help feeling that as the Edwards Committee is now at work the noble Lord's Question may perhaps be a little out of time. I am sure he would not claim, and I certainly would not claim, to know all the facts and figures and other evidence that will be examined by the Committee and is being examined by the Committee, facts which are complicated, technical and numerous. I am therefore wondering whether the Question and anything that I may say may well be pre-empting what the Committee's findings may be. In these circumstances, I think perhaps it would be wise not to try to delve into a detailed examination of this particular case. The details are enormously complicated and I think it would be wise to stick to a few main generalities. I propose to make one or two remarks on this basis to your Lordships and I hope not to take up too much time.
One of the basic difficulties of the whole situation is the allotment of opportunity, that is, the allotment of routes. Human nature being what it is, it has not been surprising to find in the past that when a route has been pioneered and built up at considerable expense into a route that now generates good traffic there has been a rush to secure this route by a lot of companies. It is quite natural. The position really is that there are too few good routes being chased by too many companies. If your Lordships will permit me to use the expression, I think the 64,000 dollar question is to estimate the amount of traffic this country can get now and in the foreseeable future relative to the number of companies that traffic can support in a continuing viable condition. It is a hideously difficult and complicated problem, and one which the Air Transport Licensing Board has been trying to cope with, not always to the complete satisfaction of all the applicants.
As I understand the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, he is convinced that the Air Transport Licensing Board shows bias against the independent operators. In its Seventh Annual Report on the policy of granting licences for operating in parallel on scheduled services, the Board says in
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effect that if the absolute volume of traffic on a route and equally the rate of growth can be shown as being substantial, then on these two factors an application to operate a service in parallel probably can be regarded as prima facie acceptable. I assume, of course, that everything depends on what is meant by the word "substantial" in relation to costs. I should not have thought that that was evidence of a bias against the independent operators; in fact rather the contrary.
On the subject of policy, the feeling on these Benches is that there is room for an independent company in addition to the Corporations; but except in most exceptional circumstances, we would not like parallel running, and we should certainly not recommend a free-for-all position that could lead only to a general deterioration in standards and general financial misery later on. It could well be that the role of the independent operators in future, commensurate with the national interest, will not be a large one. It may also be possible that at this moment there are a few small companies which, with the present recession of traffic, are finding the going getting harder and harder. It may be that an amalgamation might be the solution here, presenting a greater reserve to enable them to weather these troughs in traffic.
I should like to make a remark about complications arising on international services. As your Lordships know, when you want to fly foreign the route is subject to a bilateral air agreement between the Governments concerned. The basis of this is that both sides should have an equal opportunity of carrying the traffic offering. If one Government chooses to nominate more than one operator on its side of the fence, then those operators have to share the national share of the traffic. For example, supposing you want to run a service to France, if the British Government decide to nominate two operators on the route then they will have to divide up the British 50 per cent.; the French, of course, will hang on to their 50 per cent.
I should like to make a remark on the vexed question of payloads. This is a difficult question, but with the ever-increasing cost of equipment and operation it is, except on exceptional

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routes, necessary to obtain a high load factor if you are to break even. That is difficult enough with one operator on a route, but with two operators on the route it is twice as hard, and with three it becomes three times as hard. This is something that has to be looked at with great care when one is thinking about parallel operation.
On the question of fares and tariffs, we should all like to have cheap fares; of course we should. We do not want to have to pay any more than is necessary. But a position can be reached in an effort to obtain public popularity so to depress a firm that even with a 100 per cent. load factor that firm cannot break even. In that situation, unless the operator is operating a social "must" service he is faced with three alternatives—he goes out of business, he gives up the route or he "jacks" up the fare.
On the subject of competition a view has been expressed that competition is good for the soul of air transport. Within the United Kingdom it is arguable whether, and to what extent, this is really so. But when you go overseas the foreigners put up fierce and continued competition, without the British having to compete with themselves.
I should like to wind up by saying that I hope that when we get the Report of the Edwards Committee we shall find that all these tremendous problems have been resolved. I am sure that is the wish of your Lordships' House. I would join with the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, in thinking that it would be most helpful if the noble Lord who is to reply could give us a date when we may expect this Report to be published. Presumably this will be followed by a White Paper and a debate in your Lordships' House.
6.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF BUCKINGHAM-SHIRE: My Lords, I wholeheartedly support the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, in his Question and his subsequent remarks, and should be grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, would accept in his reply the fact that the failure of two British indepedent airlines within a few weeks is giving rise to certain concern, and it is felt that Her Majesty's Government should demand that the Edwards Committee make an interim
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Report. In view of the fact that the British independent airlines are finding it difficult to await the Committee's Report with patience, can the noble Lord give the House an assurance that the Report will be published next March and that Government action on it will not be delayed?
I went to see Caledonian Airways last week, and I should like to quote a statement made by the chairman and managing director who, in a letter to The Times on the fourth of this month, said:
"I have no doubt whatsoever that the private sector has a continuing and growing part to play in British air transport. I do not share the view of those who seem to think that the whole of the private sector is now in jeopardy because of the failure of British Eagle and Trans-Globe".
I accept that as good sound thinking.
Certain criteria must in future be applied to all British airlines providing public air transport services. Such criteria would cover financial capability, managerial competence, operating standards and services to the public in the public interest. This, I understand, was a matter raised in evidence before the Edwards Committee some months ago. The independent airlines and I myself believe that the interests of the industry and the public can best be served by a policy based on the principle of equal opportunity and equal obligation which these criteria would effect. I hope the Committee will give due consideration to this point.
In conclusion, I do not doubt that while awaiting the Edwards Committee Report those airlines which have already satisfied the four criteria I have mentioned can continue to operate soundly and profitably. Before I sit down, I should like to say that those who have the interest of the private sector at heart can surely show this by discouraging idle and sometimes potentially damaging speculation.
6.38 p.m.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, in rising to support my noble friend Lord Kinnoull, I should like to start by saying how wrong he is in thanking us for following him. Really, one must thank him for putting down this Question and giving us Back-Benchers a chance to make some points and perhaps extract some information from the Government.

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The matter under debate is now one of great urgency. I suggest that we, the industry, are being put in an impossible position by having to wait this extended time for the Edwards Committee to report. As my noble friend said in his opening remarks, the original idea was that we should have a Report in the spring of 1968. I understand that it is now doubtful whether we shall get a Report even in the spring of 1969.
This uncertainty is of great moment to the independents, and it has been accentuated and aggravated by the Government continuing the £50 travel restriction which they announced last November. At that time, there was a widespread belief in the airlines industry and also among travel agents that the Government would, if not remove the travel restriction at least increase the allowance, thus enabling people to have a second holiday abroad each year. As your Lordships may know, the restriction of £50 on overseas travel is not a restriction on the total value of the holiday, but only on that part of the holiday that is spent in foreign currency; in other words, for the hotel bookings and so on. This means that the V-form amount, as it is called, comes out of the £50 travel restriction.
It is, therefore, true to say that the total allowance of £50, though it may be, and indeed is, sufficient for one holiday a year, is not sufficient for two holidays a year. The independent airlines rely a great deal for their profit—and I emphasise the word "profit" here—on the winter holidays. They are, of course, much smaller in total volume than the summer holidays; nevertheless they do comprise what is essentially the profit in the independent operation. The Government's imposition and continuance of the £50 restriction has certainly taken the profit away from the independent operators.
However, the problems do not arise simply from the uncertainty of waiting for Edwards and the continuance of the £50 travel restriction. I should like just briefly to look at some of the other problems facing the independents. Not all of them are susceptible to Government correction, but at least I should like to put them before your Lordships. First, I should like to talk briefly about the problems of the supply of fuel for independent airlines. The problems the inde-
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pendents face here are quite different from those faced by the State Corporations. There are two principal suppliers and a third group of suppliers supplying fuel to the independent airlines. First, there are Shell Mex and B.P. Ltd. who, as your Lordships will be aware, are the marketing firm for Shell and B.P. They control, I understand, around 85 per cent. of the outlets. Secondly, there is Esso Petroleum, who control only at out 10 per cent. of the outlets, leaving only 5 per cent. controlled by the remainder of the companies, mostly branches of European concerns.
Fuel uplift by airlines is generally done against what are called carnets, or credit cards, and of late there has grown up a policy—at least between the two principal suppliers, Shell Mex and Esso—to call for enormous deposits before they are willing to issue these carnets. Their point of view is understandable; the failure in the past of various airlines has caused them considerable financial loss, and they seek to guard against it. However, in the monopolistic position they hold they are now in a position to extract from airlines enormous deposies—and here we are talking about tens of thousands of pounds—entirely interest free. I say that that is so as regal-is both the two principal suppliers. There is, I understand, an agreement between the two principal suppliers, Shell Mex and Esso, to apply broadly similar trading terms to all of their customers. In other words, the airlines are not free to go from one supplier to the other in order to obtain better trading terms.
These difficulties are accentuated by the fact that the price of the fuel, once an agreement has been obtained to purchase it, varies very widely from airfield to airfield. For example, for uplifting fuel at London Airport one pays approximately 10d. a gallon for turbine fuel, but if one goes to one of the smaller provincial airports, such as Cardiff or Birmingham, one pays vastly more. Indeed, at the other end of the scale one can pay as much as 1s. 10d. a gallon for turbine fuel: the same product, from the same refinery, being supplied to the same customer, but at a price difference of at least 100 per cent. The reasons given by the suppliers for these variations in price are the relative distance from the refinery and the different quantities of throughput at the

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different airports. However, these greater fuel costs which, by and large, fall on the independents because it is they who operate from the smaller airports, seem hardly justified by the scale of operation or by the alleged distances from the refinery.
I should now like to come to a point my noble friend Lord Kinnoull went into in some detail, and which really is the crux of the independents' problem, and that is the question of licensing. As your Lordships already know, the independent sector relies very heavily on B-licence operation, as it is called—that is, charter licence operations—for the back-bone of their business, and it is fair to say that hitherto the Air Transport Licensing Board have been pretty liberal with their granting of licence applications of this kind. Indeed, had they not been there would be no independent sector in the air transport industry, because the scheduled service licences are, of course, zealously guarded by B.E.A. in the case of the shorter-haul operations and by B.O.A.C. for the longer-range ones.
In this connection I should like to consider briefly the question of the revocation of the British Eagle Trans-Atlantic B licence. That is the licence they held to operate to Bermuda and the Bahamas, which licence was revoked some two weeks before British Eagle closed down. From the reports we have read in the press we are led to believe that the cancellation of this licence was the direct cause of the breakdown of British Eagle's negotiations for refinancing their operations. Whether the reports we have read are correct or not I cannot say, but if they are correct—and they were widely circulated—then the Air Transport Licensing Board have a serious burden of responsibility to bear in the question of this closure, or rather of this withdrawal of the British Eagle licence.
It is my contention, and I know the contention of many others in the industry, that their acceptance of the B.O.A.C. application to cancel the British Eagle licence was entirely unjustified. If one reads the reasons that have been advanced by the Air Transport Licensing Board for their agreement to revoke the British Eagle licence, one comes to the immediate conclusion—at least I did—
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that they were meddling in the commercial affairs of B.O.A.C. and British Eagle to an extent that was quite unjustified. How on earth can they be commercial judges of what is best for British Eagle or what is best for B.O.A.C.? They have no commercial experience. They say, in their reasons for their revocation, that British Eagle submitted no evidence to rebut the B.O.A.C. charges. That may indeed have been unfortunate, but to revoke a licence on no evidence seems a strange way of going about their task. What information the President of the Board of Trade had before him when he heard of the B.O.A.C. application to revoke the British Eagle licence in connection with the British Eagle state of affairs I do not know, but the President of the Board of Trade has powers to direct the Air Transport Licensing Board to refuse applications. Why did he not invoke those powers on that occasion?
There are some further points, and really these symptoms were evident in the British Eagle case as well. I mentioned how it was reported that their efforts to raise capital had fallen down when it was heard that the Bahamas licence had been revoked. I suggest, and indeed I know from my own personal experience, that the financial powers in the world are very suspicious of investment in the independent airline sector because of the uncertainty of the licensing position. If we are to secure a more healthy independent sector than we have at present, then new capital is urgently required in all the companies—at least in all the ones on which we have information. That capital will not be forthcoming unless a firmer and more exact licensing policy is publicly declared and seen to be viable.
In that connection there is a strong argument for the independents to have, as various noble Lords have suggested, a larger slice of the cake, particularly on some of the domestic scheduled services. B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. have access to public funds, not only for capital purposes, which one can understand, but for revenue deficit purposes. One remembers that B.O.A.C. had written off in one fell swoop all their deficit for the last 10 or 11 years; and one also remembers, as the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, told us a few days ago, that B.E.A. had been granted £25 million or more as

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allowances for operating the Trident 3. It seems hardly fair, if these sums are so readily "dished out", that the State Corporations should now be allowed also to "muscle in" on what hitherto has been the prerogative of the independents; namely, the B-licence service. Recently B.E.A. have been applying for, and getting, licences to operate inclusive tours, which ought not to be any concern of theirs.
The two important points which we must consider are, first, the uncertainty of the matter while we are awaiting the report of the Edwards Committee (and I would ask whether the Government would urge the Edwards Committee to expedite its main report and, if possible, to produce an interim report); and secondly, whether the Government will give an undertaking or some indication as to their plans with regard to the £50 travel restriction.
6.52 p.m.
LORD GRANVILLE OF EYE: My Lords, I agree with the tribute which the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, paid to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for asking this Question on civil aviation. Civil aviation is indebted to the noble Earl for the way in which he ventilates the problems in your Lordships' House, as is right, in seeking fair play for the independent airlines. We all want to see fair play for the independent airlines, and we very much regret what has happened quite recently to a fairly large airline. Nevertheless, the noble Earl is asking for a Government statement, a statement which must depend on the Report of the Edwards Committee.
The problem of the independent airlines, and of anybody else who attempts to survive and struggle on against terrific competition, is a problem of capital and reserves. It is impossible to try to run an airline in competition, both in the United Kingdom and overseas, unless you have adequate capital and reserves. Airlines have to deal with setbacks and the problems of devaluation, and if they do not have the reserves, as have the large corporations such as B.E.A. and B.O.A.C. and all the great international airlines, then they simply cannot weather the storm. This is the story of what has happened recently. This is a "big boys league"; it is not just a matter of finding a few people who are air-minded,
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buying aircraft on hire purchase, to using sealing wax and string and trying to make a go of it. It is just not that sort of situation any longer. All over the world to-day the tendency is for air corporations to become bigger and to consolidate, and even in our time we may see an increasing tendency towards international rather than national airlines.
I am sure that the Government wish to give every possible help and fair play to the independents, but if they wish to set about the business of scheduled air services then, if there is one industry in this country which ought to merge, it is the independent airlines. If they can get together and make a fairly large corporation, as we did in the old days with British Airways, then they will get the capital behind them. I am sure that we all want to see them given every opportunity, but we have to wait for the Edwards Report. In their own interests they should get together and consolidate their capital and reserves.
6.57 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I have had an interest in air transport long enough to recognise an aviation enthusiast when I see one; and I immediately put both the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, in that category. The noble Earl, Lord Amherst, and my noble friend Lord Granville of Eye have both had considerable practical experience in these matters and I was glad to have their observations. My noble friend Lord Buckinghamshire comes from a corner of the country which has a very special interest in aviation problems. I suppose that Southend Airport, and the companies which have operated from there, can be looked upon in many ways as pioneers, and I know the great interest in aviation taken by my noble friend. I shall endeavour to reply to what has been said in the same spirit of interested enthusiasm for the future of British air transport; and if I do not answer all the questions which have been posed this evening, I hope it will be accepted that I appreciate the spirit in which they have been put.
The questions which have been put to me have been set against the regrettable failure of two operating companies, and I have been asked by the noble Earl whether the Government have knowledge of other likely casualties. First

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of all, I should like to say—and I say it more strongly to some than to others—that the worst service that could be rendered to this hard-working and imaginative sector of the air transport industry would be to cast doubt upon its viability. Some have added to the atmosphere of doubt which developed after the British Eagle and Transglobe failures. On the other hand, I notice that the chairman and managing director of Caledonian Airways (my noble friend quoted part of what he said) was moved to go on public record as saying:
"I do not share the view of those who seem to think that the whole of the private sector is now in jeopardy."
That seems to me a much more robust and relevant attitude to adopt.
I was asked whether any inquiries had been made by the Board of Trade. They have of course been made, and the inquiries suggest that the view taken by the chairman of Caledonian Airways is one which can be applied to the private sector of this industry as a whole. We have no evidence at all to suggest that any other independent airline is about to collapse. Indeed, despite the pessimism of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, the figures for package holidays next year are well up on the figures this time last year, and the situation of some of the independent airlines has been greatly eased as a result of the special winter tariff for inclusive tours, which seems to have resulted in a 2½fold increase in winter traffic. In the present economic situation I do not think that one should come along here and demand the removal of this temporary travel allowance. Two holidays a year is fine, but it is not a lot to ask if, in the present situation, some have to forgo two foreign holidays a year.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, I do not want to take the noble Lord up on that point, but I would refer to what he said about the Board of Trade having no information about further collapses. There is a strong rumour that Transglobe is to be refloated. Could the noble Lord tell us whether he has any information to give us as to whether they have applied for their licences to be restored?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I rather fancy that the noble Lord is mistaken. He is probably confusing the companies, but
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I would rather not go into that kind of detail. I would say this to him. An industry, like a country, can talk itself into trouble. Neither in the case of this industry nor in the case of this country should we dabble too much in defeatism. I do not think that is called for. Having said that, I recognise at once that the fundamental inquiry now being undertaken by Sir Ronald Edwards and his Committee is bound to create an unsettled atmosphere; or probably it would be fairer and more accurate to say that the atmosphere of uncertainty which led to the setting up of the Committee of Inquiry cannot be dispelled until the Committee's Report is received and the Government's attitude is known.
This fact has led some interested people—all from the best of motives, I am sure—to demand that the Committee's findings should be expedited, or that some interim Report should be issued. I absolutely agree with what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Amherst; and, again, I could go to the Caledonian Company for support, because I noticed that in their news-sheet, which my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack was glancing at recently, they said:
"Nothing could be more harmful for the airline industry as a whole than for Professor Sir Ronald Edwards and his colleagues to be stampeded into producing a hasty stop-gap Report".
I would go along with that absolutely.
The noble Earl said that in the initial statement setting up the Committee the then President of the Board of Trade suggested that he would ask for an interim Report. But as a matter of fact, in a further Answer to a Written Question in the Commons on February 7 of this year the Minister of State at the Board of Trade said:
"My right hon. Friend has decided not to press the Committee for an interim report. The Committee are pursuing their very large task with energy and thoroughness and he considered that it will be more satisfactory to await a fully considered and final report."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 7/2/68, c. 135.]
In answer to the question which was put to me, I may say that it is expected that the Report will be received by the end of March although, as the present Minister of State at the Board of Trade said on a later occasion in the Commons:
"We have discussed with Sir Ronald Edwards whether there would be any possibility of advancing this date".

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I do not think it makes much difference whether or not it comes along a week or two earlier. If it is possible to advance it by a week or two that will be done. The intention is that the Government will state their attitude to the Report shortly afterwards, and by that I mean certainly within a matter of weeks. So I would make two points. First, I think it would be wrong to ask for an interim Report; and, secondly, it would be equally wrong for the Government to delay making their attitude known once the Report has been received and published, as it will be practically straightaway after the President receives it.
The noble Earl asked me one or two questions which really expect me to anticipate the Report's recommendations, and I think most noble Lords will understand why I cannot be drawn upon that. However, there are two points on which I might comment. First, there was the suggestion that we were placing too much responsibility upon one man and a part-time Committee, if we want them to find the answers to all the problems of this fast-growing industry. I doubt whether any committee could have done much more to get to the truth of things, and certainly few committees could have been helped more by outside opinions and advice. I do not think the noble Earl, Lord Amherst, need have any fears about appearing to pre-empt the recommendations, for what he has said will, I am sure, be considered and welcomed. Of course, no one expects the Committee to dogmatise about every route or every company, but I shall be surprised if they do not present a pretty fair picture of the outlines of the industry as a whole. And while not giving all the answers, I shall again be surprised if the recommendations have nothing to say about procedures or machinery for providing answers. In other words, what is needed here is not a blueprint for a static industry, but a recipe for a dynamic and growing industry.
I have been asked some specific questions. The noble Earl asked me about the foreign currency earnings. I cannot answer that question without having time to dig into it. In any case, I do not really think it is important in this matter. Clearly, whatever they earn is
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welcome. Equally clearly, it will not be as great an amount of foreign currency as that earned by the two Corporations. If they earn more then that is fine, but I do not think that that point alone should settle the issue one way or the other.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, I think it is surely of great importance, because it would be interesting to see whether the figures have been rising or falling. This is one of the points which should be considered.
LORD BESWICK: It may well be, my Lords, and I will see if I can get the figures. But if, as the noble Earl said, their activities have been restricted, if the amount of foreign currency earnings is also low in comparison with the Corporations', it is not necessarily e good argument to say that this is something which should be held against the private sector. It is simply that they have not as yet had the opportunities. That is the only point I try to make.
The noble Earl asked me about the comparative purchases of British aircraft by the private and public sectors. He was kind enough to give me notice of this and I have tried to get him figures. It depends partly upon definitions, whether one includes spares, and precisely what dates one chooses. Over the past four years, orders placed by the independent companies for British aircraft amount to about £70 million. Over the same period the Corporations—I might add that this really means B.E.A. —have ordered around £150 million worth of British aircraft. But, again, if I was the noble Earl I would not draw any extreme conclusions from these figures. One can take another period which would show the Corporations in an even better light, and although it is a fact that for the large, long-range aircraft B.O.A.C. have been looking to the United States in recent years, nevertheless over the postwar years as a whole it would be quite wrong to make out that the Corporations have not supported the British aircraft industry. Moreover, I would add that it does not help the kind of objective overall assessment that we need if we try to make out that one sector is better than the other. I am certainly not going to respond to the provocation, if I may so

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describe it, of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and enter at this point of time into a dialogue about the respective merits of the private and public sectors. I thought none of us wanted that sort of matter to be argued out in this kind of Chamber. This is the kind of thing which should be looked at professionally, coolly and objectively by the Edwards Committee, and that is precisely what they are doing.
I was asked what has happened to the routes previously operated by British Eagle. B.E.A. are now operating the London-Tunis service, and Cambrian Airways have been given exemption from the normal licensing procedures and are now operating the London/Liverpool, London/Chester and Liverpool/Glasgow routes. Similarly, B.U.A. are operating the London/Glasgow service. All these services, together with the remainder of the former Eagle licences, for which there are several applicants, come up for reconsideration by the A.T.L.B. in January.
The noble Earl asked me about the London/Algeria service. The facts are as he himself has stated, although there are some additional relevant facts. The initial application was made in 1966 and the appeals carried the issue over into 1967. During this period the conditions in Algeria have changed somewhat, and in B.E.A's. commercial judgment now is not the right time to start the service. If B.U.A. have a different commercial judgment, if they think that B.E.A. are being too pessimistic about this, then of course it is perfectly open to them to renew their application. The fact that they have not done so rather suggests that they are inclined to agree with the line taken by B.E.A.
I was also asked by the noble Earl about the percentage which B.O.A.C. have of the transatlantic traffic. This, I know, is a good—I will not say debating point, but a very interesting point to make. It is quite true that the percentage of traffic which B.O.A.C. now secure on the Atlantic has gone down. The Corporation would make out that there is no point in putting on additional capacity and getting additional traffic if it is not profitable traffic. On the other hand, their purchases of the new large
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aircraft—the super VC 10s, the Boeing 707s, and the new 747s—will ensure that they do have adequate capacity, and one would expect them not only to hold on their present percentage but to increase it.
The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, asked me about fuel supplies. I am bound to say that I agree with him that it is understandable that the oil companies are rather careful now before they grant extended credits. As I understand the position, they have some very sophisticated arrangements at various airports with different companies. It is not for me here to go into the commercial agreements which these commercial companies have, but if the noble Lord thinks there is here an element of monopoly which ought to be looked at, then I think it ought to be considered separately. He asked me, too, about the revocation of the Bahamas licence. Again, I do not believe it would be helpful, either to British Eagle or to a general consideration of the problem, to go into all the details of that Bahama service. It is sufficient to say that it was not that revocation that was the cause of British Eagle's financial difficulties.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would allow me to interrupt him. I did not actually say that it was the cause of the financial difficulties: it was the cause of the breakdown of the negotiations for recapitalising British Eagle.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, if the noble Lord wants me to go into details, it was the fact that negotiations were going on about renewing advances from a certain finance corporation when they read in a newspaper information which they expected they might have had from the company. It was at that point that they went a little more carefully into the whole business. But, as I say, I honestly do not believe it advances this consideration very far if we go into that kind of detail.
I was asked whether I would give some assurance to the independent companies about the future. To do this obviously comes near to anticipating the Edwards Committee findings. Nor do I think it would be helpful to individual companies to hazard guesses about those findings. I content myself, in response to

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the questions that were put to me, by repeating the phrase used by Sir Anthony Milward when he said:
"We are likely to have a mixed economy in the air transport industry."
I would forecast (this is my view, not Sir Anthony's) a place in that economy for an enterprising, adequately capitalised and well-managed company. With that, I join in the general thanks that have been offered to the noble Earl for introducing this discussion.