Lords Sitting of 6 February 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 Derby):
The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Lord Congleton—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his brother.

RHODESIA: SANCTIONS AND PLOUGHING COMPETITION
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will reconsider their refusal to allow British competitors in the world ploughing competitions to take their ploughs with them to Rhodesia where, in pursuance of arrangements made five years ago, the world ploughing championships will be taking place in April, 1968.]
LORD BESWICK: No. my Lords. Exports of agricultural machinery to Rhodesia from this country have been prohibited since February, 1966, because of the declaration of illegal independence. This policy has been agreed by both Houses of Parliament and it would be wrong to make exceptions.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he realises that this high moral line on this quite small issue shows a complete lack of understanding; that this is not a question of agricultural exports, but a question of two ploughs being taken to Rhodesia in the interests of this country and brought out again after something like 48 hours? Does he not appreciate that this world ploughing competition is something quite different from international football matches, where large crowds are attracted and there is wide Press publicity, and that nothing but good will can flow from furthering competitions of this kind? Surely the noble Lord cannot
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say that there is a surplus of good will in the world to-day.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord has expressed an opinion, but it is not one that is shared by others. The fact is that other organisations and other people have accepted the advice of Her Majesty's Government not to go to Rhodesia for these international events in order to enable themselves to be exploited by the Rhodesians for propaganda purposes, and I see no reason why an exception should be made in this case.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, does the noble Lord's reply confirm a rumour that I have heard: that Her Majesty's Government have been in contact with other countries trying to wreck this competition?
LORD BESWICK: No, my Lords. What the noble Lord has possibly heard is that Her Majesty's Government themselves honour their obligations in this matter, and have asked that other countries do the same.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, because of the immense benefit that would result to the native population of 400 million Africans, in whom we all take the greatest interest, in seeing modern methods of agriculture, has the noble Lord never heard of the old saying about "beating swords into ploughshares"?
LORD BESWICK: Yes; I do happen to have heard of this saying. It is a pity that Mr. Smith has not heard of it.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Rhodesia was chosen as the venue for the ploughing competition five years ago, before the present issues arose between us and them? I support the Government in its Rhodesian policy, but are we not carrying it too far now in stopping two ploughs from going in for an international competition that will result, if we win, in giving Britain the exports which, since devaluation we particularly need?
LORD BESWICK: No, my Lords. The prohibition is on the export of agricultural machinery. If an exception is made in this case, there is no doubt at ail that the Smith régime will exploit it for propaganda purposes.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, arising out of the original reply, I would ask: Do Her Majesty's Government not realise that this competition has a considerable amount of importance in international agricultural circles, and that the winning of it will greatly add to the prestige of Britain? Do they further realise that Scottish and English competitors taking part will be gravely handicapped if they have to use ploughs to which they are not accustomed? Surely, as has already been pointed out, this is not an export question at all? These machines are in for but a few hours. Surely the Government will not persist in harming our own competitors' chances, and still further damage our Rhodesian relations, by insistence upon this childish spite?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I can understand the feeling of some noble Lords. I myself should like to see British people going there with British ploughs and taking part in a competition of this kind. But the way to enable that sort of thing to take place is for the Rhodesian régime to return to constitutional rule.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in order to justify their embargo on the use of a British plough, and to see that British interests are not prejudiced by other competitors taking part, the Board of Trade have in fact written to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, the United States and Canada, asking them also to boycott this international competition?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I have already stated that Her Majesty's Government take seriously this question of effectively implementing their undertaking to apply sanctions to Rhodesia.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, is it not the view of the Government that they ought to do what Parliament has bidden them to do, and not the opposite?
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether all the ability in the Government cannot think of some means by which, for 48 hours, these two ploughs can be looked after and be brought back, so that they do not count as exports?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as a matter of fact, it is not a question of two ploughs; there are more than two ploughs A number of the other countries are intending to use British ploughs. They have been told, and they have agreed, that it would be wrong in this case to break the policy of Her Majesty's Government, which is to prohibit the export of agricultural machinery to Rhodesia.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, why do the Government wish to make it more difficult for British competitors to win this ploughing championship? And does it not make a nonsense of their assuming to back the "Back Britain" campaign?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, what I think makes a nonsense is for the noble Lord and other noble Lords to get up in this House, having agreed, as this House has done, to apply sanctions to Rhodesia, and to make fun of any attempt to apply them.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, from the Minister's earlier answer, did I not correctly understand him to say that the object of this was to prevent this ploughing competition from taking place in Rhodesia, but is it not a fact that it does not have that effect at all? There is nothing to stop these British competitors from lawfully going there to compete. The only question is with what machine they compete. Is that not the point?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, that is perfectly true; and if a competitor went to Rhodesia and had a British plough which he found in Rhodesia, and used it there, it would be perfectly lawful. What would not be lawful would be for anybody to export agricultural machinery to Rhodesia.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, does the noble Lord realise that this decision is causing considerable resentment in rural Scotland, where many relatives of the rural Scottish in Rhodesia exercise a moderate influence on that Government?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I have no doubt that this decision does cause some resentment in some parts of rural Scotland. Equally, I have no doubt that a decision to reverse our policy would

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cause a good deal of resentment in many parts of Africa.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, while, of course, the embargo is on exports, how can one of these ploughs possibly be classified as an export when it is going to be brought back again?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Earl has more information than I have on this. As a matter of fact, an application has been made for an export licence which has been refused.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, if I may intervene at this stage, I had hoped that the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, who for a long time has, I know, been trying to ask a question, would have a chance. I am rather conscious of the thermal discharge from the television lights and it seems to have been added to here. I do not know whether your Lordships wish to go on pursuing this matter, but my view is that perhaps we might go on to the next Question, which the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, is going to ask.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I am much obliged to the Leader of the House. If one question from the Liberal Benches would be permitted, may I just ask whether if a British violinist proposed to go to Rhodesia to give a recital in Salisbury, this would be banned as being an export of violins to Rhodesia?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord possibly thinks that is funny. It is always easy to poke fun at anybody trying to apply a principle. What the noble Lord should do is to consult the remainder of his colleagues on the Liberal Benches and ask whether or not they are in favour of keeping up these sanctions against the illegal régime in Rhodesia.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware that our policy on this matter is absolutely clear?

CONCORDE AIRCRAFT AND B.B.C. BROADCAST
2.40 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: 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 justification, if any, there may be for the uncertainties alleged on January 6 regarding the Concorde aircraft; in particular regarding its length, wing span, take-off weight, operating speed and operating potential as calculated, and to comment on the forecast that it would meet the same fate as the R101 Airship.]
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, Concorde will be 193 ft. long, with a wing span of 84 ft. Its maximum design takeoff weight is 376,000 lb. Its maximum speed will be Mach 2·2 with a fatigue life bonus if this is reduced to just above Mach 2·0. As regards its operating costs, the 74 delivery positions reserved by 16 airlines are indicative of their expectation that it will be a commercial proposition. The suggestion on the B.B.C. programme of January 6 that the Concorde will meet the same fate as the R101 seems to me both irresponsible and in deplorable taste.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I think that form requires me to ask the noble Lord whether he is aware of the great satisfaction which his direct and unequivocal reply will have given both to me and to all those who admire this splendid Anglo-French project. He used the word "deplorable". Does he not think in a wider sense that it is intolerable that when facts are known, as they have been known, even to me, they are not investigated and that they are not inquired into by the B.B.C. for such a programme, and that the whole vernacular of comment on this very important project should be couched in terms more suitable for schoolboy slapstick? May I also ask him a specific question on a matter to which he did not refer? Is it true that the B.B.C. programme referred to the fuel trim of the Concorde aircraft as being similar to that used in two American aircraft which had crashed? Would the noble Lord comment on that?
LORD BESWICK: Yes, my Lords; it is true that the B.B.C. made a reference to this fuel trim system. The fact is that the Concorde uses a system which is not used in any American bomber. As for the first part of the noble Lord's supplementary question, I would add that I understand that the British Aircraft Corporation have protested to the B.B.C. about their statements on the "Eleventh Hour" programme, and the justification given by the B.B.C. is that because in the past there has been uncertainty about advanced technological projects, they were justified in allowing this kind of "sick" humour to take place.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, in view of the fact that public money is concerned in the construction of this aircraft, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Government, in one Department or another, have not thought it right to make a protest to the B.B.C. about such an irresponsible, harmful, damaging and, indeed, cruel inference as was contained in their programme?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as I have said, the British Aircraft Corporation themselves have protested. The possibility of following up this protest by some representation from Her Majesty's Government will, I assure the noble Lord, be considered.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, could the noble Lord say when the first trial flight of the Concorde is to take place? Is it to be on February 25, or has it been delayed: and, if so, why?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, there has been a deferment, but the first flight in France will take place later in the spring.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, could my noble friend be a little more specific about representations by Her Majesty's Government to the B.B.C.? In these circumstances it seems important that the Government themselves should make these representations rather than leave it to the Company.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as I have said already, I will certainly have this matter considered.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, could the noble Lord say whether the B.B.C. were able to explain, if their object was
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to settle the supposed uncertainty regarding this aircraft, how they could help that uncertainty by deliberately adding to it?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I doubt whether I can give a satisfactory answer to that question, any more than I can satisfactorily answer the fact that so much British money given to the B.B.C. should be used for decrying British products.

AUXILIARY FIRE SERVICE AND ECONOMIC CUTS
2.45 p.m.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have received front numerous Auxiliary Fire Service groups offers to continue voluntarily and without any personal remuneration to perform their duties; and whether, if this is so, the interest of the community, which would benefit without cost, would not be best served by the acceptance of these offers.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, the payments for which members of the Auxiliary Fire Service can qualify are a bounty, which for firemen is £10 a year, and an allowance to cover out-of-pocket expenses when training. My right honourable friend has received a number of offers from groups and individual members of the Auxiliary Fire Service to forgo payment, in whole or in part, if they are allowed to continue to serve The Government are deeply appreciative of the spirit which underlies these offers; but bounty and subsistence payments to all members amount to 8½ per cent. of the cost of maintaining the Auxiliary Fire Service and savings of this order would be only a fraction of the reduction in expenditure on emergency services which the Government have decided must be made to meet the economic situation.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I did not catch the amounts of money involved. Supposing the offer were accepted, could my noble friend tell me how much would still remain as a cost in the

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maintenance of the Auxiliary Fire Service?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the Auxiliary Fire Service would have cost about £1,300,000 in the coming financial year; the bounty and expenses are estimated at £110,000.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, will the Minister of State represent to his colleagues in the Government that the country is not at present in a position to damp down voluntary effort?
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, arising out of the original reply and Lord Brooke's supplementary, are Her Majesty's Government aware that not only members of the Auxiliary Fire Service but also other Civil Defence bodies, and that section of the Territorial Army which it is proposed to disband, have also offered to continue their services on a voluntary basis? In view of what the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has said, will the Government not reconsider the whole position, and not pour cold water on the patriotism of those who are endeavouring to back Britain?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, it is not a question of pouring cold water, nor is it a question, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke seemed to think, of unawareness on the part of the Government of the tremendous service rendered by these people and the impossibility, as it were, of damping down voluntary enthusiasm. It is the case of a choice between disbanding this particular Service or continuing it, and it is purely a question whether or not we can pay for it. With regard to other considerations, particularly those put by the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, I shall be answering tomorrow a Question on Civil Defence from the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and I hope then he will address to me questions on that subject.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, are Her Majesty's Government aware that the cost of implementing the Trade Descriptions Bill, which was sent to another place from this House yesterday, would be more than sufficient to cover the Auxiliary Fire Service, the Territorial Force and everything else?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I should have thought that that compari-
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son was scarcely relevant. It is equally obvious to every one of us that every single reduction proposed in the Government's plans is capable of having a convincing case built up against it, if one concentrates on one case. But, taken collectively, the Government are making those economies which are regarded as essential in the country's economic interests.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the figures relating to the losses by fire in this country? These are colossal, and I believe it is false economy—and I would ask the Government to consider this matter—that the Fire Services should be understaffed and that these people should be unable to do the work for which they have joined. They are now offering to do the work for nothing, and I suggest to the noble Lord that this is a question of the encouragement of public spirit which is, in itself, valuable, particularly in connection with protection from fire.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, of course I am aware that the fire losses are appalling—something of the order of £80 million a year. But I should have thought that my noble friend, who has such long experience of the Fire Services, would have been aware that the relationship of the Auxiliary Fire Service to these losses just does not exist, because the Auxiliary Fire Service have no peacetime fire duties at all. Indeed, by agreement of the Fire Brigades Union and the local authorities with the Home Office, the Auxiliary Fire Service are precluded from taking part in fire fighting of this kind. Deeply as I am concerned about this matter, it is quite wrong to introduce irrelevancies and misunderstandings of that kind.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his answer. I am wondering whether these men will be permitted to retain their uniforms when they have disbanded.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, that is one of the many things which are to be discussed with local authorities when they are met by officials of my Department on February 14. But it is the case with uniforms and many other things that the local authorities pay 25 per cent. of the cost and the Home Office pays 75 per cent. of the cost. So far as the

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Government are concerned, and subject to the agreement of the local authorities, they would be very willing for volunteers to retain their uniforms.

HOUSING (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Hughes, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of the Bill is to consolidate, without amendment, financial provisions contained in the Housing (Scotland) Acts 1950 to 1965, the Housing (Financial Provisions, Etc.) (Scotland) Act 1967, and certain other enactments relating to housing in Scotland. This being a Consolidation Bill, if your Lordships give it a Second Reading it will go in the usual way to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS BILL
2.52 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Your Lordships will be familiar with the Trustee Savings Banks movement, and I am sure will be disposed to help it and all the devoted people who serve it. This Bill should enable the banks to make still greater progress in the years to come. The Bill makes two main changes. In the first place, it raises the maximum rate of interest which the banks receive from the National Debt Commissioners on deposits in the banks' ordinary departments; secondly, it introduces a new way for the banks to be provided with capital finance. Every bank has an ordinary department. The capital and interest and all deposits in these departments are guaranteed by the Government. Deposits earn 2½ per cent.—this rate is fixed by Statute and unaffected by the present Bill—and since 1954 the first £15 interest has been free of income tax, but not of surtax, so the
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return to the standard rate taxpayer is equivalent to 4¼ per cent. gross.
The banks pay all deposits received in the ordinary departments into the Fund kept by the National Debt Commissioners. The National Debt Commissioners invest the Fund's monies in Government guaranteed stock, and from the income pay the banks a rate of interest on the deposits to cover the 2½ per cent. interest which the banks in turn pay depositors, plus the banks' own management expenses. This overall rate of interest which the National Debt Commissioners pay to the banks is at present subject to a statutory limit of £3 2s. 6d. per cent. The banks have received this maximum since November, 1965, and changes which have taken place since then have now made it difficult for many banks to cover their expenses.
Clause 1 of the Bill therefore increases this statutory limit to £3 13s. per cent. The actual rate which the banks receive will continue to be fixed by Order. The exact figure for the new rate, which will be based on the banks' expenses for the financial year ending November, 1967, is not yet known, but is expected to be in the region of £3 10s. per cent. This will mean that there is a margin of something like 3s. per cent. which, on the basis of past experience, should be enough to cover any further increases likely to be needed in the next few years.
The second important provision in the Bill is found in Clause 2. This clause empowers the National Debt Commissioners to make loans of up to £10 million for approved capital purposes. The figure of £10 million is a round figure, based partly on what the banks are known to need for what might be called traditional capital expenditure, that is expenditure on land and buildings and partly on preliminary estimates of the likely needs for mechanisation in the next few years. The loans which will be made from the Fund for the Bank for Savings will earn a market rate of interest and will be repayable. There will therefore be no direct burden of net costs falling on the Exchequer.
The reason for this provision is that the existing methods of supplying the banks with capital are inadequate to meet the demands made by mechanisation. Some trustee savings banks have already installed computers. Others are working

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on schemes to be introduced within the next few years. In the long run these schemes will save money, but in the short term they demand a large outlay of capital expenditure which could not be met satisfactorily within the present statutory framework. The new scheme, and indeed all the other proposals in the Bill, have been discussed and drawn up with the full agreement of the banks themselves.
The rest of the provisions are, I think, self-explanatory. Clause 5 simplifies the accounting procedures and provides that the accounts, which are at present prepared and laid before the House at different times in the year, will be presented to the Comptroller and Auditor General before May 31 each year and that he shall then lay them before the House with his report. I trust that the whole House will join with me in welcoming these measures to keep the trustee savings banks in the forefront of the savings field, and I therefore have great pleasure in inviting your Lordships to give this Bill a Second Reading. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Beswick.)
2.57 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, this is just a small Bill, which amends in only two respects the previous Acts of 1954, 1958 and 1964, and it would not be appropriate to try to use this Bill as an occasion for greatly and more fundamentally amending the whole machinery of our trustee savings banks. But I should just like to take the opportunity of saying this on the Second Reading of the Bill. For 150 years the trustee savings banks have performed a very great voluntary service to this country. The people who have organised them have not been paid anything. They have done their work entirely gratuitously. The banks have helped vast numbers of small investors, who might not otherwise have been able to save anything, to get their money nut into a safe investment; and for that they deserve our gratitude. But I think most of us would agree that the machinery of the trustee savings banks, great public service as it is, is becoming a little out of date, and it would be a good thing if the Government were to undertake a review of the whole functions of these trustee savings banks.
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The first thing your Lordships will have noticed about this Bill is that it increases the amount which the National Debt Commissioners may pay to the trustee savings banks from £3 2s. 6d. to £3 13s. per cent. What delightfully small sums of interest in these days! All that the ordinary depositor is allowed to get in interest on his deposits, as distinct from the special investment depositor, is 2½ per cent. on the money which he agrees to save. I should like to make it plain that I am very much in favour of low interest rates, and I always have been. I did not like what I thought were the very high, but which are now, I suppose regarded as rather moderate, rates of interest which prevailed in the last two or three years of the Conservative Government. When the other side won, in the autumn of 1964, I was not generally very pleased, of course, but I thought: "At least there is one consolation—interest rates will now go down", because it was one of the chief planks of the Labour Party programme to have lower interest rates. My Lords, I know that one of my great faults is that I am much too apt to believe what I am told, and I have often suffered from it; but I suppose one ought always to keep on hoping.
Let us see what the position is now. We now have a bank rate of 8 per cent. What does that mean? It means that an ordinary, small farmer or tradesman who is overdrawn has to pay a good deal more interest than that. In Scotland, it is 2 per cent. over bank rate, and I think that in England it is nearly as much. In Scotland, you have to pay 10 per cent. on your overdraft. Let us take a farmer with a small or moderate-sized farm. One year he may have a bit of luck; he may have a very good harvest, and he may find that he is £500 to the good. If he puts it into a trustee savings bank, what interest does he get on that £500? He gets £12 10s. a year, that is all. But suppose his luck goes the other way, and he has to overdraw another £500 from his bank. At the present time, he has to pay £50 a year in overdraft interest. My Lords, I do not think that is really fair. I do not think that is in accordance with social justice. On the one hand, if these small investors have to overdraw they find that their creditor is a Shylock who charges 10 per cent. On the other hand, if they happen to be

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lucky and are able to lend money, they find that their debtor is a Scrooge who will pay only 2½ per cent. They get the worst of it both ways.
I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, can tell me what the National Debt Commissioners do with this money when they get it. They have to pay £3 2s. per cent.—it is now being raised to £3 13s. per cent.—and the depositor gets £2 10s. of that. That is quite reasonable, because you have to allow for all the overhead expenses of the trustee savings banks. But do the National Debt Commissioners re-invest this money at more than £3 13s. per cent.; and, if so, at how much more? Do they use it to buy up Government stock? If so, then surely at present prices they must make a very large profit out of these small investors who are lending their money at 2½ per cent.
My Lords, a hundred years ago it was quite easy to understand the case for this. People were asked to put their money into these savings banks at 2½ per cent. because by law it could be put only into investments which were guaranteed by the Government and there was absolutely no chance of the value of their money going down or of their investment being lost, which might have happened if they had put it into some less gilt-edged kind of undertaking. A great many people in all classes were content to invest at 2½ per cent. knowing that the value of their money was entirely and unquestionably safe.
But what is the position now? For the last twenty or thirty years, every year the value of money has got less, and on three occasions—in 1931, 1949 and 1967 —the whole value of money in this country has been reduced by devaluation. It has gone down and down and down, from 4·80 dollars to the pound, first to 4·00, then to 2·80 and now to 2·40. It is not really fair, just because it is guaranteed by the Government, to expect people to invest a large amount of money in a thing which the Government almost guarantee to devalue. If it goes on at the present rate, in the year 2000 it will be worth only about half what it is now. What is the good of investing money at 2½ per cent.? It is no wonder that our National Savings are not coming along in such large quantities as we should like.
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My Lords, in the investment section, it is true that the trustee savings bank s, subject to the very strict conditions, are able to put their depositors' money into some kind of investment which brings in a larger annual return, provided they inform their depositors that this is not guaranteed by the Government. I should have thought that it was rather an advantage nowadays for an investment not to be guaranteed by the Government; but anyhow, the conditions with which they have to comply are very strict. Would it not be possible to assimilate or merge the ordinary deposits with the investment section in these savings banks? I do not think it is in keeping with the times that people should be asked to invest their small savings at such a very meagre rate of interest when the capital is almost certain to be devalued, and when the same organisation might, with great advantage to everybody, organise some plan to make a unit trust, so that the investors could get a rate of interest which would be comparable with what industry is earning and which might be a much better protection against deflation.
I have already paid tribute to the work which has been done by the directors of the trustee savings banks—all for nothing—but in these times, with high taxation and high travelling costs, I do not think we can expect people to give so much of their time and their money, too (because they have to travel about and pay expenses), for no remuneration at all, any more than we can expect Members of Parliament, in the late 20th century, to do the work which many were proud and glad to do for nothing in the 19th century; because our present fiscal system makes it impossible to get the same service. I would therefore suggest that the Government should consider authorising payments to be made to the directors of savings banks.
I would also suggest that trustee savings banks should be given more powers or more facilities to advertise, because theirs is really a great social service. It ought to be well advertised and well known. If people see gambling institutes and football pools advertised, it catches their attention and they may feel it is a good thing to use their money for that purpose. But people ought to be given an equal chance of seeing thrift advertised, with the advantages of it prominently displayed. This,

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in my view, is a social service which is costing the country very little, or nothing, and we are making a great deal out of it. I think we ought to be prepared to pay a little to enlarge it, and to make it more efficient and more modern.
My Lords, I do not go into any detail of this because my noble friend Lord Lambert is to follow me. He has been a director of a trustee savings bank for a very long time, and he will be able to put to your Lordships the proposals which I have outlined only very vaguely with far more knowledge, more experience and more authority than I can bring to bear. All I would say is that our social services in this country, so far as they are concerned with relieving want, on the whole have advanced with the times. But this equally important service of encouraging thrift, which is a very high form of social service, has lagged behind very much. I think it is time that it was brought up to date.
3.10 p.m.
VISCOUNT LAMBERT: My Lords, it is unnecessary for me to declare my interest in savings banks because my noble friend Lord Dundee has done it for me. But I am, and have been for a considerable time, chairman of the Devon and Exeter Savings Bank, and I am a member of the Savings Bank Executive Committee. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for the very deserved tribute he has paid to the work of the savings banks over the years. I should also like to congratulate him on explaining so clearly and concisely the purposes of the Bill.
I have been looking into the costs of running savings banks. During the past twenty years, the costs have risen to a most alarming extent. In 1947, the total overhead costs of the savings banks were £1,750,000, of which approximately £1½ million was contributed from the ordinary department, and £270,000 from the special investment department. For the last year for which I have the figures, the year ended November 30, 1966, the overhead costs had risen to no less than £12 million, of which £6,250,000 came from the ordinary department and £5,750,000 from the special investment department. From these figures, it becomes quite plain why there is for the Treasury the necessity to increase the rate
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of interest payable on the deposits in the ordinary department by 10s. 6d. per cent. If my calculations are correct and if the maximum is paid, I understand that it will mean an increase to the savings bank of about £5 million a year.
One of the reasons for the large increase in overheads is the fact that the savings banks have expanded so enormously during the past twenty years. In 1947 there were 870 branches; by November 30, 1966, the number had risen to 1,405. This expansion was made possible by a far-sighted scheme thought out and put into effect by the then-chairman of the Association, Sir Kenneth Stewart. Under his scheme the richer banks had to help the poorer banks; and the richer banks during the past twenty years have contributed no less than £4 million to the poorer ones. My own bank, which is a medium-sized bank, with deposits of £35 million, has given no less than £140,000 under this mutual assistance scheme. The result is that all the banks, the smaller banks, and the comparatively well-off banks, are short of capital. This is the reason why I am so delighted that under the Bill £10 million is to be made available for the banks for capital expenditure.
During the last twenty years, also the deposits attracted by the banks have risen to an amazing extent. In 1947, the total deposits were £700 million; in 1966 they were £2,150 million, and I gather that to-day they have gone up by a further £200 million. In other words, there has been a threefold increase in deposits during this period. It is only fair to point out, however, that the biggest increase took place in the special investment department. In that department in 1947, there was only £100 million. By 1966, the total had increased elevenfold, to £1,100 million. During that period the ordinary department increased by only about £400 million. The increase in the special department was due in large measure to the fact that from 1952 onwards the banks were able to pay an increased rate of interest in that department. To-day, some banks are paying as much as 6 per cent., and until recently the Post Office had been able to pay only 2½ per cent. on deposits. But I think it right to point out that the staff of the savings banks are much less impersonal than clerks in the post offices

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when people come to deposit their money with them.
One thing that is certain is that to-day, both from the national point of view and from the individual point of view, savings are more than ever necessary. I feel it is now time to take stock to see whether the savings banks, which have grown so enormously, are able adequately to fill their role in the community. I should like to inquire whether they are properly equipped to encourage thrift and whether the voluntary principle—a relic of Victorian times—is outmoded. I personally think that there must be great changes. I would urge the Government to set up a special committee of investigation, on the lines of that set up in 1926 by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Winston Churchill, under Lord Bradbury.
My Lords, to make my case it is my unpleasant task to highlight the various weaknesses in the Savings Bank Movement. Whilst it is a movement for which I have every loyalty, I feel it is my duty so to do. There are 77 or 78 separate savings banks. The smallest bank, in Scotland, has 911 depositors and £182,000 in deposits. The largest bank, another Scottish one, has 611,000 depositors and £148 million in deposits. The remarkable thing with both banks is the very large proportion of the population which they serve that has accounts with them. In the smaller bank no less than 40 per cent. of the population have accounts, and in the larger 30 per cent.
I am not competent to judge whether or not the smaller banks should be amalgamated, but I would say this. The small bank enjoys a tremendous good will and loyalty among the people it serves. Each of the banks, my Lords, has a chairman and trustees, or managers (the term is synonymous), all of whom give their services voluntarily. In addition, they have a chief executive or general manager. The trustee savings banks issue a Year Book and in it they give "potted biographies" of the chairmen of the various banks. I have been looking at this Year Book, and I find that no less than 25 per cent. of the chairmen are a little coy about their age; it is not given. Of the remainder, no less than 15 per cent. are over 80 years of age.
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It is not for me to say anything about old age. When I was young one used to believe in the Seven Ages of Man. Today I understand that there are only three— "Youth"; "Middle-age", and "My God! You're looking well". I aria afraid that I belong to the latter cute-gory, and I only hope that I am looking well. My view is that chairmen should now be paid, and this view was reinforced by a very senior actuary who told me that he was a little diffident about asking his chairman to undertake too many tasks. I spend about thirty half-days a year in the service of my hank—quite a considerable time. Quite frankly, if chairmen are paid it will not affect me, because I have announced my decision to retire in two years' time, when I am 60.
I also feel that the geographical areas of banks should be looked into. They have grown up in a haphazard kind of way. A large proportion of banks serve an area within in what I might call a ring fence. But there are glaring exceptions. I know only the southern area to which my bank belongs, but the London Trustee Savings Bank seems to have a very unwieldy area. It serves a part of the country which has the highest population density, yet it extends from Bedford, in the North, to Southampton, in the South, and from Andover, in the West, to Southend, in the East. Many banks have branches in the intervening areas. The London Bank area, it would appear to me, is too large and unwieldy, and I am reinforced in my view by the fact that only 7·3 per cent. of the nearly 9 million people in the London Bank's area have accounts with that Bank, corn-pared with 30 per cent. which has accounts with the largest bank in Scotland. Therefore I should have thought, the areas served by the banks should be rationalised.
So far as administration is concerned, the country is divided into five areas. I have an intimate knowledge only of the southern area. The chairmen and actuaries of each of the banks in the southern area meet twice a year, and they are entitled to elect four representatives to the Executive. The Executive meets five times a year, and one would have thought that if there is to be proper consultation between the banks and their area executives, the areas should meet a week or two before the Executive meet;

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not twice, but five times a year. The area can select either a chairman or an actuary as a representative on the Executive Committee. If a chairman is selected, he is accompanied by his actuary, and therefore the Executive Committee is too large and unwieldy. If all chairmen are selected, there could be no fewer than 41 members of the committee, which I should have thought was too many for the committee to be efficient. I would much sooner see an Executive consisting of not more than ten or twelve people.
My Lords, the Executive Committee has five standing committees, one on legislation, another on mutual assistance, a clearing centre committee, a Parliamentary committee and even an international committee. But there is no policy committee. The result is that new ideas put forward can originate only from the banks, and it takes a very long time for them to be put into effect. I have had a certain amount to do with the unit trust which the savings banks have set up, and I should like to express my gratitude to Mr. Callaghan, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, for giving permission to the banks to start this new and latest facility. I would point out, however, that while it took the Chancellor four months to make up his mind—and the Treasury is meant to be slow—it took the savings banks four years to make up their minds to ask for a unit trust. The trust was set up, and we wanted it to provide unsophisticated investors with a "hedge" against inflation.
Since it has been set up two extraordinary anomalies have arisen. The savings banks set up a management committee of six members, I think, though only five have so far been appointed. By law they cannot be paid, yet they are responsible for setting up and running the unit trust. They are advised about investments by an investment advisory committee, and there was considerable discussion about whether one could get the most able people in the City—able so far as investment knowledge was concerned—to give their services for nothing. It was decided that you get only what you pay for, and they are paid. But the two representatives of the savings banks on the management committee who attend the investment committee—in fact
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one is the chairman—are not paid. To me this seems quite ridiculous.
The other anomaly is that only depositors with £50 in their ordinary accounts may put money into the special investment department. Yet anyone can buy unit trust units, whether or not he is a depositor, or whether or not he has money in the ordinary department. Even agents, such as accountants and solicitors, can sell these units. One wonders, and I am worried about it, whether they will point out—particularly the agents—that the unit trust carries no Government guarantee whatever. If they do not, and the value of the units goes down, the good name of the savings banks will be jeopardised; and savings banks can be successful only if they have the complete confidence of the people they serve.
I am afraid that I have spoken for too long, but I have endeavoured to show that the savings banks, in spite of their success during the past twenty years, should be reorganised. An attempt was made some five or six years ago to introduce a very small reorganisation. It produced little or no result. Therefore I would ask the Government to set up a strong Committee to go into the whole matter and make recommendations. I am sure that if that is done, the savings banks will be able to do as much for the good of the country and the poorest sections of the community during the next 150 years as they have done in the past.
3.31 p.m.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, described this Bill as a small Bill. It is; but without question it is one that will bring a tremendous amount of assistance to a great social movement. Unlike the noble Viscount, Lord Lambert, who not only looked well but spoke well and convincingly, I cannot claim a direct association with the trustee savings banks. But my memory goes back forty years ago when in my teens I submitted a thesis successfuly on the history and future of the trustee savings bank. During the past weekend I have been trying to root it out, but unsuccessfully, because I wanted to know whether I had won the prize for my prognostications or for my literary ability. But I can say, without any shadow of doubt, that, no matter how optimistic I may have been in that essay, that optimism

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has been justified by the degree of progress that has been made over the past forty years.
We have heard so far some criticism, justifiable criticism, of the trustee savings banks, and I believe that a great deal of good will flow out of this debate. I do not want to speak on the various aspects of the Bill, with which my noble friend Lord Beswick has dealt very adequately. I want to concern myself with only one part of the Bill: that dealing with the power of the National Debt Commissioners to make loans for capital purposes. I think that this is the most significant part of the Bill, which offers an opportunity to the trustee savings banks to facilitate expansion and development.
Reference has already been made to their considerable contribution to the encouragement of thrift over the years, but I believe that the need for savings banks is greater to-day than it has been in the past. It began as a social movement, but now it has a significant function in the nation's economics in encouraging small savings, along with the National Savings movement, the building societies and cooperative savings. Never was there a time when there was greater necessity for encouraging personal savings than now. In the present economic climate there is no doubt that personal consumption is too high and savings are too low, and that has been a long-term tendency. Of the 14 leading countries in the world, in 1966 Britain had the lowest savings ratio to national income, of 18·1 per cent., while 7 of the 14 nations had savings ratios of 25 to 33 per cent. The same applies to individual householders, where again the United Kingdom had the lowest savings ratio of 5·1 per cent. It is perfectly obvious that this is reflected in the low level of national investment, which represents nearly 14 per cent. of our national income compared with an average of 20 per cent. elsewhere. I mention these figures to justify my plea for greater activity on the part of the trustee savings banks, and I join with other noble Lords who have asked for much more to be done to encourage greater personal savings.
Basically this is a voluntary movement, and long may it remain so, but along with the noble Viscount, Lord Lambert, I believe that the trustee savings banks
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should themselves move towards a great rationalisation of their organisation. We cannot destroy local associations, but in these days of computers and sophisticated techniques there are greater opportunities, and I believe that the possibility of securing assistance in the form of loans should give a great impetus towards development along these lines. The trustee savings banks, individually and collectively, will be making a great mistake if they do not take full advantage of the opportunity that is presented to them.
The trustee savings banks were first regulated by Act of Parliament in 1870 and then, according to their records, there were 78 banks. There are still 78 banks in existence. Over the years the character of the banks and the area they have covered have changed, but the number remains the same. The noble Viscount made powerful reference to the great variation in size of the banks and mentioned the two largest. His figures were most interesting. He indicated the variation in the rate of development—the London area, with a low development, and Glasgow, with a much higher one. But I should like to mention that there are other cities with a very high development. In my own city of Hull, 48 per cent. of the population have accounts with their trustee savings banks, with an average balance per head of population of £79, which is higher than that of any other English town.
I feel that I cannot refer to the town in which I live, because it adds weight to my argument, without making reference to the appalling tragedy that has afflicted that city. I am sure that the House and, indeed, the nation will feel the deepest sympathy towards those who are bereaved. For generations trawler-men have lived with danger and their families with unending anxiety. Hull to-day is a stricken city. In paying tribute to the courage of these men and in expressing sympathy. I would say that this is not enough. There is a need to do something to reduce the risk of this toll in human life.
Perhaps I should go on to say that the figures of savings which I have quoted reflect the fact that the people of Hull have for so long lived so close to adversity. The character of the people is reflected in their voluntary organisations

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—in the trustee savings banks, in particular. And I believe that every voluntary organisation reflects the character of the people it serves. In the trustee savings banks we have a social movement which has done an enormous amount of good. When one examines—and I invite your Lordships to do so—the degree of development in large areas of the country, it adds enormous weight to the arguments which have been advanced by noble Lords opposite, and which indicate the necessity for some degree of rationalisation and co-ordination.
The noble Viscount, Lord Lambert, made reference to the new unit trust, and I think that is the most significant step forward the trustee savings banks have made in 150 years. I was pleased to be associated with him in making these approaches to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. But I think one should note, as the noble Lord hinted, that the drive and initiative within the trustee savings banks movement comes from individuals and individual banks, and not from the collective associations. That is a great pity. I believe, quite frankly, that out of this debate and the discussions that have taken place in both Houses of Parliament the trustee savings banks can find some inspiration, and re-order their house in such a manner as to make them more effective in the next 150 years than they have been in the first 150 years.
Reference was made to the Report of the Bradbury Committee, which I believe reported about forty years ago this month. A copy of the Report came into my hands recently, and I should like to quote part of one paragraph in which it makes reference to the trustee savings banks. It says:
"The financial basis of the trustee savings banks is so sound, and they are so firmly established and have in the course of their long history come to inspire such great confidence and indeed affection in the minds of many depositors, that we think it desirable that their activities should be more widely extended, their facilities better advertised and their popularity made even greater than at present."
That was written in a Report forty years ago, and it is just as applicable to-day. I hope that out of all the attention that has been devoted to the trustee savings banks, and indeed the justifiable compliments that have been paid to them, they
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will find inspiration to allow them to make an even greater contribution to social welfare.
3.43 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for having introduced this Bill this afternoon. I should like at the outset to declare my interest, as I, too, am a trustee of a trustee savings bank, although, as has been pointed out before, this is not a position of financial reward. This is a welcome Bill, as it arises largely out of the wishes of the savings bank movement. It really arises out of a desire for a change in some of the practices, and notably one.
The system of apportioning the expenses of running trustee savings banks as between the ordinary department, on the one hand, and the special investment department, on the other, has been based on the balance due to the depositors. This has been manifestly irrational, as the expenses of a bank are in relation, not to the size of its funds, but to the transactions which are carried out by it; and it stands to reason that the ordinary department, which is akin to a current account, has many more transactions than the special investment department, which consists of money that people put on deposit, and which, in effect, they do not wish to touch for a period of time. Hence, in the past it has not been possible for the special investment department to accumulate reserves as fast as it should, or, alternatively, to pay as high an interest as it could, because it has been subsidising the management expenses of the ordinary department. This Bill alters this, and the change is welcomed by the savings banks.
But although the Bill raises the interest which the Treasury may pay to the savings banks on funds deposited with them from £3 2s. 6d., as it is at the moment, to £3 13s., two points arise. First, it is highly unlikely that the Treasury will pay to the trustee savings banks, at least at present, the full £3 13s. allowed under the Bill. I assume that a lesser figure will be the starting point, and that later it will be increased by Statutory Instrument. I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, when he comes to reply, will be able to say what sum is intended to be paid to the trustee savings banks, and on what date this new payment will be operated.

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Secondly, although the Treasury pay to the savings banks £3 2s. 6d., or the new increased amount, the banks may still by Statute pay to their depositors only 2½ per cent., the difference being taken up by the management expenses of the banks. My noble friend Lord Dundee referred to this, and I am bound to say that I feel very much in agreement with him, because I believe that the time is corning when the Government will have to raise above the present limit of 2½ per cent. the interest which the trustee savings banks can pay to depositors.
It is, I always feel, one of the anomalies of our times that the trustee savings banks, which one might feel arose from and belonged to, an earlier more frugal and less affluent era, in fact play an increasing part in our national life, and secure bigger deposits each year. To give a measure of this—and, indeed, my noble friend Lord Lambert gave some extremely interesting figures—my own bank, the East Anglia Trustee Savings Bank, has doubled the balance due to depositors, from £39 million in 1961 to £82 million in 1967. This was over a period of six years. Yet the interest paid to depositors on the ordinary department is restricted to a paltry 2½ per cent.
In what I am about to say I am expressing my own views; they are not intended to represent the views either of the bank or of my colleagues in the bank. But I think the noble Lord will find that the figure of 2½ per cent. was fixed in 1888, or possibly even before that, and it has remained as such ever since. I do not think I could be accused of being an extremist if I said that at least there is an argument that this rate should be increased. I know it can be argued, and with some force, that the money deposited in savings banks is guaranteed by the Government, and that savings banks have continued to pay out the sum of 2½ per cent. even when bank rate was below 2½ per cent. Indeed, in support of that, one can recall the fact that between 1932 and 1951—as recently as that—bank rate did not rise above 2 per cent. except for a period of two months. But times have changed; we are now living in an era of high interest, and even the most optimistic would not anticipate an early return to a 2 per cent. bank rate era.
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Trustee savings banks have to live and operate in a commercial world, and they have to compete for depositors in a commercial market. If the success which they have had in the past is to be sustained, and if savings are to be encouraged—as, indeed, they are, and as, indeed, the Government always say they are—then consideration must be given to allowing trustee savings banks to offer a more realistic rate on deposits in the ordinary department. I could imagine that such a suggestion would not find ready acceptance with the Treasury, who are not noted for their readiness to display the characteristics of Lady Bountiful, but I am bound to say I believe they will have to face this fact.
In support of this, I would merely underline the fact, as I have said, that the trustee savings banks have to live in a commercial world. Here in this in Clause 2, we have the Government setting aside £10 million for the trustee savings banks to use in a capital way for the purchase of land and buildings, equipment and computers. The money can be borrowed from the Treasury, but et a commercial rate of 7 per cent. or 8 per cent. It seems hardly logical for the Treasury, on the one hand, to pay £3 13s. 0d. per cent. on money it obtains from the banks and yet, on the other, to require interest of 7 or 8 per cent. on money which the banks obtain from the Treasury.
I believe that this Bill, with this one reservation of the rate of interest chargeable on the capital sum of £10 million, is a welcome Bill. But I beg the Government not to feel that, once this Bill is on the Statute Book, the savings banks problems has been dealt with for another ten years. My noble friend Lord Lambert called for an inquiry into the whole of the savings bank movement, and produced some very sound arguments for it. I believe he was right. I would support him in it, for we all want to see the trustee savings bank movement organised in the future in such a way as to enable it to serve the public in the best possible manner and to encourage savings.
3.53 p.m.
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, I hope that, after the wide-ranging discussion We have had this afternoon, I may say just a few words. First, I should like to

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express appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for the manner in which the Bill was presented to your Lordships; and secondly, so far as the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, is concerned, I would acknowledge his appreciation of and the credit he gave to the trustee savings banks. I wondered how many times he used the words "2½ per cent." in his speech. He seemed to be obsessed with that figure. I suppose it is because it goes back to Victorian times. But it ought to be mentioned that the first £15 is now free of income tax, and that is itself some considerable benefit, and, secondly, the moneys can be moved by a depositor from the ordinary department to the special investment department and will carry more that 2½ per cent. So far as the noble Viscount, Lord Lambert, is concerned, all I can say is that I have heard some of those arguments before, and probably shall hear them again, because there is another platform upon which I am sure the noble Viscount's views will get an opportunity of being voiced at the appropriate time. So I do not think it would be a bad thing if for a few moments we got back to the Bill and what it hopes to achieve.
The Bill sets out to achieve two major objects: first, to place the special investment department of the trustee savings bank and the investment department of the Post Office Savings Bank on the same footing. That is the first object. The second is to introduce a new source of capital moneys required by the trustee savings banks for the provision of bank office accommodation and of office equipment or machinery—in particular, computer installations. Dealing with the first of these major objects, it should be explained that up to the present time the special investment department of the trustee savings bank—I am speaking broadly, of course—has subsidised the ordinary department. That situation has arisen from the fact that the management expenses of the banks are apportioned between the ordinary and the special investment departments on the basis of the deposits held by the two departments, which is, broadly speaking, on a one-for-one ratio. This means that the S.I.D., with one-twentieth of the transactions of the O.D.—that is, one-twentieth of the work
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involved—is meeting about one-half of the total management expenses. In the case of the Post Office Savings Bank, however, the investment department is costed separately and does not, to any appreciable extent, subsidise the ordinary savings account section. The immediate result of this difference in procedure is that the Post Office Savings Bank is better able to pay a higher rate of interest to depositors on investment accounts.
It is accepted that it was never the intention of the Government that the Post Office Savings Bank should be in a more favourable position than the Trustee Savings Bank with regard to their respective investment departments, and therefore the National Debt Commissioners are desirous of being in a position to authorise the trustee savings banks to apportion management expenses between the two departments on a more equitable basis—that is, the work involved in administering the two departments rather than in accordance with the ratio of deposits—and this necessary change is provided for in Clause 6.
Before the Commissioners can authorise any new apportionment to the benefit of the special investment department, it will be necessary for the ordinary department to be in a position to meet an increased proportion of the banks' management expenses. Hence, Clause 1 of the Bill provides for an increase in the maximum rate of interest payable to the banks of 10s. 6d.; that is to say, the maximum rate of interest is to be raised from £3 2s. 6d. per cent. to £3 13s. 0d. per cent. When the maximum becomes law, the Commissioners will be able to increase the rate of interest paid to the banks—now, of course £3 2s. 6d. per cent.—to, say, £3 10s. 0d. per cent. This in turn will enable the banks to switch management expenses at present borne by the special investment department to the ordinary department to the extent of about 5s. or 6s. per cent., thus placing the trustee savings banks in a better position to match the rate of interest paid on special investment deposits with that paid by the Post Office Savings Bank on its I.D. deposits. Some part of the increased rate of interest to be paid on O.D. moneys invested with the Commissioners will serve to cover the rising costs of the trustee savings banks and assist them to meet some of their capital expenditure.

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Another factor relating to the attainment of the desired parity with the Post Office Savings Bank investment department is the provision of identical powers of investment in respect of special investment department deposits. This will be achieved by Clause 3 of the Bill, which affords the trustee savings banks the same powers of investment as those enjoyed by the Post Office Savings Bank.
The second main object, the provision of a new source of capital moneys, will be achieved by Clause 2 of the Bill, which will enable the Commissioners to make loans from the Fund for the Bank for Savings to meet capital expenditure in respect of land, buildings and office equipment or machinery. This provision is of particular importance, as the trustees savings banks are faced with a continuing necessity to improve and enlarge, and at times to rehouse, existing offices, and also to open new offices in localities not previously served by the Trustee Savings Bank.
At the same time the trustee savings banks are on the threshold of the computer age, and within the next few years it is expected that many savings bank offices will operate computer systems for the recording of depositors' accounts. This will necessitate capital outlay for the provision of computers on a regional basis to serve fairly substantial numbers of offices, and without the capital assistance envisaged in this clause the introduction of computers would possibly be delayed for several years.
I have only one or two minor things to mention in addition. Clauses 4 and 5 are in the nature of "tidying-up" clauses which will facilitate transactions between the Commissioners and the trustee savings banks and provide for the revision of the arrangements necessary for the submission of accounts by the Commissioners. Clause 7 extends the transferability of pensionable savings banks service to include service with the Savings Banks Institute as well as with the trustee savings banks, the Trustee Savings Banks Association and the Trustee Savings Banks Inspection Committee. It is expected, too, that with the introduction of decimal currency the one penny which is in the rules at present as the charge for supplying a copy of the annual accounts will no longer be valid, and therefore the penny charge is being
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wiped out. I think most people are not aware of the penny charge for the accounts, incidentally, and they are in any case supplied free. Finally, Clause 9 of the Bill provides for the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of any increase in charges to that Fund which may be attributable to the Bill as a result of the introduction of the foregoing changes. In another place it was not anticipated that there would be any charge on the Consolidated Fund.
My Lords, this Bill received a cordial welcome in another place, both in the. House on Second Reading and at the: Committee stage. At the Committee stage I believe there were just two Amendments, widening the scope of a clause to cover machinery as well as office furniture. The Report stage and Third Reading passed without comment, but there was general approval on all sides of the House of the provisions of the Bill I commend it to your Lordships, despite the pessimistic note which has beer sounded by one or two of your Lordships. I am convinced that this Bill, humble in its way, will be another stet forward in the march of progress of the trustee savings banks.
4.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT ECCLES: My Lords, wish to detain the House for only one minute in order to make two points. The first is that I think we ought to do nothing to undermine confidence in our in moneys If one looks at what is going on to-day or the Stock Exchange, at Sotheby's or Christie's, it can be seen that the British people are beginning to prefer things to money. This is very serious, and therefore I hope we shall have real regard to those, who represent £2,000 million, who have confidence in our money. I do not like to see an institution which has Government backing in other respects building into it something like a unit trust in ordinary shares. If people are-advised to get out of Government securities and to buy ordinary shares they are being advised to lose confidence in the pound. It is essential that we should do nothing of that kind to-day, because if we cannot restore confidence in our money we shall have very little chance of restoring confidence in our economy.
My second point is that I do not like the idea of eating into a voluntary system. Of course there are many more

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people to-day who have time to spare, and it would be a good thing if voluntary service could be extended even more than it has been in the past. But the idea that out of the rates and taxes we should now pay people who in the past have served us so well because they believed in their neighbourhood and in the community, is to me most distressing. I hope that great care will be taken before the voluntary principle in any respect, and certainly in respect of this great movement which has gone on for 150 years, is sacrificed for the sake of paying professionals.
VISCOUNT LAMBERT: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount how the payment of chairmen would be a cost on the rates and taxes?
VISCOUNT ECCLES: My Lords, I understand that the Government are putting up money, in the sum of £10 million, for the building of the savings banks. If the savings banks' current expenses increase, it means that they will not have the money to pay for the buildings themselves.
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, perhaps I may be permitted to say just one thing. Surely this is a matter which concerns the movement as a whole, and it will have to make up its mind and then go to the Government. It is surely not a thing which can be decided off hand. The voluntary principle has built up a great movement, and like the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, I think it would be a tragedy if that voluntary spirit were to be shattered on the altar of payment.
4.9 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I should like to express gratitude for the general welcome which has been afforded to this Bill. I am particularly grateful for the tributes paid to the voluntary workers by the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, my noble friend Lord Peddle and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. I trust that the noble Viscount, Lord Lambert, and the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, will feel that a measure of those tributes was directed to them, because they have indeed served this movement well. I was particularly interested to hear what the noble Viscount, Lord Lambert, had to say because, before I came into the Chamber, I had been reading the report of the annual
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general meeting of the Devon and Exeter Savings Bank, and I was greatly impressed by the successful year's work which was reported to that meeting; and, if I may say so, I was also impressed by the two very constructive speeches made on that occasion.
I would say to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, that he was somewhat unduly perturbed about the use to which Government money was to be put in this connection. It is not proposed that the £10 million should be used for the payment of chairmen, unless they come under the general category of "mechanisation", and I do not think this would be the case. The noble Earl asked me whether I could tell him what the National Debt Commissioners did with the money from the ordinary savings department entrusted to them. I confirm to him what I suspect he already knows: that the National Debt Commissioners in turn invest this money in Government securities. The special investment department deposits, of course, are invested by the banks in a wider range of securities. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, asked about the new rate of interest. As I think I said in opening, it is expected that the rate will be around £3 10s. per cent. and it will become payable (and I did not say this in opening) from May 21.
The noble Earl, Lord Dundee, went on to tell us of his objection to the present high rate of interest, and I must say that I share with him, although I am surprised to find I do, his objection to usury. I, too, should like to look forward to the days when we can think again in terms of 2½ per cent. bank rate, or even, as the noble Viscount said, as once was the case, 2 per cent. bank rate.
The noble Earl went on to suggest that possibly the right thing here was to merge the ordinary branch with the special investment department. I think that possibly he has not quite understood that there are really two different functions here. It is not simply that two different rates of interest are paid. I quite agree that the ordinary branch, in paying 2½ per cent. interest, is paying a rate which is low, and it is a fact that it is the rate which was originally fixed in 1888. It is fair to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Burden, said, that the tax exemption, up to the first £15 of interest,

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does make a difference to the standard-rate taxpayer. Nevertheless, it is a low rate of interest at the present time. But research has suggested that deposits with the ordinary branch are not affected unduly by changes of other rates, either up or down. At one time, 2½ per cent. was considered generous. It is now very low, but the deposits in the ordinary branch remain roughly the same.
I emphasise the fact that there are really two different functions served by these two different departments. The depositors in the ordinary department are mainly concerned with the ready encashment facilities, ready access and convenient opening hours; and to a large extent many of them use the ordinary department as a current account.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question? He says that interest rate paid remains the same. But as our economy grows, ought it not to be very much increasing? If the National Debt Commissioners are using this money to buy Government stocks, surely they are getting a return of 5 per cent. or 5½ per cent. on that. If that is so, could they not afford to pay a little more than 2½ per cent. to ordinary depositors?
LORD BESWICK: This is a point of view, but again I stress that the facilities which are available at the ordinary branch are an attraction, and possibly as great an attraction to the depositors there as higher interest rate. Certainly if the rate was increased it would be necessary to look at this tax exemption limit, and unless one put it up very high the advantage would be lost. I think that, on reflection, the noble Earl might agree that there is an advantage in having a known and unfluctuating rate over the years.
He also suggested, as did the noble Viscount, Lord Lambert, and the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, that there should be a general review of the work of the
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trustee savings banks. I was greatly interested in the points that were put very cogently by the noble Viscount, and it may well be that there is substance in them. I understand that he put them forward as his own personal point of view, and this leaves me in some little difficulty in replying to him. As he will appreciate, if the Government were to discuss matters of this kind the proposals should themselves come from the Trustee Savings Banks Association. They are jealous of their independence, and I believe they are somewhat sensitive to any hint of further Government control. I should not like them to think that we were in any way short-circuiting any correspondence that we have with them.
The noble Viscount, Lord Lambert, pointed out that the areas for which the banks are responsible are now in some respects unwieldy or anomalous. There are anomalies and they have arisen from historical factors, but I think that the development of computerisation, and co-operation in the use of computers, may have some effect in the future in rationalising the boundaries within which the separate independent banks operate. As for the rest, I would simply say that if there is an initiative from the Trustee Savings Banks Association, if they express a desire to consult with the Government, then I can assure him there will be no reluctance on the part of the Government to discuss constructively with them the kind of points which the noble Viscount and others have raised. With that, I trust that this Bill will be given a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ERSKINE BRIDGE TOLLS BILL
House in Committee: Clauses and Schedules agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL
4.18 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): 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.)
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I rather thought the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was going to raise the question of admissibility of Amendments. This would now be the moment, following the precedent of the last occasion.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, I understand it would be a convenient moment for me to raise the question that has, if I may say so, with great courtesy and very properly, been brought to my notice by the Officers of the House, which is the admissibility according to the present Rules of the House of the Amendments down in my name on the Order Paper. The Amendments are suggested to be out of order, I understand on the ground of relevance. I believe the procedure of this House to be not a very rigid one, nevertheless to be one which is enforced in relation to certain matters, with very proper regard to considerations of relevance. It would be quite wrong if I were to seek to impose on the House a debate on any matter which it regarded as being irrelevant to the clause or the Bill, and I would not seek to do it. In a self disciplining body it is particularly important that no Member of the House—I am very conscious of this in relation to myself—should indulge himself by seeking to hold a debate on a matter which is not regarded as appropriate for debate.
That, however, does not detract from my present feeling that this Amendment is relevant. It is not a matter on which I am being egotistical enough to rely on my own judgment. I have sought advice from distinguished Parliamentarians, all of whom take the view—I have not heard a dissenting voice from the advisers I have sought outside this Chamber—that these particular Amendments are not irrelevant. The matter seems to me to be comprised within a very short argument indeed. The Bill provides for an
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increase in the total number of Her Majesty's judges, and my Amendment provides for increasing the pool from which that total number is to be drawn. It is as simple as that. It appears to me to be almost unarguably relevant in relation to the Bill.
With the greatest respect to those who take the contrary view, I am tempted to think that possibly what may have induced their viewpoint is the fact that undoubtedly this Amendment, although relevant, will introduce material, important considerations that may well not have been in the minds of the persons introducing the Bill when they brought it in. That is a quite different consideration. An Amendment may nevertheless be relevant, though its effect is quite far-reaching. The effect of it may or may not be considered to be far-reaching, but that is not a point which touches on the relevance. The question of relevance is whether it is cognate to the matter we are discussing; namely, how many judges we are to have at any given moment of time. Where they are to come from, I venture to submit to the House, is cognate.
What to do about it? If I may add a word, certainly it would not be appropriate for me to press this matter to a Division; but I should like to sense the feeling of the House on the matter. If the House feels that these Amendments are not relevant, then I shall immediately withdraw them and seek to find some other opportunity of raising a matter which I regard as of considerable public importance. I should like to hear the views of other Members of the House, if they are so minded, on this matter, because it is strongly my view, and the view of those whose advice I have sought, that these are relevant Amendments and are properly introduced for discussion on the Committee stage.
4.23 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has put this problem fairly and squarely in front of your Lordships, and it is, of course, for your Lordships' House to decide. As he himself indicated, we discipline ourselves. He has taken advice; I have taken advice. The Leader of your Lordships' House is always in a slightly equivocal position on these occasions. I can only advise the House. I have none of the

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authority that the Speaker in another place has in these matters, where his decisions are virtually unchallengeable. Therefore, it may be of help to your Lordships if I express the views to which I have myself come, on the basis of the advice I have received; and I will attempt to meet the noble Lord's points on the question of whether "relevance" in this sense means that it is cognate to the subject generally.
It might be worth while reminding your Lordships of the principle by reading an extract from a Minute of January, 1931, by Counsel to the Chairman of Committees. If my memory is right, the then noble Earl, Lord Home, also referred to this on the last occasion when there was a discussion of this kind, on the Peerage Bill in 1957.
This is what is fundamental to our consideration:
"There are no Standing Orders regulating the admissibility of Amendments in the House of Lords. The House is master of its own procedure and, unlike the House of Commons, is not subject to ruling on points of order. The test usually applied in practice to the admissibility of an Amendment is whether or not it is relevant to the subject matter of the Bill. But the decision upon this House, and the action taken on that decision, can only be made by the House itself".
It is, of course, perfectly relevant for your Lordships to take into account the advice that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has himself given your Lordships on this matter.
If I may now refer to Erskine May, page 500 of the 17th Edition states:
"Amendments must be relevant to the subject matter of the Bill and of the clause to which they are proposed; and they must not be inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee on the same question. The admissibility of an Amendment, however, can only be decided by the House … there being no authority which can in advance rule an Amendment out of order. The Officers of the House would draw attention to an Amendment which appears to contravene the accepted principles of admissibility and the matter would be discussed in the Committee".
Procedure seems to have developed a little, because on the occasion in 1957 the then Leader of the House raised the matter, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, did, before the House actually went into Committee.
I have looked most carefully at the Amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and the noble
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Lord, Lord Ilford. Of course I express no opinion on the merits of what they seek to do, beyond appreciating that this is a subject of importance and one which has been raised on other occasions. But on the application of previous procedure and rulings to relevance, I would say that these particular Amendments are outside the scope of the Bill, and are therefore irrelevant, because, I take it, the Bill is designed solely and exclusively to making provision with respect to the maximum number of judges. Where the judges come from is, I agree, an important subject. But the noble Lord who is responsible for presenting this Bill to your Lordships' House has not seen fit to include this subject for consideration with the Bill. It would of course have been possible for a Bill to be introduced in a form which made the Amendments which the noble Lord would like to see made to the 1959 County Courts Act. It is to this point that the noble Lord directs our attention.
An admissible Amendment would be one which sought to vary the maximum number of judges; but the eligibility of judges, I would submit, and am so advised, is altogether another matter. This could be the subject of a separate Bill, which the noble Lord might himself wish to introduce. It could also be the subject of a Motion for Papers. But, as I said, it is not relevant to the Bill as it is before us now, because it is outside the scope of the Bill as it is before us.
In this matter I think we are bound to pay careful attention to the advice which the officials of the House give us. Although we all find it difficult to refer to officials, this is a matter in which I think it is appropriate to say that they are unanimious in the advice they have given to us. Neither I nor your Lordships' House is concerned with whether what the noble Lord wishes to do is reasonable or right, or whether this is just an opportunity: it is entirely a question as to whether by discussing the Amendments we should be breaching our own custom in this matter. We are bound by custom, and I am sure your Lordships generally would feel that all of us have a responsibility in this matter.
Therefore, with the greatest feeling of sympathy, I hope that your Lordships will agree with the advice I have given, bearing in mind that, as I repeat, I am not a Speaker; and I carry no more

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authority than any other Member of your Lordships' House.
4.29 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I have listened most carefully to what the noble Lord the Leader of the House has said. I cannot claim, as he can and as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, can, to have received any advice on this question. None the less, if I may express my own opinion, if one applies the test of whether these Amendments are or are not within the scope of the Bill I would say without any hesitation that, whether or not what is proposed is desirable, they are clearly not within the scope of this Bill, which has the object merely of increasing the number of judges. The Amendments introduce something which is right outside the scope of this House in this matter to consider, though it is something which one of these days the House might well consider; namely, what will make persons eligible for appointment to the Judiciary.
We in this House use the word "relevance" which perhaps is not so precise as the word "scope" which is more usually referred to in another place, but I believe that the same test applies. In the sense in which the word is used in this connection, it cannot be said to be relevant to this Bill, which deals merely with the increase of numbers, to consider the qualifications for the Judiciary. Therefore, while I think the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, put his argument very persuasively, I would say without any doubt that these Amendments to which reference has been made are not relevant.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, as a newcomer to this House, I am reluctant to enter into a discussion of the practice and customs of your Lordships' House; but as an old Parliamentarian I could not let this occasion pass without challenging the statements which were made by the Leader of the House. He first asserted, as I think is quite correct, that this House is the judge of its own procedure. He then proceeded to introduce as evidence the opinions of the officials of the House. He cannot have it both ways. The House is master of its own procedure free and unfettered to take those opinions on the basis of the issues before it. Of course, all of us can and do take the advice of many people, parti-
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cularly when we are in doubt, but all of us must take the responsibility for what we say and for decisions we advise others to take in this Chamber. The noble Lord the Leader of the House went on to say that we were bound by custom. Again, he cannot have it both ways. Either we are bound to examine issues which come before us and play it as the issues present themselves, or we are bound by the decisions of those who went before us.
I should have thought that this was a marginal case, and that if the Amendments in the name of the two noble Lords stood on their own, applying the test of a place from which I recently came, they would unquestionably be out of order. But as in this case your Lordships seek to amend the Long Title, then I should have thought that marginally if your Lordships took a decision on whether the Amendments to the Long Title should be accepted, it is just possible that the discussions which clearly your Lordships would wish to have could in fact take place. I would not wish to pontificate upon this issue, but I should be failing in what I conceive to be my duty to your Lordships' House if I did not stand four-square behind the practice that your Lordships must be, and always be, masters of your own procedure, free and unfettered from advice from any other quarter, except that which noble Lords in their individual capacity may wish to take.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I should not intervene but for the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wigg. I do not think that there was any such contradiction as he supposed in the speech delivered by the Leader of the House. The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, is perfectly right that this is a matter which, if necessary, could be determined by the vote of this House. But that was precisely what the Leader of the House said. With great respect, I thought that the Leader of the House made a model speech as Leader of the House in calling attention to where the power lay, but nevertheless telling us what he thought the precedents were. I go further, however, and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, will not quarrel with what I say. If the long custom of this House has been that described by the Leader of the House—and in that he has

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been supported by my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne—then the probability is that it has been a very useful practice and custom, and we are wise to pay some attention to that custom precisely because we have not the very strict rules that exist in another place.
I speak with some 12 or 13 years' experience in this House, and when the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, first raised this question on Second Reading, I had no doubt whatever that, if he put down such an Amendment it would, under our existing practice and on the precedents, be considered irrelevant. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, that, if the word "relevant" were used in more common parlance, one might have come to a different conclusion, but using the word "relevance" as we use it in this House in considering the nature of an Amendment, I have little doubt that these Amendments are irrelevant. I felt this so strongly that I actually misheard the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in his Second Reading speech, and in my own speech congratulated him on not proposing to put down an Amendment on the ground that I thought it would be irrelevant; but I fond that in that matter I misheard him. I am bound to say that, if he wished to raise this sort of matter, the noble Lord was absolutely right in using the opportunity of the Second Reading, and that he would be acting in fact against the common practice of this House, which I think has proved useful to us all, if he did not accept the view taken by the Leader of the House on this occasion.
One other matter arises and what I say may appear to contradict something said by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, but I do not think he will disagree with me. We are all most grateful to the Officers of the House for drawing our attention to these matters whenever they arise; we are very dependent on them; their advice to us on these occasions is very useful. I very much hope that the advice of the Leader of the House will be accepted, and that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, will not see fit to challenge it on this occasion.
4.38 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I should like to say a few words, because if this Amendment had been capable of being
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discussed I should have spoken very strongly in favour of it. But that is not the issue at the moment. The question is whether this kind of Amendment is relevant to the Bill. I am bound to say that I have come to the conclusion that it is not. It is quite true that we can make our own Standing Orders as we go along, and that it is for this House to decide. But, after all, we have to run this House with some kind of sense of order. Whether these Standing Orders are written or not, we have to have in our own minds the fact that there are certain limits to discussions which we have to impose. I cannot conceive that the Bill, designed merely to increase the number of judges is one in which one can raise a very big question of principle; namely, whether solicitors or barristers, or both, should be qualified to become judges. That is surely quite a different matter from what is set out in this Bill.
If the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, will take my advice—which I am sure he will not—I suggest that we get together and raise this question, which is a very important question, in a more formal and orderly way. It is one which this House ought to be in a position to deal with, but to deal with it at the beginning in the atmosphere of a House which is divided as to whether or not the Amendment is relevant—even if the House decided by a majority of five that it was relevant—would not be quite the right basis from which we could then proceed to discuss the merits of the Amendment.
Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, having ventilated this question effectively, as he did on Second Reading, will let it rest at that and will not divide the House. I shall then be very happy to get together with him and confer as to what is the most effective way of carrying this matter a stage further.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I have felt, like certain noble Lords, a certain schizophrenia in considering this issue. As to substance, I must confess to considerable sympathy for the points made by the noble Lords in their Amendments. As a layman, one who only par; the lawyers' fees, I have always felt the caste divisions between the two branches of this illustrious and expensive profession to be rather artificial.

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Nevertheless, as to procedure, I must say that I was personally very much impressed by the views expressed by the noble Lord the Leader of the House, and the Amendments—certainly, at least, to me—seem to fall beyond the scope of the Bill. I should like to add my voice to those of other noble Lords who have spoken, in urging the noble Lords who have put down these two Amendments to pursue them if they wish, but I hope that they will pursue this issue by way of a separate Motion or Bill.
This may be a marginal issue—I would grant that. But if that is so, and since we have no Rules of Procedure, I hope your Lordships will feel that you should be particularly careful and scrupulous when you navigate in these procedural waters. If we are to err, let us err rather on the side of austerity. Let us follow precedent in so far as we can. I should have thought it was also useful for us to listen to the advice of the Officers of your Lordships' House. This is, of course, a matter for your Lordships to decide upon. The noble Lord the Leader of the House has said that he has not advised your Lordships, but at least he has intimated the direction in which his advice might fall if he were to do so. It is certainly not for me to advise your Lordships but, in so far as I am doing so, my advice would chime with the intimation which your Lordships have received from the Leader of the House.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships for more than a few moments, more especially as I am not an expert on the procedure of this House. I would just say that we on these Benches have listened with the greatest attention to the argument developed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and I think to some extent supported by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, regarding the relevance of his Amendment and the desirability of its being discussed in Committee. I must say that we on these Benches, at any rate, find ourselves completely convinced by the arguments deployed by the noble Lord, Lord Shackle-ton, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, and others, to the effect that these Amendments are not relevant in the normally accepted sense of the term and are certainly not, as we see it, within the scope of the Bill—a very good phrase introduced by the noble and
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learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne. It is very difficult to maintain that they are within the scope of this very simple Bill which, after all, provides for an immediate and urgent necessity upon which I think everyone is agreed in principle, and which could therefore go through with very little discussion.
But apart from anything else, if we were to allow this Amendment, which may be a very good one (and we on these Benches reserve ourselves entirely as to the nature of the Amendment) to be introduced and discussed, it would without doubt be to some extent contentious. I doubt whether all the members of the legal profession would be in favour of this Amendment, and that might in itself hold up the passing of this very necessary little Bill. Therefore, apart from anything else, I regard that as a strong argument in favour of asking the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, to be so good as to withdraw his Amendment.
One reason for confusion may be—I do not know enough about it to say with certainty—that the back of this Bill is labelled "Administration of Justice", and then the Long Title is given. But on the front it is referred to as the "Administration of Justice Bill", which is followed by an Explanatory Memorandum. It is surely not an Administration of Justice Bill; it is a Bill simply to increase the number of judges. Why, therefore, should it not be called "Increase in the Number of Judges Bill"? I put that down only as a way by which we might get round the difficulty of procedure; and it might even be considered in Committee. I do not know whether or not that would be possible, but it seems to me that there is a certain amount of confusion. Anyhow, so far as we are concerned, we would ask the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, to be so good as to consider withdrawing his Amendment.
4.47 p.m.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, the House will forgive me for an abortive use of its time, if it has the feeling that the discussion we have had has not been without value in quite a number of directions. I made it clear when I spoke initially that I had no intention of forcing this matter to a Division. I hope your Lordships will indulge me if I say just a word or two as to my reasons. First

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and foremost, I think it would be wrong to seek to force my opinion against the weight of opinions which have been expressed in the House on this subject, and the view I may hold or continue to hold in that regard is irrelevant. Secondly, I entirely agree with the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that we should be discussing the Amendment in the wrong atmosphere, because what we have been discussing is not the merits or demerits of these Amendments but solely the question of relevance. It would be wrong to seek to introduce a discussion that was vitiated by considerations of the relevance of the whole matter, so on that score, also, I think it would be wrong to press the matter to a Division.
I should like to say that much use has been made by the noble Lords who have spoken of the specialised interpretation of the word "relevance" in this House. But the one thing that has not emerged is any illustration of its specialised use in this House. It would be of great use in the future if we could find somewhere some guidance on this subject, because it appears that House of Lords "relevance" is rather like Alice in Wonderland, where the words employed have a usage and an interpretation that are different from the ordinary sense. There has been no indication, either in the discussion or in any precedents, of how that word is to be interpreted. I think that for newcomers to the House it would certainly be of value to know how House of Lords "relevance" differs from ordinary "relevance".
Having made that observation, I should like to conclude by saying that nobody would be so foolhardy or so foolish as to reject an offer of such terrifying strength of alliance as came from the noble Lord, Lord Silkin; and that I welcome indeed.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, perhaps, with leave, I may just say that I am sure the House will appreciate the attitude of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. I do not think it is any good his asking me, or indeed any other noble Lord, precisely what the interpretation of "relevance" is. It has a Parliamentary sense—sorne people might even say a Pickwickian sense—and this, as my noble friend Lord Wigg will agree, also applies in another place. In those circumstances,
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this is undoubtedly a matter which the Committee on Procedure could consider further.
There have been previous examples which could be examined. There was one very appropriate one—the Betting Inducements Bill of 1913—and on that occasion Lord Salisbury attempted to move, That the Amendment be not considered, and the House became rather nervous at that point. I think we should certainly very much regret having to, move a Motion of that kind. Therefore, without prolonging this discussion any further, I hope that the noble Lord Lord Goodman, and the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, will now decide—because we are still in a sort of limbo state, as we have not yet reached the Committee stage—not to proceed with their Amendments. Perhaps before we leave this, my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, who is certainly a much greater lawyer than I am, might have something to say on this.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I should very much prefer to leave the matter to the House.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I ought first to apologise to your Lordships for my absence when the Committee stage was called. It is abundantly clear, I think, that the view which your Lordships have indicated in relation to the two Amendments set down by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, applies with equal force to the Amendments which stand in my name. I must confess that when I put these Amendments down I myself fell some doubt as to their relevance; although, of course, your Lordships might have come to a different conclusion on the Amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. All that it remains for me to do is to indicate to your Lordships that I do not propose to move either of the Amendments which stand in my name on the Paper.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AILWYN in the Chair.]
Clauses and Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

WINTER SPORTS IN SCOTLAND: CAIRNGORM REPORT
4.53 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK THE EARL OF SELKIRK rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether any decisions have been taken following the Cairngorm Report with a view to assisting and encouraging the development of winter sports. The noble Earl said: My Lords, when I put this Question down about three months ago I certainly did not think that this would be such a remarkable and possibly auspicious occasion. Whether, indeed, it will prove as notable an advance in our constitutional methods of reporting Parliament as the case of Stockdale v. Hansard, I beg leave to doubt; but at least I am not sorry that one facet of Scottish affairs should be discussed at this time.
My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, is unwell, and I hope he will very soon be restored to health. Particularly am I sorry that he is not here to-day because he takes a very real interest in the subject-matter of this Question. But I am very honoured that the Leader of the House should have thought fit to reply to it. It is a subject in which I know he is well interested, as indeed one would expect of the distinguished son of a very famous father. And I know that the noble Lord quite recently organised a Services expedition to Ellesmere Island, where the climatic conditions are even more exacting.
The third reason why this is an interesting day is that it is the opening day of the Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble. We may or may not have reasonable chances of winning medals in bobbing, skating and possibly even ladies' ski-ing; but I think it is right to remember the part which British subjects have played in the evolution of ski-ing as a sport. Notably, of course, the name occurs of Sir Arnold Lunn, who in fact invented the slalom race, which now receives such very wide interest throughout the world.
In the spring of last year there was published a Report on the Cairngorm area. It is an extremely fascinating and interesting Report—probably one of the most thorough reports on any of the rural areas in this country—dealing with the geology, the biology, the meteorology,
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and indeed to some extent the anthropology. When that Report came out, the Secretary of State made the comment that he commended it for study. I am merely asking the Government: what has been the result of their studies? The picture which it gives, if I may say so, is the picture of probably the biggest open area in the country to-day, probably five times the size of Dartmoor. It has a declining population, and there is no likelihood that agriculture will replace the decline in population which is taking place.
Any development in this area necessarily presents conflicts. These are conflicts between those who want to bring in new ideas and those who want to conserve. I would say that on the whole, though there are many ways in which it can be argued, the Report deals with this matter very fairly. For instance, it says that Braeriach is an area which should be conserved. This Report also suggests a wide variety of activities of a tourist character—it mentions some 15 to 20 of them. What I think stands out is that these activities dovetail together, whether they be in the summer or in the winter; and if any development is to take place it is necessary that both seasons should receive full attention. Indeed, it is right that the winter activities should complement the already existing ones in the summer. The next point is that there is no overall control of the whole of this area—indeed, part of it is outside the Highland Development Board altogether—and, of course, it is a point for consideration whether there should be a degree of co-ordination. I certainly would not suggest that there should be control, but there should be some point at which the varying interests can come together and express their views and, if I may say so, get some encouragement from the Government.
The Report recommends that various steps be taken, and the sum involved in those steps amounts to £35 million. I have very little doubt that the Government will boggle at that figure. All I am hoping is that boggling will not be the only response which we shall get from the Government, and that something will be possible other than saying that it is too big a thing altogether and no action can be taken. The importance of this is that any form of land development takes time, and I am trying to look

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ahead, perhaps five or ten years, to the sort of thing which might take place.
May I give just one or two reasons why I think this kind of development is important? First of all, the proposals basically deal with outdoor activity, and with the increasing congestion of our large towns this will be ever more important for the young people of this country. There are few things better than exercising one's skill against the natural features of the world or of the country. It is in pitting oneself against the severities and problems which nature provides that one learns self-confidence.
The second reason is that this is a regional development. All Governments are interested in regional development, and this Government have laid great emphasis on the importance which they attach to it; that is to say, that there should be no area in the country which lags well behind the rest in social and economic life, and that where we can prevent any form of stagnation we should do so. But there is a third facet, and that is the part which this development plays in contributing towards the invisible trade of our country. I cannot say that our Government have been notable in emphasising their interest in invisible trade as an element in our economy. It was not mentioned at all in the Prime Minister's speech on the economy of the country a week or so back; and so far as I know it was not mentioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last night when he was speaking to the bankers in the City. This is strange; because it has recently been revealed, in an extremely carefully worked-out Report by a Committee under the chairmanship of Sir Thomas Bland, that for 140 years our visible trade has never been in balance, except for two years. Those two years, strangely enough, were during the so-called "wasted years" of Tory Government, between 1956 and 1958. In fact, our balance has always depended on a positive invisible trade. Moreover, our invisible trade to-day is growing much more quickly than our visible trade.
One of the most rapidly growing forms of invisible trade is tourism. During the twelve years up to 1964 tourism, as an element of invisible world trade, has multiplied four times; but this country has not benefited by tourism; indeed, we are in deficit in this aspect of invisible trade.
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It is therefore, I think, only to be expected that the Committee, which, so far as I know, contained no hoteliers, recommended that the Government should pay more attention to the hotel industry, and all that goes with it, than they do at the present time. It is curious that the economists have not paid more attention to tourism as such. I believe that the first book on tourism was written 25 years ago by Professor Ogilvie who had the Chair of Political Economy at Edinburgh University and subsequently became Director-General of the B.B.C.
How important is this development likely to be? It is not very easy to say. I am told that there are probably about, 200,000 people who put on skis in Great Britain. This figure, of course, is a matter of some guesswork. What is more certain is that a check by the Scottish Tourist Board has shown a development which has doubled in a period of four years. That, progressively, is pretty rapid, and I think it is likely to continue; and I. can give other positive examples of development which are likely to take place. The number of artificial ski slopes existing in the country to-day is already 24, and the number is going up. There are important slopes at Torquay, the Crystal Palace and another in Wales whose name I will not venture to pronounce. The most important is in Edinburgh at Hillend, where there is a slope of 450 yards which can take a 50-gate slalom. Those who can ski on artificial slopes will inevitably at some time want to ski on the snow.
A further point concerns the development in the schools. There is a new interest in schools and in school parties going on mountain expeditions of some character or other. The National Ski Federation of Great Britain, of which I have the honour to be President, called a conference of the directors of education and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who regrets that he is not able to be here, was chairman of the conference. Seventy of the directors of education regarded ski-ing as one of the most worth while activities available to individuals. I have no doubt that as young children find this sport available, more and more will want to take part. I should perhaps, finally, refer to the growing interest in ski-ing which is taking place in the Armed Forces, and particularly in the Army,

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where there have been great developments since the War.
My Lords, what I am concerned about is whether the Government are looking far enough ahead to see the sort of developments which may well take place. In our lifetime ski-ing as a sport has probably developed more rapidly than almost any other sport that exists to-day. I am told that there are probably more participators in ski-ing than in any other one sport, with the possible exception of bowls. The Scottish Ski Club, it is true, was formed about sixty years ago, but I think it was only in the 'thirties that its numbers became significant. To-day, although we do not know the exact number, something like 200,000 or 300,000 people go abroad every year to take part in ski-ing.
I was very interested to read in the Annual Report of the Highland Development Board of the interest they are taking, particularly in the Cairngorm area. They have already invested some £25,000 in Cairngorm Sports Development Limited, and I believe the chairman of the board is a member of Cairngorm Sports Development Limited. What they say is this:
"We are anxious to do as much as possible to ensure that progress of such a major development should proceed on a planned basis."
I agree entirely with those words, and this is what I have in mind. They go on to say that this is a matter on which "individual initiative alone will not suffice".
This, my Lords, is where I think a measure of encouragement and co-ordination is required of the Government if for no other reason than that so many interests are involved. It is no good the Government saying that they have no responsibility; because S.E.T. is a direct burden on services of this character. So from a purely financial point of view, the Government have a responsibility. I am told that the effect of S.E.T. in the Glencoe area, a very promising development, has been to bring the activities there very nearly to a standstill. This is very regrettable indeed, because it had considerable possibilities.
Much the most important development has been at Aviemore. A great many organisations have played a part there:
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the Highland Development Board, the Inverness County Council, the Rank Organisation, the Fraser Organisation, the Scottish Ski Federation, Cairngorm Sports Development Limited and many others. This has made a great difference to the area. Tourism has become part and parcel of the whole area and has made the development very important indeed. I am told that some of the smaller hotels have been adversely affected by the larger hotels which are being built. I think it is difficult to keep the size of the hotels in line with the demand, but I have no doubt that demand will build up for the hotel accommodation which is available. I think that the development of a road from Nethy Bridge to Glenmore would do a great deal to bring a greater balance into this area.
The point I would bring to the attention of the noble Lord is this. The Report brought out very clearly that development could take place elsewhere. If it is to take place elsewhere, then we must cast our minds ahead to see what preliminary steps can be taken to enable those developments to take place. I do not pretend that big developments can take place immediately. Of course they cannot. What I say is this. Unless one casts one's mind ahead, no development will take place in ten or twenty years' time. An area reported upon favourably in the Report is Beinn a' Bhuird in the Upper Dee Valley. At present this area is not easy of access. It is spoken of extremely highly, but I have not seen it myself. I would ask the Government whether they are seriously considering the implications of this development. I am confident that in five or ten years' time, Aviemore will be unable to compete with the numbers who will then wish to take part.
We are dealing with what I consider to be an expanding industry. Some countries, when activities of this sort have expanded have given what is called a tax relief for the period. There are certain signs of what I would call shortsighted pinpricks taking place at the present time. I believe this problem can be overcome; but at one point I believe the Forestry Commission tried to charge rents to people ski-ing on top of the Cairngorms. I think that has been done away with: but it is the sort of thing

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which would stifle development at an early stage. There are other points, such as high rating valuation for ski-lifts; and I believe that a café on top of a hill had an annual rating of £5,000 a year. This sort of thing will check an incipient growth which is of value. There are also high car park charges.
My Lords, a great many recommendations are made in the Report. I do not wish to enlarge on them, but I should like to hear something of the view which the Government take of the Benavoir development and whether it can take place in, say, ten years' time. It will take a considerable time to develop. I am not asking for new roads, but I will ask whether the essential access roads now existing may be brought up to what would be called normal development. I refer, first, to the A.9, which is mentioned in paragraph 715, over the Spittle of Glenshee. This road is essential for development and contact between the Dee and Perth. The other road is the A.90 the Perth-Inverness road, particularly in the area of Drumochter and Pitlochry; and there are other places, like the road from the Sugar Bowl to Coire-Na-Ciste. All this would take time, but I believe it would be well worth while. I want to know whether the Government are prepared to encourage development on these lines in a practical way. As I am not allowed to speak again may I say that I am grateful to any other noble Lords who thought it worth while to show an interest in this subject.
5.12 p.m.
LORD BANNERMAN OF KILDONAN: My Lords, though it is some time since the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, shoved in the Balliol scrum he is still concerned with the best interests of sport; and so, for that matter, is his family—I mean the Douglas Hamilton family. I thank the noble Earl for having raised this matter to-day, but I am afraid that his advocacy of extra encouragement for tourism, be it in the winter or in the summer, in this 1,500 square miles of the Cairngorm area will be of little avail. For we have a Government which on the one hand sponsors this very professional and glossy Report but, on the other, cripples the potential of the area, and in fact of the whole Highland area, by the imposition of the selective employ-
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ment tax and by closing railway lines and stations. In the offing is the worst threat of all: the Transport Bill, which, if it becomes law in its present form will prove a real knockout blow for this area of the Cairngorms and for the rest of the Highlands.
It seems to me, my Lords, that politics is not, as is said, the art of the possible, but the art of misrepresentation. How else can destruction be represented as construction by the Government in so many spheres? For example, this Report rightly stresses that without people living and working in the area its full potential will not be achieved. But, if a Report may be said to have its tongue in its cheek, this one has in this regard. It says that there is no potential for agriculture, yet it is still the most important livelihood—so says the Report—with 626 farming units in the area. When we know that we can save far more millions in food imports by expanding agriculture in this country than even by encouraging the tourist trade, the policy of the Government towards our agriculture industry should be a policy of expansion and not of restriction.
I note that no crofter or crofter body is listed in the Report as having been asked for advice. Yet in the Spey Valley alone, which is within the area we are discussing, there are thousands of acres of what was once alluvial pasture land but which is now covered by bog and rushes. These acres were once farmed by splendid independent men and women, who reared healthy and intelligent families. But finally they had to go as the land became more and more waterlogged by the overflowing River Spey. There is no mention in this Report of arterial drainage schemes which might enable new families to come back and farm the reclaimed land, so reversing the depopulation trend that is a feature of the area.
It is suggested that 220,000 acres should be planted as forest, but the Report says that this would encroach on existing sheep areas and suggests restricting forestry to 100,000 acres. What happens in this enormous area at the moment? The Report does not tell us As a Forestry Commissioner for a period of years I would propose that this question be resolved by survey as in the Strathoikell and other surveys in the past. As a lifelong sheep farmer I have a strong

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objection to land being planted if it is suitable for sheep or agriculture. Up to date, this has caused considerable ill-feeling between farmers and foresters. Forestry should be taken to be, and should be expected to be, the helpmeet of agriculture; not the boss, or even a rival.
If it were possible for your Lordships to wave a magic wand over this area and to determine priorities, I would say, first, let there be extra folk and food produced. By "food" I mean cattle and sheep, and some cereals. Secondly, I would say, let there be trees in suitable places, and shelter belts wherever agriculture needs them. That could be discovered by survey. Thirdly, let there be grouse on sheep areas, for what helps sheep helps grouse—for example, draining and moor burning. Let there be deer only on the tops of the hills, and nowhere in competition with cattle and sheep. Having lost their wintering grounds because of forestry development in the past, deer must now be fed in the winter, if they are to be a sporting or a commercial concern. Agriculture and sheep should not be penalised, as suggested in the Report, to provide new areas for deer.
Finally, my Lords, let there be tourists at low levels in hotels built by private enterprise and not with the taxpayers' money. Let us save the taxpayers' money for reclamation of land to be used to promote a numerous and all-the-year-round-residence contented people. Give this Cairngorm area a human as well as a scenic beauty, and tourism in my opinion, will then be added unto it as an additional dividend.
5.20 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, we are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Selkirk for raising this question. As he said, it is not entirely a local matter. It is one which has a bearing on the whole development of the Highlands and, in a much wider context, on the whole question of our balance of payments; and my noble friend rightly brought out these points. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bannerman, for his observations, and particularly for his comment that grouse and sheep are complementary to each other in the Highland economy. That is something which is sometimes overlooked, or not mentioned, by those who advise the Government.
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I shall not deal with that matter, or with forestry, which the noble Lord also mentioned, because my noble friend's Motion refers only to winter sports. As he said, hundreds of thousands of people who go abroad for winter sports could get as much pleasure, and some of them more, if they went to the Scottish Highlands. We do not always get sun in Switzerland and it is not always dull in the Highlands; though it is true that we do get more sun in Switzerland and a little less in the Highlands. But those who are more concerned with the sports than with the sun need not be deterred.
There are two areas in the Cairngorm region where there are winter sports—Glenshee and the Cairngorms. Glenshee has not yet been so much developed, although there is very good ski-ing there. The Report points out that one of the reasons why there is not so much hotel development there is that Glenshee is within easier reach of some of the big cities, like Dundee, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, so that people can go there for the day without having to stay overnight. But undoubtedly it is capable of enormous further development if hotels could be built there.
As my noble friend Lord Selkirk has said—and I hope that the Government will take note of it—the main thing is the radical improvement of the road A.93. This is clearly brought out in paragraph 5.88, on page 54 of the Report, which says:
"It is clear that … the comprehensive improvement of road A.93 … in the section Spittal of Glenshee to the Cairnwell which includes the Devil's Elbow is of paramount importance to ensure that this major access copes adequately with present winter traffic and the considerable increase which seems certain. … Without such effective access from the south, the east side of the Area cannot be fully exploited for ski-ing and winter sports."
I confess that I should have some feelings of nostalgia if the Devil's Elbow were to be removed. Probably some of your Lordships have been there. The road at this point goes up round a double bend, at a gradient of something like one in two. The first time I ever went over it I had a companion who was rather fond of telling the driver what to do. I thought I would manage it in second gear, but he said that I must come down to first—and I got so flummoxed that I went into reverse. Fortunately there was nothing behind me, so all was well. But

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the main thing the Government must do about this area is to give greater priority to the improvement of this road.
As for the other area in the Cairngorms, at Aviemore, there has been tremendous development in which everybody in the area has helped. My noble friend mentioned the companies of the noble Lords, Lord Rank and Lord Fraser of Allander, who have put so many millions of pounds into the new hotel industry. The amount of money which has been put into the hotel development here exceeds anything that has ever been done, or is likely to be done, by any public body. There has been the greatest cooperation from landowners in the district. Naturally, that applies more to summer sports than to winter sports, because they range over a wider area. The local landowners have taken a leading part in the ordered enjoyment of the beautiful scenery in the whole district.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Selkirk that this is an admirable Report. I think it is one of the best public Reports that has ever been written. But there is one point on which I must make a reservation. In paragraph 78.7, on page 77, the Report states:
"The virtual doubling of the length of the holiday and recreational season through the development of winter sports at the Cairn Gorm has already attracted to Aviemore the biggest investment in rural hotel accommodation in Scotland of the century, but this has now reached a stage at which the limit of this development can be foreseen."
I rather think that that last remark may be a little out of date. Perhaps a clue may be found in paragraph 5.14 of the Report, which reads:
"Both the Highland Tourist (Cairngorm) Development Ltd. project at Aviemore, due to open late in 1966, and the Rank Organisation's Coylumbridge Hotel which was opened in November, 1965.…"
and so on. From that one must conclude that this Report although it was published in 1967, was written a little after November, 1965—perhaps at the beginning of 1966. If it had been written now, the authors might perhaps not have thought that the development of hotel accommodation for winter sports had reached the stage at which its end can be foreseen.
My Lords, if we succeed, as we hope to do, in attracting many tourists who have been accustomed to going else-
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where for their winter sports, this will save currency; and if we attract people from abroad to our winter sports in the Cairngorms, that will be a gain of foreign currency. There is still scope for enormous development in this Cairngorm area. There is no doubt that this is one of the best ski-ing areas in Europe. I went there with my family for a few day; last month. I enjoyed it immensely, though I do not myself ski. My family, who do, also enjoyed themselves, though one morning they were caught in a blizzard. Fortunately, they had a Swiss guide, who wisely advised them not to go home by means of the ski-lift. The ski-lift got stuck in the blizzard and its inmates were suspended, in some discomfort and growing hunger, for an hour and a half, whereas those who were wise enough to find their own way down got back an hour sooner in time for an enormous lunch.
The capacity for further development here is, I think, one whose limit cannot be foreseen, and it should be pursued all out, not only by private enterprise but by every public authority. My noble friend said that the expenditure contemplated by this Report, by the Government, would amount to £35 million. Of course, a great part of that would be on roads, and the noble Lord, Lord Bannerman, thought it very unlikely that the Government would do anything.
I must apologise to your Lordships, because I think I have mentioned the selective employment tax and the Transport Bill in every speech that I have made this Session. It just happens that I have been given the duty of speaking on subjects where one does not seem able to avoid mentioning these two things, both of which were referred by the noble Lord, Lord Bannerman, and by my noble friend Lord Selkirk. I am not going on nagging again about this selective employment tax, although, as the noble Lord, Lord Bannerman said, it is undoubtedly one of the greatest impediments to the development of tourism in the Highlands; and my noble friend Lord Selkirk said it has stopped desirable developments in the Glencoe area. That, of course, does not come into the Report we are discussing, but it is, nevertheless, a regrettable thing.
If the Government are determined to pursue their policy by means of taxation, as they seem to be, I should like to make

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one suggestion of another tax. It might be a good one, and might be substituted for the selective employment tax, which I should like to see abolished. It is on the model of the foreign tax known as the kur-tax. That is not a tax for general revenue purposes, but for a fund more like the old Road Fund, which the late Sir Winston Churchill abolished in 1925. Your Lordships who have stayed in hotels in Switzerland and elsewhere will probably have noticed on the hotel bill that so much is paid as tax. That tax is not an imposition which goes to the general needs of the country in which you are staying, but is a special tax that goes into a special fund for the development of the tourist trade. Out of that tax over the last hundred years, a great deal of the tourist industry in Switzerland and Italy has been built up.
The former Secretary of State for Scotland in the last Government tried to get the Scottish hotel-keepers to agree to a tax of this kind. At one moment we thought they had agreed, but they went back on it afterwards, which I thought was a great pity. If we could have a tax of this kind, which is specifically devoted, not to general revenue purposes, but to the development of the tourist industry, we should have much more public money to spend on these things which are appropriate for the Government to perform in developing our tourist industry, and particularly our winter sports industry, in the Highlands. While agreeing strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Bannerman, that we must drop the Transport Bill, which I think is a tax on pretty well everything in the Highlands, and the selective employment tax, I think we might substitute this specific tax, the kur-tax, to be paid by tourists as part of their hotel bill, and devote it exclusively to the development of the Highlands tourist industry.
5.35 p.m.
LORD GRANVILLE OF EYE: My Lords, I am one who is glad to support the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, in this Motion, which calls on the Government to state what they intend to do with regard to the Cairngorm Report. The noble Earl's great interest in winter sports and in ski-ing is well known, and I am glad to be able to give him all the
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support I can. One usually hesitates to intervene in a Scottish debate, but this is not quite a Scottish debate, as it affects all those who are interested in winter sports and, in particular, in ski-ing. I suppose we could have debated this in the Sports Council debate to-morrow, but as the Report says that on Scottish skiing they have spent a sum of £3,224, and that their donation to the Scottish Ski-ing Council is £800 out of a total of £112,000 spent on Scottish sport, it is probably rather better for us to debate it to-day.
I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, about this Report. It is one of the most magnificent Reports that I have ever read, and I certainly hope that it will be greatly read. It is beautifully written, well produced, full of facts and a mine of information for those who seek it. If anyone doubts the possibilities of the development of the Cairngorm area, this Report should completely convince him.
As the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, said, this is perhaps fundamentally a problem of approach roads, and the Report suggests, in a long-term scheme or tour of more than £30 million, that something like £14 million shall be spent on roads. These roads, of course, will serve both in summer and in winter. Somebody suggested that one way of raising money for this purpose might be a Scottish national lottery; but whether that would be acceptable I do not know. As the Report indicates, roads are the key to the development of this area, particularly, I should imagine, at this time of the year, in the winter sports time, when snow clearance to assist the coaches and cars that want to approach various winter sports centres must be a considerable problem. I do not know whether the Highlands are at a disadvantage compared to the Swiss centres, but the Swiss have their mountain railways which go up from the main lines whatever the weather, and can always get the tourists to the winter sports resorts.
I hope that we are not going to be too pessimistic in our attitude to this problem. I think that we started Switzerland off on their winter sports; and I am not sure that it was not a Scottish engineer who started the electrification of their railways. It was certainly Arnold Lunn who got their ski-ing industry started; and it was

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British tourists—the Swiss Government acknowledge this—who built up their lower resorts, which compare with the Cairngorms, and who use the lower resorts more than the higher resorts. The whole of their revenue from tourism is based on the greater amount coming from the lower resorts, started by tourists from this country, and ski-ing in the old days.
I do not think it is entirely the snow in Switzerland which is too competitive for Scottish ski-ing. There is not a great deal of difference between the two. Nor do I think there is a great deal of difference in the weather. You can go to Switzerland in January and in February and not see the sun, although you can be sure of it at Easter. But you can go to the Highlands and probably get sun in December. I notice in the various pamphlets dealing with ski-ing in Scotland that they emphasise that the sunshine they get there compares well with the sunshine they get elsewhere in Scotland. I think the reason why the Swiss have developed ski-ing is that they treat the whole thing as a major export earner; and we have helped them to do it. These resorts in the Cairngorms have all the facilities: they have lifts, hotels, ski-tows, 30-metre jumps. They have almost everything—huts, restaurants, ski-huts—except the right number or adequate number of approach roads to the resorts. And I would emphasise that it is on these approach roads that the future will depend in the next year or so, because the schemes that have been outlined here are very much long-term schemes.
Again, the competitors, such as Austria and Switzerland, have their Kuverien sports tax, which helps them maintain the roads in the ski villages and so on; but basic roads are the capital requirements at the start. If the various bodies in their co-ordinated report could tackle these approach roads, I think it would be the best thing they could do at the present time. Perhaps B.E.A. could survey to see whether they could put in some landing strips there, to encourage tourist flights from London. It takes about four hours, I think, from Edinburgh and Glasgow to the ski resorts in the Cairngorms. If one could get in a 'plane at Heathrow and get out within a few miles of one of those resorts, I think it would certainly attract more skiers and more tourists.
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The Government have a fine record in National Parks. The late Mr. Hugh Dalton played a great part in this, and over the years this has been their policy, and I certainly hope that in this regard they will look favourably towards the Cotswolds. We have plenty of snow at the present time; we should almost qualify as a ski resort. The noble Lord suggested that perhaps we are greatly indebted to the Army for using these areas for training courses. I think industry could use them also for Outward Bound and sandwich courses more than they do, and perhaps the industrialists and industrial councils would consider this. I know there was a newspaper report that the Parliamentary Ski Club were disappointed because they could not fully reciprocate the hospitality of their Continental colleagues on their annual competition this year at Davos. There was an avalanche at Davos. But why not the Cairngorms? Why should not the Parliamentary Ski Club next year invite their Continental colleagues, their opposite numbers, to come and visit the Cairngorms?
I believe we are fortunate in that we have Ministers in the Treasury who are winter sports enthusiasts, if not ski-ing enthusiasts, and maybe they will look at this Report in a favourable light. I am sure that in my noble friend the Leader of the House we could find nobody more sympathetic, and no one who understands this matter better than he does; and I certainly look forward very much to hearing what he is going to say on behalf of the Government and what they are prepared to do to implement this very fine Report, even though it may be a long-term policy.
Our young skiers to-day are doing extraordinarily well on the Continent. They cannot get the training—even the young Army skiers cannot; but they could certainly get preliminary training in the Cairngorms over here. They are doing extraordinarily well. Of course, they find it difficult to compete with some of the Continental nations. We cannot hope to do anything such as has been done at Grenoble at the preseent time, with all the money that has been spent there. But I say that this Report is a good Report. It is well worth looking at, and it is well worth the Government's taking a bold step forward in this matter. After all, we

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all live in overcrowded compounds of civilisation to-day, and if we do not preserve these great beauty spots and tourist centres and recreation and health resorts, it will be a very poor look out for us. I hope that all those who back sport in Britain will back ski-ing in the Cairngorms.
5.45 p.m.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords in this House who come from North of the Border must be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Granville of Eye, for his complimentary remarks about the developments in the Cairngorm area, and especially for his praise of the Cairngorm Report which we are discussing. I think we can all rather feel that our backs are being nicely stroked, because if there is any development that has taken place in Scotland in recent years that is purely and absolutely Scottish, it is this. It has been done entirely from the resources of Scotland itself.
To look back a bit, it was known as a tourist centre for the upper classes a long time ago, but the developments really started after the last war, and I think it is only right that we should remember at this time that the man who really got going the Glenmore development was the brother of the noble Earl who has raised this Question today. It was Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton, who scrounged this and that from the Royal Air Force and got going in 1946 at Glenmore a winter course, or courses. It was very largely students—young persons but very largely students—who went on those early courses. For instance, from Edinburgh University every year a detachment, numbering between thirty and fifty, has gone up there for a week or a fortnight at Christmas time. That was started and comes straight from the development by the late Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton.
Developing from that initiative came, fairly quickly, the Council of Physical Recreation, and it was strongly supported by the Scottish Education Department. Located in the original Glenmore Lodge, it then moved to its present somewhat more palatial installation. But I think that, above all, the name that will be associated with those developments
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around Aviemore is, as the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, said, the name of Lord Fraser of Allander. He served in your Lordships' House for only a short time, and seldom spoke, but he was a man given to deeds rather than to words. Many years ago, in the early 'fifties, he was seized with the idea of developing the Spey Valley, and he had the brilliant idea that the initial way to develop the Spey Valley for the tourist trade was to give it a "face lift". He made the initial step of providing paint at very cheap rates for the people who had hotels and lodging houses on the road, and the whole of the Spey Valley came away with a 'face lift" and was in that way marked out above all the other tourist centres in Scotland. Those developments, and others which went with them, such as somewhat better sewerage, water facilities, and so on, were largely paid for out of a fund of £100,000, and so far as we can make out the greater part of that fund must have come from Lord Fraser's private purse. It got things going in the 'fifties and of course the more recent developments at Aviemore. Literally millions of pounds have been put into the Aviemore centre, and its curling, skating rinks and swimming pools, as well as hotels, chalets and ski runs, are quite a remarkable development for this country.
As some noble Lords have said, one must not forget the work of the landowners, but as regards the Aviemore development one must remember that we were extremely fortunate in that Colonel Ian Grant of Rothiemurchus owned the really tricky, essential ground and made it possible. One would wish that some other landowners, not all of them Scotsmen, had been as co-operative as Colonel Ian Grant of Rothiemurchus.
We must also recognise that these developments owe a great deal to the Inverness County Council under their convener, Sir Francis Walker. If it had not been for the county council the road from Glenmore to the present ski-lift would not have been built. It took a great deal of drive and energy to get that going, and without that essential link the ski-lifts would not have developed as they have. The actual ski-lifts, as well as the ski-slopes, have all been developed by native genius. There was a gift of £20,000 by an Edinburgh man to the initial ski-lift at the White Lady Coire.

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That was further developed by private donations, several of over £1,000 each. Similarly, the artificial ski-slope at Edinburgh, about which the noble Lord spoke, was activated by a private gift; and the other slopes in Scotland are organised in much the same way.
My Lords, what I should like to point out, with my tongue in my cheek, is that all these developments—which are remarkable developments for the United Kingdom—have been achieved without the help of a Parliament in Edinburgh. If there had been a Parliament in Edinburgh at this time, think of the praise and credit it would have taken for the production of this Report.
LORD BANNERMAN OF KILDONAN: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether a Parliament in Edinburgh would not have built sooner the access roads to this area, not for tourism but for the people resident there the whole year round.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, if I may reply to the noble Lord, Lord Bannerman, there was no point in building the road until one knew one had the money to build the ski-lift. The ski-lift was built and the road followed immediately, no time being lost by the Inverness County Council in the building of that road. I can remember the decisions being taken in 1955 and 1956.
There are one or two other points in the Report which are of interest, and I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I take up some more of your time. I do not want to cross swords too frequently with the noble Lord, Lord Bannerman, but on his point in regard to agriculture I must say that as a farmer I honestly cannot see major developments in agriculture taking place in the Cairngorm area. There is some extraordinarily good farming going on in that area already, and also in the lower Speyside down in the Cromdale area where some of the best herds of Aberdeen Angus are being bred on quite small farms. That land is ideally suited for the maintenance of these small herds of some of the best cattle in the whole wide world.
The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, referred to this being a remarkable day—the first day of the Olympic Winter Sports. But I would tell your Lordships that this is an important day because it is the day
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of the Perth sales of Aberdeen Angus That is just as important as the first day of the Olympic Winter Sports. While one hopes that nothing will be done to harm the important and lucrative establishment of cattle breeding in those parts on the fringes of the Cairngorm area, I do not think we can look to agriculture as the ultimate development of it.
There is one point in the Cairngorm Report to which I think it is only right to draw your Lordships' particular attention: that is, in connection with the value of the distilleries upon the fringe of the area. Those distilleries, although they are small in the numbers they employ, give continuity to the small villages which are near them and maintain a community which might otherwise tend to fall away. So there are other advantages than merely the refreshment that the whisky provides.
Roads are very important. I should like to submit to Her Majesty's Government that they should consider the Glen Feschie road, even though the cost is £2 million. It would cut right across the Cairngorm area, but I think we have to accept that, in view of its tremendous value in getting the timber from the Aberdeenshire area right down to the pulp mill at Fort William. It would also open up the Cairngorms and probably enable one to develop a new set of skislopes. However, I am rather apprehensive of over-developing the roads. I would regret very much—and I know the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl would regret it also—a road up Glen Tilt. I think Glen Tilt, which is an historic place, should be kept for walkers. As the noble Lord, Lord Granville of Eye, has said, there should be more access roads, and I would press immediately for a road from the existing Glenmore road to go off from White Lady to Coire na Ciste. If we get that, then we shall get a whole range of ski-slopes just as we have now in the White Lady. Otherwise, I think we must make people walk, especially in the summer time, to get the full enjoyment of the Cairngorms. That emphasises the importance of shelter bothies. I have personally been concerned with the construction of one of the shelter bothies up there, and I know it has been of considerable use and value and has saved lives. There are three or four more shelter bothies which should

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be located in the Cairngorm area, simple things and indestructible things, but a place where shelter can be obtained from the storm.
Likewise there are the youth hostels; and here I would like to say how much we owe to the help of Government in financing the youth hostels, usually giving about two-thirds of the construction costs. This was the case with the new youth hostel built at Aviemore. I think that this help could be expanded, and I wonder whether the Government could give a maintenance grant to the youth hostels in some of these recreational areas. They are costly to maintain, because youth can use them in numbers only at the week-ends, when they are fully booked up. Anyone who has tried to run a hotel and can fill it only at week-ends knows that it is necessary to charge very high prices to make it pay, and if that were done in the case of youth hostels it would negative their value. Similarly, the camping and caravan sites, as well as car parking facilities, should be increased.
It is more than half a century since I first ventured on these paths and these hills, and I did it, as the son of a professor from a university, by bicycle and wagonette. I could do it because my father was a professional man, but no other boys in Glasgow, other than those of our class, could do it in those days. All this has now changed: young people are able to get up to the Cairngorms for the week-end. They are encouraged by grants from local authorities to go up there. The Glasgow education authority has for many years been stimulating the youth to go to the Glenmore Lodge Centre. As the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, said, it develops the self-confidence of these young persons, and I think this is of tremendous importance. I am looking forward very much to hearing the Leader of the House reply, for not only has he in his own right so much personal experience along these lines but we know that he has had a close association with Scotland.
6.4 p.m.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: My Lords, I had not intended to intervene in this debate, but having listened to what has been said, and in particular to the intervention by the noble Lord,
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Lord Granville, from the Government Back Benches, I felt it only right and proper that somebody South of the Border should make a short intervention from the Opposition Back Benches. I am privileged to be President of the Ski Club of Great Britain, which quite recently fathered the Ski Federation, of which my noble friend Lord Selkirk is President. I believe that the work, under his leadership, which that Federation has done in promoting ski-ing throughout the United Kingdom has been quite splendid. The work of his Federation here in the United Kingdom is complemented and supplemented by that of the Ski Club, which in particular renders great service to ski-ers from the British Isles when they go ski-ing in the Alps.
My noble friend in initiating this debate described how ski-ing was probably the most widespread sport in the world today, with the possible exception of bowls. I think there is one other sport which is more widespread, and that is swimming. Both sports have this common factor; that you can swim and you can ski from very young to very old; and, what is more, all members of the family can enjoy the sport of swimming and ski-ing together at the same time. And this is something which is well worthy of greater encouragement. I understand that Scotland is one of the few places in the world where you can ski in the morning and bathe in the sea in the afternoon. It struck me as being a little chilly, but I spoke to somebody who did it, and he said that the Gulf Stream impinges itself on the western coast of Scotland and that the water is not particularly cold. A couple of years ago I was ski-ing at Auron, in the Alpes Maritimes, in the morning, and I bathed in the Mediterranean in the afternoon. That was at the beginning of April, and I certainly found it pretty chilly. I do not know how they find it in Scotland.
The noble Earl, Lord Dundee, spoke about the weather and the sun in Switzerland. Anybody who has been ski-ing there in recent weeks has not had just the sun: it has been snow and blizzard all the time. I think that anything that can be done to make it clear that the sun does appear in Scotland, particularly at the time of the year, in March and April, when it is possible to get some wonderful ski-ing there, is to

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be welcomed. The noble Lord, Lord Granville, talked about approach roads. I would remind your Lordships that one thing which helped Austria after the war to get on her feet was the giving of Marshall Aid, and the fact that it was spent on approach roads for ski-ing. Those approach roads and facilities going up the hills helped Austria more than anything else to get on her feet.
I should therefore like to give such support as I am able to the plea which the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, has made for help in developing this area in Scotland. It is not just for Scottish interests or local interests. We have to remember that there is a very large population in the North of England that finds it quite a long distance, and expensive, to go to the Alps. That population can quite easily go across, the Border into Scotland, and they are doing so more and more at the present time. So I say that anything that can be done to further this activity in Scotland will certainly be greatly appreciated by people in England as well.
The noble Earl made it clear that expenditure on artificial ski slopes meant that more and more people were becoming interested in this sport. I believe that such events as the Olympic Games, seen on television, do fire the imagination of young people and make them want to go ski-ing; and that surely is something that we want to see happen. Not only is it useful to have their imagination fired, but there must be also the conveniences and opportunities to carry out this sporting activity.
The noble Lord, Lord Granville, mentioned the Parliamentary race. I was there this year, but unfortunately could not race because I had pulled a muscle a few days before high up in the mountain during a blizzard. But his suggestion has been considered, and might well be followed up. I see no reason at all why our most enjoyable annual races with the Swiss Parliament should not take place in Scotland. It would be a new place for two of their members recently elected, who are international ski-ers. I do not think they have raced in Scotland, and it would be a good education for them to try that as well as the Alpine resorts. This has been an extremely interesting debate, and, if I may say so, a very useful forerunner to our debate to-morrow, which is a wide
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debate. It is only right and proper that at this time of the year this particular sport, which is being encouraged and developed in Scotland, should have some time made available in your Lordships' House for discussion and consideration.
May I also support what the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, said about Lord Malcolm Douglas Hamilton. I remember again and again in the Lobby in another place, twenty years ago now, talking with Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton about his plans for developing this part of the world. It is a wonderful thing to see that development now taking place. It cannot be other than for the benefit of people, not only in Scotland but in our great industrial areas, to get away from the factory or the office, not just in summer but in the middle of winter also, to enjoy themselves on the snow in this part of Scotland. I hope that, however stringent the financial conditions may be, we may find it possible to give such help as is available to encourage this and other sports, and to speed up development in that area.
6.11 p.m.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, I cannot claim to be a Scot, but I do claim to be an enthusiastic skier, and I should like warmly to support the noble Lord who has just sat down. I am glad that the Ski Club of Great Britain should be supporting the development of ski-ing in Great Britain, and I should like to draw attention to the fact that whereas; the richer members of our community, even now with their £50 allowance, can fairly easily go to Switzerland, Austria, Italy and other places, there are a great many people who are rapidly taking to ski-ing but who need facilities much nearer home. Having lived and served in countries where it is possible to ski every weekend, I should like to say what a great advantage it has, as compared with the frantic fortnight which most of the working community have to undertake.
It is some years since I actually skied in the Cairngorms, and I admit that last week I was ski-ing in Italy. But this is a fine area in the Cairngorms and it deserves to be rapidly developed. I should like to support what has been said by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, and by others in this debate. It seems to me that it is for the public authorities and the Government to provide the necessary

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infrastructure in the form of roads and communications, without which the travellers just cannot get to these areas and without which the ski-tows and other facilities cannot be usefully used. When that is done it would be most desirable that some encouragement should be given to private enterprise.
I am sorry to appear less enthusiatic than I ought to be about Scotland, but one of the difficulties in the Cairngorms is the high and rather cold wind which often afflicts the area. It is necessary, I think, to recognise that the ski facilities ought to be such that they provide some protection against these winds. I should like to draw attention to the system which exists in North-West Italy, where they use chair-lifts, each chair of which is protected by a sort of eggshell. You get into the eggshell and are pushed on to the tow line, and you get out at the top with your feet relatively warm, which is certainly good for one's morale in going down the piste. Any emphasis should be laid on the chair-lift rather than the ski-tow. It would be useful for tourism in summer, because it is equally applicable at all seasons. So I would suggest that some consideration should be given to what is done abroad by those who are seriously studying this matter.
The second effect of the high wind in Scotland is that it tends to spoil the snow. It so happens that last week I was ski-ing in an area of Italy where the winds are very high, and it was interesting to see how the Italians have settled the matter. They have most ingeniously invented a sort of ski-"cat", two of which are coupled together and are run up and down the slopes which have to be skied on, so that the wind crust and, initially, the sun crust is beaten flat and the snow is consolidated, and is neither spoiled nor blown away. This, I believe, in the Cairgorms would provide for a high standard of ski-ing. I am quite sure that this is an area which ought to be developed, both for the social effects and for the economic advantage to our balance of payments, in being able to offer facilities for our people at home.
There is one other interesting point in this Report about ski-ing, and that is the attention it draws to the possibility of developing ski-ing which is relatively
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flat and not necessarily much downhill, a system which is greatly favoured in Scandinavia. It is necessary to have light skis, and not those you use for downhill ski-ing in Switzerland. It can be extremely pleasurable. I should like to say that whereas I have satisfied myself that Scotland is eminently suitable for this, it is necessary to have the trails marked. Somebody has to put in a stake every 25 or 30 yards, otherwise, as I can personally certify, it is quite easy to get lost at the top of the Cairngorms and difficult to find the right way down.
I should like to draw attention to one other point. We have the most difficult licensing laws in this country, so far as the sporting community is concerned. It is extremely comforting when you go about the country that you should be able to stop at a small café and, if you do not want to have coffee or tea, to be able to get an alcoholic drink. There is a certain rigidity about our laws which seems to me to make it difficult to offer facilities in Scotland such as are currently offered to anybody going to any part of the Alps. I hope that one day we shall modify our system slightly so that we shall adopt a less spoilsport attitude. I say this with some hesitation, because I know that the abstainers in Scotland are remarkably strong and often resentful of how other people want to behave. I should like warmly to support the noble Earl who put down this Unstarred Question, and to express the hope that the Government will find the means of supporting this development, which I am sure is worthy of their encouragement.
6.18 p.m.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, as the only noble Lord here who lives in the area covered by this Report, I hope it will not be taken amiss if I say just a few words. I promise that I shall say nothing about the precise area where I live, in case I may be thought to show bias. I think the Aviemore centre is a wonderful development. Many of my friends who have been up there for their holidays say that it is the best family holiday you can have. You can forget your children, as there are usually 30 or 40 other children there, and they all play quite happily together, leaving mother and father time to go ski-ing or do whatever they want to do. The reason it is so good is because it has indoor facilities.

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This is what I think all the other Scottish developments lack. I know it would not be so easy in Glenshee, because there is no village immediately available, or in Glencairn. But I am convinced that Glenshee will never be as popular as Aviemore so long as it does not have the same indoor facilities.
The only snag of Aviemore is the fact that the chair-lift is often affected by the wind. I do not know if it is possible to do anything about this; I gather it is a technical question. But I was wondering whether the Government might not sponsor a little research into whether the chair-lift could be re-aligned, so that it would be affected by the wind on fewer days during the course of the year. It is very frustrating if you drive the whole way there only to discover that the main chair-lift is not working because a wind which you thought was negligible when you left home, which in my case is about forty miles from Aviemore, is quite strong when you get up there.
My noble friend Lord Dundee was a little unfair to the hoteliers about the kur-tax. I would support any taxes which got rid of S.E.T., and to that extent I would support everything both he and the noble Lord, Lord Bannerman, said about S.E.T. and the Transport Bill. The reason why the kur-tax was rejected, I regret to say, was the fact that the Scottish Tourist Board, of which I had the honour to be a member at the time, would not approve of it. I said then, and I still believe, that this was a wrong decision and that we should have recommended it, and it was a great pity that we did not. But there was a strong feeling among the commercial hoteliers, particularly in the industrial towns, that they would pay money and not get anything back in return, but I am sure that the kur-tax would be a great help and would enable us to provide facilities in Scotland which are much needed and which at the moment are lacking.
I should like to say a word or two about roads, since I probably use these roads more often than any other Member of your Lordships' House. I disagree with my noble friend Lord Balerno about the Glen Feshie road. It is essentially a place which should be left to the rambler. We must leave some parts of the world to ramblers, and I believe that this is one of the few entirely unspoilt
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walks left, though I cannot say that I have walked it myself. Ramblers feel very strongly about this, and they would not welcome a road through Glen Feshie. It may be that we should have to build an access road to be able to make available more of the very good snow which lies to the North-East of Glen Feshie.
I consider it essential that the A.9 from Pitlochry to Perth and the A.93 should be improved so that skiers could more easily get to the ski-slopes. It is a great pity that this was not done years ago. The A.93 is a disgrace for a main trunk road. But even more important, and even less expensive, is that, what pass for roads at the moment should be kept open. Last Sunday there were sponsored ski races at Glenshee which were of national importance and which could not take place because no one had bothered to put a snow plough on the road as it was Sunday. Sunday is without doubt the most popular ski-ing day in Scotland; and although one may feel that the Sabbath should not be desecrated in this way, I am afraid it has come and there is nothing we can do about it. Efforts should be made to keep the A.93, the Perth-Braemar road, open even on a Sunday. I might say that the A.9 is usually swept even on a Sunday, although last Sunday it did not appear to have been done, but it was still passable. With those few words, I would support almost everything which was said by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, and my noble friend Lord Dundee. I hope that this debate has given the Government some food for thought.
6.25 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I very much regret that, in the absence or my noble friend Lord Hughes, I again have to take the part of a Minister for Scottish Affairs in your Lordships' House. I must say that Lord Hughes's disappointment is very much my gain. I think that the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, can be well pleased with the results of his initiative in this matter. It is only three weeks ago—and I did not know that I was going to take part in this debate—that I was reconnoitring a ski-slope at the end of his garden. It is actually part of the Broad-stone Golf Course, where I thought there was a promising nursery slope if ever we got any snow in Dorset—maybe we have got it there now.

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This is a really exciting subject, and all I have listened to in this debate has made me more and more interested and more anxious to visit the Cairngorms myself and, I hope, perhaps to ski there. I would echo the tributes which have been paid. These tributes include the noble Earl himself, but I am sure that he was moved to hear the tribute to his brother, Malcolm. I first climbed Lochnagar I think in the company of Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton. We were both staying up at King's Camp at that time, over thirty years ago. There are a number of names of people whom we ought to recognise, some of whom have been mentioned, but I am sure your Lordships would wish to express your pleasure that Mr. Boyd Anderson got an M.B.E. in the Honours List this year. He is well known as a benefactor of Scottish skiing in general. One must give credit to the fidelity of the Scottish Ski Club, that they have gone on all these years making very little progress, suddenly to find the promised land blossoming out in front of them sixty years after they were founded.
The debates which we have been having recently on Unstarred Questions tend to get wider and wider, but generally to-day we have kept pretty well on the subject. I shall not follow the noble Lord, Lord Bannerman, in what he said—and the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, recognises that Lord Bannerman is competing very hard with Scottish Nationalists—but I thought he was a little unfair.
It is easy to be rude about all Governments. Here is an initiative which the Government and the previous Government have encouraged. It may be that we have not done as much as we should like to do. No Government ever does. But I think that the noble Lord was ungracious about the Report itself. I strongly agree with my noble friend Lord Granville and the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, on the fact that this is an outstanding Report. It is exciting to read, the style is excellent, and I think that congratulations are due to Mr. Evans. It is interesting to find a group mainly of planning officials producing such an excellent, well-balanced Report, not disdaining to quote writers like Mr. Murray,
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and at the same time being very hard and factual. I think that many congratulations are due to them. It provides a most valuable blueprint, and one which has taken a number of people by surprise. I do not think they had expected anything quite as impressive to come out of this inquiry, or that it would give such a stimulus to and a focus upon activities in this area.
I have a few general remarks to make. I do not propose to follow noble Lords who have talked about S.E.T. and the Transport Bill. I am not surprised they said what they did. It may be they have something to say which is relevant to this subject, but I do not propose to delay the discussion in order to give answers which the Government have given on other occasions and which, I fully acknowledge, do not satisfy noble Lords opposite. It is worth noting that in the last two years upwards of 500 new jobs have been created in the Aviemore area as a direct result of the new developments there. This strikes me as a very remarkable achievement, which has been brought about by a great deal of individual initiative, courageous private enterprise, good support from local authorities and, I believe, very real encouragement from St. Andrew's House as well.
I shall not quote what my right honourable friend the Secretary of State had to say in the introduction. Clearly, no Government can go right overboard on a Report of this kind, especially when so much of the responsibility for action does not lie directly on Government. But I shall come on to the very important point which the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, made with regard to coordination. The Secretary of State made it clear in his foreword that any expansion of facilities cannot take place without expenditure, inevitably over a period, both of money and of effort by public bodies, voluntary associations and private enterprise.
This is very much a field of joint endeavour in which one would expect to see a great deal of the initiative being taken locally, as has been so strikingly done by those who built up the Aviemore centre. It is truly one of the most exciting tourist developments in recent years, not just in Scotland, but in Great Britain as a whole. The value of the

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Cairngorm Report is that it produces an authoritative background against which we can see the development of the area, whether by those in St. Andrew's House, the Highlands and Islands Development Board, the local authorities, the Scottish Tourist Board or the Youth Hostels Association. There are so many.
Incidentally, I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, who referred to the Youth Hostels Association. Here I have to be a little careful, because I am a Vice-President of that body. But I have nothing to do with the fact that a grant of up to £5,000 is allowed annually by the Scottish Education Department to the Scottish Youth Hostels Association towards the cost of hostel acquisitions and improvements, such as are now proposed for the Aviemore hostel. Clearly, none of my colleagues in the Government is going to be very pleased if I start making any promises of increased aid, and since my prejudice in favour of this admirable organisation is so strong I shall not go any further. But here again there are indications of a particular improvement which they are making in this area.
I hope also that, in addition to St. Andrew's House, the noble Lord, Lord Granville, and his other colleagues who are Parliamentary ski-ers will read the suggestions which have been made about a meet of the Parliamentary Ski-ing Association. I am sure that with two such powerful characters as the President of the British Ski Club, himself a former Member of another place (who I remember used to ski above Kendal: I think he had a tractor which he got up to the top of the hill, and used it as an improvised ski-tow), and the President of the National Federation, some stimulus can be produced.
I have no doubt that the Report will be carefully studied by the Countryside Commission for Scotland. As your Lordships know, this is to be set up under the provisions of the Countryside (Scotland) Act 1967, which we dealt with in the last Session. I think we need to bear in mind the really important role that is expected of this Commission, both in stimulating the provision and development of recreational facilities, and in conserving natural beauty and amenity. Of course, this also means conserving areas mentioned by the Nature Conservancy,
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such as Braeriach and places like that. The Cairngorms area is clearly one where we may expect to see them take an active interest, and where they should be able to use their considerable powers to initiate and co-ordinate future plans and development. I believe, and so I am advised, that this is really going to provide the essential machinery for co-ordination.
When we look at all this multiplicity of bodies, I think we begin to wonder how they manage not to overlap with one another. But this is the sort of balanced piece of machinery which is essential and which will help to provide that particular additional emphasis of Government in the right sort of way. Whatever happens, this must be a partnership; nobody wants the Government to take over.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, I think we must give great credit to the Scottish Development Department for the fact that there has been so much co-ordination and so little friction in the various developments in the Aviernore area.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I entirely agree. I very much welcome the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, and I am sure that the Scottish Development Department, who sometimes labour under criticism that they never do anything for Scotland, really deserve the credit which the noble Lord has given to them.
May I turn again now to the Aviemore centre? It is worth noting that, in addition to attracting very large numbers of visitors, it won the British Travel Association's "Come to Britain" trophy last year, for the best new tourist service or amenity in Britain. It has certainly given a really new and exciting look to Scottish tourism. The interesting thing is that the fears of established hoteliers and others in the area that it would reduce their trade have not, so I am advised, proved to be well-founded. Indeed, the reverse is reported to be true. Aviemore seems to flourish despite the S.E.T., even if the S.E.T. may be alleged to be a serious marginal factor in relation to Glencoe. But I am sure that there are other areas of Scotland where one would like to see the development of a Mark 2 Aviemore development, because there is that extraordinary range of beauty in Scotland which, whenever I go

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there, I wish so many more people could see, though not so many as to ruin it for the few who do go.
That is why I am interested in the point made by the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl. The question of roads is a delicate one. I know of areas in the West of Scotland, East of Loch Maree, where it is possible to walk for miles and miles—indeed that is the only way of getting about. This is where careful thinking and planning will provide the right sort of balance. On the whole, I should have thought there was much to be said for the Glen Feschie road, but I am afraid that there is not so much of encouragement that I can say to your Lordships at the moment. It will certainly be a very expensive road. The Highlands and Islands Development Board have been asked for their views, but I believe the present thinking of the Secretary of State is that this road would not have very high priority in the Scottish road programme as a whole. But we will listen, and my right honourable friend will listen, to the advice given to him by the Highlands Transport Board, and will take note of the particular point they made, that no further new roads should be built in the Highlands and Islands until existing main roads there have been improved to modern standards. That is a point which a number of noble Lords have mentioned.
I do not know how far we shall be able to improve the chair-lift in high winds, as the noble Duke, the Duke of Athol] wanted. I am sorry to switch so quickly from roads to the chair-lift, but I know the noble Duke referred to that. The Scottish Tourist Board have been sponsoring studies to see how the difficulties might be overcome. It may be that the egg of the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, will make it more comfortable, but, as he said, this is a windy part of the world. Curiously enough, I am told that the Australian Alps, which is one of the biggest snowfields in the world—and this is surprising to those of us who do not know Australia—suffers from the same sort of rather violent weather and wind that, on occasions, occur in the Cairngorm area. But this is a technical problem, and I cannot give any indication whether anyone will succeed in solving it quickly.
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The centre at Aviemore provides a very wide range of recreations. I will not detail what they are, because I am sure your Lordships know; but it is interesting that the extra facilities that they have provided, which have not been solely facilities related directly to enjoying the neighbourhood—whether it is warm swimming pools or bowling alleys—have been very much used. One of the main factors contributing to the viability of the Aviemore Centre is the very long holiday season which it is possible to exploit in the Spey Valley, where there are so many charms in different seasons of the year; and, of course, winter sports have provided the sort of complementary activity which will in due course bring it, I hope, well beyond the area of marginal economy.
The Cairngorm Sports Development Limited, formed in March, 1966, as an operating company by the Cairngorm Winter Sports Development Board, have been doing a very good job effecting a steady improvement in the chair-lift, the ski-tow and the restaurant facilities which they offer on Cairngorm; and they have been assisted here by the Highlands and Islands Development Board. They now have a two-stage chair-lift and five tows on the mountain, and just before Christmas there was an extension to the White Lady Shieling at the intermediate stage of the chair-lift. I am also told that at the moment they are actively considering further developments, including what I see is called a Hilltop Restaurant. I imagine that this is the sort of restaurant in which, in Switzerland, where there are no licensing laws, you buy your Gliihwein—when I say, "buy your Glühwein", I mean whenever you want to buy it—and this seems to me to be a very desirable thing. I think the idea of a mountain-top restaurant where you take your skis off and have your cup of coffee and your Glühwein is one of the most attractive aspects, provided the sun is there, in winter sports. Again, all these proposals are in line with the Cairngorm Report.
Now I should like to turn again to this problem of roads. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, as did the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, raised the question of road improvements, and I find that my noble friend Lord Hughes dealt with it in the debate in your Lordships' House

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on April 5. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, I think it was, then spoke about the road situation in the Cairngorm area, and made the very fair point that it is no use having snow on the ski-slopes if people cannot get there. My noble friend gave a very full statement at the time, and I do not want to go over all the details again, but I would just say that since that debate the planned improvements over the whole length of the road from Coylumbridge to Coire Cas have been completed at a total cost of nearly a quarter of a million pounds, and constructional work will soon be started on a £332,000 scheme for the improvement of the stretch from Aviemore to Coylumbridge which will include a much improved junction with the A.9. These are formidable schemes by any standard, and are impressive proof of the support which the Inverness County Council and the Government are giving to the recreational needs of the area.
On the Perth-Pitlochry section of the A.9 further South, various improvements are already in hand or are being planned, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is considering what general improvement can be included in the road programme for the 1970's. On the A.93, the Perth County Council have plans for widening and realigning the road between the Devil's Elbow and the county boundary. Whether this will be enough to obviate any disasters produced by the noble Earl going into reverse at a crucial moment I cannot say, but at least the risks will be less.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether it is true that the plans of the Perth County Council for the A.93 road have actually been put on paper?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I will read this again very carefully. I was in the middle of it when I was diverted by my recollection of the noble Earl's agonising situation on an earlier occasion. The Perth County Council have plans for widening and realigning the road between the Devil's Elbow and the county boundary with Aberdeenshire, but the question of timing must of course depend partly on the overall funds available to grant-aid the Scottish principal road improvement programme during the next few years—and this, I would submit, is
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in turn bound up with the restraints imposed by the national economic situation—and partly on the county council's own view on priorities. So I am not sure whether in saying that they have plans it means that there are plans available to be seen, but it may be that I shall be able to let the noble Earl know this.
Looking at the wider scene, your Lordships will appreciate that all the local planning authorities in the area covered by the Cairngorm Report were represented on the Technical Group, and this can be expected to bear fruit in their development plans. Indeed, almost simultaneously with the publication of the Report, Inverness County Council submitted an amendment to their development plan for the area which makes it quite clear that the county council accept the main lines of the Report and are willing to play a full part in implementing it. More recently, too, in December, Banff County Council submitted a development plan which designates the whole of the Cairngorm area falling within their district as being an area of great landscape value. They have also indicated that it is their policy to encourage the development of tourism as an integral part of the county's economic structure, and that as one means of doing so they intend in the main to adopt the recommendations in the Report. And, of course, the Countryside (Scotland) Act 1967 will considerably improve their ability co do this because of the additional powers and financial assistance which it makes available.
My Lords, the Scottish Tourist Board has been paying close attention to the potentialities of the area. The Eastern Cairngorms is the subject of one of the regional studies which the Board has commissioned. This study is being undertaken by Professor Walton of Aberdeen University. The North-East Consultative Group of the Scottish Economic Planning Council has also been taking an interest in the study, and a local liaison committee has been formed. The study will be able to draw on the results of previous surveys of visitors to the area and its skiing facilities which the Board has undertaken, and in particular a study undertaken in the 1966–67 winter season of the

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Beinn a'Bhuird snowfields, the possibilities of which the Cairngorm Report identified and to which several noble Lords have referred to-day. But here again this will mean new road facilities, and it is probably here, as the Cairngorm Report suggests, that the next really big new development is likely to take place.
It is not possible for me to say how soon this will be, whether there will be another Fraser, another group of people who will in fact be able to help with facilities in that area when the roads are available. I do not know how far it is from the railway lines, but it is obviously not going to be so convenient as Aviemore, and it is difficult to see when these developments will come. The Tourist Board has also joined with the Highlands and Islands Development Board in a study of Upper Strathspey. I am very glad that the two Boards are working together on this because tourist development is a matter—we must all accept this—of major importance in this area. But the development which has taken place at Aviemore has a wider significance and one of the main purposes which the Boards have in mind in studying it is to see what lessons they can learn with the object of stimulating larger scale concentrations of wet-weather and evening entertainment facilities elsewhere in Scotland.
One thing I should have liked to ask noble Lords who have ski-ed in that area is this. How far are local guides and ski instructors being recruited from the people of the district? After all, this has become a main source of wealth and an occupation to the people of Austria and Switzerland. I hope, when we are asked to one of these Scottish centres, that we shall hear the instructors speaking in Scottish accents worthy of the noble Lord, Lord Bannerman.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I can assure the noble Lord that it is already the case, quite extensively.
LORD SHACKLETON: I am delighted to hear that. The noble Earl has the advantage. He has been there, and I have not so far.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, there is a very efficient local mountain rescue team which operates from Aviemore. It is entirely local.
LORD SHACKLETON: I know of their admirable mountain rescue facilities. In this connection the R.A.F. have not been backward on occasions in lending a hand in mountain rescues.
My Lords, I think we must all be grateful to the noble Earl for giving us this useful and, to me, fascinating debate. We are all agreed, as the Secretary of State said in his foreward to the Report, that no other area in Britain can offer more dramatic opportunities for all-the-year-round outdoor recreation than the Cairngorms. The Aviemore Centre has had a variety of amusements, a blend of indoor and outside. A notable beginning has been made, and the Report clearly points out the directions that developments might take. How soon they will be achieved will depend to a great extent on the availability of money. At this moment, when severe restraints are necessary, it is no good my promising noble Lords anything that looks very hopeful. But it is under way; it is moving; expenditure is continuing; and I will certainly see that not only my right honourable friend (who I know never ceases to fight hard for Scotland) but other of my colleagues in Government are made aware of the importance of this development, not merely in terms—
LORD BANNERMAN OF KILDONAN: My Lords, I did not want to interrupt the noble Lord, but I would ask whether the Government consider this Report to be a tourism report, or whether it applies to 1,500 square miles of endeavour by indigenous industries to bring themselves up and develop themselves. Does the noble Lord not consider that the Council who produce this Report have been unjust to the people of the area, in so far as they have dismissed their potential in a few paragraphs?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I was, of course, addressing my remarks mainly to the Question on the Order Paper, which was related to winter sports. This is the matter we are debating to-day. None the less, the debate has rightly gone wide. You cannot discuss an area like the Cairngorms without covering the whole subject. I must confess that I would rather leave it to my noble friend Lord Hughes, since the noble Lord is raising an aspect of the Report that is not covered by the

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Question. In any case, I do not know the answer. It would be unfair to the noble Lord and to the House, as well as dangerous for me, to give an answer off the cuff.
LORD BANNERMAN OF KILDONAN: My Lords, I was referring merely to what the Report has said: that tourism cannot prosper in its full potential unless care is given to the development of the basic indigenous industries of the area, particularly of agriculture. When I refer to that I am still within the ambit of the discussion to-day, which is tourism, and which cannot prosper unless the rest of the issues within this great area are also looked at and discussed.
LORD SHACKLETON: I am sure that we shall hear from the noble Lord on other occasions. I am not competent to deal with this aspect. I would not suggest for one moment that anything he said was not relevant to the debate and I am sure that the principles he has enunciated are generally sound in relation to any community activity. You
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cannot just think in terms of a single strand of development where great vulnerability may arise. None the less, it appears that in this field of tourism, and in the development of winter sports and summer sports in this area, there lies a really exciting thing, not merely for the people of that area—and it is of great importance to them—but as a real national asset.
I hope that the noble Earl will be gratified by the response to this debate and that the people who are working in this area (so many of them with such selfless faith all these years), will feel encouraged.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for his telling us so fully what is in the Government's mind?
LORD BANNERMAN OF KILDONAN: My Lords, may I also thank the noble Lord for his reply to me?
House adjourned at two minutes before seven o'clock.