Lords Sitting of 27 February 1968

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Coventry
The Earl of Lucan (L. Bingham)—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

MIDDLE EAST STATES: FUTURE STATUS AND DEFENCE
2.36 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I understand that the noble Lord the Minister of State would prefer to answer both the Questions that stand in my name together. If your Lordships have no objection, I am quite agreeable to that course.
[The Questions were as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to continue to be responsible for the external relations and defence of Bahrain and the Trucial States; and if not what alternative proposals they have for the future international status of these territories.
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to renegotiate the 1961 Exchange of Notes with Kuwait and the 1916 Treaty with Qatar, under which Britain reaffirmed her obligation to assist in the defence of those two States.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD CHALFONT): My Lords, in view of what the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, has just said, and with the permission of the House, I will answer his two Questions together.
The future of the various treaties and agreements governing our relations with these States after the withdrawal of British forces from the Gulf is being discussed with the Governments concerned.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer, but I would ask him whether he can be a
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little more specific. Is he aware that our treaty with Bahrain does not contain any specific commitment but only implies that we will help if we can? And is he also aware that it has been suggested that if we do not help the treaty may lapse? Can the noble Lord assure the House that Her Majesty's Government feel that they can give protection to this small community, whose great wealth might easily be coveted by much more powerful and predatory neighbours?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am sorry that I cannot help the noble Earl or your Lordships any further. As he will know, we have numerous treaties and agreements with the protected States. We are engaged in discussions with the States at the moment about their future status and future arrangements, and I cannot pre-judge the outcome of those discussions.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while appreciating the great difficulties in this area I should like to ask the noble Lord, first, whether it is not the case that there is reported to-day a movement towards the federation of the sheikhdoms of this territory; and, secondly, looking to the future, is there not almost certain to be a movement towards democracy in those areas, which may seek to change the power of the sheikhdoms? In view of those circumstances will the Government be most careful as to what agreements they reach?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I cannot comment on the reports to which my noble friend has referred, but I can assure him and your Lordships' House that we will bear in mind this factor, and all other factors, when we engage in these discussions with the countries concerned.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, will the noble Lord say whether Her Majesty's Government can give some assurance that they will not allow any rather out-of-date treaty obligations to stand in the way of their decision to bring our forces out of the Persian Gulf by a given date?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I think it would be wrong of me to add anything to what I have already said. We are in discussion with the States concerned, and therefore I think it better to say no more.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, would not Her Majesty's Government take definite steps to ensure that peace is maintained in this area after our withdrawal in 1971, and could not this responsibility be undertaken by a peace-keeping force of the United Nations, as in the case of Cyprus?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I think we are going a little wide of the original Question. I would remind your Lordships that Bahrein, Qatar and the Trucial States are already independent States, and it is largely for them to decide what their future international status will be.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, surely the noble Lord can say that, in the case of Qatar and Kuwait, we have definite obligations to defend them. And may we take it that we are not going to run away from these obligations, except with the consent of the other parties?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in another place on January 16 that we shall, of course, honour agreements to which we have set our name as long as we have a capability in the area. I cannot add to what my right honourable friend has said.

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM EXPENDITURE
2.43 p.m.
VISCOUNT NORWICH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much money has been spent in the last three years on the Imperial War Museum.]
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, £224,000 in the financial year 1964–65, £351,200 in 1965–66 and £448,900 in 1966–67.
VISCOUNT NORWICH: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for that Answer, in view of these staggering figures and the Government's recent undertaking to maintain the proposed R.A.F. museum at Hendon, may I ask whether the refusal of Her Majesty's Government to subscribe one penny to
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wards the British Theatre Museum (which already exists) does not indicate that something is wrong in the relative importance attached by the Government to the arts of war and peace?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I am sure the noble Viscount will agree that a museum of this kind has a social content and does not consist merely of replicas of old battles. Certainly during my educational career I have taken many children to the Imperial War Museum, and have found the visits utterly invaluable. Equally, I would agree with the noble Viscount that the Theatre Museum also has a great social content, but I would assume that it is not a question of "either/or". Possibly the Arts Council may be able to assist in the case of that museum.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, would my noble friend bear in mind that few people make large sums of money out of the Army whereas many do out of the theatre; and could not the Theatre Museum rely upon them for support?
VISCOUNT NORWICH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord—
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, the noble Viscount can address his question to the Minister but not to my noble friend behind me.
VISCOUNT NORWICH: My Lords, I should like to ask the Minister whether she does not agree that the fact that a great many people may make a certain amount of money out of the theatre—and the theatre is, on average, the least well paid of all the professions—in no way diminishes the artistic value of the theatre; and does she not agree that there is a very considerable, and I would say shameful, disproportion between the figure of roughly £1 million spent on the Imperial War Museum and nothing at all on that of the theatre?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I am not quite sure where I intervene in this debate. Perhaps it would be correct to say that the Services are not necessarily a very highly paid profession, though one would agree equally that the theatre is not very well paid. But I am quite sure

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that the noble Viscount would agree that there is a case for retaining a museum of this kind, and one hopes that his own museum will receive some help in the future.
VISCOUNT NORWICH: I thank the noble Baroness for that assurance.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness this question? Whereas the majority of us would support her in the proper maintenance of the Imperial War Museum, does it not seem strange, really beyond all understanding, that we can spend nearly half a million pounds on this museum and not a shilling on the Territorial Army?
VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEIN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness this question? What the noble Lord who is a member of my regiment said just now is very true—there is no doubt that we soldiers are very badly paid. I would also say—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Question.
VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEIN: I would also ask the noble Baroness whether she thinks the museum referred to by the noble Viscount (whose father I knew very well) really makes a major contribution to the art and the conduct of war? I should have thought it made no contribution.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble and gallant Viscount for his contribution.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS: PROPOSED TEST BAN
2.45 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will propose at the Geneva Disarmament Conference that all testing of nuclear weapons shall cease.]
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government support the proposal for a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, banning all nuclear weapon tests in all environments. We have frequently made this clear at the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee and
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elsewhere. The outstanding obstacle to progress remains, however, the problem of verification.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, expressing appreciation of that Answer, may I ask my noble friend whether it is not the fact that, at the last meeting of the Geneva Conference, the delegate from Sweden stated that since the ban on overground tests there had been 47 underground tests, all of which had been observed: and, in view of the fact that it is now possible technically to Identify underground tests, why is there still on the part of many nations at the Geneva Conference opposition to banning them as well?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I think the whole difficulty is contained in that very question. The statement that there have been 47 tests, and that all have been observed, is not strictly intellectually accurate. What has happened is that 47 tests have been observed. No one knows how many tests have been made and not observed. The fact is that scientifically we are still not able to be absolutely certain of detecting underground tests absolutely and finally. The only way of making a final judgment is to carry out an inspection on the site which would put the matter beyond doubt. The Soviet Union has categorically rejected any onsite inspection of doubtful underground events.
LORD GRANVILLE OF EYE: My Lords, in view of my noble friend's Answer, does he not consider the time has come to make a statement en the progress of the Disarmament Conference at Geneva?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I will certainly bear that in mind and ask my noble friend, to arrange it, if it can be arranged through the usual channels.
LORD STRANGE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that Holland has made a mini-machine for producing nearly as much material for warfare and for power as all the small nations require?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for drawing my attention to that fascinating development, but it has nothing to do with the testing of nuclear weapons, either underground or elsewhere.

FIREARMS BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate the Firearms Acts 1937 and 1965, the Air Guns and Shot Guns, &c. Act 1962, Part V of the Criminal Justice Act 1967, and certain enactments amending the said Act of 1937. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

ANCILLARY DENTAL WORKERS REGULATIONS 1968
2.50 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): My Lords, these Regulations are subject to the Affirmative Resolution procedure in both Houses. They have passed the House of Commons. Their main purpose is to establish on a permanent basis the class of dental auxiliary which has been running, on a provisional basis, for the last five or six years and to allow for the continuation of the College at New Cross at which these girls are trained. No noble Lords have put down their names to speak, and I have not been informed of any observations which are to be made. So, in the interests of speedy procedure, I should like to move that the Regulations be approved. I shall, of course, be quite ready to answer any questions which noble Lords may wish to raise on them.
Moved, That the Draft Ancillary Dental Workers Regulations 1968, laid before the House on 29th January, be approved.—(Lord Kennet.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NATIONAL LOANS BILL
2.52 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Bill is designed to reform the accounting arrangements for Government borrowing and lending. It is intended to
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make these arrangements more intelligible, and more in line with modern methods of assessing the Government's role in total economic activity. The reform means that many obsolete relics of 19th century accounting will be abolished. This is all the Bill does; it proposes a change in the method of accounting for Government payments and receipts—nothing more. Parliamentary control over the way the Government raise their money, and the way they spend money is not reduced in any way. I understand there have been misconceptions about this when the Bill was examined in another place, and I propose to try to clarify these particular matters.
Inevitably, given the nature of the matters with which it deals, the Bill looks somewhat complex. Government accounting matters have always been complex to most of us. In this Bill the mysteries have needed to be spelt out in language appropriate for legislation. But the basic principles on which the Bill has been constructed are, I believe, clear and precise. In consequence, the Bill should help to make these very important issues more easily understood, both by experts in this field as well as by the general public.
Broadly, the Bill takes out of the Consolidated Fund the Government's lending and borrowing transactions so that accounting for these transactions will fall on a new National Loans Fund. Revenue and supply expenditure will remain with the Consolidated Fund. This is it in a nutshell. It is not a division between a current and capital account. Government supply expenditure includes capital expenditure as well as lending on soft terms—as for example overseas aid. But if supply expenditure is taken as all spending out of Votes, and revenue is taken as receipts from direct and indirect taxation, this broadly covers the transactions appropriate for the Consolidated Fund under the proposed new system.
The National Loans Fund will lend to the nationalised industries, local authorities and others, provided the terms of the loan are "hard", and will match this lending (again broadly) by the use of any surplus that may arise on the Consolidated Fund account and by borrowing. As lending undertaken by the National Loans Fund must be "hard", the Bill provides that the rate of interest

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charged on loans issued from the N.L.F. must be sufficient to cover the cost to the Government of raising similar amounts on comparable terms in the market. The Bill charges all existing national debt on the National Loans Fund, but with recourse to the Consolidated Fund. This means that any shortfall between interest received by the National Loans Fund and the interest it pays out will be met from the Consolidated Fund.
Now for these apparent misconceptions. There is especial interest this year about the size of the Government's borrowing requirement in the coming financial year and to some extent this interest stems from the International Monetry Fund Letter of Intent. In this Letter the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer agreed that a borrowing requirement of not more than £1,000 million might be regarded as appropriate for 1968–69. One argument heard is that Parliament should have the right to control the size of the borrowing requirement, and attempts were made elsewhere to amend the Bill so as to provide for this control.
The misconception lies in the implication that the borrowing requirement has a separate identity of its own. This is not so. The borrowing requirement is the result of the difference between Government receipts from all sources (other than from borrowing) and Government expenditure and lending. As your Lordships I hope will agree, Government expenditure and lending is subject to close Parliamentary control, as of course are the means by which the Government raises its revenue. No lending, for example, is possible without appropriate legislative authority. This is not to say that the borrowing requirement has no significance. Of course it has. But the requirement cannot be regarded as independent of the two large aggregates—revenue on the one hand and expenditure on the other. The requirement therefore follows as the result of Parliamentary decisions on the other two factors.
I think I should say something, too, about the financing of the borrowing requirement. Amendments have been discussed designed to place constraints on the Government on the way the requirement is financed. To a large extent we
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have from the Government point of view a great deal of sympathy with the objectives of these Amendments. Broadly they are concerned to ensure that the requirement is financed by attracting genuine savings from the public, and not by inflationary financing like printing money or borrowing on Treasury Bills from the banking system. One proposal is that the Government use funds generated by its overseas borrowing to finance its own expenditure. I cannot go into these complex matters in any detail; but in passing it is worth saying that a good many of these matters were discussed in a most interesting fashion and I should have thought that a good deal of information was given, in the debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, on Nationalised Industries and Economic Policy. But to-day, there are, I think, possibly just a few points I might deal with.
First, the Government fully accept the need to finance as much of their borrowing as possible by attracting the genuine savings of the public. A prime objective of policy has been and will continue to be to sell as much gilt-edged as possible and to attract maximum national savings all from the non-banking private sector. But this policy cannot be pursued regardless of other considerations equally important for the economy, like the interest rates and the need to avoid damaging confidence in gilt-edged in the long term.
Secondly there are suggestions that the Government is too easily able to meet its borrowing requirement by printing money, and by this I gather the critics had in mind the expansion of the fiduciary issue over the last few years. The suggestion here is that the continued expansion of notes was the cause of inflation. In fact changes in the public holdings of notes may be a symptom of inflation, but they are not a cause. This is because they represent only one-fifth of the total money supply. They simply reflect the public's requirement for ready cash to keep in their pockets and tills. The Government's function is confined to ensuring that sufficient notes are available to meet this need. Rising incomes, and therefore rising expenditure on goods and services, mean that the public need for currency, for notes and coin also goes up. What is important in this context is the remaining four-fifths of money

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supply which is held in bank deposits. Changes in bank deposits can have significant implications for the economy. This is why the Government tries to maximise its debt sales to the non-banking public, thus helping to keep down rises in bank deposits.
Thirdly, there is the charge that the Government is able to finance itself through borrowing from overseas sources, like the I.M.F. or overseas central banks or Governments. The short answer is that the Government does not borrow sterling—it borrows foreign exchange. The purpose, of course, is to support the reserves. It is true that if the borrowed foreign exchange is used to cover a balance of payments deficit the Exchange Equalisation Account acquires sterling in exchange and the sterling is lent to the Government for its internal financing. Perhaps this is what the critics have in mind. But there are two points to be said about this. First, whatever sterling the Government may acquire through E.E.A. operations, policy continues to be to sell as much debt as possible to the non-banking sector. Secondly, receipts of sterling through the E.E.A. help to reduce the Government's need for bank finance. Indeed, they may help the Government to repay debt held by the banks. Hence the effect tends to be deflationary rather than inflationary. I hope, therefore, that the Bill will be recognised for what it is: a reform of the Government's accounts—no more and no less—designed to present the Government's financial transactions more clearly and in a more meaningful way.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Beswick.)
3.2 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, this is a Money Bill of a kind which your Lordships do not usually wish to discuss at any length. On this side of the House we are content to accept it. The Bill is concerned purely with accountancy, and I have no comment to make on the Bill itself. I would congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, on the great trouble which he has taken to explain its contents and to remove any possible misapprehensions which your Lordships might otherwise have had about it. I hope that your Lordships are now suitably enlightened. For my own part, I am afraid
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that the Bill itself and the noble Lord's explanation of it remind me a good deal of the Athanasian creed: the Consolidated Fund is incomprehensible; the National Loans Fund incomprehensible; the Local Loans Fund incomprehensible; and yet there are not three incomprehensibles, but one incomprehensible.
The noble Lord has spoken in his explanatory remarks about our borrowing powers for the next year, which I have no doubt will also be examined with interest by the gentlemen from the International Monetary Fund who are now here, or who are soon to be here, to give assistance and advice to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I hope that my noble friend Lord Aberdare in a moment will say a word or two on the Bill in connection with A Programme for National Recovery, of which he is one of the compilers. In its first issue that Paper showed clearly how our borrowing over the last six years for which figures are available has exceeded our Budget surpluses, the long-term loans having amounted to £5,653 million, Budget surpluses to £3,813 million, making a total deficit of £1,840 million which has all been provided for by increasing the domestic supply of credit money, thereby effecting a considerable inflation because the increase of credit money has been at something like twice the rate of our gross national product. I think that this is one reason, perhaps the main reason, why we have been unable to stop inflation, why the rates on borrowing have gone to such a high figure, and why we have got this preposterous bank rate of 8 per cent. which is such a terrible handicap to the smaller industrialists and producers in the country.
Nothing in this Bill itself can do anything to remedy this state of affairs, but the Bill can, and I hope will, enable those of us whose duty it is to examine our Public Accounts to see a little more clearly how we are spending more than we earn and borrowing more than we produce at rates of interest which are a crippling disincentive to sound investment.
3.5 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords. I intervene with some hesitation in an economic debate somewhat out of my own field. The only other occasion on which I was dragged to my feet was by

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the iniquities of the selective employment tax. I do so on this occasion, as my noble friend Lord Dundee has rightly guessed, because I was a signatory of the document entitled A Programme for National Recovery which was published last July and was signed by a number of eminent economists, writers and industrialists, all far more eminent than I; and I rely very largely on their expert advice in drawing your Lordships' attention to this document. It was extremely well received and excited a great deal of interest, and, even more important, it excited sufficient financial support to allow us to pursue further studies. In fact, last month the first research paper was published and it is because of the relevance of this research paper to this Bill that I venture to draw attention to it.
My noble friend Lord Dundee has mentioned some of the conclusions. The research covered the six years 1961 to 1966 inclusive, and some interesting figures emerged. As my noble friend Lord Dundee said, on income and expenditure account there was a surplus of £3,813 million, which was a very satisfactory result, but over the same period long-term loans amounted to £5,653 million. This converted the surplus into a deficit of £1,840 million. Incidentally, these long-term loans were 90 per cent. loans to local authorities and loans to public corporations. This deficit is what is described as the Chancellor's borrowing requirement. If it had been met by genuine borrowing—that is, by the sale of marketable Government securities or a net inflow of National Savings and utimately by recourse to the Bank of ngland—then there would have been no currency inflation. But as it was, as the figures in this research paper show, £756 million of the deficit—that is, 41 per cent. of it—was met by an increase in the issue of notes and coins.
I know that Lord Beswick has pointed out that this was not so, but if he is correct I should like to know how the figure of £1,840 million was made up, because on the figures I have in this paper that was the figure shown. The final effect was that total money supply over the six years increased at an annual rate of 4·7 per cent. while the gross domestic produce at constant prices rose
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by only 2·9 per cent. I should have thought that that was the simple reason why inflation occurred. But, in reality—again taking the same figures—the situation was even worse, because of this total deficit of £1,840 million only £1 million net was found by d Dr-nestle borrowing and over £1,000 million of it was found by what was, in effect, living on capital; that is, by sales of our reserves of gold and convertible currencies and by the use of sterling flowing into the Exchange Equalisation Account as a result of overseas borrowing.
I take the noble Lord's point that the sterling flowing in as a result of borrowing could be considered as a genuine borrowing from overseas rather than borrowing from within, and to that extent might be justified. But, at the same time, I think there is a danger when the Exchange Equalisation Account becomes confused with the National Loans Fund, as it is now. I think the two ought to be kept separate. So according to my figures, 41 per cent. of this deficit was financed by printing new money, and 55 per cent. of it was financed by living on capital. Put in very simple terms, then, we were financing an overall deficit by sales of capital and by the creation of new money.
I should like to quote in support of this what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Cromer, on May 18, 1966. He said:
"We unfortunately have a system under which Exchequer financing can, and does, lead to the creation of money quasi-automatically to the extent that the requirements of the Exchequer are not met by genuine savings or taxation."
The National Loans Fund will not put this situation right. It will distinguish outstanding loans on long-term account, and will help to focus attention on what is really the most important point—how these loans are financed by the Exchequer..
But I regret that it is a "pip-squeak" of a Bill after the mighty roar of Chancellor Callaghan in his 1967 Budget Speech, when he said:
"I have also been considering whether the time is coming to consider changes of substance. Is it necessarily the best arrangement that so much of the borrowing requirement of local authorities and public corporations is financed in the first instance by the Exchequer?
The present arrangements have grown up as a series of ad hoc responses to particular situations over a long period of years. I think that the time has come to take stock of the

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suitability of the present arrangements in the contemporary world, and I have therefore put a review in hand."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. Commons, 11/4/67, cols. 998–9.]
This Bill is the result. As the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has said, it is really only a Bill to make changes in methods of accounting, and does not make any changes that I would describe as changes of substance.
As the noble Lord has told us, the Opposition tried in another place to amend it to give greater control to the House of Commons over the Government's financing of long-term loans, but without success. In 1967 those loans reached a figure of some £1,500 million, and I believe there is a danger that Parliament may be losing its grip on the national expenditure in this particular province. I shall naturally study the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, with the greatest of care. As he said, these are complicated matters and I shall certainly look very carefully at what he said.
Primarily, of course, this is a matter for another place, but it is also of great Parliamentary importance and deserving of the closest attention by all of us who are interested in the financial situation and in our Parliamentary institutions. The simple plea I make is that there should be a complete and clear separation of the income and expenditure account and the capital account of the Exchequer, and that any deficit on capital account should be met by genuine borrowing on the market. This Bill does nothing to tackle the problem of Parliamentary control, and does nothing to ensure that future Government loans represent true market borrowing. But at least it helps to separate the income and expenditure accounts from the long-term loans account, and that is a first step in the right direction which I welcome.
3.15 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, possibly I can seize on the last sentence of the noble Lord's speech and not on some of the others which he uttered earlier. I gather that, when it comes to the point, both noble Lords will not vote against this Bill. I am sorry that it was called a "pip-squeak" of a Bill, because it is not; it is important. Certainly, it is, as I have already said, only an accountancy
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measure, but, on the other hand, as I understand accountancy, it is a most useful tool in the hands of those who wish to control expenditure. By the passing of this Bill we make no difference to the amount of money which is borrowed; we make no difference to the way in which money is raised; but we enable noble Lords in this House or Members of another place, or the public generally, to follow what is being done. As a result of having more and clearer information at their disposal, I should have thought it would be possible to control each individual item which goes through this National Loans Fund.
The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said that we are losing our grip on public expenditure. There may or may not be criticism there, but it is not a criticism to be levelled at this Bill. This Bill will enable us to control public expenditure rather more closely, and if indeed there is any question of losing grip, then that is to a very large extent a criticism of the Opposition, for it is their job as well as that of the Government to control supply expenditure.
I was asked several questions, and some were so detailed that, if I may be allowed to do so, I should like to study what was said and will write to the two noble Lords concerned. However, I will endeavour to answer the point about raising money on the market. I accept that it is essential in providing finance for local authorities, for nationalised industries, and for the Government to get genuine savings to the largest extent possible. I accept the fact that if additional money has to be borrowed it should be borrowed from the market. The point I tried to make earlier is that at the present time, in one way or the other, money is raised in the market to the extent that it is not met by a surplus on the Consolidated Fund Account. I was asked by the noble Lord whether I could give a breakdown of the figure which he used. I imagine that to be for the year 1967–68. I am unable to give a breakdown of that, but I have figures for the year 1966–67 which will give some indication of how money is raised.
In that year the local authorities borrowed £518 million, the nationalised industries £813 million, and there were other borrowings of the order of £147 million. In the same year the surplus

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of revenue over expenditure came to £738 million, leaving a deficit to be met from borrowing of £740 million. The question of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, was: where does this money come from? As I understand him, he has a suspicion that to some extent, at any rate, it comes from just turning the handle of the printing machine. I do not think that fear is justified. The breakdown for that year is as follows: £53 million was raised by overseas borrowing, the notes and coins issue came to £125 million, there was £30 million forthcoming from the Tax Reserve Certificates, there were gilt-edged securities of £565 million, there was a deficit of Treasury Bills of £38 million and of National Savings of £197 million, leaving a net total of £485 million, and a further £202 million came from the banking sector. So I think it can be shown that, so far as notes and coins are concerned, they comprised a comparatively small proportion of the total.
The other point I would make to the noble Lord about these figures is that the currency and coins which are circulated are a function of the amount of bank deposits; and if we wanted, as he and the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, wished, to control the total amount of money in circulation, the sector to which we should direct our attention is that of the bank deposits. This is where the real inflationary pressure comes from. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said that the increase of bank deposits between 1961 and 1966 was very considerable. I quite agree with him, it was; and, as he uses this period 1961 to 1966, I can see that he is putting the point forward in no Party sense at all. But if one turns to that year, one finds that there was in fact a decrease in Government borrowing to the extent of £85 million and an increase in the private sector borrowing of £3,013 million, so the pressure there came from the private sector. It is perfectly true that there was too heavy a borrowing in those years; and, of course, part of Government policy has been to restrict the borrowing in this last year or two. But it was from that borrowing that the increase in the notes and coinage came.
I am not at all sure that this adds anything to our discussion. Possibly, when it appears in Hansard, the noble Lord and the noble Earl will be kind
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enough to read what I said, and I will read what they said; and if there are any additional points to be cleared up, I will do it by correspondence. In the meantime, my Lords, I hope that this Bill will be given a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, ant committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

REVENUE (No. 2) BILL
3.23 p.m.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I should perhaps begin by explaining to noble Lords why the Short Title of the Bill contains the words "No. 2" when this House has not had the benefit of a previous Revenue Bill this Session. The reason for this somewhat odd occurrence is that the Government thought fit to widen the provisions of the Bill after it had been introduced into another place, and effect to this decision could be given only by withdrawing the first Bill and substituting this one.
This Bill gives effect to the Government's decision to cease the additional payments made to manufacturers in the selective employment premium except for those in development areas, and to terminate the export rebate scheme. It may be asked why the Government have chosen to deal with two such unrelated questions in one Bill. The answer is that both provisions flow consequentially from the decision to devalue sterling, and both are concerned with significant reductions in public expenditure. It may be convenient, therefore, if I put these measures in their broader economic context and show how they fit into the strategy which the Government have been pursuing since devaluation.
Devaluation has given us a new opportunity to break out of the vicious circle in which every attempt to generate an expansion in the economy since the war has led, sooner or later, to a balance-of-payments crisis. But advantage can be taken of this oportunity only on condition that a big shift in our economic resources takes place away from the domestic side to the overseas side within the next year or so. Speaking in another place on January 17, the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred to the need to put

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about £1,000 million in the balance of payments
"to get the turn round that we need and to meet the additional calls imposed by the loss on the terms of trade."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 17/1/68, col. 1788.]
The two measures contained in this Bill will contribute to a reduction in Government expenditure in a full year of £200 million—a by no means unimportant step towards the achievement of the target mentioned by the Chancellor. Other measures which have been taken by the Government since devaluation include the decision to increase the rate of corporation tax by 2½ per cent. and the substantial cuts in public expenditure which were announced by the Prime Minister on January 16. Finally, I need hardly remind noble Lords that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have something more to say on March 19. So much for the economic setting into which the Bill's provisions can be placed. I will now deal with each provision in turn.
Noble Lords will be familiar with the main outlines of the selective employment tax and of the selective employment premiums. For reasons which I do not think I need go into now, the selective employment tax is collected in respect of all employed persons whatever the nature of their employment, and the exemptions, and where appropriate the subsidies, are taken care of by a subsequent repayment of the tax together with, in the case of manufacturing industry, "an additional sum". Since the inception of the scheme, this "additional sum", consisting of 7s. 6d. per week for men, 3s. 9d. a week for women and boys and 2s. 6d. a week for girls, has been paid to all manufacturers irrespective of their location.
Clause 1 of this Bill provides that, with effect from April 1 next, the additional sum shall be paid only in respect of employment in a development area. The continuing cost of these payments to manufacturers in development areas will he about £25 million a year. Other manufacturers will of course continue to be entitled to a full refund of the tax. These payments, representing a little over 1½ per cent. of manufacturers' outgoings on wages, have served a useful function in helping them to keep down their unit costs. But devaluation has completely
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changed the situation. There will be an increased demand for exports, for import substitutes, and for new investment to create the extra capacity we shall need. The great majority of manufacturers will in one way or another be able to take advantage of this increased demand. Whether manufacturers are large exporters or not, they should reap substantial benefits if they take the opportunities which are now open to them. The case for continuing with these additional payments generally has therefore now largely disappeared.
The situation in the development areas is, unfortunately, rather different, and that is why the additional payments will continue to be made to manufacturers there. The position is that the unemployment level in these areas is still twice as great as it is in the rest of the country—4·5 per cent. compared with 2·2 per cent. This level of unemployment means not only a great deal of personal hardship; it is also a waste of resources which we can ill-afford. Once the additional sums in the selective employment payments are confined to manufacturers in the development areas, they will be performing much the same economic function as the regional employment premium. As noble Lords will he aware, R.E.P., which provides for the payment of 30s. a week for every adult male employed in manufacturing in the development areas, is one of the major instruments of Government policy for dealing with the problem of unemployment in these areas. When R.E.P. was introduced in last year's Finance Act, we pointed out that the expenditure would not have any inflationary effect because, on balance, it would create an increase in production in the development areas without creating any net increase in the rest of the country. Instead of making an extra demand on resources in areas like the South-East and Midlands, the effect of R.E.P. will be to bring new resources into use and so increase our total productive capacity. With the prospect of a more rapid expansion of domestic activity than we have been able to achieve hitherto, it will be even more important to reduce the waste of resources in these areas, especially human resources.
There are a number of other points in Clause 1 on which I should comment.

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First, subsection (1) provides that the clause shall have effect in relation to contribution weeks from April 1, 1968. This is because claims for premium are paid quarterly, in arrears. The Ministry of Labour will therefore, continue to make payments of the additional sums after April 1, amounting to about £25 million, relating to employment before that date. The net saving in 1968–69 is thus likely to be about £75 million. Subsections (3) and (4) deal with certain nationalised undertakings which are engaged in manufacturing activities—for example, National Coal Board brickworks, railway workshops and so on. At present, they are entitled to additional payment under Section 3(2)(a) of the Selective Employment Payments Act. This clause provides that they shall continue to be treated in the same way as private manufacturers; that is, only those undertakings in the development areas will continue to receive the additional 7s. 6d. Subsection (5) provides for an order-making power to continue payments over and above refund of S.E.T. to manufacturers in areas which cease to be development areas. This provision will give flexibility to terminating Government assistance when development areas are de-scheduled. It parallels a similar provision for R.E.P. in Section 26(5) of the Finance Act 1967.
This clause does not apply to Northern Ireland, where selective employment payments are made under local legislation. We understand that the Government of Northern Ireland will continue to pay the additional 7s. 6d. to manufacturers there, since for economic purposes the whole of Northern Ireland counts as a development area.
Clauses 2 and 3, and the Schedule to the Bill, give effect to the decision announced by the Chancellor's predecessor on November 18 to abolish export rebate as from March 31, 1968, as one of the measures accompanying devaluation. Export rebate has been payable on goods of United Kingdom production exported on or after October 26, 1964, on sale, or on hire, for at least a year, to foreign customers, or for use by a United Kingdom trader in his business abroad. It is not now payable on goods exported to our EFTA partners if the goods receive EFTA tariff treatment in the importing country. The rebate, which is expressed as a per-
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centage of the value of the goods (the average is at present about 1·8 per cent.) relieves the exported goods from certain indirect taxes which entered into their production costs: hydrocarbon oil duties, vehicle excise duty and certain elements of purchase tax. Now the rebate is to be abolished. The primary reason for this is that the rebate is no longer needed. It was introduced in October, 1964, in order to make our exports mote competitive. Apart from exports to our EFTA partners, it has continued ever since, but with devaluation this aid is no longer needed.
Let me give the broad figures, my Lords. The competitive advantage which devaluation gives in terms of foreign currency is 16⅔ per cent., but there ire certainly deductions to be made from that advantage. First, there is the removal of the S.E.T. additional payment, to which I have already referred, which accounts for about ½ per cent., and this, of course, has to be added to the costs. The export rebate is worth approximately, on average, 1·8 per cent., so let us call the removal of that roughly a further 2 per cent. addition to costs. Then again, devaluation inevitably leads to increases in import prices. Many exported goods include an element of imports in their make-up, and so we have to add on a further 2½ per cent. in respect of higher import prices. It would be reasonable, too, to have regard to some increases in wages, and I would suggest that for this we include a figure of 1 per cent. These increases I have mentioned total about 6 per cent., leaving a net advantage in export prices, resulting from devaluation, on average of somewhere between 10 and 11 per cent.
It is clear, therefore, that as a result of devaluation the export prices can be more competitive, and so the usefulness of the rebate disappears. As will be seen from the Explanatory Note to this Bill it is estimated that the complete abolition of the rebate will reduce public expenditure by about £100 million per year. The Government also consider that the abolition of the rebate should have an important side-effect in the direction of stimulating exports; namely, the dampening down of demands for additional tariffs in other countries. We have always regarded the rebate as compatible with our international obligations, but we have had to

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face the fact that some countries have been highly critical of it, and we hope that by its abolition foreign Administrations will be helped in resisting the wave of protectionist pressure in those countries. We can but hope that this pressure will continue to be resisted.
Let me now describe some of the more important details of these two clauses. Clause 2 provides that export rebate will not be payable on goods exported after March 31 of this year, except for those goods which are shipped under certain kinds of written contracts entered into before devaluation; that is, before November 19, 1967, when the exporter counted on getting the rebate. Briefly, these contracts are those whose terms are such that devaluation will not confer any benefit on the exporter when he does export his goods under the contract. Let me give some examples of the operation of this clause. Take a contract priced at £100 in sterling. If the contract provides for an alteration in the price on a change in exchange rates or on withdrawal of rebate, then the supplier is protected against loss whether his contract is payable in sterling or, for example, in dollars. But if no such provisions exist and the price is payable in sterling, the supplier will receive only £100 and will suffer from withdrawal of the rebate. He accordingly, therefore, receives the rebate. If the price is payable only in dollars, however, and there is provision for converting the sterling price into dollars at the pre-devaluation rate, which would yield payment of 280 dollars, that would now be worth nearly £120. The supplier has thereby benefited from devaluation and will not receive the rebate. As noble Lords will realise, there are many variations on prices in contracts, and this clause attempts to continue rebate in cases which have arisen and where abolition of rebate could cause hardships.
Clause 3 provides that the Treasury will have power to reintroduce export rebates, either generally or in respect of goods consigned to or exported for use in specific countries or territories. This power did not appear in the original Bill tabled. It was included in the present Bill (which was substituted for the former one) because in the meanwhile indications had arisen that other countries might be considering protectionist measures, including rebates, in support of their
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own exports. Nevertheless, as has repeatedly been made clear, the taking of power to restore rebate is a purely precautionary move: the present rebate scheme will definitely end on March 31, in accordance with Clause 2 of the Bill, and the Government are not committed in any way to the automatic reintroduction of rebate under the powers in Clause 3 in any circumstances. In the event of protectionist measures by other countries, the Government would need to consider all the factors very carefully before any decision was taken to reintroduce rebate.
The Financial Secretary made clear on Second Reading in another place that the Government had no intention of breaching their obligations under GATT. In view of this, and of the argument that in certain circumstances selective reintroduction of rebate would not be regarded by the contracting parties as incompatible with GATT, all that is really at issue is whether the Government need these powers at all. It is clear that without such powers in the present Bill the reintroduction of rebate by Order could apply only to all those exports eligible under section 7 of the Finance (No. 2) Act 1964, as amended by the Finance Act 1966, which does not itself contain power to select particular countries of destination, except that rebate is not payable on goods for which EFTA tariff treatment is claimed on importation in to an EFTA country.
Clause 2 refers mainly to goods exported on sale, but export rebate can apply also to goods exported for hire abroad. The Schedule, therefore, in its paragraphs 1 and 2 extends the provisions of Clauses 2 and 3 to goods exported on hire and qualifying for export rebate. Paragraphs 3 to 7 of the Schedule contain the machinery provisions to enable the Board of Trade to certify pre-devaluation contracts, while paragraphs 8 and 9 provide for the Customs, if they see fit, after a date fixed by Treasury Order, to anticipate, where possible, the completion of outstanding contracts and to pay an amount equivalent to the rebate which would be payable on the completion of the contract. The purpose of this provision for compounding payments and winding up the scheme is to enable the Customs as soon as practicable to cease employing staff on the payment of the rebate. Paragraphs 10 and 11 are minor

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machinery provisions aimed at easing, for exporters whose claims for export rebate will be tapering off after April 1, 1968, the existing requirement that at least £2,000 of goods must be exported in a year before a claim for export rebate can be made. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Bowles.)
3.40 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, this is another Money Bill, and after Clause 1 the rest of the Bill is also a Supply Bill, which it is not possible for your Lordships to amend: we can only discuss it in general. We could, in theory at least, amend the first clause which deals with the selective employment tax premium. We could not amend the subsequent clauses which deal with the export rebate. Unfortunately, the first clause is the one which we do not particularly want to amend, because we are quite content to accept it, mainly on the ground that we on this side of the House think that the whole machinery of selective employment tax is wholly misconceived and injurious to our economy, and the more it is whittled down the better.
According to a recent Parliamentary Answer, the gross yield of the tax for the year 1967–68 was estimated at £1,100 million, of which about £924 million would be refunded, leaving a net yield of £176 million. But, in my view, the way in which the money is distributed does not achieve the purpose which the scheme is said to be designed to achieve, because so much of the premium and refund goes to manufacturing industries which are not manufacturing anything of economic importance, and the people who are hit in the service industries are very often doing far more than many manufacturing industries to earn gains for our national balance of payments.
The noble Lord has mentioned that under this Bill the premium is still payable in the development areas. But even there it is not achieving its purpose. In Scotland, at least—and I am pretty sure in most of the development areas—we should be far better off, and our economy would be in far better position, if we had neither any premium nor any tax. This tax is a large net loss to the Scottish
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economy, even with the premium. So we all hope very much that at the earliest possible moment this tax will be abolished and will cease altogether to be part of our fiscal furniture.
With regard to the two remaining clauses of the Bill, one of them takes away the export rebate, and the other enables us to put it back again, if it is necessary to do so, for the purpose of retaliation. I did not quite agree with the noble Lord's description of the economic background in which this is being done. He gave a number of official figures, which I think I have seen before, showing that the gain to our export industries from devaluation will be substantially greater than the loss which they will suffer, not only by the removal of this export rebate, but also by the new taxes which are being imposed as part of the post-devaluation package deal.
The noble Lord did not mention that as a result of these measures the total increase of taxation in the last three years will now amount to fully £1,300 million, of which nearly half will fall directy upon industry. And as for the noble Lord's contention that this is a method of escaping from the economic straitjacket which we have never had an opportunity of doing before, we did have an opportunity, I think, in 1949; we devalued then, but it did not lead to any enormous improvement in our economic situation. Now we all want, if we can, to make this devaluation lead to an improvement in the economic situation. But I have often tried to put it to your Lordships—and I put it to your Lordships again—that we cannot have economic growth, which is the first necessity to an improvement in our economic situation, if we continue with our present stifling load of taxation. We must have economic growth if we are to get in balance; and we cannot have economic growth, in my submission, so long at the principle prevails that industry exists simply to provide more and more money in taxes for the Treasury. I quite see the point about reciprocal trading; that it may not be a good thing always to have these export rebates if we find that other nations to whom we send of our exports take retaliatory measures which may make it not worth our while to continue the rebates, because we are rather more vulnerable than most countries in this respect. We depend so much on our

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exports, and that is the reason why we have to be careful in applying all measures of this kind. But I do not agree that this is a particularly appropriate time to take off the export rebate, and I think it will have a bad effect on our balance of payments next year.
My Lords, there is one final point that I should like to put to the Government, and it is this. The rebate continues, of course, in respect of all contracts which were made up to November 19 last year, and it is removed only in respect of contracts which have been concluded since that date. In another place, Mr. Iain Macleod pressed very strongly on the Government, I thought with justice and sense, that irrevocable tenders which had been made before November 19, and from which the exporters who had made them could not retract, should be allowed to receive the export rebate if they were accepted (as they sometimes are months later) after November 19, because the irrevocable bids had been made in the expectation that the export rebate would be received, possibly in circumstances of tight competition, and the rebate might have made the difference between being able to undercut a competitor and not being able to undercut. If there is a delay of three or four months between making the irrevocable bid and its acceptance by a foreign purchaser, it seems to me that the exporter who has won the contract on this basis should get the export rebate, because his tender was made before November 19, the dateline which is laid down. I do not accept that the Government are incapable of drafting an Amendment to the Bill which would give effect to this, in my view, obvious piece of common sense. We cannot in this House amend it because this part of the Bill is a Supply Bill, but I would strongly urge the Government to reconsider this matter and see whether they cannot do something to put it right.
3.51 p.m.
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, for his interesting and reasoned speech in which he set forth clearly the position of his Party, about which we have heard him speak before and which we understand well. On the point he raised about Scotland being a net loser on S.E.T. and R.E.P., in the time at my disposal
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since he made that statement I have not been able to get out the figures, but I will let the noble Earl have them because I am sure that he would like to know the real position of his country in this respect.
As regards the danger of removing the rebate it seems to us that the rebate fulfilled its purpose adequately. This is well illustrated by the large volume of representations received from exporters when they thought that they were not going to receive a rebate on existing long-term contracts. Many stressed that the rebate played a useful part in obtaining contracts against foreign competition. However, in the context of devaluation, and in the absence of any fresh measures by other countries, the need for the rebate has disappeared. The net advantage of devaluation should in the average case be considerably greater than the loss incurred by the removal of the export rebate.
On the question of devaluation and taxation, may I add that the rebate is intended as a refund of the indirect taxation which entered into industrial costs, but it is open to the criticism that at present it goes beyond the general practice in other countries in refunding indirect taxation. In the context of devaluation British industry has not been put at a competitive disadvantage by the removal of the rebate, so that this contribution to the reduction in Government expenditure will not have adverse effects. If this situation should change the Government could if necessary use the power to reintroduce the rebate.
As regards the noble Earl's question of contracts made after devaluation but based on bids and tenders made before devaluation, a point the noble Earl was kind enough to let me know he was going to raise, the Government realised that this was a real difficulty but were unable to devise an administratively acceptable solution to any such extension, even if it were possible to define closely and exactly what, short of a contract of sale, is an irrevocable tender or bid. This is a question of law and not of evident fact, and accordingly in the last resort it is a question for the law courts, whose function it is neither proper nor practicable for the Board of Trade to answer. It is not long ago since we all lived through the Crichel Down case, and though no Party position was taken up

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there the whole idea of the Franks Committee, and also the subsequent action of both Governments, has been that civil servants should not be asked to decide questions which are much more a matter for the law courts. In these circumstances, I hope that the noble Earl will realise that the Government have tried hard to meet the point raised by his right honourable friend Mr. Iain Macleod in another place, but I am afraid that we cannot see our way to alter the wording of the Bill in this respect.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, do I understand the noble Lord to mean that if the law courts should decide that a certain tender or bid before November 19 was irrevocable in character and binding on the person who made it, and if it was accepted by the purchaser after November 19, it would then follow that the exporter would receive the rebate?
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, I think that what would happen is that the exporter would take action against the Board of Trade, suing them for his rebate. If the court said he could have it, then he would have it. It is as simple as that. But I think the noble Earl will agree that it is not proper to place on the backs of civil servants, who are not necessarily lawyers, the making of decisions on matters of such importance to the public funds. The noble Earl will remember the history of this subject over the last 14 years. We are in line with the general attitude adopted by Governments since the Crichel Down case.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

DERBY ORDER 1968
3.57 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION LORD CHAMPION rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Derby Order, 1968 [S.I. 1968, No. 44], laid before the House on 23rd January last, be annulled. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I do this because I am firmly of the opinion that the Derby Order, which I am asking this House to annul, is ill-conceived and, above all, ill-timed. It
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is to the ill-timing point that I shall address most of my remarks. What this Order sets out to do is to extend the area of the County Borough of Derby by about 11,000 acres and to increase its population by 90,000 people—from 129,000 to 219,000. This would be at the expense of the rural district councils of Belper, Repton and South-East Derbyshire and also at the expense of the Derbyshire County Council.
The County Council would lose rateable value of some £3,012,000. As a result of the Sheffield Order, which we dealt with last year, the County Council has already lost rateable value of £800,000, and this new Order brings the loss of rateable value in this important county to the total of nearly £4 million. This is a considerable sum. This is loss will inevitably affect the services which have to be provided by the Derbyshire County Council. The rural district that would be hardest hit by this proposal is that of South-East Derbyshire, an area which I know particularly well, having represented it in another place for 14 years. Its acreage would be reduced by roughly 8,000, its population by 65,000 (from 102,470 to a little over 36,000 people), and its rateable value by £2,700,000—from £3,385,000 to £1,377,000.
My Lords, these figures are tremendous. Everyone here who has any knowledge at all of the working of local government will realise the tremendous difficulties that are going to be thrust on these authorities as a result of this Order, which I am asking the House to annul to-day. The South-East Derbyshire Rural District Council is, of course, the worst hit. The injuries to the other councils I have mentioned, Repton and Belper, are comparatively—I repeat, comparatively—minor. The effect on the county council is, of course, bad. But the effect on the rural district council is nothing short of disastrous, for that rural district council will have both its population and its rateable value cut by almost two—thirds. This rural district council is geared to a population of over 100,000 inhabitants. Its staffing has been built up to cope with the services necessary for such a large group of population, and its office accommodation, and all the rest of it, has also been geared to that size of population.
The overall effect of this is going to be disaster for that rural district council; there will be great difficulties for the county council involved, and an overall effect upon those who remain in the areas of the councils that I have mentioned, because clearly, with all this rateable value disappearing, retention of the services which will still have to be provided by those authorities which are the losing authorities will suffer enormously as a result, or very largely increased rates will have to be paid in order to maintain the standard of service to which the people have become accustomed over the years.
This is bound to be the case, for what these authorities which are the losing authorities will lose are those closely-knit areas—true, mainly around this county borough of Derby; but they are closely-knit areas—where it is comparatively easy and cheaper to provide the services. When you extend into the vast county area outside, inevitably, as a result of distance and everything else, the provision of services becomes more costly. Looking round the House at this moment, I am grateful to see some noble Lords who know something about the administration of great counties, agricultural and others, nodding their head in acquiescence in the point I was just putting: that this is going to be a difficult exercise for the losing authorities I have mentioned.
Quite understandably, I think, people who live closest to the county borough of Derby and who would be affected and brought in as a result of the extension of the county borough boundary have been asked their opinion about it, and they have expressed it in terms which are clearly understood by everyone. In a plebiscite—and I have lumped all the parishes concerned together, because I do not want to take up the time of the House enumerating each and every one—of all the parishes concerned, an average of 79 per cent. were polled, and of that figure an average of 89 per cent. were against the proposals. I am as positive as it is possible for anyone to be that if those who are left out, who will still remain outside the county borough, were asked the same question, and it was pointed out to them what the effect of the loss of rateable value will be upon
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them, their replies would amount likewise to 89 per cent., or an even higher percentage, against.
What I have done up to now is just to lay out, as it were, the bare bones of the case against the Order. I have mentioned the loss of rateable value for the losing authorities; the loss of population; the increased difficulties that will be experienced in administering the services of the parts left to them, and the ascertained wishes of the people most closely connected. Everyone will, I think, admit that those things are of very great importance. Of course they are of very great importance, because they affect the lives of people. I am not going to detract from their importance; I hope I have stressed it sufficiently. But I am bound to say that I think the real case against the Order at the present time lies in the fact that, as I said at the outset, its timing is bad.
As the House is well aware, the Government set up a Royal Commission to look into the state of local government in this country and to recommend as to its possible future, its functions, its boundaries, and so on. Everyone thinks, so far as I can tell, at all events, that the Commission will report in the autumn of this year. Or, at least, if not everyone thinks that, certainly the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, Mr. Skeffington, said in the other House the other day that he thought that the Commission would be reporting in the autumn of this year. So here we are, with that Report expected so soon, making by this Order a major change in an important county. I am not sure that the very timing of this Order is not disrespectful, to put it mildly, to the very eminent people who are sitting on that Royal Commission. I feel we are doing something here so late in the day that if I were a member of that Commission I should be saying, "Well, this, at least, to put it mildly, is disrespectful". Perhaps if I did not feel like putting it mildly I should say, "This is an insult to us". Be that as it may, I cannot see the slightest justification for proceeding with the Order at this time.
When I heard that the Order had been laid, I wondered what the case for its presentation at this time could possibly be. Because there was a debate on a Prayer in the other place last week, I have the advantage of knowing what

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the Government's case is—at least as it was presented on that day. Not being, or wishing to be, discourteous to my honourable friend Mr. Skeffington, whose qualities I greatly admire and whom I like immensely, I am bound to say that I thought the case that was presented to the other House last week was one of the least convincing cases I have ever examined. That is not his fault, of course, because the fact is that there is no good case, and there cannot be a good case, for proceeding with this Order now, before the Royal Commission's Report is available.
He seemed to me to have said three things in support of the decision to proceed with this Order now—because, clearly, some of the attack upon the Order in the other place last week dealt with this very point of the ill timing of the presentation of the Order. He said three things, as I understood him: first, that the preparations for the Order have been going on since January, 1960; secondly, that in the interests of housing, and particularly slum clearance, the county borough should be permitted to extend its boundary to take in land upon which it may build the required houses, and it wants to do that fairly soon; and, thirdly, after the Royal Commission report, it will take at least five to six years before their recommendations are put upon the Statute Book.
As to the first of those reasons for proceeding now, I am bound to say that I can find little fault with the procedure which has been followed since 1960. But the eight years which have passed since January, 1960, make it glaringly obvious that there was not very much urgency about these boundary changes, otherwise there would have been smarter action. Eight years have passed since the commencement of the procedure in January, 1960. If the people—and it is they who really matter—had been suffering as a result of administrative inefficiencies and difficulties caused by the existing boundary of the county borough, then eight years since the first move towards this Order has been much too long. But if it is the case that they have all, on both sides of the boundary, managed very well—and I am sure they have, because, as I have said, I claim to have some knowledge of the people on both sides of the boundary—there seems to me to
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be not the slightest justification for pushing this Order through at this stage. If eight years can elapse while the whole matter pursues its lengthy course I am positive that another three or four, or even the six years envisaged by Mr. Skeffington, just would not matter.
The second reason is that of housing requirements. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary said;
"out of a total of 17,000 houses owned by Derby, about one-third of them—5,500 houses—have been built by Derby outside its boundaries."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 14/2/68, col. 1502.]
In this connection he made the point that land in the county area is urgently required if people are to be decently rehoused by 1981. The point I am bound to make in reply is that if 5,500 houses have already been built by the County Borough in the County Council area, a couple of thousand more, if they Are required, built in the county between now and the possible implementation of the Report of the Royal Commission just would not matter, and I am fairly sure that the County Council and the rural districts concerned would be only too glad to assist them to find the land upon which to build these additional houses—additional, that is, to those already built by the County Borough outside its boundary.
On the third reason, the length of time between the date of the Report and its implementation, my honourable friend said, speaking particularly of this Order (col. 1502):
"Whatever may be the future recommendation, I am quite convinced in my Own mind that the enlarged area, whether there be a first-tier or second-tier authority, is not likely to be upset by anything the Royal Commission may say."
He went on, however, to say that the Government have no knowledge at this stage of how the Commission intend to report. My Lords, if I, with a little knowledge of some of the events that have preceded the setting up of this Royal Commission, guessed that the Royal Commission would plump for single-tier government for major services, and that the size recommended would be a population and area similar to that of Derbyshire, my guess might be as good as his; and if that happened to be the case then the major upset caused by this Order to the County

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Council and to the rural district councils concerned would be followed in another four to six years' time by another major upset. Is this the sort of thing that this House can justify: that these people, who will inevitably be involved in all these alterations that are bound to take place following this Order, may well find themselves, within another six years, involved in another major upset, perhaps of a similar size and nature?
But, my Lords, even if it be the case that the Royal Commission recommend that heavily built-up areas of the size and population that Derby will be if this Order comes into force are to remain part of the structure of local government in this country, is it likely that the South-East Derbyshire Rural District Council, for example, in its greatly reduced form will remain in being and with the same boundaries? If not—and my guess is that it will not—then it is bound to be the case that within a very short time this area, with its people and its local government officers, and everyone concerned, will be subjected to another major upset.
When I looked at this Order at the outset I was bound to admit straight away that it would create an administratively tidy-looking area; an area, that is, easily shown on a 6-inch to the mile map, its boundaries quite clearly indicated and understood by everybody. I was also bound to admit to myself that there is always a case to be considered for towns to take within their own boundaries their own housing developments. This situation is certainly present in the Derby case, and if there were no Royal Commission sitting and likely to report quite soon, and if I thought that people were suffering from poor local government services in the county area, I might not be moving this Motion this afternoon. But I do not know about these things, and there appears to me to be not the slightest justification for the Government to proceed with this Order at this time.
My Lords, it is fairly well known that I do not readily speak against my own Government, as I am doing to-day; it is not one of my little habits. But there are times when one feels so strongly about things that one feels impelled to say them, and this is one of those
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occasions. I regard this Order as a big blunder. I appeal to my noble friend Lord Kennet, who is in charge of this Order in this House, to withdraw it. The Government will not suffer any loss of prestige if they do that. After all, so far as I can see they have recently changed their minds about Stansted, which is a much bigger subject. I believe that a Government must be prepared from time to time to change their minds, and they ought not to feel, "We must not change our minds; it is the sort of thing that is not done. Having taken a decision, even if it is the wrong one, stick to it, boys". That is not the way it should be done.
As a result of what is said in this House to-day, as a result of what was said in the other place last week, as a result of the representations which I know have been made to the Minister concerned, I strongly urge my noble friend Lord Kennet—an intelligent man, who I am sure can see this case—to stand up this afternoon and say, "As in the case of Stansted, we have had a second look at this". I am sure that is the best thing that could happen. I am not rubbing this in, believe me, my Lords. I am merely pointing to the fact that one can do these things sometimes as a Government and gain kudos rather than the reverse as a result. I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Derby Order 1968 [S.I. 1968, No. 44], laid before the House on 23rd January last, be annulled.—(Lord Champion.)
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, I should like very strongly to support the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and ask whether the Government will not re-consider this Order, which on the face of it seems to me an extremely silly one. I think the noble Lord, Lord Champion, has given us the facts which show that in fact it is silly. It seems to me that there are only three reasons which would justify the Government going ahead with this Order at this juncture. The first reason is that they had been privately and informally told by the Royal Commission that this Order, if implemented, would in no way cut across anything that the Royal Commission was going to propose. As I understand it, the Royal Commission has not informally

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told the Government that this is so. In fact, the Minister in another place categorically said that he had no idea what the Royal Commission was going to suggest. Indeed, if the Royal Commission did suggest this to the Government it seems to me that we ought to know about it, but that does not appear to be the case. The Minister merely went so far as to say that in his guess he was convinced that the Order was not likely to be upset by the Royal Commission. The Minister's judgment is likely to be as good as anyone else's, but need it necessarily be any better than Lord Champion's, who said his guess was that it might well be upset?
That is the first reason, and it seems to me really the strongest reason which would allow the Government to go ahead with this Order before the Royal Commission reports in the autumn. But the Government have not based their intention to go ahead on that ground. It seems to me they have gone ahead on one of the other two possible grounds, that is, extreme urgency. So far as I can make out, this is the ground on which they base their case. I really cannot see that there is an extreme urgency here. If there were extreme urgency, no doubt it would come under the heads of financial or administrative urgency. Is there really any financial urgency? Somebody asked whether the Derby County Borough were going "bust". If they were, this would be the sort of financial urgency about which something should be done. Similarly, if Derby County was in financial difficulties this might well be a reason for doing this. But this is not the case. So far as I can see, both appear to be doing their jobs very effectively.
So far as any other financial benefits are concerned, none of these are agreed. Everybody says that the rates will almost certainly go up, and this is at a moment when the Minister of Housing and Local Government has said they ought to be pegged to the minimum. There may be justification for the rates going up; there may be other benefits to balance it. Nevertheless, I think it can be said that financially it is extremely difficult to see any great urgency.
The same applies, it seems to me, administratively. There is no real urgency to try to straighten out an administrative difficulty here by pushing this
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Order through before the Report of the Royal Commission. The noble Lord, Lord Champion, mentioned that there are certain administrative difficulties already; the Derby County Borough is probably not in any case geared to make this changeover from the point of view of staff and accommodation. I think there may be administrative setbacks in other respects. I think it is not inconceivable that under the new set-up the education provided by Derby County will be adversely affected. It may be that there are other benefits to balance this. It may be that the education in Derby County Borough will in fact be improved to set off the disimprovement in the County. But nevertheless there is no real urgency whatsoever, administratively or financially. The third reason why the Government might conceivably have pushed ahead with this is because of public clamour. But as the noble Lord has pointed out, the public clamour is all the other way.
Those are the only three reasons, it seems to me, on which the Government could have based the case for pushing ahead regardless. The noble Lord, Lord Champion, mentioned the fact that this has been under deliberation for six years, and this was part of the Government's case. That might well be so, but do not forget that this Order is based upon the Local Government Commissions's original recommendations, which have now been superseded. Do not forget the distinction between the Local Government Commission, which recommended what is being put into force in this Order, and the Royal Commission, which has not yet reported; and the system of reform of which this is the outcome has been judged deficient by the Government and abandoned. If that is so, it seems to me all the more reason why we should wait for the Royal Commission to report in the autumn—or, at any rate, which it is suggested will report in the autumn.
The Government make the point that even if the Royal Commission reports in the autumn it will take five or six years to get anything on the Statute Book. This is a bit depressing, I agree, especially if the discussions on the question of Derby County and Derby County Borough have already gone on for six years. But it still does not seem to me

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necessary at this last stage, just before the Commission reports, to go ahead with the old recommendations of the now defunct Local Government Commission when there are only three months to go before there is a decision. This could mean not one complete upheaval for the people in Derbyshire and Derby County Borough but two complete upheavals, one after the other.
As the noble Lord, Lord Champion, pointed out, if housing is the reason for the Government wanting to push ahead without waiting for the Royal Commission, it should be remembered that Derby County Borough have for many years been building most of their houses outside their own boundary, anyway. In any case, does it make sense to make a non-sense of the new system of local government arrangement just in order to have an administrative convenience in the building of houses, which is not in any case generally agreed? Unless the Government can make a very much more convincing case than they made in another place, I must say that if the noble Lord does take it into the Division Lobby—I am not sure whether he proposes to do so—I and my friends shall be delighted to join him.
4.28 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I should not have intervened in to-day's debate but for the fact that I think it will be necessary to press my noble friend Lord Kennet to take the course which Lord Champion has advocated this afternoon; and in fact, if one or two more voices were raised against the Order he would be perfectly justified in doing so. My noble friend Lord Champion has made a speech which has covered the whole of the ground, and it is almost tedious repetition if one follows that course. Therefore, I want to make just one point quite clear, and I am certain that Lord Champion will support me.
The present structure of local government arises largely from the Municipal Corporations Act 1834, the Local Government Act 1889, which set up the county councils, and the Local Government Act 1894, which set up urban and rural district councils. It would be foolish for anyone to say that a structure that was set up seventy years ago, when the speed of man was dependent on the speed of
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the horse, is necessarily the right structure of local government to-day when we have much quicker means of communication and are in a very different society. No one is suggesting—at least I am not; and I am sure that Lord Champion is not—that the local government system of this country is not in need of some form of reorganisation. Indeed, that is the reason the previous Government set up the Royal Commission on Local Government, to look into the general structure, the function, and also, I hope, financing of local government.
Here we find proposed a very major alteration within a county. One of the problems in local government is that there is a viable size for a local authority, in exactly the same way as there is a viable size for an industrial organisation; and, of course, the smaller local authority is not viable, taking into account the running costs that it has to carry in its officers and the rest. But here we have the cutting almost in half of a county council which serves a wide area. One of the problems of local government is that it is comparatively easy in an urban borough area to provide a service, because you have a rateable value compact within a small space—houses all along the street; every house a rateable value; factories, shops and everything else to build up a rateable value to carry the cost of services. County government has to carry services which are spread over a wide area, and with rateable value much less condensed than in the case of the urban or borough organisation. Therefore, you are destroying the viability of a county authority by taking away half its population—at any rate 88,000 population and £3 million of its rateable value—and adding it to an authority which is already greatly viable by reason of the fact that it is a borough.
The point has been made by the two previous speakers that this is an ill-timed Order; that the Royal Commission on Local Government is sitting. No one knows what it is going to bring forward by way of proposals. Everybody expects the proposals to be quite radical. One is perhaps dependent upon one's own background and experience in relation to one's outlook as to what will be the solution. There are those in the municipal corporations who believe in the single purpose authority. My own background

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of the minor authority and the county administration is in the two-tier system. But no one knows what the Royal Commission is going to bring forward.
I think it would be wise of the Government to withdraw this Order, to wait until the Royal Commission has reported and see what the future of local government is going to be, not only in Derby and Derbyshire but throughout this country. Again, if my noble friend presses this Prayer to a Division, I will go into the Division Lobby with him against the Order.
4.33 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I had not thought of saying anything on this Order. I have no connection with Derby. I think I have passed through it occasionally; but that is all. But having heard my noble friend make the case, I should like just to say this. He made it on two grounds: first, that the Order was ill-conceived, and, secondly, that it was ill-timed. I am not going to pass any judgment on whether it is ill-conceived. It seems to me, on the face of it, doubtful whether my noble friend made the case that it was ill-conceived. This is an Order which has been the subject of a full public inquiry and full consideration by the Ministry on the merits, and I am prepared to assume that the justification for the Order, purely on the merits, has been fully made out.
But I am greatly impressed by the fact that it is ill-timed, and in that respect I agree with both my noble friends who have spoken. One cannot be sure of anything, but I should be tremendously surprised if the Royal Commission did not make revolutionary recommendations about the structure of local government. Everyone who knows anything about local government realises that the time has now arrived when these revolutionary changes are necessary. I do not know anyone who is prepared to defend the present structure of local government, and if these drastic recommendations for the reorganisation of local government were made, it seems to me absurd that we should make such great changes in the structure of one particular county.
Look at the services that have to be transferred: there is the children's service, there is licensing, there is the education service and there is the mental
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health service. All these services would be transferred from the county council to Derby County Borough, and possibly for quite a short time. When one considers the dislocation that is going to arise over the next two or three years merely by the transfer of these particular services, one has to be quite sure that it is justified by what is going to happen as a result of the Report of the Royal Commission.
I would say that the onus is upon the Government to satisfy the House that all the changes they are proposing to make under this Order will not have to be made all over again within a quite short time. It may well be that my noble friend Lord Kennet is not to-day in a position to take back the Order. But would he be in a position to adjourn the debate and not ask the House to come to a decision to-day while he and his right honourable friend the Minister give further consideration to the whole question?
I realise that this particular Order is representative of a number of cases that may arise within the next few months. If we refuse this Order, on the ground that we are expecting a Report of the Royal Commission quite soon which may nullify all this, then every other similar case will have to be dealt with in the same way. Possibly that is a responsibility which my noble friend is not prepared to take to-day. But I am sure that the sense of this House at this present time is that with the proximity of a Report of the Royal Commission we ought not to be having these Orders at all, except in cases of extreme urgency; and nobody would suggest that this is a case of extreme urgency. Therefore I feel that, rather than have a Division, which is distasteful to many of us—because after all this is merely a piece of administration—it might be more desirable to adjourn this debate and give my noble friend Lord Kennet an opportunity of considering the matter with his friends and with the Minister. If he then feels that he must proceed with the Order, he will come back and we shall have to decide what to do.
4.39 p.m.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: My Lords, I have some connection with this subject. I think that the last time Derby wanted an extension I was a member of

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the Select Committee which considered their demand. I remember that we went into the subject with great care and, to the best of my recollection, we granted to Derby a considerable part, if not all, of what they wanted. I would venture to add my voice from these Benches to the powerful voices which we have heard from the Liberal Party, and from the elder statesmen behind the Government, asking that in the circumstances the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, should increase the great respect we already have for him by paying attention to what has been said.
4.40 p.m.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Champion, intends to divide the House on this Motion. If he were to do so, I should feel bound to abstain, because I do not know Derby and I know very little of the circumstances which prevail there. But I should like to say this. We have recently been told, and particularly throughout discussions about the possible reform of your Lordships' House, that in no circumstances must we question the opinion of another place because it is the elected House and voices the will of the people. I understand, from what I have been told and from what I read, that all the people who live around Derby and who would be included in this extension are violently opposed to it. They will, of course, suffer certain disadvantages, which have already been mentioned, such as increased rates, and so on and what I would ask is: Has the opinion of these people who will suffer as a result of this proposed action been considered? Has their opinion been voiced in another place?
During the past few months my impression has been that the other House is not so much the voice of the people as the voice of a very small group of people—namely, those who sit on the Government Front Bench. Members who disagree with their own Party are silenced by the Whips, and if they dare to abstain are deprived of their Parliamentary privileges. My Lords, is that democracy? It looks to me very much more like totalitarianism. Therefore I hope that, before this Order is pressed, the people concerned will be consulted, and that before the Government take any action
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all the advantages or disadvantages will be carefully examined.
4.42 p.m.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, as I took part in the last debate on the Derby Order and with my noble friend Lord Taylor was a Teller against that Order, I feel that I must now say that I shall adopt the same position to-day and vote against this Order if the noble Lord, Lord Champion, should take the matter to a Division. I remember when they tried to force upon us the Tyneside conurbation, which was deferred until the Royal Commission on Local Authorities was set up, and when we did not get any decision. In the light of what happened on Tyneside, I think one ought to consider the position in relation to all county councils where an area has been encroached upon by spreading municipalities, until such time as the Royal Commission gives a diagram as to what the future position will be. One should know how these matters are to be financed and what will be the size of the units for local government in the future. It is quite possible that this Order may pass the House to-day and that the Royal Commission may come to an entirely different decision. If that proves to be the case, then the people of this area will be upset for a second time.
It seems strange to me that the police are being swallowed up by the county councils. Northumberland County Council has taken over the whole of the police of Newcastle, and Durham has taken over that of South Shields. Where is the consistency when such an Order as this one gives to a municipality power to extend the boundary and at the same time forces the police to come under the county council? I feel that the noble Lord who is to reply for the Government on this Order would be well advised to let this matter lie until the end of the year when the Royal Commission gives a decision on the whole position of local government, so that we shall all know where we stand.
4.46 p.m.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, on a previous occasion I had the temerity to vote against the Government on a Derby Order, and if my noble friend decides to take this Prayer to a Division I shall certainly support him. I recollect very

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well, since I was then in the other place, the setting up of the Royal Commission. The grounds for setting up the Royal Commission were that events had largely overtaken the then Boundary Commission and new terms of reference were necessary to deal with the wider aspect of local government which had been thrown up largely as a result of the review by the Boundary Commission. Therefore, we were told that it was necessary to proceed anew and to go ahead with some urgency with the setting up of a Commission. It was designed to report rapidly, and the intention at that time was that, following the Report of the Royal Commission, the Government should proceed urgently with a review of local government. I am now advised that the Parliamentary Secretary in another place says, "Well, even if they report this year, they cannot do anything for about five years". These arguments just will not do. You cannot at one moment because it suits you say that a matter is urgent and then at the next moment say that you cannot do anything in under five years. That anyone in a responsible position in Government should use such arguments appears to be negative in the extreme and would seem to be politically motivated rather than in accordance with the facts.
If the Royal Commission is to report this year, as it is anticipated it will do this autumn, there should then be consideration by the Government about their attitude. All the evidence has been obtained and everybody of any importance in local government has had an opportunity to express a view. The Government would then be in a position to make a decision, and your Lordships and Members of another place could come to a conclusion on the desirability of the changes which might be recommended. That would not seem to me to involve a period of five years. But even if it did, what is the case for a change now? When the Boundary Commission was set up there was another concommitant factor in regard to the Boundary Commission; namely, the county review. The two were to be a combined objective. The view was that changes which were made as a result of the Boundary Commission might lead to other changes as a result of the county review. In other words, one had authorities which were to be truncated,
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as in this particular case, and the county would have an opportunity to look at the structure with a view to making amalgamations or adjustments as might be necessary. But they cannot do that now because the county reviews have been stopped, so these truncated pieces have to be left as they are until such time as the Royal Commission reports. If it is good enough for them to wait for the Royal Commission Report, surely it is good enough for the Derby Order to await that Report. These things must be taken together. One cannot separate them and take one part of them.
I recollect that when the Torbay Order came before this House it was part of the Government's case that the Government had promised a decision on the matter a year prior to the date when they gave it. In other words, they asked Torbay to defer their requests, or Torbay agreed that there should be a deferment for one year, and therefore the Government committed themselves absolutely to the Torbay Order; and to this extent it was largely accepted. It was not accepted on merit. I have no doubt that, if there had been a vote on that issue even then, your Lordships would in the main, on the arguments used, have been against the acceptance of the Torbay Order, on the ground that the Royal Commission would be considering the whole of the area and that the scheme involved a vast change of area and copulation.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord has no grounds for that statement.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, I have grounds for the statement that many Members of your Lordships' House were opposed to the Torbay Order, for, while I admit that I ought not to pre-judge how your Lordships would vote, the balance of argument appeared to be such that the Order would have been resisted. Be that as it may, that is water under the bridge so far as Torbay is concerned.
Then we came to the Sheffield Order, and the argument was used again that this was a case where the Government were committed and that, having regard to the amount of work that had been done, the Order should go through. I recollect also that at the time when the Royal Commission was set up the local authority associations met the Minister

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of that time—as a matter of fact, I was there when we discussed the question of what ought to be done—about the position of inquiries which had already been made. The overall general view was that there ought not to be any major alteration, involving large movements of population and area, unless the circumstances were such that it was fully justified. When the public inquiry had been proceeded with and the whole machinery had been gone through, the Minister would, in general—not in every case—examine the matter with a view to deciding whether or not he would present an Order, and in those cases where he had already given a decision he might then proceed.
This was a question that had to be faced against the general background of two or three years ago, as against the background of to-day. It might be argued that what was proposed two or three years ago was valid, but it does not follow that it remains valid if action is delayed, as in this case, for a very long time, and then you suddenly decide to take action just before—perhaps only a few months before—the Royal Commission reports to Parliament on the future of local government.
It would not surprise me in the least if Derby Borough were to be transferred to Derby County—there is always a possibility in the case of a large area—in which case this movement would make nonsense. In any case, the object would be an exercise merely of transfer, in order to transfer one part to another part, and then transfer the lot back again. That, to some extent, might be a possibility. But there really is no justification for making this movement at this point in time. It seems to me, since the County is unable to proceed with its review of the areas which will be so severely affected by this scheme, and which are unlikely to be viable as a result of the action contained in this Order, that the Order ought not to be proceeded with.
As has already been mentioned, we are in the position where the Government had this Order first in another place. I recollect that on previous occasions the Opposition Front Bench here have said that they do not regard these Orders as being matters upon which they would wish to challenge the Government; that
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they are not of sufficient importance to try to defeat the Government. That is an understandable point of view. I could have wished that this Prayer had come before this House, that it had been convenient to take it here, before it was taken in another place. We should then have been much freer to come to a conclusion as to what we wanted to do with this Order. Nevertheless, I still hope that the Prayer will be supported and that, in the event of a Division, we shall be able to ensure that no action is taken in this vital area and in this matter until such time as the Royal Commission has reported.
4.55 p.m.
THE EARL OF GAINSBOROUGH: My Lords, I rise briefly to support the Prayer of the noble Lord, Lord Champion, particularly from the point of view of the rural areas which are going to be very seriously affected if this Order goes through. All the arguments have been put before your Lordships' House with great strength this afternoon, mainly, it seems, by experienced members of the Government's Party who have had connections with this area for many years. It is an area where the Labour Party has always had a great deal of support among the people. But speaking from these Benches I do not wish to be at all political about the matter. It is not a Party matter. It is largely a local government administrative matter, and I do not think that any of us ought to try to make any sort of capital out of it from a Party point of view.
It has been quite evident from the speeches we have heard—and the noble Lord, Lord Pargiter, speaks with great authority as a former Chairman of the County Councils Association, as does the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren—that this is something which is felt very deeply by the people in the county of Derby. The intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin—unexpected, I think, by some of us who came here to-day specifically to support the Prayer—is most welcome, because he speaks with very great experience. I hope very much that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. who I am afraid has borne the brunt of these attacks on local government Orders will take some heed of the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, which seemed to be a very good one.

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As the noble Lord, Lord Pargiter, and others have asked: why rush this through now? Why get it through by April 1 when in October or November this year we are to get the Report of the Royal Commission under the chairmanship of Sir John Maude, as he then was? Knowing him, I am sure that it will contain some revolutionary suggestions and that there will have to be a further upheaval in four or five years' time. But even that length of time will be quite short, when one considers that Derby Borough will have to get accommodation for the staff to administer the area which they are going to have. They already have staff separated all round the town, which is not very efficient. They are now going to have this added area, which is going to make administration even more difficult.
This Order will have a very adverse effect on the rates in the South-East Derbyshire rural district councils, as was forcibly pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Champion, in his very able opening statement. The rate in this area is likely to go up by nearly Is. at a time when all local authorities have received a letter from the right honourable gentleman the Minister of Housing and Local Government, urging that rates should be kept down to a minimum. There is also going to be a great deal of trouble with the careers of the local government officers. People will find themselves with a much more difficult task to accomplish. They have to look forward to several years of disruption, instead of being able to get on with the work of providing services in the efficient way which I think everybody recognises they have been provided by the rural district councils around South-East Derbyshire, Repton and Belper.
I know that the Government are in a difficulty here, and that they were in the same difficulty with the other Orders. But in the matter of Worcestershire they came to a decision not to proceed with the Worcestershire County Review, and I think quite rightly. In recent weeks there has been a change of heart on certain very vital subjects, and it is to the Government's credit that they have had the courage to say, "This is something which we must look at again". They will have gained the respect of people in the country by the unpopular decisions which they have taken recently
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in respect of other matters. Surely, in a matter of this kind, which affects the lives of a great many people in our own countryside, they will be prepared to meet us halfway and say that they will have another look at this problem to see whether any other solution can he found, rather than force the Order through with threats of constitutional problems being raised by any action which your Lordships may wish to take. I hope very much that there will be some support from those other parts of the House from which we have not yet heard; but so far as I can recall no one has yet spoken in favour of the Order, and I think I am the seventh or eighth speaker. It seems to me that there is a wide measure of support for the Prayer of the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and I for one will be very pleased to support him if he presses the matter to a Division.
5.1 p.m.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, as the noble Lord who has just spoken said, there has not been a single speech so far in favour of the Order. That may be due in part to the cogency and ability with which the noble Lord, Lord Champion, moved his Prayer—and perhaps I may say, as a member of the Opposition, that the thought which passed through my mind was, "Thank heaven he is off the Government Front Bench!".
I think I am the second speaker from this side to venture to address your Lordships. I do not propose to say anything about the merits of the Order (in any event. I do not know about the subject), but I believe that there is an overwhelming case for the argument that for the Government to introduce the Order now, to try to rush it through now, is very ill timed. It is upon that basis that I personally, if the noble Lord chooses to take the matter to a Division, shall support him. But I should like to say this to the Under-Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. I think we all realise that he is in a difficult position. There has been a vote in another place, and he no doubt ha s the same brief as the junior Minister who dealt with it there. For that reason, I would urge him to do all he can to see whether the very sensible advice given by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, on the best way to resolve this matter, can be followed. Failing that, as I say, I shall

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be one of those who support the noble Lord, Lord Champion.
5.3 p.m.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I shall not vote against the Order. I take that view out of sheer Party loyalty. I do not want to vote against the Government: they have sufficient trouble on their hands at present. Nevertheless, I do not agree with the Order that has been put before us. Another reason why I shall not vote against it is that there is probably some kind of constitutional issue involved here namely, that this House should not vote against an Order which has been accepted and recommended by the other House. All the same, I sincerely add my voice to those of other noble Lords who have pleaded with my noble friend to take this Order back, have it discussed in the Ministry and see whether some other decision cannot be reached.
When the Torbay Order, which has been mentioned by some of your Lordships, was before this House, I trespassed on the time of your Lordships to speak for about 36 minutes. I shall not do that to-day; but I did so then because I have what might be called a county council mind. I have been a member of my county council for well over 22 years and I have held almost every office in it, from chairman of the fire brigade committee to chairman of the finance committee, from vice-chairman of the council to chairman of the council, and now to that dignified position of leader of the Opposition. I therefore probably feel rather jealous for the future of county councils. But if I am wedded to county councils, I confess it must be a kind of polygamous marriage, because concurrently with my membership of the county council I was for some years finance committee chairman of an urban district council, and in the days of my youth, before I degenerated into journalism, I was a local government official in charge of the costing system of one of the biggest city corporations in this country. So although I am now a county councillor, I can see the other person's point of view.
It is a fact, my Lords, that almost every county borough in this country has territorial ambitions. It wants to spread out its boundaries. It puts forward various excuses: that it is neces-
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sary to do this in order to plan its road system, that it is necessary to do this in order to build its housing estate, or sometimes that it is necessary to do this for financial reasons. But I sometimes feel that those expansions of territory do not have the result of reducing the rates of the people in the city. The housing argument has nothing whatsoever in it. Any city or county borough can buy land outside its boundaries and build houses there. In my county of Essex we have had five or six gigantic London County Council estates built within our territory. There is no difficulty whatsoever—except, of course, that the county council has to provide all the schools, the firemen, the policemen, the nurses and the other services that follow because we have to accept London's population.
When there are annexations of territory, there is always a great difficulty about the future of the officers of the councils that are taken over. Each one of those councils has a clerk, a treasurer, a surveyor, a public health inspector and so on—and what happens to them? They will probably have to be pensioned off prematurely with compensation, or they will be absorbed into the larger authority's organization, probably at some level which is not commensurate with their abilities. But usually there are financial burdens falling on both councils in that respect.
We have to bear in mind—and this is fundamental to my opposition to this Order—that the Order was framed under the now defunct Local Government Commission. That Local Government Commission was set up to do what I will irreverently call a patchwork job with regard to the reorganisation of local government in this country; that is to say—I do not want to be too disrespectful about it—it was to take a town and say that it should have a bit added on to it, it was to take a county and say that it should have a bit taken off it, and so on. At that time, probably, that was the best way available of tackling the problem.
But since then the Royal Commission on Local Government for the whole country has been set up, and that is looking at the subject through a much longer telescope. We are undoubtedly going to have a revolution in the style of local government in this country in the future.

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As noble Lords have said, we cannot forecast what the Royal Commission is going to recommend, but I think most of us have a suspicion that it will recommend much larger, much more populous, local government units than we have ever known before. That being the case, my Lords, why should we do this little patchwork job at this moment, in the full knowledge that in a few years' time this patchwork job will have to be reincorporated into a much larger organisation, whether it be called a region, a province, a city region or any of the other proposals that have been adumbrated? My main objection, as it was to the Torquay proposal, is that if we do this job now we shall have a bigger job to do in a few years' time. I think we should leave it until we can see the whole of the picture and not just a little corner of it.
5.8 p.m.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I can address your Lordships this afternoon only by the indulgence of your Lordships' House, because I was not present when the noble Lord, Lord Champion, moved his Prayer. My Lords, we do not hear the noble Lord in your Lordships' House as frequently to-day as we used to do, and I much regret that I missed the opportunity of hearing him move his Prayer. I am quite sure that it would have been an object lesson to us all in how to handle these somewhat obscure and difficult questions.
I am tempted to address your Lordships for a few moments this afternoon only by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. He rested his case entirely upon the allegation that this Order was mistimed, and he went on to explain, as other noble Lords have done, that we ought to wait until the Royal Commission make their Report; that anything that is done under this Order to-day can be only temporary. My Lords, since 1945, when the problems of reorganising local government first began to be acute, there have been innumerable attempts to reach some solution of the difficult problems of boundaries, areas and local authority finance. Each one of those attempts hitherto has failed; and it has failed after a long, protracted effort to produce a result which would remove the great and growing difficulties that local authorities have experienced in the last 25 years. All those efforts have come to nothing,
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and it looks as though that will be the fate of this Order.
This Order comes to your Lordships' House as a result of protracted and prolonged consideration. There have been local inquiries at which the inhabitants of the area proposed to be combined with Derby had the opportunity of being represented—and did not always take it. There have been prolonged conferences; much time has been expended, and there has been much expense. Now, when it reaches the last stage, we are asked to wait again, to cast on one side all the labour that has gone into the making of this Order simply because the Royal Commission are expected to produce something with which it may prove to be inconsistent.
But will it prove inconsistent? This is a proposal in which certain rural areas—and semi-rural areas, for they are not all rural by any means—are to be combined with an urban centre. Is that not just the pattern of authority, although perhaps on a small scale, which rumour says is likely to find favour with the Royal Commission? Indeed, all our experience points to some solution on those lines as the solution of this problem of boundaries which has caused so much perplexity since the end of the War. Would it not be better to let this Order go through, and to allow these changes to take place? I see no reason why they should result in the sort of chaos which has been suggested. There is no great difficulty about transferring these areas from one authority to anther. That was done for the whole County of London without any serious chaos. The same teachers go on teaching in the same schools; the same nurses go on nursing in the same hospitals; every-thing goes on very much as it did before.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, would the noble Lord pardon me for interrupting him to say that the reorganisation of the County of London had the most disastrous effects on the neighbouring County of Essex, half of whose population and more than half of whose rateable value was snatched away?
LORD ILFORD: Yes, my Lords, but the noble Lord knows that that half of the population of Essex ought never to have remained in the County of

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Essex as long as it did. I, myself, when I was in another place promoted four or five Private Bills to make that part of Essex a county borough, which was the right government for it. Each of those Bills failed because it was argued that we ought to wait until the Boundary Commission gave a decision or until somebody else came to some other conclusion; and we had to wait. The result was very unfortunate for that part of the population of the County of Essex which extended into Greater London. This proposed transfer of the area outside the borough is not likely to produce the sort of chaos which has been forecast. Apart from the County of Essex, where others might hold different views, the whole of the Government of Central London was reorganised without any very great difficulty and without any very great hardship to those concerned. And so it would be here.
So far, I think I am the only speaker who has advocated the case of the County Borough of Derby. Of course, advocates for the borough are stronger in another place and, correspondingly, in your Lordships' House those for the counties tend to be stronger. But tonight, at any rate, I hope we are going to give some finality to this Order which is brought to us after such a prolonged and protracted investigation.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, in the earlier part of his speech my noble friend referred to the fact that if this Order is not allowed to go through there will be a great waste of money. But need that necessarily be so? After the Royal Commission has reported, if they report on the lines which make this Order fit in with their recommendations, surely the money will not be thrown away; if they report otherwise, it is well thrown away as being against a better recommendation.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I wish I could think there was some substance in my noble friend's point. I am afraid that the cost of the earlier inquiry will undoubtedly be thrown away if this Order is revoked to-night.
5.15 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, the House puts me in a difficult position, not for the reason that I have any doubt that
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this Order is the right answer to the problem of Derby and the County, nor because I have any doubt that the House of Commons decided the matter rightly last week; but because it is a fact, as the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, has just pointed out, that the voices of the counties and the rural districts are in this House so very much more eloquent, better informed and more numerous than the voices of those who have experience of the boroughs of England. It puts me in a difficulty because what I should like to do—and what any Minister would like to do on an occasion like this—is to be as impartial as I possibly can and say: "Bearing in mind all the facts on both sides of this difficult question, does not the House think it right to come down in the way proposed in this Order?" Unfortunately, that course is not open to me, because we have had seven, eight or nine—I do not remember how many—speakers saying what a bad thing it is for county boroughs to swallow up bits of counties; and only one and two "halves" saying that the county boroughs may sometimes be right to swallow up bits of the county. For that reason, I shall be forced to depart from the neutral stance I should have liked to adopt and to put the case of a county borough which is in the long-standing trouble that the county borough of Derby is.
Let me first just get out of the way some possible misconceptions. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, asked whether the Government had been privately told by the Royal Commission that this Order, and perhaps others, would not conflict with its findings. Of course not. The Government were not told anything by the Royal Commission. All that they have been told—and I think it would be right to say this—was in the case of another Order some time ago when an informal inquiry was made of the chairman of the Royal Commission whether the Royal Commission would find its work and findings inhibited if the Government were to take decisions such as this and were to go ahead with that boundary adjustment. The answer was, "No, not at all. The Government must continue to govern until the Royal Commission formulates its views, which it is at present in the course of formulating, after which the Government must decide whether they

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accept them. "No other answer, I think, could have been returned.
The noble Lord, Lord Henley, also suggested that the Local Government Commission (this is the old adjustments board) recommendations had been superseded and the system abandoned. This is quite wrong. Its recommendations have not been superseded and the system has not been abandoned. I am inviting your Lordships to take part in the system of work originating in the findings of the old Local Government Commission at this moment. And this would be the moment to remind the House of the general framework for these borough changes. I believe that this will be the fourth or fifth time that I have had to say this on Local Government Orders in the last year; and I hope the House will bear with me in my saying it again, because nobody this afternoon has taken it up from any of the former debates.
When the Minister of Housing set up the Royal Commission, he was faced with the problem of what to do with the work of the Local Government Commission which was in the pipeline. This was a very real problem. When should he turn the tap off? I should like to remind the House of the decision Mr. Crossman came to and announced at that time, in the summer of 1966. Boundary changes on the basis of the Local Government Commission's recommendations on which he had already issued decisions would stand. That was the easier part of his decision. The harder part was what to do with the recommendations which at that time were before him, but on which he had not issued decisions. He decided that the thing to do would be to look at each recommendation in the knowledge of the fact that the Royal Commission was then sitting and would in due course come up with recommendations on an entirely new local government structure and decide whether or not such recommendations were urgent enough to justify their implementation pending the Royal Commission's Report.
This is what has been happening and this Order, with two or three others which your Lordships' House has passed in recent months, have been the fruit of these pragmatic decisions of the Minister. Although this Derby Order is a difficult decision, the Minister thinks that it is urgent enough for certain concrete
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reasons to be proceeded with pending the Royal Commission's Report, which we may expect to lead to action in five, six or seven years from now.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, I am not quite sure whether the noble Lord thinks that it would be improper for the Government to consult informally with the Royal Commission as to whether they should continue with this in the pipeline, or whether it is urgent enough to proceed with it—or does the noble Lord feel that this would not be helpful?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, the Royal Commission cannot be expected to judge whether these Orders are urgent enough. They are trying to devise a complete new structure ab initio on general principles, and to refer particular cases to them for judgment would, I think, be quite wrong. The decision has to be taken by the Minister, subject to the approval of Parliament. That is what he is there for and what Parliament is here for. As to this Order, over the last eight years the proceedings have included meetings between the Local Government Commission and the local authorities and a long public Inquiry in 1965, at which objections to the proposals of the Local Government Commission were elaborated before an inspector appointed by the then Minister of Housing. The conclusion that the Minister reached after this Inquiry took account of all the views expressed and of the information amassed during this long and detailed procedure, which in this case, as in all others, followed the procedure laid down by Parliament for determining these thorny questions.
The essence of the Commission's views, as the House knows, was that the developed parts of the three rural districts touching Derby are really an extension of the town itself, that the residents look to Derby for employment, shopping, entertainment and in many cases education, and that the whole area forms a single free-standing town, which ought to be planned and administered as a unit The Commission's conclusions about the unity of this town are tellingly set out in their Report and are reinforced by the Report of the inspector who sat later at the public Inquiry.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this debate this afternoon has been that none of the noble Lords who have

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spoken against the Order have mentioned this conclusion of the Local Government Commission, of the inspector and of the Minister, that all the areas in question are de facto part of the town of Derby. Criticism has concentrated on three aspects—the wishes of the inhabitants, the financial implications and, above all, the question of timing. They are all interrelated. I should like to spend most time on the issue of timing, which I agree is the most difficult decision, one where the reasons for the Order appear to be weakest, but where I think that they are strong enough to make it desirable to have this Order.
I do not think that anybody would dispute that many of the inhabitants of the rural districts—I need not go into figures—are against this Order. The question of the wishes of local residents is always one of the trickiest in these decisions. My Minister and I appreciate the feelings of the local people who want to retain their present arrangements, which attract them for many reasons, and I do not delude myself that anything I say here is going to change their minds about this. But all noble Lords who are familiar with local government and with the procedures of these boundary changes know that the wishes of the inhabitants can only be one of the factors which first the Commission and then the Minister must take into account in considering whether or not to make changes now. Parliament itself approved the regulations under which the Commission worked and certain criteria against which they had to test the desirability of these boundary changes. These regulations list nine factors, of which the wishes of the inhabitants is only one. Although the most important, it has to be balanced against the eight other factors.
I do not think that I can do better than quote the words of the Commission, in paragraph 429 of their Report where they say:
"We do not underestimate the many local activities and interests in the fringe areas, but all the evidence confirms our conclusion that these areas are suburbs of the town and the reasonably hard line between town and country lies beyond that."
What do we do with the suburb of a big town? Ought it to be left indefinitely or even for six or seven years as part of a
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rural district? Is this not making nonsense of the word "rural"? Or ought it to be incorporated, with all due safeguards for transitional arrangements, into the town of which it is economically part and of which it ought to be part for planning purposes?
About the financial arrangements, the first and most obvious point is that the authorities outside the present town will all lose population and rate resources. I do not minimise the size of these transfers, but equally I hope that your Lordships will not exaggerate them. The county will lose some 88,000 of their residents—not, I think, quite the 90,000 my noble friend said. It is true that they have already lost 33,000 in the areas recently transferred to Sheffield. It is more than understandable that they should be concerned at the overall loss of 120,000 of their residents and ratepayers, but I should like the House to remember that after this Order they will be left with a population of some 665,000 and that they will still be one of the more populous counties in the country. There will be no question of their being reduced to a mere rural stump by any means. The impact on the three rural districts will be severe enough, and I will not disguise the fact that they will be required to make considerable changes in their internal arrangements, particularly in South-East Derbyshire, about which my noble friend particularly spoke. But again there can be no question that they will remain not only viable, but also strong and healthy authorities.
The Derbyshire authorities are right to look carefully at the financial repercussions. This is a difficult subject to deal with fully and accurately in a debate of this kind, because the level of rates in the borough and in the surrounding rural districts is subject to so many influences, many of which unfortunately tend to push the rates up. There are two aspects of finance particularly connected with this Order which my right honourable friend in reaching a decision has taken into account. The rates in Derby are higher than they are in the rural districts by varying amounts, but on this year's rate poundages it may be as much as 1s. 8d. in the pound higher.
In passing, let me say that this is not at all unusual. It is not a reflection on

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local authorities on either side of the boundary. Rates in county boroughs are generally higher than in rural districts, for reasons that we all know well enough. But those people to be transferred to Derby will be cushioned against a big and sudden jump in their rates. That is why Article 47 was included in the Order. It is a provision often found in Boundary Orders. Briefly, its effect is to ensure that although the transferred ratepayers will in due course pay the full rate, they will make the transition by steps spread out over two or three years, instead of in a single jump.
The other financial aspect that I mentioned concerns the rates in the county and rural districts. The transfer of population means that those authorities in the rural districts must rearrange their financial system. They will in future be responsible for a smaller population. They will not need to provide on the same scale. But they cannot make these economies overnight. So much is in the nature of things. There will have to be a period of adjustment, and initially the boundary changes are likely to mean that services will be relatively more expensive to provide in the county and rural districts than they were before. To meet this it is quite usual to include an Article in an Order of this nature which requires an extended county borough to contribute towards the expenses of the authorities part of whose population they are taking over over a transitional period. Contributions would have the effect of restraining consequent rate increases above a certain threshold, which is usually about 6d. in the pound. In the case of this Order, Article 45 does it. It provides for Derby to pay certain sums to Belper and to South-East Derbyshire on a descending scale over four years, which is longer than the other way round. These sums are related to likely rate increases which are attributable to the boundary organisations and are intended to ensure that the rate increases shall not exceed about 6d. in the pound.
I come here to a rather important point in this somewhat complicated analysis, and it is this: that the sums referred to in this Article were not calculated by Derby and imposed by the Ministry; they were not calculated by the Ministry and imposed on both sides
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by the Ministry: they are the result of agreement between the authorities themselves. Here I should like to pay tribute to the good sense of the authorities, who, despite their acute difference on the principle of this Order, were able to discuss this problem objectively and to reach an agreement. The Article and the settlement which it embodies also illustrates something else. It shows that the financial repercussions arising from this Order are not as serious as some people have suggested, not I am glad to say, in this House, but outside.
I come now to the question of timing. As I said when I began, I do not disguise that this is a very difficult question, and that there is much on the face of it to suggest that it is wrong to press ahead with an Order of this nature while we are in the shadow of the Royal Commission's Report. But I should like to make one or two points about this. First of all, there is the likelihood of the enlarged town having to reorganise everything again within seven years. I think the remarks of my honourable friend in another place about this should be interpreted as meaning that he in his own judgment (and it is a judgment I share we are all guessers at this) would be very surprised if the Royal Commission came up with the sort of result which meant that county boroughs like Derby had to carve themselves up into bits; and, of course, it is this which would make nonsense of the kind of change that I am proposing now.
If you allow a borough to enlarge itself and take in what are in fact urban areas, that would indeed be nonsensical if there was any danger of the Royal Commission saying that county boroughs ought to chop themselves up into smaller first-tier authorities. But since I think we are all agreed that this would be most unlikely, it does not matter very much whether or not the Royal Commission recommend larger authorities, and the Government then accept the recommendation for larger authorities because, if the nucleus is there, it will indeed turn out to be a nucleus of a larger authority. This is the over-riding reason why we think it would not make sense to hold up these schemes for fear of having to unpick them if the Royal Commission recommend in a way they are not likely to do.

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I do not know to what extent it would be proper for me to paint a picture to your Lordships of the troubles of Derby Corporation—they are great enough. I was there myself about ten days ago. I do not know how many of your Lordships have had the benefit of recent visits to Derby, and have looked round. It is visible to the naked eye that it is only about two-thirds of the town. There is so much outside. It is trying for the Corporation, with the nucleus of that urban population, to run services (and I will refer particularly to two) which it cannot do properly because it has not that whole settled urban unit as a unitary whole. This applies particularly to planning. The difficulties of planning two-thirds of a town have only to be imagined to be admitted, I think; and they certainly feel it in the town of Derby. It applies to housing, both directly and indirectly, through planning.
To all my noble friends who made light of difficulties of putting almost all your new housing in another local authority area, I would say that I am not sure they were right to do it. One third of Derby Corporation's housing is outside its own boundary. This is an impossible proportion to have in out-borough developments. The City of Derby has over one quarter of its houses more than 80 years old. It has one of the greatest clearance and renewal problems of any town in England, and it is hemmed into two-thirds of its own populated area as it stands. It is not, I believe, quite realistic to say that with good sense (and I am not saying that the County of Derbyshire have shown anything but good sense) it is as easy for a town to solve its housing problem outside its own boundaries as it is to solve it within its own boundaries.
If one considers the way that transport development must be dovetailed with new housing, and the way all the services which have to go with new housing ought to be, and indeed must be, done together in a co-ordinated whole, with the best will in the world two neighbouring authorities cannot share the rational development of one town. This is really the point of the argument.
I myself think it is so obvious that this is so, and I think I shall probably carry those noble Lords with me who know
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Derby and who know the part of Derbyshire which immediately surrounds the town (we do not want to think of the Peak district and the moors or farms; we are not talking about that; we are talking about the suburbs of Derby), when I say that even under the shadow of the Royal Commission the rational development and planning in that town is so urgent as to justify this particular Order.
My noble friend, in moving his Prayer, mentioned Stansted. He complimented the Government on having changed their minds about that, and asked whether the Government could not change their mind about this. There are differences in the two cases. I think that much of the opposition to the Stansted Order came from the feeling that not the right kind of inquiry had been held, and that all opponents were not given a chance to state their case. I do not think that any of that could possibly be aimed at the present Order. All the due inquiries have been gone through under the procedure laid down by Parliament; all the possible objections have been heard and have been weighed; and at every stage. Government Commission, inspector and the Minister, the judgment has agreed that the Order should go through.
This Order has been through the House of Commons. I do not wish to lean too heavily on this point, but I expect that not many noble Lords will agree with the noble Lord who said that he found the proceedings there verging on the totalitarian. It has, as I say, gone through the House of Commons. It is your Lordships' undoubted right to have a separate debate on it, and this we have had. The House will remember that this is one of a series of Orders, all of which have already been through this House. It presents most of the characteristics that we discussed in full in the case of the Torbay Order and the Sheffield Order, and one or two others. In each of those cases the House, after full debate, decided that it would not be right to annul the Order; and I hope, in view of all I have said, and taking account of the fact that I have been almost alone to say it and to present the difficulties of the town of Derby to your Lordships, that my noble friend will, on reflection, withdraw his Motion for annulment.
5.41 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, it seems to me that my noble friend and I have appealed to one another. I appealed to the noble Lord to withdraw this Order, to take it back and discuss it with his right honourable friend, and then, perhaps, to lay it again. He has now appealed to me to withdraw my Motion. I can understand his feeling on this issue. But he must recognise that I, too, have a feeling about it. I moved this Motion strongly because I feel pretty strongly about it. I feel that the Order never ought to have been laid; but I will not go over the ground again. Many of the points my noble friend made I think could be controverted. I will not attempt to do it at this time.
However, I am bound to agree with something that was said in relation to this matter: that this House ought to be careful, very careful, about voting against Orders of this sort. It so happens that I am on record as saying that I think this House ought not finally to have the right to decide against an Order of this kind until some careful thought has been given to it and perhaps there has been an amendment to our Constitution. The Government cannot force this Order through again within a limited space of time, as they could a Bill. Most of the Orders of this kind were never thought about in 1911, when the first big step in the direction of limiting the power of this House was taken, As I say, I am on record as having said that I do not think this House should have the right to turn an Order down. I think it ought to have the right to discuss it, to bring its point of view to bear upon the Minister of the day and ask him, perhaps, to withdraw the Order. I think this would be right; but I am extremely reluctant to take this House, so far as it lies in my power, to a Division on this matter tonight. On the other hand, my difficulty is that I cannot accept as a complete answer the answer given by my noble friend Lord Kennet. Much as I like him, much as I appreciate his excellent qualities, I simply cannot do it.
So, my Lords, I am going to adopt what seemed to me to be the excellent suggestion of my noble friend Lord Silkin. His suggestion was that this debate should be adjourned in order that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, may go
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back and see his chief Minister, the man finally responsible for the Order, and tell him what has been the feeling in this House, so that he may then consider it again. It seems to me, thinking the matter over, that there might be a way in which I could achieve this, and that would be by moving the adjournment of this debate, in order that I may put the matter down again to-morrow. It would have to be to-morrow because of the importance of the material to be discussed on Thursday and the length of Business on that day, plus the fact that the last day for a Prayer to be laid against this Order happens to be the last sitting day, Thursday, of this week. So I find myself facing this position. I do not want to withdraw this Motion at this stage, but I like Lord Silkin's idea and I am going to adopt it. I believe it to be in order. I move that this debate be adjourned until to-morrow, when will put the Motion down again. I beg to move.
Moved, that the debate be adjourned until to-morrow.—(Lord Champion.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE AND RECEIPTS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

ROYAL PARKS AND OPEN SPACES IN LONDON
5.46 p.m.
LORD AMULREE LORD AMULREE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any firm policy to prevent or discourage parts of parks, commons, gardens or squares in London from being built over or turned into roads, garages, car parks, et cetera. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in rising to put this Question to the Minister and to Her Majesty's Government I want to say that my putting the Question does not imply any general criticism of the way in which the Ministry of Public Building and Works take care of the parks and grounds which are under their care. One has merely to see the excellent work they are doing now at Chiswick, where they are working on a house and grounds which the local authority found very difficult to do.

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But I am concerned over a number of serious attacks upon the Royal Parks, attacks that have been going on for some considerable time.
The Royal Parks are unique in the world. We have, so far as I know, the only capital, certainly in Europe, which has them or anything to compare with them. They have been maintained and cared for for the entertainment of the people at large. But, unfortunately, there has been a gradual building-up, going back to the 1920s, of what one might call the reservation of certain parts of the Parks for certain privileged classes of persons. I believe that the first deliberate case occurred when Mr. George Lansbury founded the Lido at the Serpentine. That is something which has given great pleasure to a great many people, and something to which I myself have no objection. But it means that, whereas previously members of the public could walk around the Serpentine, now they cannot. The Lido has been followed by bowling greens, putting greens and football pitches, which are I think used over the weekends. These are amenities to which, as I say, I have no objection. But one must realise that one is creating a class of privileged persons who use certain parts of the Parks that were originally intended for the use of the public in general. One wonders where this is going to stop.
One may say, of course, that there was a certain amount of privilege accorded in the Parks before the time I am talking about. But I can think of only two real cases. One was the Botanic Gardens in Regent's Park, where members of the public were not allowed in on Sundays, in the morning; but they were allowed in during the rest of the day and during the week. That was not a very big case. Secondly, there was a small open-air school in St. James's Park, which did not survive the war. One might say that, earlier, Rotten Row provided a privilege but I am not sure that that was really so, because if you did not mind getting your feet covered in earth there was nothing to stop you from walking in the Row. Indeed, as I know, because before the war I was myself a fairly regular rider in the Row, people did that. That is why I say that I have no objection in principle to what is going on; but I do
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wonder where it is going to stop. There is one activity that has ceased. At one time there was a baseball pitch at the northern end of Hyde Park, but to the best of my belief that has now gone. In Regent's Park there are football pitches and one little cinder track on which people can practice running. But one would like to know whether that is to be extended, and whether the time may come (I think it will not) when the general public will find their use of the park seriously curtailed because of the various sporting activities which are going on there.
From time to time rather curious things occur. Not so many years ago a restaurant was opened by the Serpentine, in Hyde Park, and I raised a Question then, because a certain part of the Park was taken away to make a parking place for motorists coming to that restaurant. When I protested I was told that if there was nowhere to park their cars people would not come to the restaurant. That did not seem to me to be a good reason, because if there was no-one to patronise the restaurant there would be no need for the restaurant to be there. If one goes into Regent's Park one finds a similar restaurant; but no part of the park has been taken away to provide car-parking facilities. One wonders where the kind of thing that has happened in Hyde Park will stop.
There has also been constructed in the middle of Hyde Park, at great expense, a large subterranean garage which will contain 1,000 cars. I have not been in it very frequently, I admit, but I have never seen that garage completely full. One would have thought the first thing that would have been done would be to compel people to go into the garage before parking in Hyde Park itself, where it is taking away some of the pleasure of the park if there are cars standing all round the various carriageways. I admit that in some of the bigger parks out of London—for instance, Richmond Park—the parking places serve a good purpose, because previously people tended to park too much in the roads, thus blocking the traffic trying to drive through.
Then we come to a more serious matter, and I have not yet been able to find out what went wrong. I am referring to the Fun Fair in Battersea Park, which was constructed in 1951, when the

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Festival of Britain exhibition was on. My impression was that it was said that this fun fair would end in about four years' time, and that it would then be reconsidered. So far as I know, that fun fair still continues. The result is that one of the most attractive of London parks, with lawns and flowerbeds going down to the river, has been completely spoilt, certainly for the large number of people who wish to enjoy the park. It has become a place for privileged people who want to take part in fun fairs which I am sure is not what the Royal Parks were originally intended for.
To revert to the subject of cars, a large amount of Hyde Park has been taken away to make the East Carriage Drive with Park Lane. That scheme took away part of Hyde Park, a little piece of Green Park and a certain amount of the gardens of Buckingham Palace. One wonders what the Government policy about this will be in the long run. If we continue to say that because there are more cars we must take more of the parks to make bigger roads, we shall be left with a large number of cars and no open spaces, whereas possibly one would rather see fewer cars allowed into these parks and the parks preserved as they are. One was told (though I do not think it is true) that there was a danger that part of the park might he taken off on the South side to make another dual carriageway, and one wonders whether the North of the park, near the Bayswater Road, is entirely safe, because that is a busy road which takes a good deal of traffic at the present time.
Turning to other open spaces, whenever the authorities pull down a 19th century or late 18th century row of houses they take away a certain amount of open space and garden and trees, because although some of these gardens were not very well kept a certain number of them were, and thus a certain amount of greenery was visible. Now they are replaced by large blocks of concrete—concrete deserts or jungles; I do not mind what they are called, but they are unattractive, and certainly they do not give any feeling of things growing or being alive, or of natural beauty.
This brings me on to the rather more delicate part of what I want to say, because under a General Act of Parliament, of, I think, 1884, it was said that no
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disused burial ground shall be built over except for the purposes of extending a church or chapel. Now the Church can get round this by the Private Bill procedure of your Lordships' House and another place. I am bound to ay that I have a great deal of sympathy with the Church in their troubles, because expenses are going up and they have to raise more money somehow. They have to preserve the churches, to make the stipends of their ministers more adequate; and they have to provide pension schemes for them on retirement. Hence they require money, and one can well see why they resort to the Private Bill procedure, to get money from the sale of the churchyards which are no longer required.
It is difficult to oppose a Private Bill, because, in the first place, to petition against a Private Bill is an expensive thing to do, and one must be quite sure that the would-be petitioner has the right kind of locus standi. I once opposed the Second Reading of such a Bill, dealing with the burial ground of St. George's, Hanover Square, which was a large piece of land behind the Bayswater Road. I am not quite sure what occurred. It was in 1964 that the Bill was passed, and so far as I know nothing more has occurred. There again I should like to know whether the Government can give any lead in these matters, any policy which we can accept as being what the Government think about it. If you have the tiniest bit of open ground in a built-up city, if it is well gardened or landscaped it makes an attractive place for people to sit in and have their sandwiches or their lunch and get away from the streets with their eternal rows of buildings. I should like to know what has been done, because the Act of 1884 is certainly being eroded on a very big scale.
It is said that if these places are going to be developed the development has to be subject to planning consent from the planning authority, and that this gives some protection. I quite agree; but it does not give a very great deal of protection. One has seen what they are planning in some places—in Canterbury for instance. That has not been settled yet. All sorts of dreadful things occur, even with planning permission,

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so I do not take that as being the real bulwark that it might be. I know that the Government are very reluctant—and quite rightly so—to tell local authorities what to do; and that would be a deplorable thing to do, I think. But supposing the Government have a policy, I think that the local authorities often tend to follow the Government's policy if it is well enough known, even if they are not told to do so by the Government.
There is one very brief point to which I should like to refer, and that concerns one of the commons which is outside the Inner London area. I refer to Wimbledon Common which is, after all, part of one of the biggest open spaces in the Metropolitan area. There again, because of the incessant demands of traffic, certain roadworks have to be done, and they include a certain amount of tunnelling. The contractors need somewhere to dump the material, and with the consent of the Conservators of the Common it has been dumped upon the Common, on top of the heather and the gorse and the other plants that are growing in the ground.
The subsoil from that part of the world, not unexpectedly, consists of London clay, which is not a very attractive thing to have dumped on a Common; and the contractors have found that they have to add a good deal of extra material to the clay to make it solid and make up the tracks for their lorries to the places for tipping the subsoil. What has been happening (I have a good deal of evidence of this from the people in that part of the world) is that a good deal of tipping has gone on with material which does not come from the site. The Conservators have not really been able to exercise sufficient control. When the contractors have work in other parts of the country, or maybe in the town, and have seen a good place to tip on Wimbledon Common they have come to tip there. although the material they tip does not come from the work which is being done on the spot. We are told that the ground will all be made good, and that what was a piece of flat common is now going to be a range of hills which will be landscaped and properly planted. That is as may be; but I wonder what the Government feel about the way the Conservators are exercising their powers, and
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whether something might be done. I will not say in this particular case, but in future, to see that parks like Wimbledon Common are not damaged by unnecessary dumping.
My Lords, I have fired quite a number of questions at the Minister to which I hope he will be able to give some reply. I have not given him much warning, and if he would rather reply to some questions by post I shall quite understand, but I trust that he will be able to give some sort of reply to a good deal of what I have said.
6.5 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am very glad the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, has put down this Unstarred Question and I agree with a good deal of what he has said, particularly about the parks. But if I may say so with respect to the noble Lord, I do not agree with all that he said. I agree fully about the state of the riverside walk in Battersea Park, which I think we Londoners have put up with now for a good many years and too many years, and I wonder when it is going to be restored to what it used to be—a very charming and delightful walk, which is now a strip of concrete. I wonder when that terrible, decrepit old showboat is going to be done away with. I think it was originally put there for the Festival of Britain in 1951, and it has been mouldering there ever since. But I do not agree with what the noble Lord said about the East Carriage Drive in Hyde Park. I think it is an example of extremely good planning. Although a certain part of the park has been cut off, nevertheless the hillocks and banks constructed along the edge of the park I think really make for greater privacy within it. That is the kind of thing that could be done if we need to take up more space, although I hope we shall not.
I also do not agree with the noble Lord about the restaurants. The two restaurants, one at each end of the Serpentine, are a great advantage to London. For years people have been complaining that our capital city has never had a restaurant of the standard of restaurants the French have in the Bois and so on, and here the authorities have at last given us first one restaurant and then two, and I think one should welcome that as an

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excellent extra amenity for London and her visitors.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord. I was not saying a word against the restaurants at all; I think they are quite all right. What I was objecting to was that a large part of the park had been taken away for a car park for people going to the restaurant.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I would not say it was a large part of the park. To my knowledge it is really not much more than the size of a tennis court, outside the restaurant. I will not follow the noble Lord there.
I should like to deal very briefly with one aspect of this problem that the noble Lord was not able to develop, and that is the question of our squares. I think it is right to say that the squares in London are unique. No city in the world has so many squares and so many beautiful ones and so many magnificent trees. One thinks, for instance, of the Place des Vosges in Paris which is one of the most beautiful squares architecturally in Europe, but the garden in the middle is a patch of gravel with a few saplings; and one compares that with the lovely squares we have. I believe these squares were originally laid out in this way so that one could see the buildings across them, and in the 18th century it was never envisaged that we should have these large trees and fairly thick undergrowth; in fact, people then would have been rather shocked if they had seen what we have done now. On the other hand, we are in the middle of the 20th century, and I think these patches of urban greenery are very valuable and I hope they will be preserved. I think it would be absolute vandalism to cut the trees down in order to construct underground garages. I believe it is very difficult to build a garage underneath a square garden unless you cut down most of the trees. You can keep a few round the edge, but it would be very difficult to preserve the majority of them.
Can one imagine Eaton Square, or Belgrave Square, or Berkeley Square, or St. James's Square without their trees? They would become prim little patches of space, with shrubs in pots, and crazy paving. If anybody thinks that I am
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exaggerating, he has only to look at Golden Square in Soho, which must have been a beautiful square garden and is now as I have described. Another good way to compare what can happen is to look at the top part of Cadogan Gardens in relation to the bottom half. The top half has been used to create an underground garage. I think the authorities have probably done their best and have tried to keep as many trees as possible. But it is not at all like the bottom half, which still preserves its oasis of greenery and its rather wild effect with the lawns and the trees. One hopes that what has happened to the top half, the northern half, will not happen to the rest, and to other squares.
Of course, this is a great problem with the amount of traffic in London, and the parking problems that this brings about. One wonders what the Government have in mind on a long-term basis. We should be evolving a definite policy of building far more multi-storey garages, and also making it a statutory requirement to build more garages below new constructions. Yet all over the West End of London one sees large new office blocks, and blocks of flats without any garages at the bottom, and one wonders why that is. Here is a chance to build more underground garages at this time.
Also, I would have thought it necessary to prohibit street parking for non-residents except by meter, and to make the residents pay for their parking by the stamp system. This has just been brought into operation in Westminster, where I live, and I think it is most successful. It has stopped many people from bringing their cars into London, dumping them in our streets all day, and taking them back in the evening, so that one has no room to park one's own car. The residents do not mind paying about fifteen shillings a week by way of stamps for the use of the street space. Other people can use the meters if they wish to come in for an hour or two. I think that that is the kind of solution that we should bring in in other parts of London.
Once these square gardens have been destroyed we can never get them back again. It takes hundreds of years for trees to grow up, and I think it would be absolute vandalism and a shortsighted solution to an ever-growing problem, because the more garages you build

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underneath these square gardens the more people would be encouraged to bring their cars into London. That is something that we want to discourage. So I shall be most interested to hear what my noble friend Lord Kennet has to say on this matter which the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, has been good enough to raise.
6.15 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, the House ought to be, and I am sure is, grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree for raising this interesting and pleasant. and fundamentally non-controversial topic, and I welcome the opportunity of telling the House what the system is and what the rules are, and what improvements we seek to make in both the system and the rules.
One should distinguish between Royal Parks and other public open space and burial grounds, as the noble Lord did. Of course, Royal Parks are administered by my right honourable friend the Minister of Works. He cannot alienate any interest in the Royal Parks; that is to say, he cannot part with the land to anybody else, without getting an Act of Parliament to do it. So that is all rig it. If Parliament agrees, it will let him have his Act; if it does not, it will not.
He can, of course, manage and regulate goings-on in the Parks, and successive Ministers of Works have approved all the goings-on which have been the object of both favourable and unfavourable comment here this afternoon. I will not take up all the examples given by Lord Amulree in relation to the Royal Parks. But the Serpentine restaurant car park really is more like a tennis court in extent than, shall we say, a major battlefield.
Lord Amulree spoke about the underground garage under Park Lane running under the East Carriage Drive. He asked, why was not a rule made that that had to be filled up before any part of the carriageway could be used for parking. There is such a rule. When that garage was opened there, it was the fact that parking was able to be forbidden for the first time in the north carriageway. That is the sort of advantage that you get by permitting the construction of these things. So it is that I think that
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the carriageway looks a great deal better on the surface now.
What went wrong about the fun fair in Battersea Park? This is so much a matter on which two views are possible. For myself, having numerous children and not knowing of another fun fair within one hundred miles of where I live. I am profoundly grateful that it continues. I think it is a great feature of London life and a great asset; and I should hate to see it go. On the other hand, those who have no children and live quite close to Battersea Park might take a quite different view. It is so much a province of local government to settle these issues.
On the question of Wimbledon Common, I entered into correspondence with the Conservators after a recent Starred Question in this House; and I thought at the end of that correspondence that everything was all right. But if the noble Lord assures me that it is not. I will willingly look into it again. Perhaps he can let me know in detail what is still wrong, and I will have another look at the matter.
On squares, which of course count as public open spaces just like the majority of non-Royal Parks do, the Government, and I myself personally, share to the full the views of my noble friend about keeping the trees there, and that it would be deplorable vandalism to permit any development underneath the squares which is going to kill off the trees by the roots. I should like to send to my noble friend later on details of what it is proposed to do under Cavendish Square. where a scheme has been drawn up which is ingenious, and I hope and am convinced is a successful plan to preserve the fine forest trees which stand there.
My right honourable friend has caused discussions to be opened with interested parties on the possibility of drawing up a sort of code, or book of rules, or a drill to help planning authorities decide what sort of garage under London squares will be all right from the tree point of view and what sort will not. I am not yet in a position to tell the House whether we shall be able to have one, but this I will say: that if we get one I will take an opportunity of informing the House what the code is and how it is going to be put into operation.

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On the question of burial grounds, the situation is this: that if the church authorities or the owners of any church want to change the use of their land (and, typically, this is done at the same time, that they want to demolish an old and unattractive church and put up a neater and more modern one) they have to have an Act of Parliament, as the noble Lord said. That Act of Parliament may or may not contain a saving for town and country planning. If it does, it may not propose any specific use for the rest of the site, but simply seek powers to dispose of it. In that case planning law applies, and they must get planning permission, from their local planning authority; and if there is a row about it the Minister will be as well able to call in that planning permission as in any other case. If, on the other hand, the Bill specifies the use to which the burial ground site is to be put, then that attracts Class XII of the General Development Order which confines local planning authority power to details only. In that case it is a matter which ought to be looked at by Parliament to see whether Parliament approves of the use to which it is proposed to put the site.
Parliament is busy, and there are many of these Bills. I have cast a general glance at the list of 10 Bills which are before the House at the moment, and I do not think there is anything in them which it would be my duty specifically to draw to the attention of the House But in view of this afternoon's debate I will have another look at them, and if there is anything in them I will make it my business to draw it to the attention of the House.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves the question of burial grounds, could he tell me whether it is the case that the planning authority cannot control the planning unless they are prepared to meet the cost, which may be very high indeed?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, may I look into that, and again take the opportunity in the near future to let the House know, or to communicate privately with my noble friend about it?
The general policy about public open space in London is a policy devised and applied by the Greater London Coun-
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cil, as the overall planning authority. It is a policy which they inherited from the L.C.C. The County of London Development Plan, which is the existing Development Plan for Greater London now in force, contains the policy statement that all existing open space is to be retained, and it is to be increased wherever it is below a certain minimum standard; namely, 4 acres per 1,000 population. Open land is not to be released for any other purpose except in exchange for other open space of equal area within the neighbourhood. That is the present situation. Public statements have made it clear that the Greater London Council will continue this policy in the new Greater London Development Plan which they are at present preparing and which they will submit to my right honourable friend towards the end of this year.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to thank the noble Lord for his very helpful reply.

COMMONWEALTH IMMIGRANTS (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
6.22 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to amend Sections 1 and 2 of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, and Schedule 1 to that Act, and to make further provision as to Commonwealth citizens landing in the United. Kingdom, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man; and for purposes connected with the matters afore-said. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
My Lords, I think that it may be for the convenience of the House if I say a few words in explanation of why this Bill has been introduced into your Lordships' House. As noble Lords are aware, we are hoping to receive the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill from another place on Wednesday evening. Certain noble Lords have already notified their intention to put down Amendments on the Committee stage of the Bill, in the event of this taking place on Thursday. At the moment there is, of course, no Bill before your Lordships to which such Amendments can be attached. After

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discussion through the usual channels, it was felt that it would be for the convenience of the whole House if we brought a "No. 2" Bill into this House so that Amendments might be circulated to a Bill. I should stress that this is not the same as the "White Bill" procedure which was followed in 1966 and 1967, on the Prices and Incomes Bill, but it is a means of ensuring that the House has before it a Bill to which Amendments can be attached. In the event of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill being received on Wednesday or Thursday, our "No. 2" Bill could then be laid aside and we should proceed on the House of Commons Bill. I hope that this procedure will meet with the approval of the
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House, for whose convenience it has been designed.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a,—(Lord Beswick.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

CROSBY CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn. The Order made on February 14 last discharged, and Bill committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past six o'clock.