Lords Sitting of 26 July 1968

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock: The EARL OF LISTOWEL on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chester.

PUBLIC BILLS AND PARLIAMENTARY SESSIONS
LORD MERTHYR: 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 make arrangements to enable Public Bills to be carried over from Session to Session in the same way as Private Bills may be carried over; and if not, why not.]
THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (LORD SHACKLE TON): My Lords, any decision to enable Public to be carried over from Session to Session would involve a decision by both Houses of Parliament. I should point out that Private Bills are not analogous to Public Bills in a number of respects. The noble Lord knows this as well as anyone. In particular the procedure involved in the promotion of a Private Bill requires the payment of fees and other expenditure which may be very heavy, both for the Promoters and for any Petitioners. I would remind the noble Lord, that the whole question of carrying over Bills from Session to Session was considered by a Joint Committee of both Houses in 1929 when no unanimity of opinion emerged and no action was taken on the Committee's Report.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for that Answer may I ask him one supplementary question? I hope no more than one. Would he not agree that it would be better, if Her Majesty's Government, or the noble Lord himself, wished to "kill" a Bill of any kind that they should vote against it rather than snuff it out by the effluxion of time, a process which most people now consider to be highly unsatisfactory?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, Hear!
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lards, I do not know that the Government ever seek in this House to "kill" a Bill; I do not think I can comment on the tactics employed by any Government in another place.

ABERFAN PIT HEAPS
LORD SILKIN: 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 plan for an early and complete removal of the pit heaps at Aberfan.]
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister stated in another place on July 25, this matter is under active consideration, and it is hoped that a statement can be made soon.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, may I ask whether the Government will regard this matter not purely from the point of view of how much it would cost but as an act of mercy to the people who are forced to live in Aberfan and see these pit heaps every day and every night of their lives? They are constantly reminded of the loss of their 116 children. I would beg my noble friend to put this strongly to the Prime Minister. It is not a matter of money. This site could be used for open spaces or for some public building for the benefit of the children.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I was in Wales last week and I can assure my noble friend that I am at one with him in knowing the feeling of the people in this connection. I will certainly do all I can to represent those views in addition to those already put forward.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, like the noble Baroness I know this area and I am acquainted with the situation. If, in spite of the plea of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, which I support, the Government find themselves unable to meet the vast expense of clearing these heaps, may I ask whether they will consider clearing away the existing houses, rehousing the people and compensating the owners of those houses which will be lost? Is it

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not a fact that there was one street of houses which was badly affected? If this were done it would at least enable people to sleep comfortably and not to have the fear of the tip coming down on top of them again.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, who I know is, as I am, very concerned about the situation. I will certainly convey that admirable suggestion to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, as a non-Welshwoman who has worked in the Welsh Valley, may I support strongly what my noble friend Lord Silkin has said; and would my noble friend Lady Phillips suggest to the Prime Minister that this is an occasion which neither logic nor reason can assuage, and will she see what can be done?
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I should like also to ask whether the Government will look into the wider question of the utilisation of tips. There is a plan in existence, of which I could give full details, for making these tips into market gardens. It may sound absurd, but there is in fact a plan to utilise the tips by terracing.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, for that suggestion. I am speaking without complete knowledge, and it may be that some of the suggestions are already under consideration, but I will certainly see that anything which has been said this morning is taken further.

AID TO ZAMBIA
11.12 a.m.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the total aid of all kinds made to Zambia over the past four years; on what grounds further assistance, if any, is now proposed; and what is the amount of such further assistance.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, nearly £51 million; of which £8 million for development and £1.2 million for defence equipment promised in 1965 has not yet been disbursed. No further capital assistance has been committed, but technical assistance, mainly to pay for the cost of expatriate staff, is currently running at something over £3 million per annum. On the question of further contingency support I would refer the noble Lord to the written reply given by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on July 23.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he recalls that there was reported to this House recently advances of up to £24 million to Tanzania? Those, together with the figures he has just quoted, are massive contributions by the United Kingdom taxpayer. Does he not think that there is imprudence in giving such large amounts to two countries which are aggressively projecting into the territories of their neighbours, Mozambique and Rhodesia, the Communist trained so-called "freedom fighters", alias terrorists; and does he not think that this could be a greater threat to the peace of Central Africa than the significant law and order maintained in Rhodesia by the de facto Government?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the noble Lord has his own views. They are without substance, and I do not believe his views are shared by his noble friends on the other side of the House.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, while the noble Lord may feel that there is a moral aspect involved in this and therefore the question of cost must be secondary, will he and the Government bear in mind that if we in the United Kingdom dribble away and expend our resources all over the world we shall ourselves be too weak to exercise any moral influence anywhere?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I do not accept that. It may be that we have our own economic difficulties, some of which may have been made by ourselves over past years, but these territories are territories in urgent need of help and if we can develop their economies in the end world trade itself must expand.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is it not a fact that Zambia has probably had to bear a larger burden, perhaps the largest, of the sanctions policy against Rhodesia, and in view of Zambia's loyalty to our Government in seeking to overthrow the illegal regime is my noble friend aware that many of us highly appreciate the agreement which has been reached between President Kaunda and our Government during his recent visit?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I feel more attuned to what the noble Lord has said than some of the views I have heard expressed on other occasions.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, would not the Minister agree that the sentiments expressed by the two noble Lords opposite just now are not only unimaginative but simply ludicrous when we compare the situation in countries like Zambia and countries like ours.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, could the noble Lord give any breakdown of the original figure to indicate how much of the money advanced to Zambia has arisen directly as a result of the sanctions policy?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I should be most happy to give that information. Of the £51 million, some £24 million was for contingency support arising directly from sanctions; £14·75 million for capital development; some £8 million for technical assistance to provide topping-up for the expatriates, some 3,000 expatriate British civil servants who now work in Zambia; £2 million for defence aid, and a further £2 million for special financial aid compensation to the British South Africa Company.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, does the noble Lord on the Front Bench agree with the noble Baroness behind him that it is unimaginative to stand up for a moral matter if you are not strong enough to stand up at all?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I would not accept that we are not strong enough to stand up; we clearly are. I did not reply to my noble friend because I thought the point she had made was far better left unanswered.

MILITARY EXERCISES IN WEST GERMANY
11.17 a.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 use their influence to cancel the NATO manœuvres due to be held near the Czechoslovak frontiers, in view of the critical issue of democratic liberty in that territory.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF PIJBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS (LORD WINTERBOTTOM): My Lords, I presume that the noble Lord is referring to the exercise known as "Black Lion", which was originally planned to be held in Bavaria. This is not a NATO exercise but an exercise by the Federal German armed forces, with the participation of some small French and American units. As the noble Lord will no doubt have seen, the Federal German Government have now decided to transfer the exercise from Bavaria to Baden-Württemberg. It can thus no longer be described as being near the Czech border.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Is it not very desirable in these circumstances that we should not appear to be engaged in any provocative action? While we welcome the decision of the West German Government to transfer its manœuvres, is it not the case, as indicated in the Question, that NATO manœuvres are also under consideration, and if so would it not be desirable to accept the example of the Federal Government?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, that is another question.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, does my noble friend feel that what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander, and that there is no more iniquity in having Western exercises near Czechoslovakia than in having Russian exercises there?
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, in view of that last question, may I ask the

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noble Lord whether he has read the very wise article of the noble Earl, Lord Avon, in the Daily Express this morning, in which he urges the NATO forces not to take provocative action anywhere near the Czech frontier at this very delicate time, and expresses the fears of Russia in view of the terrible depredations they had from Germany in the last war? Perhaps he would look at that article, because I think it gives very good advice to the Government.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are well aware of the feelings of concern in all the parties concerned with this delicate situation.

ADOPTION BILL CARAVAN SITES BILL FRIENDLY AND INDUSTRIAL AND PROVIDENT SOCIETIES BILL HEARING AID COUNCIL BILL HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS (DEVELOPMENT) (SCOTLAND) BILL THEATRES BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911, and read a.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of July 15), Bill read 2a: Committee negatived; Bill read 3a, and passed.

DESIGN COPYRIGHT BILL
Brought from the Commons; read a, and to be printed.

PRAYER BOOK (FURTHER PROVISIONS) MEASURE
11.20 a.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTERhad given Notice of his intention to move, That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Prayer Book (Further Provisions) Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent. The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, I do not intend to move today the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. But since it has been on the Order Paper for some days, I think the House is entitled to an explanation of my action, and I beg leave of your Lordships briefly to explain my reasons.
It was hoped that the Prayer Book (Further Provisions) Measure would be presented in another place yesterday and would receive an Affirmative Resolution; and it was my intention to move a similar Resolution in your Lordships' House at this time, in the expectation that the Measure could be presented later to-day for the Royal Assent. Yesterday, however, in another place the Speaker was asked to give his ruling on a submission that a stage in the procedure for Measures laid down in the enabling Act had not been complied with and that the Measure could not yet be submitted for an Affirmative Resolution. The Speaker ruled that this was so, and in consequence did not put the Resolution to the House.
This ruling will cause surprise and concern to those responsible for ecclesiastical legislation, since the procedure to which this Measure has been subjected is no different from that which has been applied to Measures in the past. To my certain knowledge, all Measures in the last 30 years have been dealt with in precisely the same way as this Measure, and my expectation is that all Measures presented since the enabling Act of 1919 have gone through the same procedure. However, since the advantages to be gained from obtaining the Royal Assent to-day are no longer available, I think it necessary not to move the Resolution to-day, but to do so at a later date.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I am sure we are grateful to the right reverend Prelate for the explanation of why he is

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not in a position to move his Motion to-day. I think it is another instance of the fact that if occasionally there are delays and inconsistencies in the dispatch of business through Parliament it is seldom this House that causes them.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, and indeed the right reverend Prelate, are not questioning the propriety of the decision taken in another place. There is a slight implication.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: My Lords, no; in no circumstances.

THEFT BILL [H.L.]
11.24 a.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments to the Theft Bill be now considered. I would mention that as we come to the Amendments I shall ask leave to take certain Amendments in groups.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[References are to Bill [132] as first printed for the Commons]
No.1.]
Clause 1, page 1, line 12, leave out "four" and insert "five".
[No. 3.]
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause—
With the intention of permanently depriving the other of it
".—(1) A person appropriating property belonging to another without meaning the other permanently to lose the thing itself is nevertheless to be regarded as having the intention of permanently depriving the other of it if his intention is to treat the thing as his own to dispose of regardless of the other's rights, and a borrowing or lending of it may amount to so treating it if, but only if, the borrowing or lending is for a period and in circumstances making it equivalent to an outright taking or disposal.
(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) above, where a person, having possession or control (lawfully or not) of property belonging to another, parts with the property under a condition as to its return which he may not be able to perform, this (if done for purposes of his own and
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without the other's authority) amounts to treating the property as his own to dispose of regardless of the other's rights."
[No. 6.]
Clause 14, page 7, line 32, at end insert—
"(3) Section ("With the intention of permanently depriving the other of it") shall apply for purposes of this section, with the necessary adaptation of the reference to appropriating, as it applies for purposes of section 1."
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in Amendment No. 1, and also in Amendments Nos. 3 and 6. Nos. 1 and 6 are minor consequential Amendments, but No. 3 is a new clause, which is a matter of substance. As this is a matter on which your Lordships spent a great deal of time, and as I do not think the reasons for this new clause have yet been fully explained, I hope your Lordships will bear with me if I spend some time on them.
This new clause replaces a clause (Clause 6) which was deleted in your Lordships' House at the Report stage against the advice of the Government. It partially defines the expression "with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it" in the basic definition of theft in Clause 1(1). A clause for this purpose was reintroduced into the Bill at the Committee stage in another place, and amended there on Report to take account of criticisms which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, had made of the earlier version.
The object of the clause is to ensure that the new definition of theft will be construed as covering certain cases which are theft under the existing law although the appropriator of the property does not literally intend to deprive the owner permanently. Examples are where the taker intends to abandon the property in circumstances such as that the possibility of its return to the owner is to his knowledge extremely remote; where he intends to return it only after using it in such a way that it has become useless to the owner—for example returning a railway ticket after travelling on it; or where he intends to sell the property back to the owner as being the taker's own property.

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Although there was no corresponding clause in the draft Bill annexed to the Criminal Law Revision Committee's Report the Committee made it clear in paragraph 58 of the Report that they intended such cases to be covered by the new definition of theft. They said that they had thought of including a provision in the draft Bill to cover them expressly but that their general view was that this would be unnecessary; and they also said that such a provision would be difficult to frame. The Government share the Committee's view that the cases should be covered, and although they recognise the difficulty of framing an appropriate provision it remains their view, as it was when the Bill was introduced in your Lordships' House, that the balance of argument is firmly in favour of covering them expressly. The Government's decision to propose an express provision was reached after consultation with the Chairman and several other members of the Criminal Law Revision Committee.
There are two main reasons for departing from the Committee's conclusion that an express provision was unnecessary. In the first place, when the Committee reported the Government had not embarked on the codification of the criminal law of which the first steps were mapped out in the Law Commission's Second Programme. In the light of the decision to have a criminal code, the Bill ought to be as complete a statutory statement as is practicable of the law of larceny. But, in addition, since Clause 1 of the Bill redefines larceny, some doubts have been expressed as to whether, in the absence of an express provision, the courts would interpret the new definition of theft as including the cases in question. Those cases were recognised as amounting to theft before there was any statutory definition of theft and have continued to be so regarded since the statutory definition of theft in section 1 of the Larceny Act 1916. But that Act was known not to be intended to change the law, whereas the present Bill makes major changes. Therefore the Government do not think it safe to assume that the courts will continue to give the same interpretation to the definition of theft in the new Act.
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Additionally, there is a need to cover specifically certain cases dealt with in subsection (3) of the former Clause 6 which the Government carried by Amendment at the Committee stage in your Lordships' House. That provision (which is reproduced in subsection (2) of the present clause, which I ask your Lordships to approve) was included to make it clear that Clause 1 is intended to cover certain special types of cases where there may not be a positive intention permanently to deprive but where a person entrusted with property deals with it in a manner differently from that for which it was entrusted to him and in a way which seriously endangers the owner's prospects of recovering the property. These cases amount to larceny or fraudulent conversion under the present law, but the position might be open to doubt if there were not a specific provision about them in the new Bill.
The main criticisms which were made of the former clause by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, and others in your Lordships' House were not that its intentions were wrong but that it failed to fulfil them. At the Report stage, however, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, after successfully moving an Amendment to delete Clause 6, said:
"I understand that the noble Lord"—
He was referring to me:—
"will not seek at a later stage to reintroduce Clause 6 in the form that has now been excised. Does that mean—I hope it does not—that he is not giving consideration to an entirely different wording to carry out the intentions which he said lay behind Clause 6." —[OFFICIAL RFPORT, 8/4/68, col. 114.]
The present clause meets specific criticisms made of the original clause in the House of Lords. In particular, the concept in the former clause of "complete usurpation" has been replaced by the concept of an intention to treat the thing as one's own to dispose of "regardless of the other's rights", and the final words of subsection (1) make it clear that it does not cover mere borrowing or lending—a point on which the original clause was misunderstood. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice suggested in Committee that the original clause might be read as covering, for example, ordinary borrowing of a bicycle or

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the taking of a picture or a motor car the present clause meets this criticism.
Subsection (1) of the clause provides that a person appropriating property belonging to another without meaning the other permanently to lose the thing itself is nevertheless to be regarded as having the intention of permanently depriving the other of it if his intention is to treat the thing as his own to dispose of regardless of the other's rights. It would be for the courts to decide in the circumstances of any particular case whether the person appropriating the property had such an intention, but the Government consider that the provision will effectively embody the desired notion of a total conversion to one's own use and will preserve the law substantially as it is now. Thus, if, for example, a person takes a railway ticket intending to return it after travelling on it, or takes property intending to sell it back to the owner as being the taker's own property, he will clearly intend to treat it as his own to dispose of regardless of the other's rights.
In addition, subsection (1) provides that a borrowing or lending another's property may amount to treating the property as one's own to dispose of regardless of the other's rights if, but only if, it is for a period and in circumstances making it equivalent to an outright taking or disposal. This removes any room for misapprehension that the clause is intended to cover mere borrowing or lending. But the exception by which a borrowing (or lending) may amount to treating the property as one's own in the way mentioned, if it is for a period and in circumstances making it equivalent to an outright taking or disposal, will secure that it shall not be a defence that one intended to return the property, say, years later.
Subsection (2) provides, without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1), that where a person having possession or control, whether lawfully or not, of property belonging to another parts with the property under a condition as to its return which he may not be able to perform, this amounts (if done for purposes of his own and without the other's authority) to treating the property as his own to dispose of regardless of the other's rights. The effect of subsections (1) and (2) together is that a person who appropriates property with the intention to part with it under a con-
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dition such as is mentioned in subsection (2) will have an intention permanently to deprive the owner of the property for the purposes of Clause 1 of the Bill. The type of case covered by the subsection is one where the person having possession of another's property pawns it and spends the proceeds, and his ability to redeem the property is in doubt.
My Lords, I apologise for having dealt with this matter at some length, but I am aware that there are a great many people who will read this and I hope, therefore, that you will agree it should have been said. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments (Nos. 1, 3 and 6).—(Lord Stonham.)
11.34 a.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, need apologise for his explanation. As the noble Lord has said, this particular clause was not of course the result of a draft by the Criminal Law Revision Committee, and it poses problems of diabolical complexity in drafting which I do not think were overcome in the first place. One obvious advantage of the form in which it has now been put in the Bill that the language, I think, measures up to the clarity of the rest of the language in the Bill. I do not think that people really liked the idea of "complete usurpation", although it has a respectable legal origin dating from the middle of the 19th century, and I do not think that the intention was nearly so clear before as it now is.
I do not want in any way to repeat or expand upon the noble Lord's explanation because it was very full, and I think it now justifies the insertion of the new clause in the Bill, with the two consequential Amendments in Clause 1, and the application to the "criminal deception" concept later on in the Bill. I think that this is not an occasion when I want to pull the Government's leg any more—it has been pulled enough already on this Bill. Even on a matter of this technicality, when it is as important a subject as theft in the criminal law, it is amazing how

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Parliament can improve even upon the most expert drafting by the most expert lawyers. I think that what has happened here is yet a further example of how worth while it has been to subject the whole of this Bill to detailed criticism in Parliament. I am quite sure that, even after all the Amendments which the Government have now accepted in another place, as well as those which they accepted here, have gone into the Bill, the Government will bear no more rancour against those who were bold enough in the first place to suggest that there might be criticisms, and will agree that the Bill is a great deal better now than it was originally. This new clause is justified, and we shall all look with great interest to see what the courts do with it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 2]
Clause 4, page 3, line 18, to leave out from "possession" to the end of line 20.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 2. This Amendment deletes the provision in subsection (4)(b) of Clause 4 making it theft dishonestly to take a wild creature for reward or sale or other commercial purpose. In consequence, a wild creature, not tamed nor ordinarily kept in captivity, will be capable of being stolen only in the circumstances covered by paragraph (a) of the subsection. This Amendment was made to meet criticisms of the commercial test expressed both in the House of Lords, notably by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, and by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and in another place.
The arguments for and against making poaching theft are, as the Criminal Law Revision Committee recognise, nicely balanced, and the balance as it left the House embodied the compromise proposed by the Committee—that is to say, that poaching should, in effect, be theft only if done for a commercial purpose. The Government, after considering the criticisms made of the subsection, came to the conclusion that theft should not be extended to poaching even to that limited extent. In reaching their conclusion the Government had much in
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mind that, traditionally, poaching has never carried the stigma of theft, and that the Criminal Law Revision Committee did not know of any other country where wild creatures are in general the subject of theft. Poaching is not, for example, theft in Scotland, New Zealand, France, Germany or South Africa.
The Government do not underrate the mischief that can be caused by large-scale poachers, such as those who strip shoots for commercial purposes or take salmon on a large scale. But against this mischief they have had to balance the effect on rural opinion of making it theft, for example, to take without the landowner's consent a few rabbits running wild in the fields, in order to sell them. The Government came to the conclusion that to strengthen the law against poaching to the extent of treating such creatures as property which could ordinarily be the subject of theft would be out of line with modern attitudes towards it, particularly as the effect would be to replace the mostly minor penalties for poaching by the maximum of ten years' imprisonment for theft. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment (No. 2).—(Lord Stonham.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I shall not weep at the demise of the commercial test in Clause 4. I never liked it and I thought that it was going to be as difficult to deal with in practice when it related to animals as I still fear that it will be in relation to flowers. Flowers are still covered by this test, and this, again, will be something which Parliament will want to watch as it is dealt with day to day—or perhaps not so often as that, but on rarer occasions in the courts. With the balance being so finely drawn as it is in regard to poaching, I consider that this Amendment is justified and that, as and when the game laws (not, as was stated in another place, the gaming laws, which I believe have a different context) are looked at, that may be the time when any anomaly can be cleared up. Meanwhile, I would support the Amendment. Although it is probably a compromise on Clause 4 it is a good one.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 4]
Clause 10, page 5, leave out lines 29 to 31 and insert "that the public's access to a building is limited to a particular period of particular occasions; but where anything removed from a building or its grounds is there otherwise than as forming part of, or being on loan for exhibition with, a collection intended for permanent exhibition to the public, the person removing it does not thereby commit an offence under this section unless he removes it on a day when the public have access to the building as mentioned in subsection (1) above."
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 4. This Amendment makes changes in subsection (2) of Clause 10, which deals with the removal of articles from places open to the public. We are back to Goya. The need for some Amendment to the clause was foreshadowed by myself when the Bill left your Lordship's House. The main change made here is that the Amendment puts a limit upon protection given where the thing taken is not part of a collection intended for permanent exhibition to the public. The clause as it left your Lordship's House would have protected a place to which the public had occasional access, perhaps only on certain days of the year, from the removal of an article even by a servant, guest or trespasser, at any time of the year, even if the removal had nothing to do with the public's occasional access to the building; whereas the servant, guest or trespasser in a building which is never open to the public could not commit an offence under the clause. This seemed to the Government an unsatisfactory, and indeed absurd, result. The clause secures a limitation by providing that unless the thing removed forms part of, or is on loan for exhibition with, a collection intended for permanent exhibition to the public, the person removing it does not commit an offence under the clause unless he removes it on a day when the public have access to the building.
The Amendment makes further improvements in the clause by referring specifically to things on loan for exhibition with a collection intended for permanent exhibition, making it clear that the clause would cover articles on loan to an exhibition. Secondly, the Amendment, by limiting the clause to days when the building is open to the public, prevents the question from arising
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whether a building to which the public were admitted only occasionally would be deemed to be one to which they had "access".
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Stonham.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The use of this clause is going to be another rarity, but one way or the other one cannot avoid anomalies. Ono has now the position where somebody who, for some reason, stays after midnight and takes the thing away the next clay is not caught. On the other hand, the number of times when this will not be theft, particularly now that we have back in the Bill the new clause which was dealt with at the beginning of these proceedings, will be most unusual. It was plain that the matter was not right when it left this House, and the anomalies which arose in the circumstances then have been described by noble Lords. I think that the anomalies now are fewer, and, this provision being experimental, it is something which again will have to be watched. It is a new offence and a very unusual one. I am very content that it should now proceed on this new basis.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 5]
Clause 12, page 6, line 40, at end insert "dishonestly".
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 5. This is a purely drafting Amendment to Clause 12, "Abstracting of electricity". It inserts "dishonestly" at the end of line 1 so as to make it clear that the word applies throughout the clause.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
COMMONS AMENDMENT
[Nos. 7 to 9]
Clause 15, page 7, line 41, leave out from beginning to "a" in line 42, and insert—
"(2) The cases in which".
Clause 15, page 8, line 2, leave out "in any case" and insert "are cases".
Clause 15, page 8, line 5, after "is" insert "reduced or".
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 7, 8 and 9. These Amendments make changes in Clause 15, "Obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception". The effect of Amendments 7 and 8 is to make subsection (2) of the clause an exclusive definition of the type of case to which the clause applies instead of the list of examples of the general proposition in subsection (1). The third Amendment slightly widens the application of the clause.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Stonham.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This clause deals with another subject on which there was a slight dispute in this House, and I am not surprised that the Government have reconsidered the question of "exclusivity" or "inclusivity". When one takes into account changes in the Repeals Schedule, it looks as though this is now a restatement of the existing law, albeit in a much changed and simplified form. So long as the Government are satisfied that they have covered all possible circumstances—and I imagine that that is the case—I feel that this is another experiment which should be allowed to go forward under the Bill to see whether or not it works. I have little doubt that it will.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 10 and 11]
Clause 16, page 8, line 30, after "is" insert "or may be".
Clause 24, page 11, line 37, after "committing" insert "a".
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 10 and 11. These are both drafting Amendments.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 12, 17, 18, 39, 41, 42 and 43.]
Clause 27, page 15, line 4, leave out from second "of" to "(which" in line 6 and insert "sections 30 and 42 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968"
Schedule 2, page 25, leave out lines 19 to 30.
Schedule 2, page 26, line 13, at end insert—

"The Firearms Act 1968 (1968 c. 27)

Schedule 1 (offences in connection with which possession of a firearm is an offence under section 17(2)) shall be amended, except in relation to a person's apprehension for an offence committed before the commencement of this Act, by substituting for paragraph 4—

'4. Theft, burglary, blackmail and any offence under section 11(1) taking of motor vehicle or other conveyance without owner's consent) of the Theft Act 1968':

by omitting paragraph 7: and by substituting in paragraph 8 for the words 'paragraphs 1 to 7' the words 'paragraphs 1 to 6'."

Schedule 3, page 32, leave out lines 45 to 52
Schedule 3, page 33, leave out lines 8 and 9 leave out lines 37 and 38.
Schedule 3, page 33, line 59, at end insert—

"1968 c. 19.

The Criminal Appeal Act 1968.

In section 30, in subsection (1) the words from 'and the operation' to 'on conviction', in subsection (2) the words 'or of section 24(1) of the Sale of Goods Act 1893' and the word 'or that subsection as the case may be', and in subsection (3) the words, or of the said section 24(1)'. Section 42(4).

1968 c. 27.

The Firearms Act 1968.

In section 17, subsection (3) and in subsection (5) the words from 'and' onwards."

LORD STONHAM: I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments 12, 17, 18, 39, 41, 42 and 43. These Amendments to Clause 27, "Orders for restitution", and Schedules 2 and 3, take account of the passage of two consolidation measures, the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 and the Firearms Act 1968. They merely replace references in the Bill to current criminal appeal and firearm provisions with references to the Consolidation Acts. No changes of substance are made.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 13–16.]
Clause 30, page 16, line 39, leave out "him" and insert "that person or the wife or husband of that person"
Clause 30, line 40, leave out "him" and insert "that person"
Clause 30, page 17, leave out lines 1 to 3 and insert "in asnwering a question put or complying with an order made as aforesaid shall in proceedings for an offence under this Act, be admissible in evidence against that person or (unless they married after the making of the statement or admission) against the wife or husband of that person"
Schedule 2, page 25, line 15, column 2, leave out from "words" to ""an" in line 17 and insert "following" against that person "there shall be substituted the words" or (unless they married after the making of the statement or admission) against the wife or husband of that person in any proceeding in respect of"
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 13, 14, 15 and 16. Amendments Nos. 13 to 15 amend subsection (1) of Clause 30 which makes provision about the effect of the Bill on civil proceedings and rights, to bring the Bill into line with the Civil Evidence Bill, now in its final stages. Amendment No. 16 alters the Amendment made to Section 166 of the Bankruptcy Act 1914 by Schedule 2 to the Bill, so as to take account of the Civil Evidence Bill. The effect of Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 is to extend the restriction already in the subsection on the privilege against self-incrimination in civil proceedings to the privilege against incriminating a spouse. Whether a witness has a privilege at present of refusing to answer a question on the grounds that this would incriminate his spouse is uncertain, but subsection (1)(b) of Clause 14 of the Civil Evidence Bill gives this privilege. Correspondingly, Amendment No. 15 makes an answer given in civil proceedings to which the subsection relates inadmissible in criminal proceedings under the Bill against the spouse of the person giving the answer as well in such proceedings against that person himself.
Amendment No. 16 similarly extends the inadmissibility of the statement or admission made by a person in any compulsory examination or deposition before a court in bankruptcy proceedings, to proceedings under the Bill against the spouse of the person making it. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 19 to 38 and 40]
Schedule 3, page 27, line 9, column 3, leave out from "words" to end of line 11 and insert "'exact or'".
Schedule 3, page 27, line 9, column 3, leave out lines 26 and 27.
Schedule 3, page 28, leave out lines 9 to 13.
Schedule 3, page 28, leave out line 16, column 3, at beginning insert "In".
Schedule 3, page 28, leave out line 16, column 3, at end insert "the words 'demands or'".
Schedule 3, page 28, leave out lines 17 and 18.
Schedule 3, page 28, leave out line 38, column 3, leave out "Section 24"
Schedule 3, page 29, leave out lines 5 to 13.
Schedule 3, page 29, leave out line 14, column 3, at end insert "Section 61(2)".
Schedule 3, page 29, leave out leave out lines 20 to 23.
Schedule 3, page 29, leave out Page 30, leave out lines 17 and 18.
Schedule 3, page 29, leave out line 19, column 3, leave out "Section 7(1)".
Schedule 3, page 29, leave out leave out lines 21 and 22.
Schedule 3, page 29, leave out lines 41 to 44.
Schedule 3, page 29, leave out lines 50 to 53.
Schedule 3, line 55, column 3, leave out from "the" to onwards "in line 56 and insert" words "or on conviction on indictment"".
Schedule 3, line 55, column 3, leave out lines 57 and 58.
Schedule 3, line 55, column 3, line 58, at end insert—

"1966 c. 32

The Selective Employments Payments Act 1966.

Section 8(2)(a),(b) and (d) and (ii).

1966 c. 34

The Industrial Development Act 1966.

Section 9.

1967 c. 1

The Land Commission Act 1967.

Section 81(5)(a) Section 93.

1967 c. 9

The General Rate Act 1967.

Section 49(8)."

Page 31, line 4, at end insert—

"1967 c. 22

The Agriculture Act 1967.

Section 69(1)(ii)"

Page 32, leave out lines 26 and 27
leave out lines 53 and 54
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 19 to 38 and 40. This is the final group. These Amendments make changes in Schedule 3 (Repeals). The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, will remember that late at night we had a number of very interesting and useful discussions on these repeals. Some of those discussions were inconclusive, but I assured him that the most careful attention would be given to everything that he had said—and, indeed, it has been—in order that we could make sure that they were fully covered by Clauses 14 and 15.
As a result of the examination of the Schedule—and I am most grateful to the noble Viscount for all the time he took and for the help he gave to us—and further research into possible repeals in recent legislation, Amendments Nos. 19, 26, 28, 35, 38 and 40 delete or limit certain repeals, and Amendments Nos. 27 36 and 37 add further repeals. Information can be given about any particular repeal or group of repeals if required.
Perhaps the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, will forgive me if I mention the principle behind the changes in these repeals. I think it may be said that generally the Bill sets out to repeal enactments which are clearly superseded by the new offences, and, in addition, in order to simplify the law and reduce the size of the Statute Book, repeals are proposed where the enactments, although not completely superseded, can for practical purposes be dispensed with as a result of the new provisions. The application of this principle to particular enactments is sometimes difficult, and depends on the subject matter of the enactments and the extent to which prosecutions are brought under it in practice, so that in some cases an enactment may be proposed for repeal in whole or in part, notwithstanding that a similar enactment is to be repealed to a different extent or not at all. But no difficulty can, in our view, result from the existence of a little overlapping and the general effect will be greatly to reduce this. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Stonham.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I wish it was not just Section 81(5)(a) and Section 93 of the Land Commission Act which we were repealing. The whole Act would be so much better out of the way. But perhaps this is not quite the context for a discussion on that subject. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation, and I have looked at most of the deletions that he has suggested in the Repeal Schedule, as well as some of the additions. I think that in this case it is wise to have been a little cautious. For instance, in the context of gain and loss, about which we had such interminable arguments earlier on, I was never satisfied that the repeals in the Law of Property Act and the Land Registration Act 1925 were anywhere near covered by the Bill, and I am very glad that these have now been taken out. I am sure that they are the most incredibly uncommon things to happen. They do not get covered by the wording, either of Clauses 14 and 15 or of the subsequent clauses, and if there is any doubt on this matter I feel sure it is better to wait until we have the other offence—that is, forgery—considered by some committee and produced as a Bill. If at that stage we can get rid of even more of these old and "bitty" offences in old Acts, so much the better.
In the meantime, I am delighted that the noble Lord has cut down the extent —although he has added other perfectly proper instances of repeals in modern legislation—of some of the more dubious ones that were originally there. I thank the Government for honouring their undertaking to examine this matter, and I myself very much approve of the results.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Viscount for what he has said, and I shall look forward with the keenest pleasure to the next encounter. I am sure he will agree with me that as we were together on this subject at the beginning, it is very pleasant to be together at the end, and that a useful piece of work has been done by your Lordships' House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

RESTRICTIVE TRADE PRACTICES BILL
11.57 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD BROWN): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Brown.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Exemption from registration of certain agreements of importance to the national economy]:
EARL JELLICOE EARL JELLICOE moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 12, at end insert ("and an order under this section approving an agreement solely concerned with the promotion of a single specific project shall not continue in force for a period exceeding three years.").
The noble Earl said: I think most of us would agree that experience has shown that there is a need for the exemptions machinery provided in Clause 1 of the Bill before us. There is a demand for it from industry. That has been reflected by bodies such as the N.E.D.C. and the Prices and Incomes Board, and it is, of course, a reflection of the contemporary phenomenon of the economics of scale. A typical example came to my attention only a couple of days ago, when I was reading the Business Supplement of The Times, where there was a very interesting article about a project to link by pipeline the ethylene production works of Shell on Merseyside with I.C.I. on Teesside. Now I strongly suspect that such a scheme would probably be caught by the 1956 Act, and it is of a type—I am not saying that this particular scheme would be justified in terms of the national economy—which would be covered by the Clause 1 exemptions machinery. It is quite right, therefore, that there should be this machinery.
However, I think it is equally agreed on both sides of the Committee that the operation of this new machinery will need very careful watching. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Brown, said
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in our Second Reading debate, this is latently controversial because it holds within it the seeds of monopoly. Therefore, it is right that there should be proper safeguards. I shall not adumbrate all the safeguards which are written into Clause 1, but there are a couple of very important ones. One is that orders will require to be laid before Parliament giving effect to specific exemptions; and the other is that any Clause 1 order should remain in force only for the period specified in the order itself.
A glance at the Bill will show your Lordships that the period for the operation of the order is not specified in Clause 1 itself, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Brown, argued at Second Reading that that is probably right in the interests of flexibility because these various specific agreements will vary and may require a different timing for the order. I am inclined to question this. I think that flexibility is obtainable in any event since the orders are renewable. This, I should have thought, gives quite sufficient flexibility. I myself feel it is important that with these agreements, some of which can be very important indeed, we should be absolutely certain that the review machinery is operated at not too infrequent intervals. Two years, I think, is laid down in Clause 2. I should have thought that for specific agreements, as envisaged in the Amendment which I am moving, three years would be ample, especially since they can be renewed; and I am therefore suggesting that there should be a maximum period of three years for specific agreements, of course renewable by further order.
I hope that I have explained the purpose behind this Amendment. I do not think we are very far apart on this particular point. I am inclined to feel that it would be better to write in a specific maximum, and that is provided for in the Amendment which I now move.
LORD BROWN: When I read this Amendment I thought that the intention was that there should be a maximum of three years, not renewable. I believe that the wording of the clause would lead to that interpretation. But, laying that aside (because one acknowledges the difficulty in drafting which the other side has), it is essential that exemption should be given for such period as is

1415
sufficient to secure the object of any scheme or project, and no longer; and Clause 1(3) provides for this. There is no point in exempting a project for a shorter period than that necessary to secure the objects of the project, and industry would be unwilling to make agreements if it were not assured of a sufficient period of exemption. This period will vary with the nature of the project, and cannot be determined except in relation to the project itself. Clause 1(3) already provides that exemption shall not exceed the period which appears to the Board sufficient for the purposes for which the order is made.
An example may help to demonstrate clearly to the noble Earl what our objections are. Let us suppose that we are contemplating an agreement for the provision of new capacity. This might involve the building and commissioning of a large new plant—a process which itself may take longer than three years. But the case for exempting the agreement may well extend beyond the construction period—until, for example, a new product has established its place on the market. Industry, I suggest, will just not embark on desirable schemes unless an adequate period of exemption can be granted. They could not be absolutely certain of an extension when it came up for extension. We do not intend to allow exemption for an indefinite period. Indeed, the clause provides that it must be given for the fixed period which is appropriate to the particular case. If the object of the Amendment is to secure that the operation of agreements is reviewed at three-yearly intervals by the making of a series of orders each of no more than three years duration, I submit it is not necessary. The concept of a close watch being kept on the operation of agreements is embodied in Clause 1(4) already, which provides for exemption orders to be revoked if an agreement is not achieving its object or if it is being used for a purpose other than that for which it was intended.
I hope that in the light of those remarks the noble Earl will see fit to withdraw the Amendment, because I believe that if one were to put in this idea of a review every three years as a maximum period, it would put industry in a great deal of difficulty. They could
1416
not be absolutely certain of later extension, and if they were not certain they would be hesitant about involving millions of pounds worth of investment on the assumption that it would be all right—because we know that people can be caught by these assumptions. I therefore think it is somewhat dangerous, and I hope that the noble Earl will withdraw his Amendment.
EARL JELLICOE: The noble Lord is quite right in thinking that it was my intention not to have a period of three years and then a cut-off, but that thereafter it should be renewable by further order. I also agree with him, having looked again at my Amendment, that it would not have this effect, but would amount to a cut-off after three years. It could, of course, be introduced earlier in the clause, when it would have the effect that I have in mind. But I think that the noble Lord has a point, and a real point, when he says that some of these schemes may take more than three years to mature, and that they may he nipped in the bud if the sort of Amendment which I have in mind were accepted because the companies concerned would not have any absolute assurance that the order would be renewed. I think there is a point there, and in view of what the noble Lord has said I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clauses 2 to 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Information agreements]:
On Question, Whether Clause 5 shall stand part of the Bill?
EARL JELLICOE: I should like to put a point on this clause to the noble Lord opposite. It is a point of such infinite complexity that I intend to keep my nose well down on my brief. Under the 1956 Act, where agreements were referred to the courts and the defence was not successful, I understand that the practice was for the parties to give an undertaking to the court. The undertaking usually provided that the parties would not enter into any agreement which was to the like effect and to which Part I of the 1956 Act applied. For example, the undertaking given by parties to a price-fixing agreement would prevent

1417
them from making any new agreement caught by Part I of the 1956 Act which was to the like effect as the price-fixing agreement itself, and in such a case the parties were free to enter into a bona fide agreement providing for the exchange of information as to past prices.
The Bill as it now stands provides in Clause 5(2) that the Board of Trade can direct that Part I of the 1956 Act shall apply to the information agreements described in the Board of Trade order. In other words, when the order comes into effect Part I of the 1956 Act will apply to that class of information agreements. I gather that some concern is also felt that persons who enter into agreements permissible before a calling-up order under the new Act will, after calling-up, not only be required to register but may be found guilty of contempt where they continue to operate such an agreement. I think there is some uncertainty as to whether that is the case or not. In any event, there is the further point that price information agreements, or indeed other information agreements, made subsequent to a calling-up order should not put the parties to it in jeopardy of being in contempt of an undertaking given before a calling-up. This, I think, was not in the contemplation of the Court when the order was made; and although it is obviously quite fair to require parties to register and to defend their agreements before the Court, it is a very different thing to expose them to the risk of proceedings for contempt.
In view of these difficulties I wonder whether, even at this rather late stage, there might not be some provision made in the Bill that undertakings given to the Restrictive Practices Court should not be affected by calling-up orders subsequent to the court order. That is the inquiry on this clause which I wish to address to the noble Lord. I hope that he has understood what I have been saying as well as I, myself, have understood it and I await, with curiosity, his reply.
LORD BROWN: The noble Lord was good enough to give me notice of this question; otherwise I might well have been lost. The short and perhaps oversimplified answer is that this Bill does not really bring about any change in the position of the people to whom he has referred. But that is, as I say, rather an
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over-simplified statement and I can add to it at greater length as follows.
Two matters can arise. First, there is the effect of a calling-up order on preexisting information agreements. Court orders and undertakings to the Court are usually in the form that the parties will not make any new agreement to the like effect, to which Part 1 of the Act applies. If the agreement is a bona fide information agreement, we do not see that it can be in contempt of the Court order; because at the time it was made it was not an agreement to which Part I of the Act applied. It might be in contempt, however, if the information agreement had been operated in such a way as to make it, in effect, a restrictive agreement; and as the noble Lord is aware, before this Bill appeared, two firms were fined £100,000 for doing just that. In that event, the information agreement would almost certainly amount to a registrable restrictive agreement because of the mode of its operation. In that event, it would be registrable, and consequently contemptuous, without regard to the event of the calling-up order. It would make no difference to the situation.
The second circumstance is when an information agreement is made after the calling-up order. In that event, if there were any possibility that the agreement could be held to have the same effect as the condemned agreement the parties could seek the leave of the Court to make the agreement under Section 22 of the 1956 Act, as amended by Clause 10 of this Bill. As the noble Lord knows, Clause 10 gives a new ground for making that appeal. The parties would have to demonstrate either that there had been a change of circumstances since their original agreement was condemned or, alternatively, that this new gateway in Clause 10 was relevant to their application. As this gateway has been inserted mainly for the benefit of information agreements, it is likely that it would be relevant.
But unless one or other of these circumstances apply, we should not wish the parties to be free to make the information agreement. If the noble Lord s view were to prevail, and the Bill were amended in some way, they would merely have a free holiday, albeit an uncomfortable one with something serious hanging over their heads, in which to

1419
operate an information agreement which produces the same result as the condemned agreement. If this practice became widespread, the work undertaken since 1956 by the Restrictive Practices Court would have to be done again.
I would end by saying this. If the information agreement is so worked as to be, in effect, restrictive, then it is in contempt, whether this Bill be passed or not. So it would seem advisable not to amend this Bill; because it would get people out of a situation in which they would have been since 1956. I do not think it is the noble Earl's intention to relieve people by this Bill of erstwhile responsibilities for honest conduct. I hope that he will be satisfied with my explanation.
EARL JELLICOE: I should like to thank the noble Lord for his explanation. I understood the first and the last parts of it perfectly. The rest I should like to study in my free, but I hope not uncomfortable, holiday over the weekend. On the whole, I do not think I shall wish to revert to this at Report stage but I should like to reserve that right in the light of having digested this legal mouthful.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clauses 6 to 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Modification of duty of Registrar to take proceedings for investigation]:
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 10, line 7, leave out ("is") and insert ("has been").
The noble Lord said: I hope that it may be convenient to speak to Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 together. Clause 9(1) gives the Registrar of Restrictive Trading agreements a discretion not to refer abandoned restrictive agreements to the Restrictive Practices Court. As the law stands at present he is under a duty to do so. In practice, however, he needs to refer abandoned agreements to the Court only in exceptional cases where it is desirable to secure a court order to prevent the making of a series of short-term restrictive agreements "to the like effect". It was always our intention that the discretion contained in Clause
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9(1) should apply to agreements abandoned before the coming into force of the Act, as well as to agreements abandoned after the coming into force of the Act. Indeed, we believe that the clause as drafted secures this result. It has been suggested to us, however, that the use of the word "is" in lines 2 and 3 creates a doubt whether the power applies to agreements abandoned before the coming into force of the Act. In order to remove any possibility of doubt this Amendment replaces the word "is" by the words "has been". I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 10, line 8, leave out ("is") and insert ("has been").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment formally.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
12.18 p.m.
EARL. JELLICOE EARL. JELLICOE moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 10, line 15, after ("that") insert ("any of").
The noble Earl said: Amendments Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7 all affect Clause 9; and if the Committee have no objection I think it may be convenient to take them together. We can discuss them seriatim as we go along. These four Amendments are designed to meet three objects. Again, this is a fairly complex matter but not, I think, as complex as the matter on Clause 5 with which we have been dealing.
First, with the repeal of Section 12 of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1956, the Registrar will be no longer authorised to remove from the register particulars of such agreements on which particulars are for the time being entered therein as appear to the Board as having no substantial significance. The wording of the new Clause 9(2) provides for directions from the Board of Trade discharging the Registrar from taking proceedings in the court in respect of that agreement. This relates to the whole agreement and not to the particulars of any agreement. As I see it, the effect is that the Registrar will no longer be able to take in respect of insignificant bits of agreements the action

1421
that he might have been prepared to take under the 1956 Act which we are revising. The consequence, again as I see it, is that parties to a registered agreement may find themselves unable to obtain dispensation in respect of the insignificant parts of it, and will either have to abandon the agreement as a whole or defend it at considerable cost. This inconvenience, which could be a very serious one, could be corrected by inserting the words in Amendments 4 and 6.
That is the first point. The second point is that under the provisions of Clause 9(2) as it stands the Board's powers include discharging the Registrar from taking proceedings. There is, however, no provision in respect of the Registrar being discharged from continuing proceedings which he may have instituted, but which he might not have instituted had the provisions of Clause 9(2) been on the Statute Book. This could be taken care of by substituting the words, "or continuing" between the words "taking" and "proceedings". I hope that the noble Lord is clear as to the purpose behind these two Amendments.
The third matter is one which we discussed on Second Reading when I suggested that it might help firms if some sort of early warning system could be instituted. It might save them a good deal of trouble and expense if they could find out for certain, one way or the other, whether an agreement was so insignificant as to be deemed not to warrant reference. This is covered by the last Amendment, No. 7. In reply to me, the noble Lord was very reassuring. He told us what in practice happens, of the informal contacts which exist between firms and the Registrar, and said he felt that these contacts, which I am sure operate well, would meet the point adequately. Despite what the noble Lord said, I gather that there is still some anxiety among some of the interests potentially affected by the Bill. The Amendment would put the matter beyond any possible doubt. In fact their inclusion would formalise the informal machinery to which the noble Lord alluded on Second Reading. I hope very much that he will be able to accept this group of Amendments. They may not be perfectly drafted, and there may
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be parts of them—as they are covering three different objects—which he may feel unable to accept. Alternatively, he may feel that the whole lot are unecessary. However, I should very much like to hear the comments of the noble Lord on these proposed Amendments to Clause 9. I beg to move Amendment No. 4.
LORD ROYLE: There is a very small point to which I wish to refer regarding the printed copy of the Bill which we have this morning. I was trying to understand the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, but his words did not seem to apply at all. I find on looking at the Bill that the line numbers 15 and 20 are in the wrong place, so I am assuming that the noble Earl is moving his first Amendment in what should be line 15 and which appears as line 20.
12.25 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: I am sorry. I thought that I was probably pretty obscure, even without the help of the printers who have made me even more obscure. The noble Lord, Lord Royle, is absolutely right in his assumption. I apologise for not having explained this before. I was assuming that the printers had not made a mistake.
LORD BROWN: I am sorry that the Bill has this error in it. I shall have to give the noble Earl a detailed and fairly complex reply, but perhaps if I made a very simple comment first, it would make the rest more understandable. I shall have to ask the noble Earl to withdraw these Amendments, because if they were accepted they would take us into the field of administrative difficulty and could raise arguments between the Court, the Registrar and the Board of Trade. It is a question of definition and the intermingling of various things. That is the basic reason why I am going to ask the noble Earl to withdraw these Amendments.
It would appear that Amendment No. 4 is designed to enable the Board of Trade to deal with a part, and the Court with another part, of the same agreement. It would appear that the noble Earl's Amendment is based or the assumption that restrictions in registered agreements are all set out distinctly and separately, but in fact this is far from the case. The noble Earl may have in

1423
mind that the Board of Trade have in the past issued directions under Section 12 of the 1956 Act in relation to agreements after they have been considered by the Court. This practice was adopted in one or two cases with the concurrence of the Court, in order to preserve insignificant restrictions which otherwise the Court would have been forced to condemn.
The Court is required to presume that restrictions are contrary to the public interest unless they can be defended on one of the grounds set out in Section 21 of the Act. There were cases where trivial restrictions which did no harm could not be so defended, and consequently in one or two cases the Court, having condemned certain major restrictions in an agreement, has made no order as to the remaining restrictions but left the Registrar to approach the Board of Trade with a view to securing a direction under Section 12 in relation to the agreement as it subsisted after the major restrictions had been condemned. This procedure has not been satisfactory. It has proved workable only by the exercise of a considerable measure of procedural flexibility on all sides.
We think that the new gateway set out in Clause 10(1) could be employed to defend insignificant restrictions. Indeed, one of its purposes was to enable the Court to deal with all the restrictions in an agreement referred to it. If the parties plead the new gateway in relation to insignificant restrictions, the Court will not have recourse to condemning the restrictions as it has hitherto been required to do when none of the gateways in Section 21 were appropriate. We think, therefore, that the Restrictive Practices Court will not be obliged to condemn insignificant restrictions in future because, as I said at the outset, we think that the better course is that when called on to consider an agreement it should consider all the restrictions and that the matter should not be handled partly by the Board and partly by the Court. The Amendment would reintroduce the ideal procedure in an inconvenient form. May I add this? I believe industry would be a great deal better off if the Court did consider all these things and then industry was able to get the insignificant ones withdrawn. Industrialists would know where they
1424
stood. If you tried to separate them there might be consequential intermingling which would be most distressing.
On Amendment No. 5, we consider that if the Board were empowered to make Clause 9 directions after an agreement had been referred to the Court, it would give rise to an undesirable clash between the powers of the Judiciary and of the Executive. Parties to an agreement have an opportunity to amend their agreement to remove any detrimental restrictions before the agreement is referred to the Court. Moreover, again the new gateway in Clause 10 will allow insignificant restrictions, which have no material effect upon competition, to avoid the condemnation by the Restrictive Practices Court in a manner which has, unfortunately, occurred heretofore on occasions.
I will spend a little more time on Amendment No. 7 because I think that the noble Earl wants a reassurance on this point, and I have here a fairly long note. I did touch briefly on this matter during the Second Reading debate. The truth is that the Amendment really serves little useful purpose. No statutory provision is necessary to permit a person to ask the Registrar to make representations to the Board of Trade. Anyone is free to ask him to do so at any time.
The proposal that the Registrar should be under a statutory duty to notify his decision in relation to representatives is, I hope I can show, of no real practical importance. It in no way inhibits the Registrar from instituting proceedings under Section 20 if he desires that agreement must be referred to the Court. The Registrar could technically discharge the obligations imposed by the Amendment by notifying the parties of his decision immediately before serving a notice of reference to the Court. In practice, he notifies the parties of what his intentions are in good time. Moreover, the Amendment does not take sufficient account of the fact that directions under the new power may be revoked, and that the criterion of Section 12 of the 1956 Act has been changed. The Amendment seems more suitable for the once and for all type of direction which was available under Section 12, but which could not be revoked.
When the matter was touched on in our Second Reading debate, I explained

1425
that in his first Report the Registrar said:
"Whether or not the parties request it, the possibility of making a representation under Section 12 is always considered before an agreement is referred to the Restrictive Practices Court."
The Registrar has assured me that this is still his policy, and he will continue it when Clause 9 replaces Section 12. He regards it as of importance that public money and the time of the court should not be wasted by inappropriate references. Moreover, there is no reason why firms or associations desiring to enter into a registrable agreement or making a recommendation should not approach the Registrar quite informally in advance with a prior indication of the likelihood of its becoming a successful candidate under Clause 92. How clear an indication can be given in any particular case must depend on all the circumstances, including the restriction of competition which is contemplated, and the extent to which a full explanation can be made of just what is envisaged.
But short of a binding promise, which plainly cannot be given, and is not, I imagine, expected, noble Lords may certainly take it that the Registrar will be as helpful as he can. When he makes a representation to the Board of Trade it is likely that directions will be issued fairly rapidly thereafter, because experience has shown that the Registrar with his expertise is able to gauge fairly accurately the sort of agreements in relation to which the Board of Trade are prepared to exercise their powers under Section 12, and is equally likely to be able to gauge which agreements will be eligible for direction under the new powers.
I hope that this is reassuring to the noble Earl. My main point is that if this Amendment were carried I do not think it would be helpful to industry. The Registrar has this pile of agreements before him. He is going through them as rapidly as he can. He is open to approach. He will give decisions as rapidly as he can; he cannot always be decisive. There is nothing in the Amendment which will cause him to be more helpful than he is. It will put him under a statutory duty to do what he is already doing as well as he can, and it might give people the feeling that
1426
they had rights to immediate answers on questions which were in fact the subject of a good deal of legal investigation, and pretty "dicey" issues at that; and he could not respond by giving immediate answers whether or not the Amendment was passed. In the light of this explanation, perhaps the noble Earl could reconsider the Amendments, and I should be obliged if he would withdraw them.
EARL JELLICOE: I think I made a mistake in suggesting that we should take these Amendments together, because, although they all relate to the same clause and are all interlinked in a certain way, the objects are a little different. I apologise to your Lordships. I should like, again, to say how grateful I am to the noble Lord, Lord Brown, far the great care he has taken in preparing his replies to these Amendments, and I can tell him straight away that I am going to follow his advice and withdraw them at this stage. I say "at this stage", because I wish to study carefully the comments he has made on what are pretty complex matters. I think it is necessary that we should get this Bill—which is a very important one, and which has come very late in the day in our Session—as right as we possibly can. I certainly wish to assure myself that we have Clause 9 right before we let it through. Therefore, I should like to reserve my right to come back to this on Report, if necessary, but I will not do so unless I feel it is necessary.
I am very sympathetic to what the noble Lord said on Amendment No. 7, that he did not really feel that in his judgment it would serve the best interests of industry. Clearly this is important. I should also frankly say that I have less sympathy for the argument which he advanced at the start of his reply, that I should not pursue these particular Amendments because of the administrative difficulties which they might cause for the department concerned. That is a reason which does not carry great conviction with me, and in fact, far from allaying any anxiety that I might have, it set a number of alarum bells ringing in my mind.
LORD BROWN: I should have made it clear that it is not a question of departmental administration. It is a question of arguments between the courts

1427
and the departments, which should be avoided at all costs, if possible.
EARL JELLICOE: I agree that arguments between the courts and departments should be avoided if possible. But I think it is equally important that we should be certain that we have this clause right. However, that said, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 10 agreed to.
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN moved Amendment No. 8:
After Clause 10, insert the following new clause:
Wholesale co-operative societies
.—(1) Subsection (6) of section 6 of the Act of 1956 (which relates to agreements made by trade associations) shall not apply to any industrial and provident society approved by the Board of Trade for the purposes of this section; and an industrial and provident society so approved shall be treated as not being a trade association for the purposes of subsections (3) and (5) of section 8 (excepted agreements) of the Act of 1956.
(2) The Board of Trade may, if they think fit, approve for the purposes of this section any industrial and provident society which, in the opinion of the Board, satisfies the following conditions namely—

(a) that it carries on business in the production or supply of goods or in the application to goods of any process of manufacture; and

(b) that its shares are wholly or mainly held by industrial and provident societies, being retail societies or societies whose shares are wholly or mainly held by retail societies.

(3) The power of approval conferred by subsection (2) of this section shall not be exerciseable after the end of the relevant period, that is to say—

(a) in the case of a society which immediately before the commencement of this Act is registered or deemed to be registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965 or under the corresponding law in Northern Ireland, the period of three months beginning with the commencement of this Act;

(b) in the case of a society which is so registered after the commencement of this Act, the period of three months beginning with the date on which it is so registered.

(4) Where an agreement made before the commencement of this Act by an industrial and provident society is subject to registration under Part I of the Act of 1956 but would not have been subject to registration thereunder if subsection (6) of section 6 of
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the Act of 1956 had not been enacted and the society had at all times fallen to be treated as not being a trade association for the purposes of subsections (3) and (5) of section 8 of that Act, the agreement shall cease to be subject to registration under the said Part I if that society is approved by the Board of Trade for the purposes of this section.
(5) In this section—
'industrial and provident society' means a society registered or deemed to be registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965 or under the corresponding law in Northern Ireland;
`retail society' means a society which carries on business in the sale by retail of goods for the domestic or personal use of individuals dealing with the society, or in the provision of services for such individuals;
'the corresponding law in Northern Ireland' means the law for the time being in force in Northern Ireland for purposes corresponding to those of the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965."
The noble Lord said: I apologise to your Lordships for producing a lengthy and complex Amendment at this late stage. The object of this new clause is to relieve Federal Co-operative Societies from certain of the disabilities which they suffer as a result of their falling within the definition of a trade association in Section 6(8) of the 1956 Act.
Subsection (1) defines those sections of the 1956 Act upon which the new clause operates. These sections are Section 6(6), which provides that an agreement made by a trade association is to be regarded as an agreement made by all the members of the trade association so that any restriction accepted by the association is to be regarded as accepted by all the members; Section 8(3), which provides that bilaterial exclusive dealing agreements are not to be registrable unless either of the parties to it is a trade association; and Section 8(5), which provides that bilateral agreements for the exchange of information relating to the operation of processes of manufacture are not to be registrable unless either of the parties is a trade association.
It is to be noted that the subsection does not bite on Section 6(7) of the 1956 Act which deems that a recommendation made by a trade association to its members is to be regarded as a binding agreement made by all the members of the association. Subsection (2) defines the type of Co-operative Society which is to benefit from the exemption. Although the

1429
type of society is narrowly defined, the Board of Trade are given a discretion to decide whether any particular society falls within the definition. The type of Co-operative Society which is to enjoy the benefit of the clause is defined as an industrial aid provident society that carries on business in the production and supply of goods et cetera, and whose shares are wholly or mainly held by other industrial and provident societies who are either themselves retail societies or federations of retail societies.
Subsection (3) limits the period in which the Board of Trade may grant their approval. In the case of an existing society the period is three months from the date of the coming into force of the Bill, and in the case of a society registered after the commencement of the Bill within three months of registration. Subsection (4) deals with agreements made before the coming into force of the Bill. It provides that past agreements of the type which are to benefit from the new clause shall cease to be registrable once the Board of Trade have granted approval to the society in question. Subsection (5) defines an industrial and provident society by reference to the relevant legislation, and a retail society by the type of business which it carries on. It also deals with the application of the provision to Northern Ireland.
The main purpose of proposing this new clause is simply that it has now been discovered that a co-operative society, particularly the Co-operative Wholesale Society, rather surprisingly, has fallen within the definition of "a trade association" since 1956; and that if in fact this new clause is not introduced the Society, and others of a like kind, will be placed in a situation where their agreements to buy from suppliers which are of an exclusive sort will all have to be registered in future. It is to relieve the Co-operative Wholesale Society and others from this, I submit, unintended and onerous result of the 1956 Act that this new clause is now introduced. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 10, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Brown.)
EARL JELLICOE: I am grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation. As he said, it is rather surprising that we
1430
should be faced with what is after all a pretty substantial Amendment to this Bill at a pretty late stage. But I should like to say that my colleagues are grateful to the noble Lord for having given us as much advance warning of his intention as I think he could. I believe that this Amendment is acceptable in that it is only restoring the position which until very recently I think everybody thought already obtained. I hope that this is right, and I believe it to he so.
I have only one doubt which I should like to ventilate and upon which I hope the noble Lord may be able to give me some assurance. This situation has arisen rather unexpectedly, I understand and I am worried that perhaps other equally worthy trading organisations, which up to now have thought that they were excluded from the operations of Section 6(6) of the 1956 Act, may also find themselves within the toils of teat Act and possibly may not be covered by the knew clause. I wonder whether the noble Lord can give me any assurance on this point. Also, on a relates point, if unexpectedly—and there has be en one unexpected result already—this should prove to be the case, what remedy will there be after this Bill has become an Act?
There is, of course, one possible remedy, and that is that we she uld he alerted before it becomes an Act. There is very little time, since we are taking the final stages of the Bill, I think, next Wednesday, but I hope that the interests affected will be aware of the action which we are proposing to take to-day.
LORD BROWN: I think I can give the assurance the noble Earl is seeking. There are two types of case. One is where a series of retail traders join together and literally form an association to purchase on their behalf, and if that purchasing organisation which they have got themselves together to form make exclusive contracts they will be caught by the Bill. On the other hand, there are now, I understand, a large number of wholesaling houses which male contracts of various kinds with large numbers of individual retailers and which agree to service them by buying on their behalf and stocking them. Having taken serious legal advice on this matter, I am assured positively that these types

1431
of operation would not be caught by this Bill. I am quite positively sure on that account.
I have tried to be fair in saying that those retailers who form themselves into a body are inevitably a trade association; but if the formation activities, so to speak, come from the wholesaling end and the wholesaler makes these individual contracts with a large number of retailers, and gets on with his business in the way that a number of wholesalers have done, he will not be caught by this Act. I believe that that is the reassuring point the noble Earl wanted me to make.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clauses 11 to 16 agreed to.
Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Enactments Repealed]:
LORD BROWN LORD BROWN moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 16, line 10, after ("order") insert ("made").
The noble Lord said: Lines 9 and 10 of Schedule 3 misquote the words in the 1956 Act which are to be repealed. The misquotation consists of the omission of the word "made". The object of this Amendment is to rectify this omission. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Remaining Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed by the Lord Chancellor: Bill reported, with the Amendments.

SMALL FARM (BUSINESS MANAGEMENT) SCHEME 1968
12.47 p.m.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: My Lords, I beg to move, That the Small Farm (Business Management) Scheme 1968. a draft of which was laid before this House on July 3, 1968, be approved. I trust that it will be convenient when dealing with this Order to deal also with the Small Farm (Business Management) (Scotland) Scheme 1968. As foreshadowed in the Annual Review White Paper last March it is proposed to renew these Schemes for a further twelve months from September 1, 1968.
1432
Your Lordships may wish to be reminded briefly of the terms of these Schemes which are open to small farmers occupying holdings of between 20 and 125 acres and where the size of the business is between 250 and 600 standard man-days a year. A farmer who carries out an approved programme, designed to increase the efficiency of his business, over a period of three years can obtain grant up to a maximum of £1,000. He must keep specified farm records on which he can base future farm management decisions. Programmes may be either complete, providing for the attainment of objectives in each of the three years of participation as well as the maintaining of records, or basic, with provision for record keeping over the three years but objectives for the first year only. Most basic programmes are subsequently modified to include objectives for the second and third years after the first year's records become available.
The new Scheme is in all major respects the same as the 1965 version, the only changes, apart from minor drafting amendments, being concerned with relations to other Schemes. These relate mainly to the Farm Business Recording Scheme which was not in existence when the 1965 Business Management Scheme was made. We have made provision that grant may not be obtained through concurrent membership of both Schemes, since both are based on the keeping of records; and we have made it a requirement that farmers who have received grant under the Farm Business Recording Scheme must undertake a complete programme. I think your Lordships will agree that those who have already had assistance in this field should have the experience and the necessary records to enable them to embark on a full three-year programme from the outset. Arrangements have also been made to prevent a farmer from obtaining double grant by participating simultaneously in the 1965 and the new Business Management Scheme.
The response to the current Scheme has been rather less than we hoped. This is a pity because inquiries through the National Agricultural Advisory Service satisfy us that those who are taking part are learning a good deal, and the efficiency of their businesses is being substantially increased. The Farmers' Unions have welcomed the renewal of

1433
these Schemes, which will be subject to further consideration at the next Annual Review, and the Schemes were given a welcome in the Commons on July 18. My Lords, I commend these Schemes for the approval of the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Small Farm (Business Management) Scheme 1968, laid before the House on July 3, be approved.—(Lord Hilton of Upton.)
12.50 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hilton of Upton, for telling us something about the Scheme and how it is working, and from these Benches I welcome it as a useful little Scheme which will give help to the small farmer.
In farming today all profit margins are under great pressure, and that is especially so with livestock producers. Normally it is livestock production which is the basis of the small farmer's living. Therefore his income has been stationary, or has even shown a downward trend in recent years compared with the rising trend of the rest of the community.
As the noble Lord has said, the response to this Scheme has been rather less than the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food had hoped, and I believe that the total numbers who have taken up the Scheme are of the order of 5,600, against a potential, estimated to be about 40,000 units, which might be eligible for the Scheme. This is disappointing. I entirely agree with the noble Lord that the Scheme is a useful one. Most farmers will get a good deal of benefit from the introduction of sound management systems, if they have not already got them, and this is especially true of the small farmer, who very often does not have them.
This situation, where there is known to be need and the number of applications is so small in terms of the potential, prompts me to ask whether the Ministry has given sufficient publicity to this Scheme, and whether more could be done to publicise its benefits; to explain how it can help and what its practical value is; whether it is possible to arrange "open days" at farms that have taken up the Scheme and where the farmers are willing to co-operate and show what benefit they have received. This is the kind of demonstration which has the
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greatest value and is the greatest help. There is no doubt that the small farmer needs all the help we can give him, and although this Scheme is quite small in scope it could have a very great benefit.
I put those thoughts to the noble Lord and ask him if he will take them back to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (and I am sure that Mr. Cledwyn Hughes, coming from Wales, will understand the problems of the small farmer) and ask him whether more impetus could be given to this Scheme.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, for the welcome he has given this Scheme. I am not surprised, since the N.F.U. have already welcomed it, as have Members in another place. The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, has had a great deal of experience of different ways of publicising things in the farming fraternity, but I am pleased to tell him that the Ministry have been doing a number of things to try to publicise this Scheme. I know that very often when such Schemes are comparatively new farmers are slow to "catch on", but I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, what is being done so far.
Press notices and technical articles are being published in the trade Press and a distribution is being made of special leaflets. I hope the noble Lord will think that the one I have in my hand is a very attractive colour. It is rather like some of the literature issued by some political Parties—though not the one in which the noble Lord is especially interested. It is an attractive leaflet, and it contains some very good tips for farmers wishing to participate in the Scheme. These leaflets are being distributed at agricultural shows and meetings of the N.F.U., and similar events. Again, the N.A.A.S. are doing what they can, as usual, to publicise the Scheme, including the arranging of special introductory meetings, both in England and in Scotland, and trying to publicise the Schemes in the agricultural colleges. The suggestion made by the noble Lord that there might be "open days" at farms where the Scheme is already in operation might be well worth while. It has been successful in the case of other Schemes that have been introduced by the Government, and I will certainly put forward his suggestion to my right

1435
honourable friend. I cannot make any promises that it will be carried out, but I think it is a good suggestion. I am grateful for the support which the noble Lord has given to the Scheme.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SMALL FARM (BUSINESS MANAGEMENT) (SCOTLAND) SCHEME 1968
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: My Lords, I beg to move the approval of the Scottish Scheme.
Moved, That the Draft Small Farm (Business Management) (Scotland) Scheme 1968, laid before the House on 4th July, be approved.—(Lord Hilton of Upton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MEAT AND LIVESTOCK COMMISSION LEVY SCHEME (CONFIRMATION) ORDER 1968
12.59 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I beg to move that the Draft Meat and Livestock Commission Levy Scheme (Confirmation) Order 1968, laid before the House on 2nd July 1965, be approved. The purpose of the Order is to enable the Commission to finance its work. The Order has stimulated a good deal of discussion, both in another place and outside, and the related facts will be known as well to most of the interested Members of this House as they are to me. I do not, therefore, intend going into any descriptive detail. It would be discourteous of me to offer them more words which they have heard or read before. As I understand it, there is agreement on both sides of the House—there was agreement and there still is agreement—to set up this Commission, whose object is to improve the efficiency of the whole of the meat and livestock industry. The argument has been as to how the work of the Commission should be financed. There are some, probably including my noble friend, Lord Royle, who takes a keen and informed interest in these matters, who say that it should be financed out of public funds. I am sorry, but that just is "not on". The Act does not provide for it, and even though there
1436
has been some assistance for work which will become the Commission's responsibility, such as beef recording, there is no alternative to finding future money from the industry itself.
It is proposed that there should be a levy, and a levy applied at the point at which it is most economical to collect, namely, at the slaughterhouse. I emphasise that economy of collection is a real point. One of the arguments which have been advanced against extending the levy to cover imported meat is the argument about the efficiency and economy of collection, although there are, as noble Lords will know, other arguments against putting a levy on imported meat.
My right honourable friends the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland have listened very carefully to some of the objections that have been raised, and the rate of levy has been reduced. If it is to be increased again in the future, the Commission will have to come back to Ministers and to Parliament. I emphasise this because those who feel that matters may not work out as intended will clearly be able to express their viewpoint again if the possibility of finding an increased amount of money ever arises. In addition to this control which Parliament exercises, my right honourable friends have given an undertaking to consider representations of the trade if alter a year or so's experience of the scheme it appears that the levy is operating unfairly as between one section of the industry and another. I hope that with these assurances the House will be prepared to approve the Order. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Meat and Livestock Commission Levy Scheme (Confirmation) Order 1968, laid before the House on 2nd July 1965, be approved.—(Lord Beswick.)
1.13 p.m.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords. may I first of all say to my noble friend that I am not one of those people who believe that the money ought to be raised from public funds. In the course of what I have to say, and I hope it will not be too long although I feel rather strongly, that will not be my argument, and perhaps it will come out in what I want

1437
to say that this is the fact. Your Lordships know that in another place this Order was discussed for some hours and into two nights, and as a result it might well seem that in your Lordships' House on a Friday afternoon it is somewhat academic to discuss the matter. I feel, however, that this is something which must be aired in this House and expression made of people's anxieties with regard to the terms of the Order, and therefore I want to oppose the Order in any words that I have to command. My noble friend has not gone into great detail, but he has explained the purposes of the Order, and therefore, even to that extent, I will not repeat what he has said, and so save time. I want to base my arguments on two aspects of the Order: first, that the demands of the Commission for their administration are too ambitious, and, secondly, that the levy is imposed on only one small section of the meat and livestock industry.
On the first point, I for one, and I feel sure most of your Lordships, when giving support to the establishment of the Commission never for a moment envisaged that a sum of money like £1,850,000 for initial purposes would be asked for. Out of that figure £675,000 is in respect of work at the moment being carried out by existing agencies and supported at Government expense. It is now proposed to pay for that by a levy imposed on a small section of the industry; and that is the point I am emphasising. I will spare your Lordships the detailed costs of each item, but I claim that the estimates are exaggerated and excessive and the Commission are endeavouring to set up a new and expensive empire. The Minister must have held this view to some extent when he reduced the levy, for example down to 4s, on cattle, and made proportionate reductions on the smaller animals.
In the second place, and perhaps more important, is the shocking way in which the money is to be raised. The Commission are taking the easiest way, ignoring any equitable method, by making the slaughterers of all animals pay the levy for all the Commission's expenses. The activities of the Commission will range over a very wide field of the meat and livestock industry, from the farm gate down to the retail butcher's shop, and the pyramid contains many levels—farmer, livestock dealer, auc-
1438
tioneer, slaughterhouse operator, local authority abattoir owner, wholesaler, other distributor and retailer—and there are very many farms and very many points of retail distribution.
If the position may be compared to an hour-glass, like the one on the Table of your Lordships' House, the point of slaughter is the neck of the glass, and that narrow neck is the easy spot for the Commission to impose their levy without any regard at all to fairness. It means that the slaughterhouse operator or, as the Order says, a person who presents the animal for slaughter-and in very many cases it is one and the same person; the presenter of the animal and the slaughterer of the animal in so many cases, particularly in private slaughterhouses, is the same person—has to finance the whole gigantic operation while all of us in the meat and livestock industry escape contribution. The producer stands most to benefit from this scheme, but he is not the one who is making the contribution.
During the passage of the Bill through Parliament several statements were made by Ministers in both Houses that the levy system, when it was imposed, would be fair. If the whole of the burden is to be imposed on one small section of the industry and that is regarded as fair, I give up; and I must say I lose faith in my political friends who made those statements.
There are many other elements of unfairness. My noble friend referred to imported meat. Imported meat, a large proportion of our supply of meat in this country, completely escapes the levy, and yet the scheme includes all kinds of meat; and all types of cattle going through that exportation escape. But they will have received subsidies and advantages from the Commission. Animals imported alive apparently will escape the levy, yet they come into the ramifications of the Commission in the same way. The Minister set up several committees to advise the Commission and those committees are statutory. That was done because obviously the members of the Commission are not experts in the industry as a whole. The distribution committee have opposed the levy almost unanimously, and I am informed that it was that opposition that caused the delay in the presentation of the report between

1439
April and early in July. Having opposed it as strongly as they possibly could, the Committee were completely ignored and the Commission came through with the Report out of which this Order arises.
The Distribution Committee is drawn from most branches of the meat distribution trade. But the private slaughterhouse operators have no voice on that Committee. It is true that the local authorities have three representatives. But there are in this country three times as many private slaughterhouses as there are public slaughterhouses. In any case, there are many places where the private butcher merely rents floor space in the public slaughterhouse from the local authority in order to slaughter his animals. According to the Order, these men pay the levy, not the local authority.
I think that there is nothing inherently wrong in the Meat and Livestock Commission being financed by the industry, but the levy should be imposed on all sections. If I were to express a view as to the best method to get the money for the work of the Commission, I would say that it should be tied up with the February Price Review, and that the expenses of the Commission should be taken into consideration during the course of that Review. If this were done, then every section of the meat and livestock industry would become involved and would bear their share of the burden. It is impossible, as was suggested in the debate in another place, for the levy to be passed back by recovering from those who sell the animals. Prices at auctions go up in £5 bids. Without statutory authority, how can you make a deduction of 4s. or 5s, from an auction price on a beast which is costing £100? The levy cannot be passed on to the consumer, when again it would be only 4s. on a beast weighing 800 lbs. and costing £100. It would be real profiteering if any attempt were made to pass it on, because such a small amount could not possibly be passed in proportion to the value of the animal.
There are many other aspects of this matter, but I am conscious that I am talking too long and I do not want to weary the House. This Order received severe criticism from all sides in another place. I had many Lobby conversations
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with Members of Parliament during the course of the discussions on the Order, and I have read most carefully the reports. In the course of several hours I could find only one speech from the Back Benches supporting the Minister's contentions. It is true that when the Division was taken there was, I think, a majority of 47 in favour of the Order. But this was clearly a vote on the part of Government supporters out of sheer loyalty to the Minister. There is no doubt about that. This, in spite of so many of them expressing themselves in the debate, and many more having expressed themselves to me as being against the Order. We, as politicians, all know that this kind of thing happens, and that when the Division is called Members are loyal to their own Minister. In my view, this is precisely what happened. But that vote, I suggest, was no indication of the opposition which existed on Tory, Labour and Liberal Benches in another place the other night. I remember quite clearly that one speech in support of the Minister was rather half-hearted.
So the Order has arrived in your Lordships' House, and I am asking my noble friend to take it back for further consideration, and to ask the Minister to produce another scheme which will not hit so heavily one small section of the meat and livestock industry. In any case, this Order should be for one year only. Going back further than the suggestion made by my noble friend, that the trade might be consulted at the end of the year, I would much prefer that the Order should be made for one year aid for one year only, and that it should be mandatory that it be reconsidered at the end of the year. I feel certain that if this were done, the agitation which has been coming from the great proportion of the retail meat trade, from the wholesale trade and many others would be proved right at the end of those 12 months.
I cannot divide the House on this Order. I have memories of what happened when your Lordships threw out another Order in connection with Rhodesia, and all the constitutional problems which arose. Even were there to be a full House, and even had I some support, I should never dare, in these circumstances, to think of dividing the House. So I am appealing to my noble friend's sense of fairness and justice. The meat trade

1441
is up in arms about this Order, and already there is talk of non-co-operation in the scheme as a whole. If the Meat and Livestock Commission is ever to be a success, I suggest that it must have the good will of die traders who will have to operate it. Do the Commission want to run a scheme without the co-operation of the traders? I suggest that they would never hope to do anything of the kind.
If I have spoken for too long, it is only because I feel strongly, having been, although not now, associated with the meat trade for a large part of my life, and I hope that I shall have some sympathy from my noble friend.
1.18 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I have listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Royle, expressing the point of view of the butchers and, if I may say so, expressing it well. I feel that he has done us all a service by putting before us that point of view when we are debating this Order. As he reminded us, in another place widespread opposition was expressed to this Order, and indeed finally the House was divided against it. I have therefore considered whether I should advise my noble friends in this House to follow suit. However, I see that most of them are more concerned with eating the product of the livestock than talking about it at this moment.
I recollect that about a month ago the Prime Minister warned this noble House that at an early date it was "for the chopper". Rejecting the Order in regard to the butchers levy might be the right way in which to bring the chopper down. It certainly would provide an opportunity to see what sort of edge the Prime Minister's chopper has. However. with the Commons departing for their "hols" it would hardly be fair to bring them back again to sit next week. Therefore, I shall resist the temptation to join with the noble Lord, Lord Royle, even if he wished to divide the House.
I recall that when discussing Part I of the 1967 Act. I indicated my support in principle for the Meat and Livestock Commission, and I stand by that decision today. The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, will no doubt be relieved to hear that. On the other hand, I am hound to comment that the Minister and the Com-
1442
mission seem to have been outstandingly unsuccessful in putting the Scheme over. If the Commission does its job properly, as I hope it will, it will undoubtedly improve the general marketing of livestock throughout the country for the benefit of producers, distributors, and housewives.
The pioneering work that P.I.D.A. has done gives us an example of what can be done in this field. That being so, I feel that it should be possible to convince farmers and butchers alike that it is in their interests to support it. With regard to the levy itself, on the Committee stage of the Bill last year I did advise the Government that it would be wise to spread it over imported meat as well as over the home-produced meat, and this was a point to which the noble Lord. Lord Royle, adverted. I thought that this would help to make the incidence of the levy more acceptable. I am sorry that in the event that has not been one. I understand that there is power in the 1957 Act for the Minister to do that, and although the degree of benefit for the imported meat is not as great as that for the home-produced meat, it will undoubtedly got some benefit out of the progressive improvements of the structure.
I hope that this point may be considered perhaps in the future as a better method of spreading the incidence of the levy. The noble Lord, Lord Royle, had, I thought, a very cogent point when he said that the incidence of the levy at the point of slaughter seems unfair in its initial impact. I should expect that the cost of the levy will filter through in various ways to the final cost to the customer, to the housewife, over the counter. Just how that will happen I should not like to predict, but I think this is a point which must clearly be watched by the Minister during the coming year. If it appears that the whole impact of this extra cost has fallen direct on the slaughterer, and that the slaughterers' profit margins are thereby directly cut, then clearly some way must be found to spread the cost. I hope that, one way or another, it will be possible to make this levy acceptable to all concerned, producers, distributors, and butchers alike, because we want their co-operation in something which I believe can, in the long term, be beneficial to everybody.
1.24 p.m.
LORD WOOLLEY: My Lords, I support this Order, and I have listened with interest to Lord Royle's moving presentation of the butchers' point of view, and if he says that no one has given it other than lukewarm support, well at any rate I will try to remedy that by giving it full-blooded support. I do so because I know that for very many years this has been a neglected area in the whole agricultural economy, and indeed in the food economy. Livestock products represent the biggest single area in the agricultural economy, and very little has been done until, as the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, said, the P.I.D.A. was created, which itself met with very bitter opposition at its outset and very much criticism. But it worked its way through, and to-day it is undoubtedly recognised as a very valuable element in the pig industry.
I believe that this Commission has the potential to do this on a very much bigger scale. I believe that the objective that we must always bid for in the end is consumer service. If it does not do something that is worth while for our customers, the housewives of this country, then I do not think that the Scheme will he durable or justified. However, I believe that it will. In the process I think that the Commission needs to have adequate funds. The noble Lord, Lord Royle, has suggested that the funds are extravagant. I do not go along with that view: indeed, I think it is a very modest sum. I am rather more concerned lest there has been rather too much cheeseparing in leaning over too far backwards to try to meet the opposition that has been aroused. However, I accept that the sum proposed is probably of the right sort of order. People who are concerned have gone closely into it. I see no sign of extravagance whatever; indeed, I believe that this rather small sum of money is very much less than some single pig companies in this country spend annually simply on advertising a product, let alone the whole of the research that is involved for a vast industry of this kind.
On the question of how the money should be raised, there are the alternatives that it could be public money or it could come out of the trading channels. There are many policies that can be
1444
effectively implemented only through the use of public money, and public money on a big scale. I am in no way doctrinaire about this, but I would say that, on the whole, it is better that the funds should be raised by the people who are participating in the Scheme, who are affected by it. There is a greater sense of involvement; there is a greater interest. There certainly will be a greater keenness to scrutinise the work of the Commission if people are paying for it themselves, rather than its coming out of some public largesse.
I do not think the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Royle that the cost should be met from money allocated out of Price Review money, is practicable. If my memory serves me correctly, this is not possible, and even if it were so earmarked, the money would be coming through the Treasury and it would be the very counter, the thing the noble Lord has said he does not agree with.
So we come to the question of who should pay out, and from whom does one collect. I agree entirely with what the noble Lord has said about this being done, so far as is practically possible, on an equitable basis, but he himself has referred to the many elements that are involved in this very great complex. He has talked about the producers and while it is true that in some cases the producer does everything, in that he breeds, rears and feeds the animal—the calf, sheep, pig, whatever the animal may be—and presents it for slaughter, this is not the usual thing. There are quite a number of links in this chain, as the noble Lord knows—indeed he has referred to them.
So if one were to take in all these people, and bearing in mind that the main objective and purpose and justification for any Scheme of this kind is that it will serve the public interest, then it would be necessary to bring in the public too. They are beneficiaries, we hope: if they are not, there is very little purpose in the Scheme. I think it is really beyond the wit of man to devise an administrative system that would allocate the cost equitably as between all these atomised elements in the industry. I think that when it came to administration the whole Scheme would collapse under its own clumsiness and

1445
cost, and this is one of the greatest dangers with Schemes of this sort. They may be very good ideas; but in practice they can create so much cost, so much administrative expense, that the end result is very dubious.
There may, of course, be some who do not want a Scheme at all. There are those who do not think this is the right sort of Scheme. There are many farmers who, for years, have wanted a statutory Meat Marketing Board. The present Scheme, of course, came from the Verdon-Smith Committee, which was set up by the Conservative Minister of Agriculture. Their Report landed on the new Labour Minister of Agriculture's desk, and the Labour Government have carried it forward. This is, as your Lordships know, an agreed measure. There is a good deal of tongue-in-cheek quibbling by some people about it. There are, as I read the debate, a good many people who are doing an expert piece of fence-riding. I have not noticed anybody coming out with any cogent and positive proposals as to how they would do this otherwise than the Government have done it. They are making nice noises to the butchers, no doubt because that is a good thing to do politically, since butchers are effective and important people. That is not what concerns me. I speak as a farmer, and therefore I may he suspected of saying "I'm all right, Jack-let the butchers pay." I assure your Lordships that that is not my intention. I do not wish, nor do the farming community wish, to escape from a fair contribution to the whole exercise. Indeed, I am in no fear that we shall escape it.
The noble Lord has said that the butchers will not he able to pass it back or pass it forward. Knowing my friends the butchers, I am sure that they will pass it somewhere and will not stand as the sacrifical lamb in the bleak wind of this tremendous burden and penalty, which, the noble Lord went on to say, was so small that they could not identify it. Either it is big enough to identify and do something or other about or it is so microscopic that it does not matter. I believe that this levy will work out in the normal trade channels. Sometimes one part of the equation will be a little more and sometimes the other. I am sure that there will be no unfair burden resting
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on the butcher, nor should we wish there to be. We want to see equity. I take the noble Lord's simile about the hourglass, which is a good one. You have to find the bottleneck or point at which the animal is transformed into s meat carcase. That is at the point of slaughter. Until that time you do not know what happens to the animal. Once k lied, it becomes meat.
The Meat and Livestock Commission deserve our support, and not our grudging support. They have a difficult job to do in a very complex field. A lot of cold water has been thrown on this matter, I think quite unfairly. It has to prove itself. We shall see, and we shall take a keen interest. I think it is a sound proposition. It will not stand the world on its head; there is nothing dramatic or miracle-working about it, nor do we want that; but it represents steady progress. I think that this is a sensible Order to finance the Commission. I hope that there will be enough money and I do not disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Royle, that if after a period of time the financial requirements grow to a level of large and significant proportions, then an open mind should be kept as to whether or not at that time the Treasury ought to come into it. I do not think that is the case at the moment. I cannot tell what it will he in the future. I wish to support the Order.
12.36 p.m.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, after the brilliant and comprehensive speech of the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, there is little left for me to say; but in view of the challenge which was issued by the noble Lord, Lord Royle, to those who strongly support the constitution of the Meat and Livestock Commission I feel that it is my duty to make perfectly clear that, so far as I dare to speak for Scotland, I believe that we are 100 per cent. in agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, had to say.
In regard to imported meat and whether or not a levy should be pit upon it, I agree very much with my noble friend, Lord Nugent of Guildford. This matter ought to be looked into at some time in the not too distant future. I am not quite sure that it is right that one cannot put a levy on imported meat without giving that meat similar benefits in the market. I do not think that

1447
is a very good argument. What to my mind is a clear argument is that the imported meat is going to compete, with the advantage of not having to pay the levy which the home producer or home processor, the butcher, has to pay. The imported meat will get the benefits of certain of the advertising expertise which the Meat Commission will put in, and sufficient weight has not been given to this point.
The Chairman of the Meat and Livestock Commission, Sir Rex Cohen, is an expert on the retail trade and he has a particular interest in, and knowledge and understanding of, the problems of labelling. If a proper system of labelling meat comes in and helps the housewife and results in the sale of still more meat, then the first people to get on to the band-wagon will be the people who send in meat from abroad. They are in a way better organised than even we shall be under the Meat and Livestock Commission. I wish that people would realise the tremendous advantage of meat importers in being able to grade and regulate their products for marketing in this country.
Unless we have this Meat and Livestock Commission working, and unless we provide them with the money to enable them to work to the full, then obviously our whole industry, not just the producers, will continue to be at a considerable disadvantage. I think that the meat trade is rather sensitive. I share the belief of the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, that there are so many able persons running the meat industry that one cannot believe that they will not discover means of pushing the levy a little way back to the producer or a little way onwards to the consumer. When livestock are in short supply, it will go on to the consumer. When livestock are in full supply, then, as we know from past experience, it will come right back to the producer.
The noble Lord, Lord Woolley, said that a large part of British agriculture is composed of livestock. That applies even more so in Scotland. I believe that in Scotland about 80 per cent. of our total marketed output in agriculture is from animals, and nearly 50 per cent. of that is from meat animals. It is most important that our meat industry should
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be properly organised. Bearing in mind the task of getting the industry properly organised, the fundamental research which needs to be carried out, organised marketing, advertising, and the public relations work as between the industry and the rest of the country, if one thinks that 1½ per cent. is a large sum of money for the industry to put aside one has no idea of what is put aside by other industries for those purposes.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I do not think it is anything like as much as 1½ per cent. The total value of the livestock industry at the producer end must run into several hundred millions of pounds, and this is a sum of under £1½ million. I should think it is more like one quarter, or 0·1 or 0·2 per cent.
LORD BALER NO: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford. I realise that I had a "damned dot" one place out. If you take the marketed output of the meat industry it is well over £100 million—that is, taking it from the point of payment by the housewife—the levy being £1·8 million. I am very glad to be corrected by the noble Lord. because it makes my point even more attractive than it was before.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Royle said that the meat trade was up in arms, and I think it would be generally agreed that they have a very fine champion in my noble friend. But as was seen, the producers also have their champions, and I am not at all certain that when my noble friend entered the lists he quite appreciated what opposition he was going to meet. After the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, had spoken I felt that I could get up and do what I understand a certain statesman did in Bristol on one occasion, and just say "Ditto" and sit down again. But probably I ought to try to answer one or two of the points that have been made.
I was glad to hear my noble friend say that he was not in favour of a public subvention. But if he wants it to come through the Annual Review it is, in effect, a subvention through the back door. I quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, that this is only another way of saying that it should come out

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of the public purse. My noble friend also made a point about representation of private slaughterhouse owners on the Distribution Committee of the Commission. This is a point which he knows was discussed during earlier proceedings. The fact is that within a Committee of manageable size—and this Committee has 23 members—places had to be found for very many interests. Wholesalers, retailers, processors and others, who, in practice, comprise the operators of private slaughterhouses, are all represented.
What my noble friend was really concerned about was the complaint that money was being extracted for the industry as a whole from this one narrow point. But I agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Woolley—and I think I am right in saying that to some extent it was made by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford—that although the money is taken out at one point it will be diffused, or filtered through the whole of the industry, as the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, put it; or the retailers will find some way of "passing the buck" which is virtually what the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, said.
I emphasised at the beginning the economics of this matter. The estimate given to me from the Commission is that the costs of alternative systems of collection will be some three times or more the £125,000 which it is estimated will be the cost of collection under the present scheme. I am bound to say that I did not quite follow the argument of my noble friend Lord Royle, that because the Minister had reduced the rate of the levy, that was an indication of the ambitious character of the Commission, and that they were bent upon empire building. I should have thought the lesson to be drawn from this reduction was quite the opposite, and that no one had any intention of empire building.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, when the Commission make their original Report they asked for twice that amount, and I was accusing the Commission of empire building—not the Government. It was the Minister himself who reduced the figure.
LORD BESWICK: To the extent that there was this tendency towards empire building, I should have thought it had
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been squeezed out by the reduction in the rate of levy which is now proposed. There is one point outstanding, and that is the question of the extension to imported meat. I am bound to say that at first sight one naturally thinks that this would be a fair thing to do. Why should one impose the whole of the levy on the British producer? The fact of the matter is that the British producer himself hopes that the Commission will help his interests.
LORD ROYLE: You are not putting it on the producer.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the fact of the matter is that one way or the other we are dealing with British-produced meat, and this is to help the marketing of British-produced meat. The producers themselves say, reading an extract from the Farming Leader—which is the N.F.U. of Scotland's journal—of June 18, that they do not want the levy to be extended to imported meat. In fact, they say:
"We should recall that the Union"—
that is, the N.F.U. of Scotland—
"was instrumental in having sales promotion of home-produced livestock products included in the Commission's terms of reference. It is therefore illogical to expect meat importers to subsidise the promotion of products which are in competition with their trade
They end by saying in this article
"We can do without their contribution."
I think that fairly represents the point of view of the producers.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend will allow me to interrupt him again. It is easy for the producers to say, "We do not want any levy shared by the importing people." They are not paying the levy. It is the easiest thing in the world for them to say that.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am afraid that we are back in square one, and I shall not pursue this any further. The view of the Government, the view of the N.F.U., the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, is that this cost will, one way or the other, filter through or be diffused, throughout the whole of the industry.

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There is the point of imports, however, and that is a matter which has been seriously considered. Apart from the point which I have just made, that the British producers themselves do not want it, there are other considerations.
Those who supply us with meat from overseas would not take kindly to a system which imposed a levy upon what they exported to us. There would berepercussions which, in the long run, would not necessarily be in the best interests of this country. In any case, I think it has been generally agreed that it would not be fair to impose the same rate of levy upon imported meat. The rate would have to be smaller, its cost would be greater, and the net result would not be any help to the meat traders, for whom my noble friend Lord Royle has spoken so eloquently. Anyhow, there is a difference of viewpoint. The noble Lord has put his point of view and what we should now agree is that we should see how it works out in practice. If at the end of a year or so it can be shown that it is working out unfairly, then my right honourable friend has given a very adequate assurance that he will seriously consider what is represented to him by the meat trade. I hope, therefore, that we can now see this Commission launched and that we shall wish it well.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

REDUNDANCY FUND INCREASE OF CONTRIBUTIONS ORDER 1968
1.50 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS BARONESS PHILLIPS rose to move, That the Draft Redundancy Fund Increase of Contributions Order 1968, laid before the House on July 16, be approved. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Bowles I should like to move the first of the two Orders before your Lordships today, though I shall speak to them both. The effect of the Redundancy Fund (Advances out of the National Loans Fund) (No. 2) Order 1968 is to enable the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity, with the agreement of the Treasury, to accept temporary loans from the National Loans Fund to the Redundancy Fund up to £20 million for
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a period of two years beginning August 16, 1968. The effect of the Redundancy Fund Increase of Contributions Order 1968 is to increase the weekly Redundancy Fund contribution paid by employers from 10d. to 1s. 3d for a man and from 5d. to 7d. for a woman with effect from September 2, 1968. This Order is made in exercise of the powers given to the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity under Section 27(3) of the Redundancy Payments Act.
Both these Orders are made necessary because of the financial state of the Redundancy Fund. Your Lordships will recall the history of this Fund. After a short initial period during which receipts and expenditure were in balance, expenditure began to outstrip receipts, and in February, 1967, contributions were increased from 5d. for men and 2d. for women to the present level of 10d. for men and 5d. for women. The Minister of Labour, in introducing the Order which gave effect to these changes, mentioned that he had originally intended to increase the rates to 1s. for men and 6d. for women, but had accepted the advice of the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. that such increases would have been too drastic. Further rises in expenditure, however, made it necessary in July, 1967, to obtain Parliamentary approval for an increase in the borrowing power limit from £8 million to £12 million.
During the autumn of 1967 the adverse trend in outgoings continued, and further consultations took place with the C.B.I., the T.U.C. and other organisations. Following these consultations the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in his Budget speech that the Redundancy Fund contribution would be raised from 10d. to 1s. per week for men and from 5d. to 6d. per week for women with effect from September 2, 1968. Meanwhile, in order to safeguard the solvency of the Fund until these higher rates came into operation, Parliament approved in April. 1968, an increase in the borrowing limit from £12 million to £15 million.
In the past three months the numbers of payments have slightly decreased, from 63,550 in the March quarter to 62,755 in the June quarter, but outgoings have continued to rise. This is because the average amount of individual payments

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of rebate has sharply increased. The average payment in the financial year ended March, 1968, was £155; but the average for the March, 1968, quarter was £164 and in the June quarter it had risen to £173. This factor had a marked effect on weekly outgoings. In the nine months up to April this year weekly expenditure averaged about £800,000. In the following three months, however, average weekly expenditure rose to over £900,000.
The increase of contributions to 1s. and 6d. in September, proposed in the Budget speech, would have produced an income of £835,000 a week. This would have covered an expenditure of £800,000 a week, and a start would have have been made to reduce the deficit. But it is clearly inadequate to deal with outgoings of £900,000 a week, and a higher increase has therefore become inevitable. At the same time the accelerated drain on the Fund has brought the accumulated Fund debt to about £14 million—very near the present borrowing limit of £15 million. It is therefore only prudent to increase the borrowing powers to a level which will ensure the Fund's solvency.
The increases in contributions to 1s. 3d. for men and 7d. for women, which now replace those of 1s. for men and 6d. for women proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will produce an income of rather more than El million a week. If present expenditure remains steady at about £900,000 a week, the deficit will be wiped out in about three years. This is not meant to be a prediction, because outgoings are so vulnerable to fluctuations in the component factors making up each redundancy payment. For instance, while increases in wages would tend to increase expenditure, a shift in the age group of redundant workers towards the younger employees would act in the opposite way. It is at any rate the hope that the deficit will have fallen at the end of two years to below £8 million. This is the original borrowing limit written into the Act, and the present borrowing Order is for this reason designed to expire at the end of two years.
My Lords, the Government are not complacent about the working of the Redundancy Payments Act. Outgoings have been heavier than expected, and inevitably a new scheme of this sort has thrown up anomalies. The Department
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of Employment and Productivity are now examining the scheme with a view to seeing what improvements can be made. But, in asking your Lordships to approve these Orders to-day, I should like to say that the Government are convinced that the Redundancy Payments Act is serving a vital purpose in making economic and technological change, with the labour mobility that that implies, more acceptable to the working people of this country. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Redundancy Fund Increase of Contributions Order 1968, laid before the House on July 16 be approved.—(Baroness Phillips.)
1.57 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD:My Lords, may I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, for explaining to us the purpose of this Order, and start by saying that I shall give my support to it. I am afraid, however, that I must say some critical things about the history of this matter (which she put before us so lucidly and charmingly that it seemed really quite innocuous) because it rally is a very unhappy story. If I may just highlight the worst spots of it, which naturally the noble Baroness did not, this Redundancy Payments Scheme, which started in December, 1965, then estimated that its revenue per week would be £350,000, and with loan facilities for £8 million from the Exchequer the Minister expected that this provision would last for a "substantial period". Those are his words.
But, as the noble Baroness has told us, within twelve months he was back. again to the House raising the contributions—doubling them, in fact—and telling the House that he expected that the expenditure would go up to double what it was, to about £600,000 per week. He then came back again in July, 1967, with the outgoings, estimated at £600,000 per week, going up another £100,000, and asked for an increase of the borrowing powers from £8 million to £12 million, saying at the time that that £12 million would never be reached. I think it is just worth repeating the Minister's words of last year. He evidently was uneasy about the course of events, for he said this:
"I emphasise to the House that it is our intention to examine the nature of the Fund, the nature of the contributions, and to report to the House where the contribution level

1455
stands and what are the best long term interests of the Fund and how its solvency can and should be preserved ".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 24/7/67; col. 276.]
That was a year ago. Now, as the noble Baroness has told us, this Order will again put up the contributions, this time from 10d. to 1s. 3d. for men, and from 5d. to 7d. for women. This means that the contributions have now gone up three times—300 per cent., in three years; and the borrowing limit has gone up by 250 per cent., from £8 million to £20 million. I do not think any comment of mine is needed to demonstrate that the forecasts of the Minister of Labour (or, as the Minister is now called, the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity) have been completely meaningless, and it would be fair to say that the Minister now can have no idea what is happening in this Redundancy Fund, or what it may cost in the future. I think it is fair for me to comment that the present Government's determination to have an ever-larger say in the management of industry and commerce is all the more surprising, in view of their extraordinary record of incompetence, as here, in running our national affairs.
My Lords, I have studied very carefully the Junior Minister's speech in another place, and from this I gather that two of the major imponderables which make his forecasting look so ridiculous are, first of all, the level of unemployment, and, secondly, the age, length of service and earnings level of those becoming redundant. Indeed, the noble Baroness referred to some of these factors in her speech. I should like to make a comment on these two factors.
The unemployment level is now standing at the exceptionally high seasonally adjusted figure of 581,000, which is 2·5 per cent. It is true that this is about 1 per cent. higher than the Prime Minister predicted last November; and no doubt the unexpectedly large increase has had an important influence on the deficit in the Fund. On the other hand, the trend for long-term unemployment unfortunately seems to be increasing and now the figure for those unemployed over two months is something like 68 per cent. But presumably that is operating in the reverse direction with regard to the expenditure in the Fund. Am I right in thinking that the net effect of this very high level
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of unemployment has clearly upset the forecast? What noble Lords would like to know now is the Government forecast for next winter's unemployment level and how it is expected that this will affect the solvency of this Fund.
On the second point, the noble Baroness gave us some figures; but the Parliamentary Secretary in another place gave us no figures at all. But the noble Baroness gave us no precise analysis of the age, length of service and earnings level of claimants on the Fund; so we can only deduce what is happening from the bits of information which the noble Baroness has given us and which the Parliamentary Secretary gave in another place.
The Parliamentary Secretary in another place told the House that it was common practice when staff reductions had to be made in a firm for the employer and employees to put their heads together to make the maximum possible use of the Fund by inviting employees to volunteer for redundancy, with the incentive that those entitled to large sums would obviously do so. The Parliamentary Secretary commended this practice as being in the interests of industrial harmony. I do not know what value this practice would have for industrial harmony even in the short run; but bearing in mind that entitlement to a substantial claim for redundancy is once and for all, I should doubt whether in the long run it would be helpful. Certainly, the Minister's approval of this practice—which in my view is "a fiddle" and nothing less—goes a long way to explain why this high expenditure has so far exceeded the forecast. Indeed, the figures which the noble Baroness gave us to-day, that the average sum paid out on redundancy is increasing every quarter, makes it plain that the Minister's approval of this "fiddle" has undoubtedly become widely known, with the inevitable result that the claims coming in are above the average predicted.
If this kind of "fiddle" is approved by the Minister, it is not surprising to hear that other and more blatant arrangements are practised also. I read in The Times of March 23, of this particular incident, which I am sure is now well known:
"Technicians have all been guaranteed jobs with the new London Week-end Thames Television, the Welsh Harlech, and the Yorkshire Television Groups, but as well as continuity

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of employment and full pension rights, they have also received payments believed to total up to £250,000."
This is a shocking state of affairs. I say this with all sincerity. I hope that the noble Baroness will take this back to the Minister in another place: if the Minister lowers the standards of administration, it is not surprising if others follow him down the scale.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, could the noble Lord give me the source of the quotation he attributed to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in another place?
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, as I proceed with my speech I will give this information to the noble Baroness. It was referred to in another place; the Parliamentary Secretary approved of it. The point I want to make is that in my judgment it is high time that the Minister published a report of the review of this fund which was promised. If that is not to be done, I hope that the Commons watchdogs of the public purse, the Public Accounts Committee, will cast their expert eyes on what I regard as this highly unsatisfactory administrative affair.
I just throw this into the picture—I think it is relevant. The Minister of Social Security has now taken action to check what is, I think. officially called "voluntary unemployment" by those more generally called the "workshy". This indicates that the scale of this abuse of public funds by people who are receiving unemployment pay plus supplementary benefits and who are unwilling to take on jobs which are offered to them has reached serious dimensions. There are, unfortunately, many people who will abuse public funds, and, indeed, the Redundancy Fund, where the opportunity is offered. I think the Government have a duty to investigate, report and check what abuses there are in this field. I think they could be stopped.
My Lords, as I said at the start, the intention of the Scheme commands general approval. It is to soften the blow of redundancy—and we all wish to do that—and to ease the transition to a new job. But the existing Scheme in its present form bears all the signs of being no more than a rough-and-ready affair. In terms of making the best use of
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national manpower by helping the transition to a new job, it is not by any means clear that it is succeeding. The rising trend of unfilled vacancies in companies in the South-East and the rising unemployment levels in the North and Scotland, I think, tend to bear this out.
Now that the total expenditure of the Fund is running at a level of £900,000 a week, or £45 million a year, very large sums of money are involved. It is, in fact, quite a significant extra cost for industry to carry. I suggest that the rough-and-ready methods of the past are just not adequate and that in the light of almost three years' working experience a much more precise Scheme should now be worked out. I would suggest that some thought should be given to using at any rate some of the money for fitting a redundant worker for his new job, if necessary by re-training, rather than for paying him an unconditional lump sum. At the end of the day, this is going to be very much in his own interests as well as in the country's
I should like to make this suggestion, as an alternative approach that might be considered by the Ministry when this existing review is going on. Instead of the existing lump sum payment when a worker becomes redundant, there should be, to start with, a special high late of unemployment pay, which should continue until such time as he is offered suitable alternative job or is given a training course to fit him for another job where vacancies exist. Thai high rate should continue until the training is finished. If he refuses a suitable job or refuses the training scheme, his unemployment pay should be reduced to the basic level. I commend this as a constructive thought which I believe would make a better use of these very large sums of money now being paid out. Incidentally, I think this suggestion would embrace the need to expand the industrial training scheme which is running at too low a level to carry the large number which would be brought into it if my idea became practicable. In answer to the question of the noble Baroness, I have been able to look at the Hansard record of another place, to see where this particular reference came from, and my impression is that it came from col. 401, in the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary to the debate on 23rd July.

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I conclude my comments, my Lords, by saying that if the Government wish to repair the damage to their reputation from the administration of this Fund—and I am sure they do—they have an urgent obligation to complete the promised review and make a full report of their plan—which I hope will mean a completely revised scheme—to Parliament, and to do that as quickly as possible. My Lords, I am sorry to have to say so many critical things, especially to the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, but I feel that the record deserves it, and I hope that, as the general idea has my warm support, the noble Baroness will take back those thoughts to her right honourable friend in another place, and perhaps they will be of help in the review that is going on.
2.11 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should like first to thank the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, for his constructive suggestions. Inevitably, the idea of any payment in a situation of redundancy or unemployment must be linked with the desire to enable the man or woman to seek employment as early as possible. I will certainly convey to my right honourable friend the ideas that the noble Lord has put forward. As he was courteous enough to let me know that he was going to raise the point I did check about the review, and I find that in fact the Minister did not promise to give an account of a review. However, the whole Act and the working of the Act is under very close review all the time.
I think it worth while to point out to the noble Lord (I am sure he will agree with this) that the fact that the increases have been several, rather than one larger one, represents an attempt on the part of the Government not to place a greater financial burden on industry than is absolutely essential. This procedure has necessitated the Minister's returning to ask for several increases in the contribution. I think that also we must bear in mind (I am sure that your Lordships will be fair over this) that this is a scheme where there are no comparable precedents, and of necessity it will have to be kept under constant review. It is now moving into a stage where it will be a little easier to give more firm forecasting figures. It is a matter of regret
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on the part of the Government that it should be necessary to place an increased burden on industry at a time when higher productivity is being called for.
In a sense, the Scheme has been proved successful by the very fact that there have been these calls upon it. In relation to the figures concerning television employees, it has since been appreciated that these figures were greatly exaggerated; and the Government is satisfied that in most cases the redundancy proposals were justified. I still have not quite taken the noble Lord's point that the Under-Secretary was supporting what the noble Lord called "fiddles". I think that the Under-Secretary was trying to point out that in several of the cases mentioned redundancy payments were justified.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lady? I should he very pleased to read the statement, though it is not normal to do so. It shocked me so much to read it that I felt it was only right to comment on it to-day. It is stated in col. 401:
"The second sort of abuse—and I emphasise that it is abuse, in my view, only in the minds of the people who claim it to be so—concerns an employer who knows that a percentage of his work force is likely to be made redundant and offers his work force the opportunity to opt for redundancy if a portion of it chooses to do so. For example, the company with, say, 500 employees which says that 50 must be paid off on the first of next month and is prepared to take 50 volunteers. Clearly, the 50 volunteers are likely to be men who say, 'regretful as I am …'"
and so on. Then the Under-Secretary goes on:
…and the more substantial the sum, the more likely they are to volunteer for redundancy. This does not seem to me to be an abuse of the scheme. Indeed, it seems to be a way in which redundancy can be carried out without friction, with the minimum of hardship and with a positive contribution to industrial relations rather than industrial relations of the firm deteriorating."
My Lords, there may be some slight point in that, as I commented, but the general principle of this simply horrifies me. It really is a complete connivance in order to extract the maximum amount from the Scheme, and to a very large extent that is why the sums keep on going up and up.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should not like at this point to indulge

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in a debate on this question. It seems to me that it is a question of the interpretation the Under-Secretary was placing upon this particular situation, and it is, I think, related to the question of age. As a 50-year-old I rather resent the statement that a 50-year-old cannot be retrained, which seemed to me to run through some of the debate in the other place. As the prime of life must rise with the increased length of life, it seems that this is a matter which might well merit some discussion. I hope that the noble Lord will accept that I have tried to cover the points he raised. I will certainly convey his suggestion of an alternative approach, and we shall undoubtedly have an opportunity of reviewing this Act. Inevitably, in an Act of this kind there must be a great deal of flexibility in operation.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

REDUNDANCY FUND (ADVANCES OUT OF THE NATIONAL LOANS FUND) (No. 2) ORDER 1968
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Redundancy Fund (Advances out of the National Loans Fund) (No. 2) Order 1968, laid before the House on 16th July, be approved.—(Baroness Phillips.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ROYAL ASSENT
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Appropriation Act,

Finance Act,

British Standard Time Act,

Health Services and Public Health Act,

Sewerage (Scotland) Act,

International Organisations Act,

Social Work (Scotland) Act,

Hearing Aid Council Act,

Highlands and Island (Development) (Scotland) Act,

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Caravan Sites Act,

Adoption Act,

Theatres Act,

Friendly and Industrial and Provident Societies Act,

Swaziland Independence Act,

Overseas Aid Act,

International Monetary Fund Act,

Hovercraft Act,

Theft Act,

Ministry of Housing and Local Government Provisional Orders Confirmation (Blackpool and Stourbridge) Act,

Ministry of Housing and Local Government Provisional Order Confirmation (West Kent Main Sewerage District) Act,

Crosby Corporation Act,

Greater London Council (Vauxhall Cross Improvement) Act,

Ely Ouse-Essex Water Act,

Great Northern London Cemetery Company Act,

Hounslow Corporation Act,

Lancashire County Council (General Powers) Act,

Mersey Docks and Harbour Board Act,

Mid-Glamorgan Water Act,

Port of London Act.

Medway Water (Bewl Bridge Reservoir) Act,

British Railways Act,

British Railways (Mersey Railway Extensions) Act,

Cheshire County Council Act,

City of London (Various Powers) Act,

Durham County Council Act,

Greater London Council (General Powers) Act,

Leicester Corporation Act,

Greater London Council (Money) Act.

PUBLICATION OF PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT
Message from the Commons, that they concur in the Resolution communicated to them on Wednesday last relative to the Publication of Proceedings in Parliament.
House adjourned at twenty minutes past two o'clock.