Lords Sitting of 6 March 1968

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Worcester.

ROYAL ASSENT
2.36 p.m.
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 Act:
Transport Holding Company Act.

ROAD SAFETY: DIMMED HEADLIGHTS EXPERIMENT
2.37 p.m.
LORD FOLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any report to make on the experiment carried out recently in a defined area where, for a period, dimmed headlights, after dark, were made compulsory; and whether or not it is their intention in the near future to make statutory the use of dimmed headlights throughout the United Kingdom.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF PUBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS (LORD WINTERBOTTOM): My Lords, the only experiments involving the use of dimmed headlamps were undertaken on a limited basis in the London area using General Post Office vans and some taxis. The results were inconclusive. The Minister is still considering policy on the use of headlamps.
LORD FOLEY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his Answer,
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may I ask whether, in view of the fact that this practice has been commonplace in American cities for many years now, he does not think that the evidence is sufficient to justify trying the experiment in a more widespread way in this country?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, in fact there have been three experiments in this field. The Minister is studying them and, as I said earlier, the results are inconclusive. The study is continuing.
LORD ALLERTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether I am right in thinking that an experiment was carried out in the City of Birmingham which was considered locally to be very successful?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the noble Lord is correct. Locally it was considered to be successful, and that is one of the factors that will influence my right honourable friend when she comes to reach a decision on this subject.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, do the Question and the Answer refer to dimmed headlights or to dipped headlights, which seem to me to be a rather different feature?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, my noble friend has raised a rather technical point. We have dipped headlights and dimmed dipped headlights. Experiments have been carried out in both fields. I think the difference is that in one case the headlight is dipped, and in the other case it is dimmed. We have not yet decided what is the best thing to do.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, is it not important, in any regulations that are made in this matter, to be very careful that in complying with the law drivers do not so disable themselves that they kill somebody? They would not be altogether to blame. Therefore, a certain latitude must be allowed in difficult places.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I think that is entirely correct. There is a lot of difference between whether one dips a headlight or does not dip it. There is no question about it when one travels at 70 miles an hour or does not travel at 70 miles an hour. But there

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is an element of personal decision here which is of importance.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that one of the factors that would help in this problem is better street lighting? I do not know whether the noble Lord would agree, but my impression is that, except for the important main roads, the street lighting in Birmingham is much less good than it is, for instance, in London.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am afraid that I do not have the noble Duke's knowledge of Birmingham. But street lighting is obviously a factor.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that most cars are fitted with a dipping device, but remarkably few are fitted with a dimming device? Therefore, could this dipped/dimmed controversy be put on to a proper basis?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: Yes, my Lords. That is what my right honourable friend is, in fact, studying. There are various alternatives, and this is one of them.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say when his right honourable friend is likely to reach a decision in this matter, or will it be indefinitely postponed as some other projects are?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, nothing is indefinitely postponed by this Government. A decision will be reached at the proper time.

SALE OF HORNED CATTLE
LORD RAGLAN: 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 forbid the presentation for sale of horned cattle in store and fatstock markets.]
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: No, my Lords. The Government are not aware of any reasons which would justify a prohibition of this kind. The Markets (Protection of Animals) Order 1964
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already requires the separation of horned and other cattle, unless cattle of both classes are secured by the neck or head.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Is he not aware that this separation often does not in practice take place, and the horned animals inflict ferocious cruelty on other animals, particularly when they are penned tight in the market? Is my noble friend aware that in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland horned cattle are banned from markets? Why cannot we do the same?
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: Yes, my Lords, I can quite understand that there is a good deal of discomfort for non-horned animals if they are attacked by those with horns. I imagine it to be a very unpleasant experience. But we already have regulations which, if operated, will look after this. If my noble friend has come across cases where the animals have not been separated and tied by the head, then it seems to me that there is something lacking in the local marketing authority.
LORD KILBRACKEN: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that segregating the horned cattle and the "pollies" does not stop the horned cattle from harming their comrades who are also horned?
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, does not my noble friend agree that this shows up one of the disadvantages of unilateral disarmament?
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend one more question? Does he not think that, in view of the fact that severe cruelty is inflicted by horned cattle, and even by one horned animal on another horned animal, as my noble friend says, some financial incentive might be awarded to fanners to de-horn their cattle, such as withholding the calf subsidy for cattle which have not been de-horned?
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: My Lords, I think my right honourable friend would be in some difficulty if he started to operate that suggestion, but if my noble friend has any information on cruelty by one sort of animal on others, and if he will let me have it, I assure him that I will get my right honourable friend to look into it.

POLICE POWERS
2.44 p.m.
LORD MOYNIHAN: 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 a constable has any right to insist, in the absence of a warrant or some specific power to arrest without warrant, that a member of the public should come to a police station.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, it is one of the five principles on which the Judges' Rules are based that police officers, otherwise than by arrest, cannot compel any person against his will to come to or remain in any police station.
LORD MOYNIHAN: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much for that thoroughly satisfactory reply. May I ask him whether he would not agree that isolated incidents such as have been reported from time to time should if possible be prevented, as they definitely give a bad impression of the otherwise absolutely excellent services of the police force in this country?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his tribute to the police force, with which I am of course in agreement. It is true that there are occasional complaints—really a very small number. All of them are investigated, under Section 49 of the Police Act 1964—there is a statutory requirement to investigate—and considerably less than 10 per cent. are found to be justified.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, would the noble Lord confirm that a police officer does nothing wrong in inviting someone to come to a police station, and that it is up to the person who is so invited to decide whether or not to accept it?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I thought that that was implicit in my original Answer, but I am glad that the noble and learned Viscount has drawn attention to it.
LORD SHAWCROSS: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that
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those improperly detained by the police by being compelled to go to it police station have ample legal remedies under the existing law, and that it is most important not to place any further and unrealistic impediments in the way of the police in the discharge of their most difficult duties on behalf of the law-abiding citizenry?
LORD STONHAM: Again, my Lords, I am in agreement with the noble and learned Lord, but I do not accept that people are improperly detained or forced to go to a police station. I reject that entirely.

HOUSE OF LORDS POWERS
2.47 p.m.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which again stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they propose to introduce legislation to safeguard measures approved by the House of Commons from frustration by delay or defeat in the House of Lords.]
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, the inter-Party discussions on the reform of the House of Lords are continuing, and the date of the introduction of any legislation must depend on their progress.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, may I thank my noble friend for that Answer, and express the hope that the "head" ones will allow the "back" ones a word at some early and appropriate date?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I wonder whether I may ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House, having regard to the number of times that the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, has asked the same Question, whether the Government are considering introducing legislation to safeguard Lord Mitchison from delay, frustration and defeat?
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government whether, when they are deciding what to do in this regard, they will consider the arguments that I addressed them on November 8 last for doing away with the

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legislative powers of this House altogether and restricting its function to that of a debating society, except as regards legal matters?
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether, as it has been demonstrated in the last two debates that this noble House is the last refuge of individual conscience and the last battleground for human rights, we should not instead freeze its vestigial and remaining powers as it does such a good job?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I do not think that any of those questions requires an answer. I certainly do not propose to comment on the performance of the House last week, which we all observed and on which interesting comments were made. Nor am I sure that I like the word "vestigial".
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, following upon this Question, may I ask Her Majesty's Government when they propose to introduce legislation to safeguard measures approved by the House of Lords from frustration by delay in the House of Commons?
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, as we play "Yo-yo" in this House by defeating the Government, and sending legislation back to the Commons, and then, when the Commons disagree with us and it comes back, agreeing with the Commons, and as this can happen only in the first four years of a Parliament and then, in the fifth year, the Tories can defeat us on major legislation, is it not now time that we had the reform of the House of Lords?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that my Question is merely quoting an Election pledge, reaffirmed last April?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am well aware of all the points which have been made, including the inability of anyone to frustrate my noble friend.

RHODESIA EXECUTIONS
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have already given Private Notice. The Question is as follows:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government what action is proposed arising from the hanging of Africans in Rhodesia contrary to the reprieve granted by the Crown."
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor will be replying to this Question by making a Statement at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. After that I shall be making a Statement on the Annual Farm Price Review.

SOCIAL WORK (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to make further provision for promoting social welfare in Scotland; to consolidate with amendments certain enactments relating to the care and protection of children; to amend the law relating to the supervision and care of persons put on probation or released from prison etc.; to restrict the prosecution of children for offences; to establish children's panels to provide children's hearings in the case of children requiring compulsory measures of care; and for purposes connected with the aforesaid matters. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

POLICE MANPOWER AND RECRUITMENT
2.51 p.m.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR rose to call attention to the decision of Her Majesty's Government as a measure of economy, to slow down the rate of increase in the strength of the police, a step which can only give encouragement to crime and the criminal; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper I am inviting your Lordships this afternoon to consider a single point, the decision of Her Majesty's Government to limit the increase in police strength over the 15th months from January, 1968, to March, 1969, to a maximum of 1,200, despite the fact that recruitment to the police has been running in recent years at a considerably higher level than that. It is a single point but it has far-reaching consequences, as my Motion states. This decision has been taken in order to save money. It appears to me and to many of my noble friends a most ill-judged economy; and if the Government were to abandon some of their other ill-judged policies they would save much more than could be saved by this restrictive step.
To the best of my knowledge and belief there is virtual unanimity nowadays that the most powerful deterrent of all to crime is the likelihood of detection. It has been a commonplace for years, here, in another place and in the world outside Parliament, that the detection rate could be substantially raised if only we had more police. In numbers, the police in England and Wales at the end of 1966 were something like 18,000 below their authorised strength; in other words, numbers on average were only five-sixths of what they ought to be. I am confining my remarks this afternoon to England and Wales because I have no competence to speak about Scotland; but I have little doubt that much that I say could be truthfully repeated in relation to Scotland. The fact that police numbers on average throughout England and Wales are five-sixths of what they ought to be conceals wide variations. Some county forces are up to strength, but in some of the cities—and it is in the cities where most crime takes place—police strength is no more
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than three-quarters of what it ought to be. In other words, in those cities three policemen are having to do four men's work; and that is what gives the criminal his opportunity.
I grant that the establishment figures from which one has to calculate deficiencies are not conclusive. Some may need reduction; others, I suspect, may need increasing. The Police Research and Planning Branch at the Home Office, which I initiated, started in my time on a project to try to establish a uniform mode of assessment for the establishments of all police forces. In the last three years or so a number of force establishments have been revised, though I grant that none of those figures can be taken as final and conclusive in all circumstances. It has been forecast, for example, that the uniform adoption of unit beat policing throughout the whole country—at the moment it is employed only in a limited number of places—might be equivalent to adding 5,000 to police strength. If that, figure is correct—and this, too, is entirely hypothetical—that would reduce the deficiency of 18,000 to one of 13,000. It may well be smaller than 13,000 now, for I was starting with the figure at the end of 1966.
The detailed figures for the end of 1967 are, so far as I know, not yet published, but the Joint Under-Secretary of State stated in another place that police strength in 1967 grew by 4,100. However, in that same speech, made only five weeks ago, he confirmed that the Metropolitan Police were still 23 per cent. under strength; the police are 23 per cent. under strength throughout Greater London. In 1966—I do not know yet the 1967 figures—more than three out of every four crimes in the Metropolitan Police district were not cleared up, and most people would agree that that was substantially through shortage of manpower. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will be in a position to give us the latest figures, and I shall certainly yield to any numerical corrections. But I doubt whether it is far wrong to say that the deficiency in police strength to-day throughout England and Wales is something like 15,000, and ever if one allows for an eventual saving of 5,000 when unit beat policing has been spread across the whole country, that will still mean that in England and Wales we are

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short of 10,000 policemen—and the policeman is the strongest protection the law-abiding citizen has against crime and the criminal.
The short truth is that our defences against crime and the criminal are inadequate. And this is the moment which the Government choose to announce that over the 15 months from January, 1968, to March, 1969, as an economy measure, they will not allow police strength to rise by more than 1,200, and that if more recruits come who would raise police numbers above that figure, then, on the orders of the Home Secretary, they will be turned away.
My Lords, if the brake had not been applied by this economy measure there is, in my judgment, little doubt that that period of 15 months would have produced a much bigger bite into this long-continuing deficiency. I will explain why. The average increase in police strength from 1961 to 1966 was 2,000 a year. This improvement in strength started, your Lordships will remember, in 1961 with the marked improvement in police pay which was authorised by my noble friend Lord Butler of Saffron Walden; and the improvement has continued since. The net gain in strength, during 1966, according to the published reports, was 2,500. In 1967, as I have said, it has been stated by the Joint Under-Secretary to have been 4,124. There was also in that year a nearly equal improvement in civilian manpower in police service. In other words, things were going well. Had the 1967 trend been able to continue, the gain in police manpower over the next 15 months would have been 5,000. The Government say, "No, it must not be 5,000; it must be no more than 1,200."
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, will the noble Lord permit me to interrupt him? He said that there was a nearly equivalent increase in civilian strength to that mentioned by my honourable friend in another place. I take it that the noble Lord was speaking proportionately and not numerically.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, I was seeking to say that the net increase in civilian manpower in police service was of the same order of magnitude as the increase in policemen them-
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selves; about 4,000 policemen and about 4,000 civilians.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I will give the exact figures later, but the increase was not as high as 4,000 civilians in a single year.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, in that case I have misread what the Joint Under-Secretary of State said in another place on January 29. I am sorry; it was not as high as I thought it had been.
My Lords, without any doubt, the present Government's policies have up to now had a substantial effect for good on police recruiting, and this surely should be said on the credit side against the much harm that they have done. Home Office experience over many years has shown that recruitment to the police tends to go ahead faster in periods of general unemployment and industrial insecurity. The present Government's policies have created insecurity, and have created a long period of higher than normal unemployment. These are just the conditions when men turn their minds to the Police Service as a career, because it is one of the careers which in such circumstances offer absolute certainty of continuing employment.
I have little doubt that there is a connection between the substantial rise in police strength in the last year or two and the fact that indictable crime in 1967 showed the smallest rise for years; and, indeed, the detection rate showed a small improvement. It was the smallest rise in crime; nevertheless we must face the fact that crime did go on rising. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will confirm that crime is now something like five times as prevalent as it was thirty years ago, and there are more than three times as many in prison now as there were then. These facts, I submit, are a disgrace upon the nation and upon us all. They are stark facts which cannot be explained away.
Crime would undoubtedly be more effectively countered if the police were fully up to strength. The tragedy is that at just this favourable time for making good the deficiency, the Government have thought it proper to put the brake on recruiting. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, regrets the decision, though he will loyally defend

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the policy even if it is indefensible. What seems to me inexcusable is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer who, until lately, was himself Home Secretary and must be taken as knowing the close relationship between crime and police strength should have forced on his successor as Home Secretary this encouragement to the criminals.
It is not the forces that are nearly up to strength which will suffer, though I understand that if a force is less than 10 per cent. below strength it is not to be allowed in these 15 months to make good any of its deficiency. The worst damage will be done in those areas where the deficiency is greatest. An increase of only 1 per cent. of the authorised strength is, I understand, to be allowed over the 15 months in forces where the deficiency is between 10 per cent. and 20 per cent. In forces where the deficiency is over 20 per cent.—and until recently I know that there were some forces with deficiencies of over 30 per cent.—an increase of only 2 per cent. in strength is to be permitted. So, for example, the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, with his force 23 per cent. below strength, is being told that he must not recruit all the men he could, if that would result in his force ending up in March of next year less than 21 per cent. below strength.
In that connection I would beg leave to quote again, as I did during our debate on November 29, what seems to me a very pertinent paragraph from the last available Annual Report of the Commissioner, because it illustrates so aptly the improvement that could take place in policing and in crime prevention and detection if only there were enough men. The Commissioner said:
"Last year I reported on the setting up of a highly mobile striking force, the Special Patrol Group which started in April, 1965. All its members are volunteers and their activities have, strongly confirmed my hopes for its success. The Group has been responsible for 530 arrests for crime and the recovery of £21,220 worth of stolen property as well as making 197 arrests for other offences. … Its flexibility, mobility and facility of communication makes it an effective formation for dealing with police problems in contemporary circumstances. When the manpower situation permits I would propose to extend the scheme considerably."
And the Commissioner who thus reported on one of the most promising developments in policing in the Metropolitan area is told that by March of next year he
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must not try to bring his force beyond 79 per cent. of the strength it should have.
My Lords, what are he and chief constables to do? In other cities, such as Birmingham and Liverpool, the police forces are grievously below strength. Current economic conditions in them are favourable to police recruiting, yet they are to be made to turn away recruits. The obvious step for them to take would be to carry further the process of "civilianisation". I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Conesford is present, because he will not like that word, and may indeed not understand it. That being so, I will explain to him that this means introducing civilians into police posts to take the place of policemen who would otherwise be required for those particular jobs. It is one of the most helpful developments over a long period of years that the substitution of civilians for policemen has in many forces been carried so far.
As I say, the obvious step for a chief constable to take in the circumstances would be to see whether there were any more posts at present occupied by policemen which could be taken ever by civilians. But this Governmert have stopped every loophole. They have said, and I quote the circular issued on January 18 last, that:
"In general, during 1968–69 there should be no increase of civilian employees over the number now in post."
In a later circular, No. 42 of 1968, dated February 6, the Home Office has offered to give consideration to special cases of civilian employment, but even that second circular has reaffirmed the policy statement I have just read out.
Up to now it has been the general policy of successive Home Secretaries to encourage the recruitment of police cadets. Police cadets are young men over the age of 16 and below 19 who train themselves for police work with the expectation of being attested as full constables on or after their nineteenth birthday. This again has been an admirable development. Now it seems to me that those forces which have been most successful in attracting police cadets are liable to find themselves the hardest hit on recruitment. The Home Secretary has issued instructions, quite rightly, that every police cadet reaching the age of

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attestation should be attested and enrolled into the police, but where this process of attesting police cadets will bring the force up to or beyond the strength permitted by the economy order, then the Government say that there must be no recruiting whatever of candidates other than cadets. Surely this must mean that in some forces which are much below strength, though they are strong in cadets, the ban on fresh recruiting will be absolute. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will be able to confirm this.
Finally, I want to draw attention to the newly amalgamated forces, and to forces like the new Tees-side force which has come into existence to police the new County Borough of Tees-side. I really initiated the present procedure of amalgamation by the Police Act of 1964, and I wholeheartedly approve of the way my successors have been implementing the amalgamation policy which that Act has made possible. But when a number of unequal forces are amalgamated into one, at first there will almost inevitably be some unbalance in the new force. One or more of the old smaller forces, just to take one example, may not have gone so far as others in making use of civilians, and there may be more opportunity, therefore, of substituting civilians for policemen in that part of the new force. Amalgamation of a number of forces into one puts a quite exceptional strain at the outset upon everybody, and upon the new chief constable most of all. If there is an unbalance, if there are weaknesses, they should be rectified as swiftly as possible, or the new force will not attain its proper efficiency. Here, if anywhere, flexibility of recruitment of both constables and civilians is an absolute necessity, and it is a flexibility which the Government's policy seems to take away.
I know that the Government cannot undo the harm which is being done by their decision to put the brake hard on, when what the crime situation demands is a rapid growth of police strength. But at any rate the Government can mitigate the harm, if they will give an assurance to Parliament that the special cases of new amalgamations and new forces will be treated considerately, and that the policy will not be so applied as to wreck
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the efforts of the chief constables of these new forces to make them efficient.
I have made clear my view that the Home Secretary should never have allowed the Chancellor to force upon him this limitation of police recruitment which can only encourage the criminal. In a debate as recently as November 29 on a Motion by the noble Lord, Lord Rowley, who I am glad is proposing to speak this afternoon, every noble Lord who spoke took a grim view of the growth of organised crime. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, described it as
"one of the most serious issues affecting us as a civilised community."
Referring to the police, he closed his speech by saying:
"My right honourable friend the Home Secretary is firmly determined to provide them with all the tools and all the organisation they require for success in their supremely important job."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, col. 146, 29/11/67.]
What value attaches to that assurance, now that the new Home Secretary, under pressure from the former Home Secretary now at the Treasury, is holding back the police from recruiting all the men they require? I beg to move for Papers.
3.16 p.m.
LORD SHAWCROSS: My Lords, I fully appreciate, if I may say so, the great difficulties of the Government in this matter of public expenditure. Very great cuts have to be made—indeed, I am one of those who think that the cuts so far made are to some extent illusory, and certainly inadequate. No doubt when there has to be a massive retrenchment of this kind in Government expenditure there will always be those like myself who will say: "Let the cut be there, or let the cut be there but do not let it come in the particular activity which is the subject of my own special interest". We all have our pets, which we should like to protect from the cold blast of public financial retrenchment, if and when it takes place.
In those circumstances, all that those of us who, like myself, are not attached to any political Party can do is to argue that it is for the Government to settle their priorities in matters of this kind and to suggest with all humility, as I want to do, that it is possible that the advisers of Her Majesty's Government have not in this case given sufficient consideration,

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have not taken enough time, have not engaged in adequate consultation, before deciding where these cuts should come and that they ought to take whatever opportunity there may be for reconsidering the position.
To take this question of over-hasty—I will not say panic—decision, in the latter part of December the Home Secretary, commenting on the position of the police forces, which were admittedly under-established, said that there was then "an encouraging trend of increased recruitment". He cannot have had much time since making that statement about the encouraging trend of increased recruitment to study the effect of decisions announced within less than a month, which would virtually stop all additional recruitment from outside the forces. Take the question of consultation. Some few years ago there was established an organisation called the Police Advisory Council, which was eminently qualified to assist the Government with information and with opinions upon this very problem of the size of the various police forces. Were they consulted before these cuts were made? Or is this—I hope not—another example of that form of government by contempt of which there have been too many examples in recent months? I say that I hope not, and I do hope not, because both the present Home Secretary and his predecessor—and I gladly pay tribute to this—have enjoyed and merited a very high reputation for their interest in the police and for their realistic view about the administration of our criminal law.
What is the real importance of this question of the reduction in the size of the police force? I agree—and I think we must all agree—with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, in saying that it is its effect on the prevention of crime and the protection of the rights of the law-abiding citizen. As a life-long member of the Howard League, and now the Chairman of the Law Reform Society called "Justice", I am convinced, and I think nowadays everybody is convinced, that the main deterrent to crime is not heavy sentences, but the probability—no one can ever say the certainty—of detection. I do not for a moment say that heavy sentences are not sometimes necessary, if only to deter such persons as the train robbers from too much
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enjoyment of their own ill-gotten gains. But heavy sentences are, in a sense, an admission of the failure of our arrangements. The more serious criminals are not deterred by the risk of heavy sentences; they make their plans on the basis that they are not going to be arrested or sentenced at all: and of course, in the past more often than not they have been right.
All over the country—I am not saying in every particular force, but in general all over the country—police establishments are too low. It is absolutely futile for the Home Secretary to say, as he said the other day in another place, that he does not accept that the deficiency of about 18,000 between the actual and the authorised establishments of the police in this country is correct, and that he is going to have a scientific examination made of the whole problem. This is, if I may say so with the greatest respect, really "all my eye and Betty Martin".
This matter has been very fully examined, and by Her Majesty's present advisers. Only last year the Reports of the Working Parties into Police Manpower, Equipment and Efficiency were published by the Government. The main Committee was presided over by the honourable and learned gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Home Department. Who better able to make a scientific examination of what was required in the establishment of the police forces of this country? If I may read it, this is what in one paragraph they state—and this after prolonged examination by experts, looking at the matter from the point of view of using all the latest methods, scientific aids, methods of policing and the rest:
"It is well-known that the police service of England and Wales has for years suffered a chronic shortage of manpower. The Royal Commission on the Police, in their interim report recommended that realistic establishments should be settled for all forces in which the existing authorised establishment was believed to fall short of the number of police required. It was hoped in this way to establish the extent of the true deficiency."
It was in 1960 that the Interim Report of the Royal Commission on the Police in regard to this matter of strength was published. The Report goes on:
"As a result of reviews undertaken since that time, and in particular since police authorities whose establishments had not been brought

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up to date were invited, early in 1965, to review the situation, and to submit proposals to the Home Office, establishments have been increased from a total of 77,490 in 1961, to 98,060 in 1966. During the same period there has been a net increase in the total strength of the police in England and Wales from 71,598 to 82,115. On 1st May, 1966, there accordingly existed a paper deficiency of strength amounting to 15,945; and the review of establishments had not yet been wholly completed. In particular, the need for mobile policemen on the roads has not yet been fully assessed: this is being considered by a Working Party on the Policing of Motorways and Trunk Roads."
Then they said, after going into the question of civilian recruitment, a matter of great importance in relieving the police for what are really police duties:
"The problem of the adequacy of manpower touches almost every aspect of police administration, and upon its sucessful solution depends in large measure the morale and contentment of the police."
I want to emphasise this, because it is a matter of the greatest importance that this force, which is serving the country so well, should be encouraged in its morale and contentment. The Report goes on:
"On this, in turn, depends the quality of service which the police are able to give to the public—a matter on which Britain has an eviable reputation. We wish, therefore, to emphasise at the beginning of our Report that our recommendations in favour of a stronger civilian support structure, and for the further use of the special constabulary, are in no way designed to obscure the central problem of building up the strength of the regular police."
It is perfectly true, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, pointed out, that new methods may effect significant economies in the use of police manpower: civilians—whose recruitment, incidentally, is now to be wholly stopped, as I understand the present proposals- may replace the police in the conduct of many merely administrative duties; motor cars, telecommunications, the unit beat system, computers—all these things may help. But nobody has hitherto imagined that the savings in manpower which would be achieved by new police methods of this kind would be used to cut down actual police establishments. It had always hitherto been thought by those connected with the administration of the police that these savings should be used in order to reduce overtime working—one of the great disincentives to police recruitment, too much week-end
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Working—and to cut down, too, the grossly excessive case-loads on the Criminal Investigation Department.
The position, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, indicated, is nowhere worse than it is in London. The Metropolitan Police have a splendid record of service and considerable achievement, for which I am sure everybody in this House and in the country at large is grateful. We ask too much sometimes of this comparatively small body of men. The police force in Paris alone—and I do not think one would call that the centre of a Police State—is equal to the whole establishment in England and Wales. In 1921 the police force in the Metropolitan Area was slightly larger than it is to-day. Since 1921 the population and the problems which have to be dealt with by the police have, of course, immensely increased. In 1921 there were 17,000 indictable offences in the Metropolitan Police Area. In 1965—that is the last year for which I have the official statistics, and it is more since—the number had increased from 17,000 to 282,000. Yet we have fewer police to deal with those offences. It is not surprising that in the result only 22 per cent. of the known offences in the Metropolitan Area are cleared up. The criminal knows that his chance of getting away with these crimes is something at the rate of 4 to 1 in his favour.
It is true that the position in the Metropolitan Area was a little better last year than it was the year before, and there is no doubt that the reason for this improvement has been that the Metropolitan Police Force is a little larger than it was the year before. It is a splendid thing that the rate in the increase in crime is slowing up, and I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will tell us all about it and derive some encouragement from it. But it is a little too early yet to identify any long-term trend. There have been differences of this kind in other periods since the war, and we should be foolish to say that the battle was yet anything like won; and I am sure the noble Lord will not suggest it.
We must remember that crimes of violence, like robbery, in the repression of which police strength is patricularly important, are still showing a very alarming rate of increase. But if there is a

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trend, it is undoubtedly due, as indeed the Home Secretary asserted only a short time ago, to the fact that over the last few years there has been a significant increase in police strengths. But, my Lords, all that is now stopped, and recruitment into the police from the general public, and in particular (and I should like to emphasise this because this is a most important aspect of recruitment into the force) recruitment from the higher levels of education, recruitment of graduates or of people with "A" level qualifications, will, so far as one can see, be brought completely to a standstill.
I wonder whether I might be allowed to read to your Lordships part of a letter I have received from a chief constable, one quite unknown to me, in a district far away from my own, who is responsible for a pretty sizable force. He says:
"At a time like this, when it appears that the police are at last being able to stem the mounting crime wave, the Government decision to restrict police recruiting to a contemptuously low level would be laughable if it were not so serious.
"This force (in common with many others) already has more than enough cadets, who will reach the age of 19 before April, 1969, to fill all the vacancies, which I am allowed to fill, during the period of restriction. The result is that I shall either have to turn away all other applicants, or else ask some of my cadets to postpone their entry into the regular force for several months after their 19th birthday.
"I have no doubt that the recently announced run-down in the Armed Services would have resulted in many more applications to join the Police Service; but chief constables, everywhere, will be forced to ask many excellent men to wait for about 15 months before their applications can be considered. It seems unlikely that these men will be content to take a temporary job, even if they could find one, and they will therefore be lost to the Police Service for ever.
"Within the last few months many chief constables have been asked by Home Office to purchase extra motor cars and pocket wireless sets in order to increase the unit beat police schemes."
My Lords, may I pause there for a moment to point out, that, while we all hope for a great deal from the unit beat system, one aspect of it which is necessary to its success is that members of the unit beat force should be in close contact with their area, in personal contact with their area; and that means that the area has to be limited, and that there must be a sufficient number of members for each unit for each area. The chief constable goes on:
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"This force has bought all the cars and pocket wireless sets; but we do rot have enough men, at the moment, fully to implement our schemes, and we shall not be able to recruit them …. This means that some of this expensive new equipment will remain idle."
Another chief constable, also from a distant place, has written to me to say this—and it indicates, if I may quote it, a different aspect:
"The act of freezing recruitment at its present level means not only that I will be unable to recruit the additional men required, in my view, to make the amalgamation"—
this is a case of one of the amalgamated forces; and we all rejoice in the steps which the Home Secretary has taken to produce these amalgamations—
"thoroughly effective, but also that I must carry the short-fall on the existing inadequate establishment. The position is complicated by the fact that, in order to make do with the existing unexamined establishment, I relied on the recruitment of additional civilian staff of various grades to carry out functions at present peformed by police officers: but the civilian establishment, too, has been frozen and therefore I am required to continue to use a large number of police officers to perform non-police duties."
Then he goes on to make the same point about the necessity for recruiting cadets, and continues:
"… Our ability to recruit police officers from the general public is severely hampered, and we are unable, effectively, to get the benefit of the additional attractions of such a modern police force in the eyes of school leavers and others.
"Broadly speaking, therefore, my view is that what is going to be affected in our case, and I must suppose in the Police Service generally, is the trimming off of those vital extensions of police efficiency which will make the difference between a rising and a declining crime rate."
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, am I to understand that the noble Lord said he was quoting from a letter from a serving chief officer of police?
LORD SHAWCROSS: It has been estimated—and this is, I think, a moderate estimate, based on those offences which have been reported to the police, and not on others—that £40 million is stolen each year; in the Metropolitan Area the Chief Commissioner, in his Report, gave the figure for the last year as £21 million, only a small portion of which is recovered. I think that in the Metropolitan Area the value was £3 million more than in the year before. To save (I think the figure is) £6 million, we are going to

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call a halt to the main measures—the build-up of police manpower—calculated to discourage, and eventually to reduce, this enormous economic loss to the country, to say nothing of the other untold miseries which follow from the commission of successful crime. It is very difficult to understand how this makes economic sense. On social and moral grounds, it seems to me to be quite indefensible.

RHODESIA EXECUTIONS
3.38 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, with the permission of the House, and I hope of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester, may I intervene to repeat a Statement which has been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs. The following is the Statement:
"The House will already have learned with deep regret of the execution in Salisbury this morning of the three men whose fate has been so much in all our minds in the last few days. I think that for most of us regret has been accompanied by a sense of shock and outrage at the execution of men, however abhorrent the crimes for which they were sentenced, who had been so long under sentence of death and who had been denied time for their cases to be determined by the court of final appeal. And I would remind the House that, at the time of the executions, proceedings in the Privy Council to challenge their legality had already been begun. I need not dwell on the fact that the executions took place in defiance of the exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy.
"Let me add that nothing can remove or reduce the grave personal responsibility that rests on all those involved in these executions. The legal implications of what has been done are receiving urgent consideration by my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney General.
"In answer to questions in the last two days, I have urged on the House that we should separate the legal and humanitarian considerations, on the one hand, and the political issues, on the
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other. But we now have to face the situation which has been created by the régime's decision to execute the three men. That decision defied both common humanity and the Royal Prerogative. It is evident from the reports we have all seen of protracted meetings yesterday in Salisbury of Mr. Smith and his colleagues that their decision was a deliberate and considered one.
"The régime themselves have thus made it impossible to keep the different issues separate as I have been trying to do. In particular, there is the matter of the ideas brought back recently from Salisbury by the right honourable Member for Kinross and West Perthshire. When the news of the impending executions reached us we were carefully considering those ideas. But the régime have created a new and grave situation. The House will understand that I would wish to discuss with my colleagues in the Cabinet before giving a considered view of the consequences which flow from to-day's tragic events in Salisbury.
"Finally, I wish to turn to a quite separate point, which I think I ought to mention to the House. It does not arise from the executions but from certain views recently expressed by the Chief Justice of Rhodesia on the Constitutional issues. There is an instrument, known as a Dormant Commission, which empowers the Chief Justice to discharge the duties of the Governor in the event of the latter's disability. It is clearly inappropriate in the light of the views which Sir Hugh Beadle has expressed that he should be the person designated to discharge the Governor's duties in that event, and we are therefore taking steps to enable the Dormant Commission to be revoked."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement made by my right honourable friend.
LORD BROCK WAY: My Lords, is my noble and learned friend aware that all of us appreciate the gravity and the tragedy of the Statement that he has made? May I ask him whether, in view of the fact—and we were reserved yesterday—that to-day it is clear that the régime in Rhodesia has now quite definitely

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shut the door on a return to constitutional government, our Government, in the consideration which they are giving, will refer this matter to the Security Council of the United Nations, which has been defied as well as our Government and the Crown?
May I ask the noble and learned Lord, further, whether the Government will consider that through the United Nations firmer action should be taken, rather than concentrating on threats of penalties which unfortunately at the moment we have not the power to operate? Is it not the issue of action to enable this illegal régime to be overthrown, rather than any other issue which arises from these deplorable events?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the question of seeking an extension of sanctions by the Security Council is already under consderation by the Government. It is one that needs thorough and careful consideration, and I cannot give any definite answer this afternoon. I am not sure whether my noble friend, in the last part of his question, was referring to a use of force.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, I share the sense of regret, of shock and of outrage referred to by the Commonwealth Secretary. Since we discussed these matters 24 hours ago, tragedy has been piled on tragedy. Would not the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor agree that this is a time for hard thought rather than for hasty speech, and that it is important for all of us to avoid, by unguarded word, making a grave situation graver still?
LORD BYERS: My Lords, I wish, with my colleagues, to be associated with the expressions of the deepest regret at the executions which took place this morning at Salisbury. I would not wish to comment on this brutal act until the Government have made a clear statement. May I ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor when we are likely to have another statement, and whether he is in a position to say anything on the future of the Chief Justice? If he is not able to do so, I shall quite understand.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give a definite answer to the first question, but I imagine that a statement will not be
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long delayed. I do not think I should comment on the position of the Chief Justice, first because I think we have a practice, which is certainly laid down by Mr. Speaker in another place, that the conduct of judges is not to be discussed except on a Motion, and, secondly, because it is obvious that there is a division of opinion among the Rhodesian Judiciary, Mr. Justice Fieldsend having resigned and Mr. Dendy Young having said that he is not able to follow the views expressed by the Appellate Division.
I have mentioned that this afternoon because both those facts have been censored out of the Rhodesian Press, as also has Mr. Justice Fieldsend's letter of resignation, and the London Parliamentary report of yesterday has been doctored, also to omit any reference to them. For those reasons I would rather not discuss the position of these gentlemen this afternoon.
LORD ROWLEY: My Lords, while I agree with the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, would not the Lord Chancellor agree that as a result of these events the position of the Governor will become almost impossible? I would not ask for any information as to any possible decision, but may we take it that, in view of the embarrassment to the Governor, the position he is in will be given most careful consideration?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, my Lords; of course I share with all my colleagues our great admiration for the Governor, who continues to remain staunch and true.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, on the constitutional issue do the Government bear in mind the possibility of a reference to the Judicial Committee under Section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act 1933, as was done in 1934 in a case of piracy involving foreign relations?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the Government already have in mind the terms of Section 4, but I have some reason to think that in any case before the end of the week there may be a petition to the Privy Council for special leave to appeal in the Madzimbamuto case.
LORD MOYNIHAN: My Lords, whilst I agree that this is a subject which needs careful consideration, I would ask whether the noble and learned Lord will tell us what he has considered about the question of the other 109 people who I believe are under sentence of death. Whereas I appreciate that one does not want to be rash, I feel that a certain degree of speed may be necessary to avoid what is clearly a murder being turned into a massacre.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, there are, I believe, about 90 people, but they are very much in our minds.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, while I accept the advice of my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor to say nothing that would make a bad situation even worse, may I ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House whether some opportunity will be given in the reasonably near future for the House to debate the general matter of the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards Rhodesia?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, there are always opportunities open. It your Lordships wish to debate Rhodesia there are days which are available, either in the hands of the Opposition or by other means. Without wishing to discourage the idea, or to say that the suggestion is inappropriate, I have very much in mind the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, and I think there is much to be said for that. However, obviously the Government would meet the wishes of the House if there was a clearly expressed view. I will bear the noble Lord's request in mind.

POLICE MANPOWER AND RECRUITMENT
3.50 p.m.
Debate resumed.
THE LORD BISHOP OF WORCESTER: My Lords, as one who has always lived under the pressure of economic circumstances, I can appreciate the need for a general reduction in public expenditure, but there are surely areas in our public life where expenditure becomes insurance and therefore the keeping up of our
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premiums a wise policy. I should have thought that the police come into this category. There are signs to-day that there are improvements in recruiting, and with the development of new techniques of prevention and detection, the police are just beginning to keep the rate of the incidence of crime under control. Any blow to police prestige and manpower is bound to halt this progress. I think it is bound to be acknowledged that, unfortunately, due to various reasons the police have suffered a deterioration in the confidence shown in them by the public. What is needed now is not undue economy in recruitment, but a marked gesture of confidence to raise their morale. Nothing could do this better than making an exception of them in the economy drive. The total sum, as has been suggested, is not very great whereas the effect of the cuts might undermine and even destroy confidence.
I think it is important to realise and to notice the changing character of police relationships with the public, and this is a matter to which the police themselves are giving the most careful attention; and in this there has been very close cooperation with the Churches. I do not know whether your Lordships are aware that, on the initiative of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, a Commission was set up under the chairmanship of the Bishop of Birmingham which has produced a most valuable report under the title Police—a Social Study. This Report deals with certain matters such as where the police and the public meet, the object of laws, the rights of the civil authorities, standards in society today, the policeman's life, and responsibility for law and order in a changing society. The Commission remains in being and, under the auspices of the British Council of Churches, a permanent committee of police and Church representatives is continuing the work of the Commission.
Already a number of courses have been planned at the William Temple College at Rugby. These are, first of all, for key police officers who are dealing with the changes in society and their effects on the Police Service. By a very happy coincidence, yesterday I travelled down in a train with my own chief constable, who had been attending one of these courses, and he spoke of their value. Other

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courses are to follow for clergy, ministers, social workers, sociologists and lawyers, with a view to broadening the bases of that peace and public order which is consistent with necessary social change. The object of this exercise, as I see it, is threefold. It is, first of all, to create the means whereby social developments are responsibly handled by the police and the public in partnership; secondly, to encourage and educate the public to realise that they are responsible for the maintenance of law and order assisted by the police rather than the reverse; and, thirdly, to work out with the police and the law-makers the proper relationship between law and morality. We had an example in the debate yesterday of the problem of law and morality, which led me to feel that if I was not careful I should have to say on Sunday: "Thou shalt not steal with the exception that you can take something as long as it is not permanently taken from the other".
I would suggest that all this is a very important new phenomenon in the whole field of police and public relationships, and it is regarded so in fact by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Superintendents' Association, the Police Federation, and the Home Office Police Department, all of whom, with representatives of the Churches, are co-operating on the committee to which I referred. I trust indeed that your Lordships will forgive me for what might seem to be a deviation from the terms of the Motion we are discussing this afternoon, but I have mentioned them as I believe they are somewhat relevant, because surely the more responsible a policeman can be made to feel and the more he understands the basic social and moral reasons for his work the better he can do that work, and the more society will value his presence.
It would seem to me to be most depressing to both the police, who are fine body of men and women, and the public, just when we are beginning to see the possibilities of a real partnership being established, that economies in manpower and recruitment of a substantial character should even be thought of. It is surely a situation in which a small amount of money can do a great deal of harm, if withheld, and a tremendous amount of good, if granted.
3.57 p.m.
LORD ROWLEY: My Lords, I think your Lordships' House is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, for raising this particular debate. We had a debate, as he mentioned, on November 29, when all aspects of the problem of crime were discussed, and I certainly do not propose to go over the same ground this afternoon. May I also say at the beginning to my noble friend Lord Stonham that while I am somewhat concerned, if not discouraged, by the announcement that was recently made by the Home Secretary, like the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, I fully realise the difficulties facing the Government. While I fully support all the economic measures which the Government are taking to restore our economy and to secure an eventual surplus in our trade balance, I none the less find it difficult to understand why they should pick out the particular aspect of our national life centering on the police force.
I propose this afternoon, in the very few minutes I am going to take up your Lordships' time, to deal with the position in the metropolis. In my view, and I think the figures support my assertion, the waves of crime that have swept over our country during the last ten or twenty years have swept most heavily over the Metropolitan Area. Both the noble Lords, Lord Brooke and Lord Shaw-cross, gave us some statistics. I am going to give another set of statistics. The number of indictable offences in the Metropolitan Area went up from 110,000 in 1955 to 282,000 in 1965. That is an increase of 160 per cent. It is an appalling thought that in this country of ours, which has the reputation throughout the world of being one of the most law abiding nations, we should have this record of crime. Not all of them were crimes of violence; they include all indictable offences, the largest proportion being crimes of larceny. None the less, as the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, pointed out, there has been a very discouraging increase in crimes of violence in the Metropolitan Area during the past few years.
The Metropolitan Police Force, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, said, is 23 per cent. below the establishment of 25,000. In 1955, which in a sense saw the beginning of this great wave of crimes, the

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Metropolitan Police Force mustered something like 16,500. It is now up to about 19,000 but, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, pointed out, it is still 23 per cent. below strength—23 per cent. below strength so far as the police force is concerned, with 164 per cent. increase in the number of indictable crimes.
Accepting that it is quite impossible for the Government to revise their declaration that the police forces of the country are not going to be allowed to increase their strength by more than 1,200 during the next 15 months, I should like to ask the Government whether it would not be possible to reconsider that ceiling in so far as it applies to the metropolis of London and therefore to the Metropolitan Police Force. I do not know whether administratively that would be possible. Surely, if we accept the view, as the statistics seem to indicate, that crime is worse in London than in any other part of the country, possibly in all other parts put together, would it not be possible to say, "So far as the metropolis is concerned we will allow the Commissioner of Police to recruit as many new entrants as is possible"?
My disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, is that I am not sure that had the Government not imposed this ban, nevertheless there would have been any substantial increase in the number of recruits, because, as he knows, over the years 1955 to 1965 the Metropolitan Police Force itself was increased by only 17 per cent. That covers a period of 10 years. None the less, the fact that the police authorities are forbidden to recruit more than a total of 1,200 over the next 15 months seems to me to suggest that the efforts of the police authorities to combat this crime wave will be quite seriously retarded. If we accept the view that the best way of dealing with crime is by prevention through detection, the more police we have the better and more effective our methods of detection will be.
On the other hand, I am quite prepared to admit to my noble friend that unlimited numbers of policemen are not sufficient. There has to be not only an adequate supply of police officers, but also operational efficiency. The Police Commissioner's Report of last year states that 300 police officers have been supplied with portable radios. I believe that is
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one valuable way of improving the efficiency of detection. Can he tell us what is the position to-day? Because if the numbers of police officers are to be restricted, surely it is all the more important to increase the operational efficiency of those who are now in the police force, whether it be the Metropolitan Police Force or the police forces of any other part of the country. Therefore, perhaps he can tell us what progress is being made in regard to the number of portable radios which are carried by individual police officers on the unit beat to which my noble friend Lord Shawcross referred. It seems to me vital that, in these days of mobility of the criminal, this one method of operational efficiency should be as widespread as possible.
One has to remember that even 25,000 police officers in the metropolis of London is not something that should be considered an exaggerated number. I believe that the population of London is about the same as that of New York. To-day, the strength of the New York police is 25,000 as against the 19,000 in the metropolis of London. Therefore the recruitment of more police officers for London as well as for the Provinces seems to me a matter of the greatest urgency, if we are going successfully to combat this great surge of crime which is disfiguring our national life at the present time.
One more point. Can my noble friend say what is the policy of the Government with regard to coloured policemen? I spend a certain amount of time in the United States and in various parts of the Commonwealth. My experience is that, wherever there are substantial coloured populations, whether it be in our own Commonwealth or in the United States, there is, proportionate to the population, a substantial number of coloured policemen. According to a statement made the other day there are 12 coloured policemen in the whole of the United Kingdom. I know the problem of educational standards. I have talked this matter over with police officers in other countries. There is a difficulty with regard to educational standards; but I have seen enough of coloured policemen, both in the United States and recently in Jamaica, to form the opinion that they have the makings of good policemen.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend would allow me to answer that point now, in case there should be any question about it before I wind up the debate. The policy of Her Majesty's Government in this matter is that there should be no discrimination whatsoever, and the qualifications for entry have no reference at all to the colour of a person's skin. With regard to education, of course it is not merely a question of normal, formal education, but living here for a time is most important; and we think, and certainly hope, that we shall have a far greater number of policemen of colour in the police forces when those who at least have been educated here from youth, or were even born here, are old enough to join the forces and have the necessary background. But apart from that, there is no discrimination at all. We welcome them.
LORD ROWLEY: My Lords, I hope I was not suggesting that there was any discrimination. What I was seeking to elucidate from my noble friend, and I have succeeded, is the policy of the Government in relation to the enrolment of coloured policemen in this country. May I just say that what he has said would, I think, satisfy a good many of those who may have had doubts about what is the policy of the Government. Finally, may I urge this one further point on my noble friend. This ban is for fifteen months. Can we be assured that it is almost certain that at the end of the fifteen months the ban will be removed, and that steps will be taken to launch a recruiting drive to help the police forces of the country to build up their strength so as once more to become a potent factor in dealing with the problem of crime?

AGRICULTURE: ANNUAL REVIEW
4.10 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, with permission I should like to repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in another place about this year's Annual Agricultural Review, the details of which are in a White Paper available in the Printed Paper Office. It is as follows:
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"Since the last Annual Review net income and net output have risen in spite of a sharp increase in cost. Productivity has also recovered and there have been encouraging developments in most of the commodities. The effects of the exceptional determinations we made last year are thus clearly beginning to show.
"At this year's Annual Review, the Government have felt it necessary to strike a balance of many considerations. We want to see the upward trend in production maintained, so that agriculture can make its full contribution to import saving on the broad lines of the selective expansion programme. On the other hand we must conserve national resources and keep public spending as low as possible. For this reason agriculture, like other industries, must be expected to bear a reasonable proportion of its cost increases, assessed this year at £68½ million, out of rising productivity in the way envisaged in the assurance given by the Government at the 1966 Review.
"Cereals production has been increasing but, as I informed the House in December, we believe that further expansion, particularly of wheat, is necessary to contribute to the growth in demand. We have therefore decided to abolish the standard quantity for wheat and to increase the price by 1s. 6d. a cwt.; to raise the standard quantity for barley by 750,000 tons; and to raise the price both for barley and oats by 5d. I know that the industry will welcome, in particular, the major changes we have made on standard quantities.
"On potatoes we shall be increasing the guaranteed price by 7s. 6d. a ton, and we have also undertaken, if support buying should become necessary for the 1968 crop, to make an additional contribution towards the cost, up to a limit of rather more than £1 million. We are raising the price of sugar beet by 3s. 6d. a ton.
"Production of eggs must be kept in line with the increase in demand, and the guaranteed price will be reduced by ¼d. a dozen.
"As a result of the decisions we took last year a recovery in the pig herd is now well under way. We want

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this maintained. Our aim is to keep prices stable over the coming year at a rather higher level than producers are currently getting. We have therefore widened the middle band by 300,000 at each end, and have increased the basic guaranteed price by 1s. a score. As a result pig producers need not fear that further expansion will lead to an early cut in the price. The raising of the top of the middle band, like our decision on the standard quantities for cereals, shows that we are looking for increased production.
"The beef and milk herds have been severely hit by the foot-and-mouth outbreak. Even so, expansion has gone on. We want to see this maintained. The guaranteed price of milk will be raised after allowing for the standard quantity adjustment, by 1¼d. a gallon. This takes into account the 'dilution effect' of expansion of the dairy herd in the interests of beef production. To cover this and higher distributive costs, the milk retail price will be raised from 10d. to 10½d. a pint at the beginning of July. We have recognised the need for a further substantial incentive for beef production. We are therefore raising the guaranteed price for cattle by 11s. a cwt to £10 a cwt. and, in view of the particular importance of cattle rearing to parts of the United Kingdom, adding £2 to the hill cow subsidy and 30s. to the beef cow subsidy.
"Finally, there has been some further decline in the total sheep flock. Nevertheless, there has been some expansion of the flocks in the hills and uplands, which should go further in the light of the changes we made last year in the hill sheep subsidy. This year, in order to maintain an effective outlet for store sheep as well as to assist fattening elsewhere, we are raising the guaranteed price by 2½d. a lb.
"In making these determinations, we have concentrated on end prices, since it is here that the impact is likely to be greatest. Overall, they amount to £52½ million. This is a big sum. But the additional costs which the industry has to bear are also very high. The industry is being expected to bear
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about one-quarter of these costs, but fanners will still retain about half of the gain from their increasing productivity to improve income and provide resources for further investment. The Government believe that the determinations reached, taken together with those at the 1967 Review, will enable the industry to sustain the encouraging forward momentum that is now under way, and are fully consistent with the needs of the economy as a whole. Our decision has not been easy but I think that it is fair and right."
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for making this Statement. May I ask him four questions? First, can he tell the House the reaction of the National Farmers' Union to this settlement? Secondly, is the noble Lord aware that we very much welcome the increases of net output, and should like to congratulate farmers and farmworkers on achieving them—all the more so in the face of the very steeply rising cost increases of £68½ million, to which the noble Lord referred? In passing, may I say that this is the highest since 1951 and is a sidelight on the Government's economic failure.
My third question is this: Is the noble Lord aware that the figure of £52 million will undoubtedly make the headlines in to-morrow's daily papers as, "An extra £52 million for farmers"? But, in fact, fanners are going to be £16 million worse off before allowing for the annual deficiency factor. My fourth question to the noble Lord is to ask whether he is aware that this award, although, as he has observed, large in itself—and skilfully allocated, if I may say so—is unlikely to be enough, in my judgment, to finance the big further food expansion that we want, and further emphasises the need to change to the Common Market system of import levies. Will the noble Lord please say whether there is a prospect of his colleague the Minister of Agriculture starting consultations with the N.F.U. with a view to making a changeover next year?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, may I first of all thank the noble Lord for his

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selectively fair approach to this Statement. In answer to his question about the N.F.U., I understand that they have not been able to give a formal agreement to the Review, but on the other hand they have not positively disagreed with it. The noble Lord pointed out that the cost increase is the highest ever this past year, and of course I accept that this is so, although I do not agree with the noble Lord's allocation of the blame. He will also, I am sure, accept that last year we saw, I think, the highest award of all time since the 1948 Act. Certainly the net result to the farmer is the highest since 1948. That exceptional award was a pump-priming operation, and its consequences will continue this year, with the additional encouragement given in the present Review award. I quite agree with the noble Lord that the figure of £52½ million is a very large sum and it can be misrepresented in the Press. I have no doubt that some people may misrepresent it, but I hope he and others will ensure that a proper appreciation is made, and that the award will be seen as giving the best bargain to any urban consumer in Europe, certainly if one judges things by the price of food.
The noble Lord also said that, although this is a large figure, the farmers will be £16 million out of pocket. I am almost tempted to refer to the time when I was in a police court during the war, and the Duke of Marlborough, who was on the bench, charged me with having my motor car side window halfway down and I told him that in fact it was halfway up. In this case, although it can be said that the farmer is £16 million out of pocket, it can also equally fairly be said that he is £15 million in pocket, since he retains half of the £30 million increase in productivity.
The noble Lord finally suggested that this was an inadequate award, and that we ought to be considering an entire change of policy in these matters. I do not necessarily agree with him that we should be considering the change that he suggested, but my right honourable friend is in close touch with the N.F.U., and if consultations or discussions are called for I am sure he will be ready to listen to what they have to say.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, I want to be slightly less grudging than the
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noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford. I and my noble friends feel that against the economic background this is a very good Review. It may be that we are wrong for the reason that we have these Price Reviews every year, they are the subject of months and months of close negotiation with many interlocking details, and we are then given them in the form of a Statement. So it is really impossible to decide, except by a very snap judgment, whether they are good or bad and we cannot put any meaningful questions at all. I admire the way the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, put some meaningful questions; I am sure that I cannot. Nevertheless, it seems to me that these Price Reviews are peculiarly unsuitable to the form of a Statement, and I wonder whether it would be helpful to try to bring them out in future in some totally different way. Having said that, my snap judgment is that this is as good a Review as we could possibly expect under the present economic circumstances.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I quite agree with him that there is a case for what ha says, in the same way as there is a case against an annual Budget, in so far as we now have to look at these things over a period of more than twelve months. I have no doubt that what the noble Lord has said will be considered, and I thank him again for his fair assessment of what is intended to be a fair Review.
LORD GRANVILLE OF EYE: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it is not important that this Review—I was not quite sure whether he said that his right honourable friend had received the full approval or agreement of the National Fanners' Union, but I think it is a good one—should lay the foundation and create adequate incentives for doing what the economic position of the country urgently requires; that is, to enable the agricultural industry considerably to increase its productivity to take the place of the imports, some of which are unnecessary, which are coming into this country?
LORD BESWICK: Yes, my Lords. I think I can safely agree with what my noble friend has said.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend just one small question on milk prices? As I jotted it down, I think he said that the price was increased by 1¼d. a gallon and that the retail price from October would go up by ½d. a pint. If that is correct, it means that the retail price of milk is going up at the rate of 4d. a gallon for half a year, or 2d. a gallon spread over the whole year, in respect of a rise of 1¼d. a gallon to the producer. In other words, the retail margin has at the same time been increased in this Review. Perhaps my noble friend will confirm that I am right, or will tell me if I am wrong.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, what I actually said was that to cover the award of 1¼d. a gallon, the milk retail price would be raised from 10d. to 10¼d. a pint at the beginning of July.
LORD WOOLLEY: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for the Statement which he has made, may I ask him whether he is aware that the economic conditions of the country, which have been referred to and which have, as it were, been prayed in aid as giving this Review a rosy reflection—cause the farmers of this country to look, and to look in vain, in this Review for a really bold decision by the Government along the lines that have been mentioned by my noble friend who sits behind the Front Bench. The industry is once again left to carry this very considerable burden of £16 million or more—and that is quite a lot to carry—and it has been carrying these loads for year after year after year to an extent that perhaps no other industry in this country has been expected or prepared to absorb.
At a time of national personal stringency this is not a question of having an increase in personal incomes. It is a question of the industry having the wherewithal to make an investment, to service the fixed capital and working capital investment that it has already made, and to replace the imports and get more from our natural resources. I am quite sure that, in ratio terms, there have been many worse Reviews than this one, but this is an occasion when there ought to have been boldness on the part of Her Majesty's Government. But this boldness is lacking, and I have tried to show the reaction of the fanning community. I am
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sorry to have to cast this rather damp reflection on what has been received by others—perhaps others with a little less experience and practical involvement in this—
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, may I say that we should have made a great many of these very points, if it had been the custom of your Lordships' House to do so after a Statement.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Henley. It is of course the practice to ask questions, and not to make speeches on a Statement of this kind. May I just say, in reply to what I take to be a question by the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, that I am sorry he has made the remarks which he has, because I know that a number will tend to follow his lead, and I think he was being rather unfair. He said that year after year we have left the farming community to carry a burden. In point of fact, if his memory goes back that long, last year was a very good year. The Review was an exceptionally good one, the award was an exceptionally good one, and the momentum created by that award is continuing, and we think it will continue with this present fair award.
Finally, knowing the general attitude of the farming community, my own view is that the farming community, like most other people in this country, are prepared in the present difficult situation to make an effort and to back Britain. Even though the farmers are asked to absorb £16 million out of their increased productivity, they will still have an extra £15 million as an increase in their income or for extra investment in their farms.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, in bearing in mind the inevitable grumbles of the farming community, will my noble friend also bear in mind that when we open our county papers each week and read the column headed, "Wills of the week", we are staggered by the enormous fortunes that farmers are leaving.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I shall continue to steer a straight course between partiality and impartiality.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, would my

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noble friend observe from a quick breakdown of these figures, which I think are reasonably generous, that cereals, sugar beet and beef, which are the main increases, are all to increase the fortunes being made regularly by the large farmers, and there is precious little—only 1½.—to help the small farmers?
LORD BESWICK: What the awards are also doing, my Lords, is to increase the contribution towards import saving.

POLICE MANPOWER AND RECRUITMENT
4.29 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, before resuming our discussion on the police, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, will allow me to suggest to him that it was the noble Duke of York, rather than the great Duke of Marlborough, who was undecided whether his army was halfway up or halfway down the hill.
I too should like to thank my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor for introducing this most important Motion in your Lordships' House. Having read all that was said in another place by the Under-Secretary of State on January 29 of this year, and having also heard a certain amount of it repeated here to-day, I should like to say at once how impressed I am that the Home Office and the police are having such great success in maintaining and increasing the numbers and the efficiency of the police. I was also very heartened to see that the Under-Secretary of State in another place had guaranteed what the noble Lord, Lord Rowley, was asking; that is, that the radios and cars for the unit beat patrols were going to be kept up to full strength, and that there was to be no diminishment at all. All this is absolutely as it should be, because here we are fighting a war against crime.
However, on the point of numbers, I appreciate that it is very hard to be absolutely dogmatic whether one needs X plus 100 or X minus 100 to do any particular job at any one moment. But one has to remember that these establishment figures, which are altered from time to time, are not reached arbitrarily by the
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Home Office on its own. They are reached after the Police Advisory Board have met and discussed with the chief constable concerned and with Her Majesty'; Chief Inspector of Constabulary—and they are the people who know full well what new methods of crime detection the:, have at their disposal. They work out all these details, and it is only when they have done that that they come to the figures which are recommended; and these figures are recommended to make them efficient.
On this word "efficiency", one thing worries me very much. I have always been worried—I referred to it in 1965 and again at the end of last year—whether we had enough university-trained, educated people, graduates, in the police force. In 1965, out of the then total of 78,000 (I think it was), we had only 28. In the debate a few months ago the then Leader of the House, the noble Earl, Lord Longford, assured me that 80 graduates were being considered for enrolment and recruitment on the special basis that was being discussed. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will be able to reassure me that what the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, suggested will not be the case, and that they will not be going out of the window, because I regard it as a matter of great importance to the police in their drive for efficiency.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, they are not going out of the window.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for that statement.
It is no good being complacent when we are told that the figures for crime detection are better than they were, because we know that the crime rate is still enormously high—far higher than any civilised country should ever expect or want. In fact, in places like Manchester we know that the crime rate is still increasing. It is no good, therefore, as my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor said, telling us that if the unit beat patrol system is equivalent to a 5 per cent. increase in efficiency then this is as good as an injection of 5,000 new men.
The fact remains that if these improved methods are to have the success that they should have, and deserve to have, we should accept the advice of the police authorities who recommend the

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establishment numbers and raise the number of police by another 5,000. Then we should have still more efficiency. For instance, we are told that the police are to get an increase of only 1,200 over the fifteen months to March, 1969. In all probability, they would have had far more success in crime prevention and reduction if they had had the extra 5,000 recruits which they might well have expected in the twelve months of 1968. I think the last year for which we had recruiting figures was 1967, and I think the net increase was 4.200—and the figures are steadily going up. It was a great Victorian judge, Baron Bramwell, of the Court of Exchequer, who once said that one should always ask oneself, in this context, "Would he"—that is, the criminal— "have done it if there had been a policeman at his elbow?" My Lords, if we ask ourselves that question honestly, we know the answer perfectly well.
Having considered that, we might also think of the amount of money that is probably stolen in any one year. The noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, said that he thought it was something around £40 million. According to the Fourth Annual Review undertaken by the Security Division Gazette of Great Britain for the year 1966, which was based only on the indictable offences known to the police in the United Kingdom, they worked it out that, conservatively, it was £47 million. Of that £47 million (which, I repeat, represented only indictable offences known to the police; not to mention all the other little things—or big things—we do not know about), only £9 million was recovered. So I should like to re-emphasise what the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, said, that it does look like false economy.
We should then also remember that it is the considered opinion of that great criminologist, who is the Professor of Criminology at Cambridge, Professor Leonard Radzinowicz, with all the scientific aids at his disposal, that only some 15 per cent. of crimes committed are known to the police, actually get into their books. Only 15 per cent., my Lords! This is a considered figure. When this fact is taken into account, too, I think it should deflate our complacency at the improved rates of crime detection. We should not rely on these things too much
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To come back to the Metropolitan Police Force, with their 23 per cent. deficiency, is it really fair to allow them only this increase of 500 over fifteen months with which to deal with all their tasks, when they were reasonably hoping to increase by probably more than 1,000 in these twelve months, bearing in mind that in the last year they did very well? They then had a net increase of 800, so it is fair to assume that they would have got more than 1,000 this year had they been allowed to do so. My Lords, 500 new men is all they are going to be allowed extra, against their admitted deficiency of 6,000 officers. That is the deficiency—6,000 officers! Personally, like my noble friend Lord Brooke, I do not consider that it is really good enough, or fair enough to them.
Consider the hundred and one things that they have to do. I was very impressed by the statement by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Area of the myriad tasks for which he had to find men. I took one look at the Cup Final at Wembley in 1966. It was just another day in the year for them, although admittedly a particularly big day; but what did it mean to the Commissioner, having to find men? It is just worth thinking about. He had to find 18 inspectors, 46 sergeants and 473 constables to be at Wembley to manage and keep order, not to mention 2 more sergeants and 9 constables who had to act as interpreters in that linguistic Tower of Babel. This is just one item. But in a force that is 6,000 men deficient it is not easy to produce the best part of 500 men like this; and when we think of all the student marches which go on these days and all the demonstrations which go on at the various Embassies scattered around London, which all mean extra work for the Metropolitan Police, it reinforces the plea that they have a particularly good case for being exempted from this economy, even if nobody else could be so considered.
The recruiting position was very favourable, and has been getting better in the last few years. In the total police force in the country we had a net increase of 2,000 in 1965, a net increase of 3,000 in 1966 and a net increase of 4,200 in 1967. One would have assumed that the increase this year would be greater still, because of the large number

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of what one would assume would be good potential recruits coming out of Her Majesty's Armed Services. Should we not seize this golden opportunity to make serious efforts to fill the 18,000 vacancies in the police force while we can? If you do not do this when the opportunity for recruiting is good, there may come the evil day when recruiting goes down. If you have not filled up your granary when all is right, you may look foolish in the long run, when it might begin to empty.
4.40 p.m.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, I want to make just one particular point which I thought might be overlooked, and which indeed has not been mentioned so far. I remember at the beginning of the last war having an argument with a chief constable who had strongly resisted an invitation to recruit two women police officers into his force. It was only the necessities of war that finally obliged him to employ these two ladies. Now, of course. women police have been fully accepted everywhere. They do a most useful job—in fact, I do not know what we should do without them in cases where women prisoners and children are concerned. In about 1958 I was in South Germany, during a British Week, where, to the usual representation of whisky and Scottish pipers there was added a British woman police officer. She was a most attractive person. She stood in the centre of the town square and directed traffic and did more good propaganda for "backing Britain" than anybody I have seen for a long time.
I understand that the present cuts will have a certain effect on the women's side of the police force. I discussed this with a chief constable and he made the point that there are certain obligations to the young women police cadets as there are to the boys, and therefore any recruitment that takes place in the women's side of the police force will have to come first from the women cadets. There has been quite a large recruitment of older women for various duties for which they have proved extremely useful; but if these cuts come and there is to be no increase in the civilian side, then these middle-aged women will no longer be recruited and there will be an imbalance in ages on the women's side in the force. The chief constable to whom I spoke thought that that would be a
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great pity. After all, I suppose that young women police are as susceptible to strapping young policemen as nurses are to doctors in hospital; and middle-aged women are not affected in the same way. I think it is a great pity that this stabilising influence of the mature woman in the police force will, apparently, be very strongly affected by the cuts.
Going to a police station in the evening (voluntarily, may I say) I have myself often found the officer there, a man, writing up books, answering inquiries and taking down particulars—all of which could be perfectly well done by an intelligent, properly trained older woman, even on a part-time basis. The man could then be out on the street catching the criminal something which he alone can do and in which women are lot so capable of helping. In my view it would be a tragedy if this development, the employment of the older woman on this sort of a job in the police force, were to come to an abrupt halt. I hope the Home Secretary, when he considers the arguments put forward to-day, will bear this in mind. If the cuts have to be made, if a certain level of expenditure has to be kept, I cannot see why, within that level of expenditure, chief constables should not be given the flexibility they require in their particular areas for their particular difficulties—and especially those chief constables who are doing a very big job in amalgamating services. Keep the cuts. Set your level of expenditure. But do give the chief cons tables flexibility, within that figure, to do what is best for them in their particular part of the country.
4.45 p.m.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, let me get one thing off my chest: I think that our policemen are wonderful. This has been a most useful debate; although shorter than some to which we have been accustomed recently. I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, now that he has returned from the beat (I noticed that he was absent a few minutes ago), for having given us the opportunity to discuss something of undoubted interest to every citizen of this country. But I hope that we shall be careful not to say so much as to turn this discussion into a kind of Propaganda Campaign for the Encouragement of Burglars, by creating an

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impression that we do not have a police force adequate to deal with the requirements.
The picture is not entirely black. In the first half of 1967, crime was up by only 2 per cent.—despite the newspaper stories about the increases in crime, despite the immigration into this country of people who are perhaps not accustomed to our ways of life and despite the fact that the population has been increasing and that there has been some increase in unemployment. That increase of only 2 per cent. compares with an 8 per cent. rise in the corresponding period of the year before, and a 5 per cent. rise in the corresponding half-year of the year before that. So the picture is not necessarily so black as we are inclined to paint it. In the first half of 1967, indictable crimes dropped in London by 4 per cent.; in Birmingham by 2 per cent.; in my own county of Essex by 3 per cent.; in Hampshire by 6 per cent., and in Lancashire by 8 per cent. So the preventive work, the deterrent influence, of the police is obviously having some good effect.
My Lords, it is not only the numbers of police that we have to consider. We must take into account also the enormous reorganisation that is taking place in our police forces and the degree of modernisation, that is being effected, leading not only to greater efficiency, but also, if one may use the term in this respect, to greater productivity. We now have better communications than ever before, and we are getting still better communications. I am only sorry that the development of the pocket-radio system has not proceeded quite so quickly as it might. I know that it is proceeding very quickly, and it is a very welcome innovation. The unit beat system, although it is in an experimental stage, is already having a very good effect and is very well spoken of, both by the people and by those in the police forces.
It is said that we are to have a computer system by 1970. I am not one of those people who gets unduly excited about computers—I agree that there are many things they can do; but there are also a good many that they cannot—but their use will probably have a beneficial effect on crime detection and on the arrests of criminals, especially in these
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fast-moving days. The regional crime squads are doing excellent work and we now have a number of amalgamations on hand which I think are likely to lead to increased efficiency; particularly, I suppose, when it comes to arresting people just over the border in the territory of another force.
If we look at the numbers of the police—and this is the gravamen of to-day's debate—we find that in the last three years those numbers have gone up by more than 10 per cent., to a figure now well over 66,000. Last year, 1967, it was planned that there should be an increase of 3,000. Actually, there was an increase of 4,000. If we are talking about this year's cuts, that gives us a bonus of 1,000 to start off with. We have to view this against any cuts now proposed by the Government. But I hope that the Government will make the police their first priority when they come round to considering what cuts are to be restored.
I am aware of the position in my own county, which is a very large and populous county with a very large police force. We have been told by the Home Office that we must increase our strength by only 19 bodies during the coming year. There has been some suggestion during the debate that the police are having to take themselves away from crime in order to pay more attention to motorists. I do not complain about that. I think that attending to traffic is one of the most important jobs that our police have to do. There are far more people slaughtered on the roads each year than are killed by violent criminals and I sincerely hope that there will be no diminution of the attention which our police devote to road traffic. I think that the work which they do in this connection is of very great importance.
We have to face the fact that a new class of criminal has emerged in recent years. Crimes are being conceived on a grander scale than was ever dreamed of twenty or thirty years ago. We have gangs with their own intelligence systems, boring into establishments and watching movements there for months before the actual crime is committed. We have criminals systematically tapping police wireless messages and we have them planning their projects for many months ahead. I think we must have more

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police engaged on undercover work as well as policemen on patrol. That may mean that we must have more graduates, more people with highly skilled minds working on that particular kind of activity, as well as policemen in the ordinary uniformed section of the force. I think it is rather a mistake for so many police forces to retain a height minimum of 5 feet 8 inches or something near it (there are variations in some parts of the country), because there are many little men with big brains who could be doing an enormous amount of work towards uncovering some of the plots and the plans of organised criminals. If it comes to a question of a physical tussle, well, my Lords, those of us who have seen "The Avengers" on television know that a poor weak woman, as the noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley, might say, can well hold her own with the toughest criminal if ever she has to do so.
There is one little side issue on this question of the strength of our police forces which I wish to mention. I refer to the early retiring age of so many of our superintendents and chief inspectors. Many of them retire when they are just over fifty. I know why they do it. They say to themselves, "I appear to have got as high in the police hierarchy as I can get. I am still able bodied and therefore I must think of a new career." There are many new careers in these days which are open to retired police officers, and so they get out while they are still young enough to spend ten or fifteen years of activity in the career which they choose. I do not know how we can overcome this difficulty. It might be done by creating some kind of brevet rank, such as we have in the Army for middle-aged gentlemen who will never become colonels. That may be the way to deal with it. But I think it an enormous pity that we should be losing so much highly skilled and experienced brain power from the higher ranks of our police force just because of the automatic retirement age and the lack of inducement to a man to remain when once he has attained what appears to be the highest rank that he can reach.
We have to bear in mind, as has been said before, that a policeman's life is not a happy one. They are limited in their social intercourse, and there are many things which we can do—we may get as
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"drunk as a Lord", if it comes to that—which a policeman cannot respectably do. His night work interferes with his family life and I am aware of the complaints which are made by young wives married to policemen. Policemen in the county forces are continually moved around from one village to another. No sooner are their curtains and carpets fitted in a house than the policeman has to say to his wife that in a couple of years they will be moving on to somewhere else. That is most upsetting for a young wife, who may perhaps have young children, and I hope that something may be done to give a man a little more security of domicile than exists at present. I realise that opportunities for promotion have to take into account the varied experience that a police constable has had, and if he stayed too long in one place his efficiency might be impaired.
My Lords, I think that the police are doing a very fine job, and I am very glad that no one who spoke in this debate suggested otherwise. As one who in his spare time presides over a magistrates' court, I have been deeply impressed, not only by the efficiency and ingenuity of the police but also by the absolute fairness with which they present their cases, and their desire to bring out any factor which may be to the benefit of the accused person. The only other thing I would say is that one of these days the economy cuts will have to be reversed, and I hope that the stimulation of our police force recruiting will be among the first of those changes to be made.
4.56 p.m.
LORD GRANVILLE OF EYE: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend, Lord Leatherland, that our policemen are wonderful, and our police force is probably the finest in the world. Having looked at the interesting Report of the three Working Parties on Police Manpower, Equipment and Efficiency which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, I have come to the conclusion that our police are at present fully stretched, if not overworked; and that in many cases when emergencies occur it is a matter of priority as to which emergency is dealt with by the local police force. I very much hope that when my noble friend the Minister of State replies to the debate he

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will tell us whether this reduction—the figures have been given several times—will mean that the road patrols will be operating under strength in the next year of fifteen months. They are doing a magnificent job.
Constant reference has been made to what is happening on the roads. There is an almost complete disregard of the 70 m.p.h. speed limit on the motorways, and one sometimes wonders whether there is any light at the end of the tunnel in respect of this problem. Householders set forth in the morning wondering whether they will ever get home alive because of this endless, ceaseless war which is taking place on the roads, where the numbers of casualties, the killed and injured, are absolutely stupendous, even when we compare them with the figures for the war in Vietnam. I hope that the Government will bear in mind that mobile police patrols seem to be the only thing that deters the speedsters, the individuals who are not concerned with observing the speed limit. The majority of road users in this country are law-abiding and co-operative; they try to keep their speed within a reasonable limit, and they give a cooperation which makes for good motoring. But to deal with the drivers who disregard this limit completely road police are necessary. Of course, we have to safeguard our standard of living, but we also have to safeguard the lives of the people. Therefore I hope that my noble friend who is to reply will be able to tell us that, in spite of the cuts, this service is going to be able to operate at full strength in the coming 15 months.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, mentioned that the number of police in this country was 66,000. May I point out to him that in France, which has a lower population than the United Kingdom and far less crime, the number of police is over 140,000. I believe that our police force is very much under strength and overworked.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, it may be that the French have twice as many policemen as we have; but they also have General de Gaulle. I am quite content with our set-up.
5.2 p.m.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, I should like to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, for initiating this discussion. Naturally, we feel alarmed when we hear that recruitment to the police force is to be limited to 1,200 for the immediate future. As the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, rightly said, it is difficult in these troublous times, in the cutting down of public expenditure, to say which are the right priorities, but the Government feel that this is one of the things that has to be limited.
I should like to add my tribute to the police force. I think that we have a wonderful police force. The courtesy we receive from them when caught in a minor infringement of the law, and the way they put their cases in court, is in accordance with the best tradition that we expect of them. It is also in accordance with the "new look" that is being given to the force. Not only is there the general idea of encouraging the good will of citizens to the police, but the force are trying to establish policemen on given beats in areas which they know, so that people can look to them as friends. I remember in my younger days in my own village, when I committed misdemeanours—and I committed many—the policeman, who knew us all very well, would take off his cape and give me a swipe as I passed him. I would look up with all innocence and say, "I have done nothing", and he would reply, "Well, that's for the next time you do something". I think that this is the approach we have to adopt.
I wonder whether we are not being a little mealy-mouthed in protecting the freedom of the individual. The freedom of the individual is most important, but we are dealing with criminals who are well versed in all the privileges that they can claim. Policemen use a certain amount of bluff with a view to getting a confession or evidence, but they are very diffident in handling offenders who say, "I am not going to talk unless I am legally represented". This is a sacred right. But, on the other hand, I wonder whether we are not taking it too far. We might get some infringement of the individual's rights by some members of the force. When all is said and done, in a force of this size, from time to time

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there will be someone who goes a little outside reasonable bounds but, by and large, I am convinced that our policemen are reasonable in their approach to the public.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, said that more detection of crime depends upon more police. There is a measure of truth in that, but the detection of crime does not altogether rest upon a large increase in the number of police. If we can encourage local authorities, with Government assistance, to increase expenditure on modern methods and instruments of detection, I think it would be agreed that this must also have a big bearing on the rate of crime detection. I have been interested to see that in my own area they are going ahead with a radio communication system. This is a most valuable thing, because when a crime is being committed minutes can be lost by the policeman on the beat having to make contact with headquarters while the criminal gets well on his way. If a "walkie-talkie" is used he can contact divisional headquarters at once. Although these aids towards detection are expensive, they are increasing the productivity of the police force.
Noble Lords who are magistrates will be concerned, I feel sure, at the long time which elapses, in the case of misdemeanours of a minor nature, before the police can prepare their case and bring the culprit to court. I have had instances in my own court where 13, 15 and 16 weeks have elapsed before a case of a minor technical nature is brought to court. The police do not do this deliberately; they have so many other problems to attend to. They are overworked. This is the kind of case where more civilianisation in the administration could assist considerably.
This is rather a pet of mine, and I know it is not accepted by chief constables. I have been in contact for some time with many of the police who are employed on point duty in various parts. They are fully trained policemen, and I am certain that they could be replaced by others who are not trained in police methods. I have in mind a town that I know very well. In Northumberland Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne, a very busy street, policemen are engaged practically
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the whole time on point duty in order to let pedestrians get across the roads. Various efforts have been made to get Belisha beacons installed, but all to no avail. A lot of police time seems to be wasted on these duties. I am generalising on this subject, for I realise that it is necessary that at certain points police should be on duty; but in many cases a person not trained as a policeman could perform the duty equally well, and this would free the policeman for the detection of crime.
I feel that the experiment that is taking place with mobile crime squads is a good step forward. I know there is some difficulty because of the expense involved, but I think there has been sufficient experiment in this type of thing for it to become an established fact in many of our police forces. These policemen are moving about in police cars, some in uniform but in many instances in plain clothes, with a walkie-talkie in operation, and a policeman on the beat is able to make direct contact with his divisional headquarters and to tune into the respective mobile squads. I am sure this is a big step forward and will greatly help our police to combat the advanced type of criminals we are now up against.
I think that, by and large, the pay and conditions of the police to-day are reasonable and sufficient to attract people. Among the police that I know, I find there is no general complaint about this. They realise the nature of the task that they undertake when they go into the force and are prepared to face some of the inconveniences referred to by my noble friend Lord Leatherland—the matter of shift duty and transfer at short notice to another part of the division. I think that in this respect most chief constables are now adopting a more liberal attitude than was done previously. At one time, as your Lordships well know, a constable might receive only a week's notice or a few days' notice before being transferred. Now, judging by the forces with which I have contact, there is a more enlightened line of approach to this matter.
I feel that the action of chief constables in allowing members of the force to purchase their homes when they are coming towards the end of their service, is again a step that is calculated to encourage recruiting. I want to finish as I began, by paying great tribute to our

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police forces. Everywhere one meets policemen, whether in court or outside court, my experience has been that, whether they are giving evidence or merely advice, they do their utmost to be impartial in the way that we should expect.
5.15 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I propose to be brief, because I intend to stick to the subject of the Motion and not to engage in a general police debate. Also, this sorry story—and it is a sorry story, whatever excuses are made for it—has been so fully covered by my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor, the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, and other noble Lords, that I do not propose to range widely on the matter of figures and so on. We do not yet know what sort of case the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is going to make for the Government, but I cannot imagine that it will be very different from the case made by the Joint Under Secretary in the other place. I think we must assume that that is the Government's answer—plus, of course, Lord Stonham's well-known aptitude for occasionally giving us little tit-bits of extra information.
What has come out of this debate and has not been disputed anywhere is that the population here is increasing; that in spite of the rather selective figures produced by the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, crime is increasing, and that because of these two factors Home Secretary after Home Secretary has said that the police force is undermanned. It is no good saying that now there are new ways of detection, new instruments and so on, if you have not the men to use them. We know that in certain cases there are not enough police officers to use the machines, and so forth. Exactly the same thing applies as regards road patrols, which two noble Lords have mentioned. It is no good having cars if you have not the men to put in them. It has never been denied—the present Home Secretary has not denied it—that we are grossly undermanned in our police forces, and, as the noble Lord said, this is nowhere worse than in cities like London. I may say that we appear to be undermanned outside your Lordships' House. In the last two or three days two noble Lords have lost their cars from outside the House, probably because there are
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not enough police to look after them, particularly when we have an all-night sitting.
I want to follow the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, in one respect. What happens in the police when they are undermanned? What happens in the C.I.D. when they are undermanned? Their case-load in certain cities is appalling, and it is not possible to cope with it properly. It is exhausting work, and it is not physically possible for the men to do it. Week-end after week-end both uniformed and C.I.D. men are put on duty because somebody wants to throw a bomb at somebody else, or there is a procession of students. What happens? Sooner or later, unless a man is very dedicated and his wife is a very good wife, she says to him: "I never see you. We have no family life. The children do not see you. We never know for sure when you are going to be here." And the man retires. That is the wastage, and it comes about largely through under-manning. This is a human matter. It is no good arguing about what may happen in the future; this is happening now, and the wastage, purely from overwork and the families not being treated as families should be treated, is appalling. Of that there is not the slightest doubt.
Here, at this very moment, the Government are going to cut recruiting—I am sorry; I must be careful of this word "cut"; it means so many different things to different Ministers in the present Government—are going to make a cut in the increase of recruiting. Let us get our facts right. Here at this particular moment, when the police are under strength, for two reasons there is an unexampled opportunity for bringing the police more up to strength. They have both been mentioned by different noble Lords. One is that there is an unfortunately high level of unemployment, and this is a job "for keeps". If one wants to go into the police, that is an incentive to one to join. At the same time, this Government are sacking a lot of ex-Servicemen, men who are used to discipline, men who in many cases are extremely intelligent. This particular moment, when they are coming out of the Services, is the moment when they might be enticed into the police. What is going to happen now? They are going

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to be told, "No, we are taking cadets and we are not allowed to take any more. Come back in a year's time". Assuming that the Government alter their mind in a year's time, what will have happened to those men? They will have gone into other jobs and will not be prepared to change.
So at this particular moment, when we could make a real impression on under-manning, the Government say, "No". It is rather extraordinary. In the view of many of us, the Government have left us virtually defenceless overseas. It cannot really be true that they also want to leave our citizens defenceless, or comparatively defenceless, at home. The first duty of a Government is to look after their people. We are being told again and again by the Government on this question of cutting police recruiting, "Ah! but you see, everyone must take their share. This is the moment when we have overspent, and everyone must suffer". That sounds all right, but it is very unselective, and it is no good pretending that this matter has been thought out. We know perfectly well what has happened. There was devaluation. No proper consideration had been given to what would happen when devaluation occurred. Ministers were told, "You must take your cut". It has been quite obvious. Maybe the Home Secretary decided to make this cut as the easiest cut to make. My Lords, I believe him to be entirely wrong, and I find it singularly astonishing that this is the cut the Home Office choose—the Home Secretary chooses—when for so many years he has been adviser to the police and knows their problems due to undermanning.
It has been said that the Government cannot go back, which I suppose means that the Home Secretary will not be allowed to change his mind—cannot go back on the limitation for fifteen months, because it has been announced. My Lords, what nonsense! If the Government wanted to go back on it they could go back and economise elsewhere, and so could the Home Office. In view of what has been said this afternoon, I ask the Government to reconsider this matter. If you do not get more police now you may find recruiting difficult in a couple of years time. Meanwhile, more and more police will leave the police force
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because they are overworked and their families will not stand it.
5.24 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, asked what has emerged from this debate. I think that the most notable thing that has emerged from it is the fact that we have now had 11 speeches from your Lordships, all about our police forces, and there has not been a vestige or scintilla of criticism of the police from anyone. I think that is the most notable thing. The second thing is that there has been some, I think a regrettable amount, of Party bias about the speeches, certainly the last speech, but not very much. I hope that this shows improvement, so that we can look forward to the day when we can discuss the police without any kind of Party bias at all.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, started off by saying that there was unanimous agreement that the likelihood of detection was the best deterrent. I entirely agree; and with the figures for crime at a record level, and the tasks confronting the police growing ever more onerous, the decision to restrict the growth of police manpower is a major one. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, for providing this opportunity to debate the issue, and for me to explain the circumstances in which this step was taken. I only regret that, in answering some of the arguments, I shall myself have to make the contrast between the situation now and the situation when noble Lords opposite were in power and had the opportunity to do something about the situation which they now so emotionally deplore.
First, to turn to a detailed justification, I would ask your Lordships to consider the general background against which the decision had to be taken. The need to reduce public expenditure has been referred to by several noble Lords, among them the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, and my noble friend Lord Rowley. The need was to reduce public expenditure by hundreds of millions of pounds. The noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, said that in considering these matters he thought that the cuts in total were not enough, or might well not be enough, and also he referred to the undoubted fact that we all have our pet subjects. We all, more

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or less, are willing to say, "Yes, we agree that there must be these reductions. The nation is being demanded to make them. But not this particular one". We could have debates every day of the week picking out the single items and making out a very good case against having any cuts at all in these particular fields, and we should at the end of the day find that it was utterly impossible to cut anything. Indeed, we should have made such an overwhelming case that we should have to increase expenditure.
There was this cut of hundreds of millions of pounds, out of which it was decided that there had to be a cut of £6 million in the cost of the services for which the Home Office are responsible. That was our contribution. The total anticipated expenditure on Home Office services during the coming financial year was £470 million, of which £256 million, more than 54 per cent. of the total, was attributable to the Police Service. The figure of £256 million compares with £220 million in the current year, the year we are now in. My noble friend Lord Granville of Eye spoke of cuts. My Lords, this is a strange kind of cut when your expenditure in a single year increases by £30 million. And that £256 million compares with £160 million in 1963–64, the last full year during which the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, was responsible for police expenditure.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, the noble Lord will not forget the drop in the value of money under this Government, will he?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I shall not forget anything of this kind. But we are talking to-day about £6 million, and in the last year for which the noble Lord was responsible—when the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, was Minister of State—it was £106 million less. It is quite right and proper to point these things out, and no one can pretend that there have been changes to that extent. It makes me wonder, in view of what has been said to-day from the other side, how on earth they got on at all. Were there any policemen? What happened? Talk about encouragement to burglars, which my noble friend Lord Leatherland mentioned! The fact is that the present Labour Government are spending 66 per
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cent. more on the police forces than the last Conservative Government—I repeat, 66 per cent. more. This is a truly remarkable change in a little over three years. This fact, and the results which have been achieved from that large increase, I suggest should be borne constantly in mind.
Because of their responsibility in the field of crime if the Police Service had made no contribution the whole weight of that £6 million cut would have fallen on other people's "pets"—the children's services, the prisons, the fire services, the Probation Service and other similar departments which, collectively, account for the other 46 per cent. of the total expenditure and which would therefore have been in a much worse position to bear it. Indeed, a cut of £6 million falling on these organisations alone would have brought progress to a standstill and would have meant, in some cases, regression. Therefore we had no choice but to look to the Police Service to provide a reasonable share of the required saving.
Naturally the vastly greater part of expenditure in the Police Service is attributable to manpower costs. For instance, out of the total estimated police costs for next year no less than £188 million, or more than 73 per cent., is directly accounted for by wages, salaries and superannuation. Of the remaining £86 million, a substantial part is dependent, either directly or indirectly, on numbers. For example, the more policemen, the more police houses are needed and the greater the staff to train the recruit intake.
It is inescapable, therefore, that if you are to limit the increase in police cost you must limit the increase in police manpower; otherwise you would have to concentrate the whole weight of the cut on the remainder of the service. This would have brought to an end many of the activities on which the future efficiency of the police will depend—indeed, some of these expenses are themselves directly concerned with saving manpower. For instance, the Research and Development Branch of the Home Office is conducting a number of manpower studies, with a view both to increasing total strength by removing causes of wastage and to improving the efficiency of the manpower that actually

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exists. Similarly, the computer project, on which large sums of money are expected to be spent in the next few years, will provide a comprehensive and highly efficient system of maintaining and sorting fingerprint records and criminal data. This would have taken an enormous number of police officers and civilian employees to achieve by manual means, if they could achieve it.
My noble friend Lord Rowley asked about equipment, and especially personal radios. Plans to acquire the vehicles and wireless equipment needed for unit beat policing are being pressed forward regardless of the economic situation. My noble friend Lord Popplewell asked whether local authorities should be encouraged to spend on equipment. Police authorities have been advised not to make savings through reductions in orders for cars and equipment. To have reduced or cancelled such expenditure, which has the express aim of creating an efficient performance of police duties with less manpower, would have been to set at risk the whole efficiency of the Police Service in future years, when the problems facing the police may be even greater than they are to-day. It would certainly have excited less comment if we had quietly re-phased the equipment programme, but it would also have mortgaged the future. So we decided there had to be a temporary limit—not a cut, but a limit—on the increase in manpower.
This limitation has to be considered in relation to present police strengths, because it was mainly on the expectation of a substantial increase of strength during the coming year that the decision to restrict manpower was founded. Had the rate of recruiting over the past year been only moderate, and had the wastage rate risen in comparison with the previous year instead of showing, as it did, a substantial drop, we might have been justified in leaving the manpower figure to find its own level, unfettered by any Government imposed restrictions. But this was very far from being the case. Total recruitment during 1967 was higher even than in the record year of 1966, more than 1,100 higher than the rate for 1965, and more than 3,000 higher than the rate for 1964. Against this, wastage last year was nearly 1,400 less than in 1966.
The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, spoke about wastage. Of course wastage, par-
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ticularly of new, young policemen, is most regrettable and has been a great problem, but the picture he pained is not a true one. I am glad to say that the wastage has been drastically reduced. If these trends had continued (and there was reason to suppose that they would) we should have been justified in expecting a net increase, allowing for wastage, of some 5,000 police officers over the: coming year. Much as the Government would have welcomed this proof of the success of our efforts, an increase of this magnitude would have had financial implications which the Government, under present economic conditions, were unable to accept. The figure of 5,000 additional police officers represents, in financial terms, an increased expenditure of the order of about £7½ million a year. Unless, therefore, the cost of the Police Service was to rise to an extent which would nullify the effect of savings made—often with great hardship—in other fields, some form of manpower restraint had, however reluctantly, to be imposed. But it is restraint and not a reduction. Police manpower will continue to rise. That is very different from the position in 1960, when there was an actual drop in police strengths by 460. There was no debate from the Government side in January, 1960, when these conditions were so disastrous. I initiated a debate on the subject of police pay, and some of your Lordships will remember that the increases which we recommended in that debate were approved by the interim report of the Royal Commission, and immediately implemented by Her Majesty's Government. Those increases "stopped the rot" and the numbers of police increased over the next three years. But we have to-day more police officers in England and Wales than ever before—over 10,000 more than the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, could take pride in at the end of 1963, when he was Home Secretary.
The noble Lord, Lord Derwent, asked what happened when the police were undermanned. He described graphically and movingly this human problem and the effect on the wives and on family life. He should know, because in his time the problem was 10,000 men more acute than it is now. The police force was 10,000 men smaller. These points have to be made, because this problem

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should be put in what I think is its proper perspective.
In the last three years we have increased the Police Service by 9,207—an average net increase of more than 3,000 a year. The Metropolitan Force alone has increased by 1,679 officers. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, stressed quite rightly the importance of the civilian manpower, and I interrupted him in an endeavour to correct a figure. I now find that we were both right, but I misunderstood him, and I apologise. However, I want to give the figures now. There has been a corresponding increase in ancillary civilian manpower, and all these increases are, in effect, replacement of policemen, because they are doing the police work. In the last three years the number of civilians employed by the police has increased from 15,767 to 20,045—a 27 per cent. increase.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord before he leaves that particular point? I wonder whether he could comment on this fact. When one sees televised some central police station—and, indeed, when one walks past the New Scotland Yard building—one is surprised to see what a large number of young men appear to be manning telephones and doing jobs that one would expect normally to be done by girls. Has the noble Lord any comment to make on that point?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I do not know whether the young men manning the telephones are police officers or civilians. It is impossible for me to say.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, one cannot see clearly in the Scotland Yard building, but on television I have always seen them in blue uniform.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, this replacement of police officers in office jobs by civilians is increasing, and it is generally thought to be wholly desirable, unless the job requires that training and expert knowledge which only a police officer has. As I have said, there has been this large increase of well over 4,000 civilians in three years, a 27 per cent. increase. Then the number of traffic wardens has increased from 1,562 to 4,225—a 170 per cent. increase in three years. In addition, the number of police
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cadets has risen from 3,983 in 1965 to 5,135 at the beginning of 1968; that is, an increase of 29 per cent. in three years.
The noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, asked me a number of questions on this point, and I should like to try to reply to them now. In particular, the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, read some letters from one or more chief constables, and in particular he said of one writer: "Must this chief constable stop enrolling cadets?". The answer, my Lords, is No.
LORD SHAWCROSS: My Lords, I think that was not the point. The point was whether a force which has a large cadet force, the numbers of which are sufficient to provide the permitted increases in establishment, will have to stop recruiting from outside. I asked that question particularly, if I may make the point now, in relation to graduate recruitment and "A"-level recruitment. The question is not so much whether the graduates are going to be thrown out of the window, as whether, in that kind of case where there are sufficient cadets to build up the permitted increase in establishment, the graduates from outside will be still encouraged to come in by the door.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, let me deal first with the graduate point, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, when he referred to a statement made by my noble friend Lord Longford in November last year. That, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, is going on unchanged and unaltered. Fourteen graduates have already been, as it were, allocated, approved, out of the original number mentioned by the noble Lord, and within the next few weeks another 18 candidates are to be interviewed for the remaining six places. That makes a total of 20, which was all we originally hoped for. This was announced only twelve months ago, and it is a very satisfactory response. We do attach the greatest importance to intake of graduates in this way. It has particular relevance and even greater importance, if we are going to restrict numbers, to take what steps we can to ensure that we have as many new recruits as possible of the highest quality, in order that in due course,

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having gained experience, they can take over the important and increasingly complicated jobs which will arise.
May I now return to the cadets, because I am anxious to get this information over, even though it does not precisely meet the noble Lord's point? No chief constable will have to stop enrolling cadets unless he would prefer to attest non-cadets. He can attest cadets, even if this takes him over his quota; but he must then wait until wastage brings the strength back to the proper level. The same applies to the enlistment of graduate recruits. If it is the case—I do not know that it is—that the chief constable cannot start so many cadets in training, the answer is that there are no restrictions announced beyond March, 1969, and there is nothing to prevent him from enlisting fresh cadets for training and eventual acceptance into the force in two or three years' time.
One point (I think it is a point of misunderstanding) that I should like to clear up was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, with regard to civilian recruitment, and in particular the noble Lord referred to the Home Office circular of, I think, January 18, which said that there would be a general standstill on civilian manpower but that strictly limited increases would be considered in special circumstances. On February 6 we sent out another circular on the same subject, inviting forces to tell us what civilians they feel they need in the coming year, and indicating what we considered to be the priorities. And we are already working through the returns which have arrived and assessing to what extent needs can be met consistently with not undermining the general level of savings required. There is no firm clampdown on either cadets or civilian manpower. We are going to be selective about it, but I would suggest, with all respect, that any chief officers of police who are not fully aware of what the conditions are—and I rather doubt whether there are any—certainly ought to know that they can get in touch with the Home Office and find out; and I would suggest that they do so.
On the other point about cadets which the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, raised, it would not be correct to say that where the attestation of cadets absorbs the whole
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quota there can be no further recruitment. The quota relates only to the additional strength. Recruitment will continue at whatever rate is necessary to replace wastage; and this of course applies also to the police force as a whole. It is not the case that there has been a complete clamp-down on recruitment. Any force, even those that are very little below establishment, has the authority to recruit to replace wastage.
LORD SHAWCROSS: But not, as I understand the noble Lord—and I think there is misunderstanding about this—if there are a sufficient number of cadets who can be brought into the force to make up the wastage.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, if cadets are ready to go in as adult officers, then of course one would expect the cadets to be brought in; that is what they are trained for, and it would be rather extraordinary if they were not used. I am not saying that a force which is virtually at establishment now can recruit over the top, but it can introduce whatever new officers are needed, either from cadets or from outside, or indeed from other forces., in order to replace wastage.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord will excuse my intervening, because this is an important point, and I think that we may be slightly at cross-purposes. Paragraph 5 of the circular of February 6 says:
"The Secretary of State wishes cadets to be reassured that, provided they prove suitable, they will be attested, but where this results in police strength exceeding the permitted level steps will have to be taken as soon as possible to reduce the strength to the appropriate level through the normal process of wastage."
As I read that paragraph it means that in certain circumstances there must be an absolute ban on recruitment of candidates from outside the police cadets.
LORD STONHAM: I think the noble Lord is reading from circular POL. 67 1437/7. Is that the one?
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: I was quoting the latest circular, the paragraph headed "Police Strength", which seems to me to be dealing with precisely the point referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Shawcross.
LORD STONHAM: I can only say that what I have just said is the very latest information I have on these points. I have obtained the answers particularly. I did not have the information before I started. That is all I can say on these points.
One additional question was put to me with regard to the Tees-side Force, where there is a request for additional civilians and police officers. That is under consideration. I cannot say what the decision will be. But I would emphasise that it is not the only force which has represented that it has special problems, and which therefore is being considered. The same remark applies to the plea which the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, made for the new amalgamated forces. As he will know, that covers the greater part of the police forces; they have either recently been amalgamated or are about to be amalgamated: in other words, they are in some way or another concerned with amalgamations. It is the case, when one looks at a number of forces which are proposed to be put together, that their position in relation to manpower is not the same. They vary, and it is to be expected that when the teething troubles are over there will be a considerable saving of manpower and another economy.
When cadets become eligible to be attested, or where applicants, both police and civilian, had been offered definite vacancies in a force before the receipt of Home Office instructions and it would be breaking faith not to accept them, we are accepting them; and if for that reason it means that some forces temporarily exceed their permitted numbers, they will do so; but, as was just mentioned, they have to allow the numbers to get back to the proper, authorised strength through normal wastage.
I have put these facts before your Lordships—and they are the facts—but I realise that it can be argued that it is difficult to reconcile these things with the overall deficiency on paper strength of over 17,000 men and women. It is a paradox that although we have more police officers than ever before, the deficiency compared with official establishments is greater than ever before. But there is a simple explanation for this apparent contradiction. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has described the custom
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in fixing establishments—how before he took over, it had been the custom that the establishments had to stay as they were unless a force could show that within the next year or two it could recruit the extra people that it thought it needed. Then the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, decided that if the forces applied for his approval of establishments, not limited to recruitment prospects but related to what they really needed for adequate police coverage, he would be prepared to approve of them. This was carried on by my noble friend Lord Stow Hill, his successor.
That is the reason for this great upsurge in establishment. In 1964, the national authorised establishments totalled 89,616, and at the end of last year we had reached that number in police strength. In other words, if the paper establishments had not been altered we should now have reached the full establishment of 1964. But in fact the total establishments have been increased by 17,820, and they are now 107,436. Until now these establishments have been computed by chief constables and Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary in the exercise of their professional judgment. But the precise number of officers needed to police an area of any given size and characteristics is by no means an easy matter to judge. Indeed, what exactly is efficient policing itself, and when is finality reached? Is it when crime has sunk to a negligible figure and traffic accidents have been reduced to nil, or is there some intermediate stage beyond which the addition of more police officers would merely introduce the law of diminishing returns?
These are difficult questions, and it is not surprising that ad hoc attempts to assess ideal establishments have produced varying standards of police cover throughout the country. It would certainly be helpful to us if a more objective and scientific method of assessing establishments which would relate numbers of police needed more closely to the actual characteristics of the area, could be devised. This is what we are trying to arrive at through the Home Office Research and Development Branch.
I cannot say whether, when we are able to achieve that, the then establishment will be larger or smaller than the total of the existing force establishments

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to-day. All I can say is that the existing paper deficiency of 17,000—and it is a paper deficiency—should be looked at with reserve until we have found a method of calculating more accurately how many policemen there should be. And in these calculations the recently introduced mobile systems of policing will be an important element. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, said that this had been introduced into comparatively few places. Mobile unit policing this month will cover 62 per cent. of the whole country by population, and by the end of the year it will cover 80 per cent. of the whole population. I dealt with this system in some detail in the debate initiated by my noble friend Lord Rowley, and I do not need to say much more, except that the system fully justifies our earlier expectations.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, am I not right in thinking that this may increase the efficiency of the police, but it does not mean that you need less police?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I think the noble Lord is saying that it increases the efficiency but does not mean you need less manpower. That is questionable, and his noble friend in the course of his speech even suggested that it was a saving of manpower equal to 5,000 men.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I think that that is what the Under-Secretary of State suggested in the debate at the end of January.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I was not prepared to quote any figure. But if the noble Lord will allow me to develop what I want to say, because I know that some of my friends are interested in these figures—they have asked for them, and I propose to give them—this month 3,000 patrol cars and 10,000 personal wirelesses will be in use. There will be 800 more cars and 8,000 more wireless sets added during the year. That is 18,000 wireless sets by the end of the year.
My noble friend Lord Rowley asked me what was the position with regard to cars and radios in the Metropolitan area. At the beginning of the year we had 92 patrol cars for unit policing and 598 personal radios. During the year we shall have added 192 more cars and
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1,381 more radios, which means, in effect, that at the end of the year there will be roughly three times as many cars and three times as many personal radios in London as there were at the beginning of the year. I do not think that any noble Lord would say that that is not rapid progress, or would argue that the money could be better spent in some other way.
While I am on this subject may I just deal with the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley, with regard to women police? Women are included in the same arrangements as the men. I think she asked for flexibility in this matter. It is for the chief constable to decide how he divides his equipment between the men and the women. The noble Baroness asked, with particular reference to the older women, whether there is an imbalance of age if too many young cadets are taken on. We are at present dealing with only one year, and the effect cannot be great on the age structure. As the noble Baroness is aware, the number of women police officers is more relative to the number of men, but last year there was an increase of 338 policewomen in the Service as a whole, which was an increase of something over 10 per cent. This shows a satisfactory trend.
On the subject of equipment, police authorities have been told that there is no Government restriction on the purchase of the additional equipment needed to develop unit beat policing to its maximum extent. Where the system is in full operation the practical results have been very encouraging. For example, we have evidence that the rate of observed incidents rises sharply, that the flow of criminal intelligence increases, and that more crime is detected by officers on the beat. The "response" time—that is, the time taken for the police to arrive on the scene in response to a call—has been substantially reduced. These are great and valuable increases in efficiency and in service. In addition to this, we have reports of reduced crime following the introduction of unit beat policing which it will be logical to connect with the new system.
It is fair to say that these results have been achieved with the expenditure of considerably less manpower (this point

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was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton), than would have been needed to effect policing by conventional means. It is difficult to quantify precisely how much manpower is saved by this means. All I will say is that, compared with conventional methods, we are certain that the savings will be numbered in thousands of police officers. Apart from this fact, wherever these methods have been introduced they have led to a significant rise in the morale of police officers. So far as I am aware—and I think I can claim to be pretty close to the police—I never remember their morale being higher than it is now, which is something to be thankful for.
Another source of improvement is the amalgamation of police forces with which the Home Secretary is still pushing ahead. The leader in The Times of February 21, commenting on the Lancashire amalgamation scheme, said:
"As a result of the amalgamation there will be a better communications system in the area, better promotion opportunities and higher morale. Above all, there should be an increase in operational efficiency."
I am convinced that this is true—it is already proving so in other areas—and, like the unit beat system and many other things which we are doing, it means a better service with fewer men.
I reject the suggestion that this reduction in expenditure was ill-thought-out, or a panic measure. It is true that we had to make economies, and that has been generally accepted. But I think I have shown—and I believe your Lordships will agree that I have given abundant proof—that the country can rest assured, on the evidence of the last three years and on the results with regard to the police, that this Government, far from neglecting the Police Service, has brought it to a higher level of strength, efficiency and morale than ever before, and with more and better equipment than has ever previously prevailed; that we have the interests of the Service very much at heart (this is particularly true of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary) and are promoting its further development, not cutting it back; and that we are turning our minds to the more scientific methods, both in operations and administration, which the modern world makes both available and
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requisite. In saying this, however, I would emphasise that the credit is due to the Police Service itself—the finest in the world; not one of the finest—to the police authorities and others concerned with the Service, for all they have done in recent years to bring the Service to the admirable state in which it now stands.
6.5 p.m.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, I should like to express my warm personal thanks to the noble Baroness and to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate which I initiated, and to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for the trouble which he has taken—although he has not convinced me, and may not have convinced other noble Lords. In recent months we have had a series of Wednesday debates which have continued over a very long time. I have not from experience become convinced that the longer they have gone on the more valuable they have become. I think possibly I carry noble Lords with me in saying that a debate which lasts for nine hours is not necessarily three times as valuable as a debate which lasts for three hours. I am inclined to think that if we could get back to this period of time in compact debate, your Lordships' House might be doing just as great good as by sitting on late into the evening in these Wednesday debates.
The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said that he looked forward to the day when we could discuss the police without any Party bias. Frankly, I do not think that it will be a good day, whatever Government are in power, when any criticism of the actions of that Government towards the police or anything else can be dismissed as due to Party bias. In the debate this afternoon there have been critical comments, not from one side of the House only, though granted they have been more muffled when expressed by some of Lord Stonham's noble friends. There have been criticisms from all sides—except from the Liberal Benches, whose usual occupants seem to have been so overcome by the all-night Sitting that those Benches have been empty for hours.
The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in winding up said that there were more police officers than ever before in this country. That is quite true. It is

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equally true that there is more crime than ever before, so we cannot rest content. He twitted me, if that is the right word, with the fact that police Estimates are now £100 million higher than they were in my time. I am well aware that during the interval police pay has increased on grounds of comparability with pay in other comparable professions. I am well aware—indeed I laid stress on this in my speech—that police numbers have increased considerably during the last three years, because in the days of Conservative Government there was a lower level of unemployment. That made it harder to get recruits for the police and easier to lose policemen through wastage than is the case in days of greater insecurity and uncertainty in industry and commerce.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, if the noble Lord remembers, the rate of unemployment at the beginning of 1961 was higher than it is now.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: Yes, my Lords. That was just about the time when, following the Report of the Royal Commission, a very substantial increase—and an overdue increase—was made and brought into effect very quickly by my noble friend Lord Butler of Saffron Walden. But I should prefer that this debate ended with the maximum possible degree of unanimity, rather than with mere dissension; and, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said, it has been a most striking fact that there has not been one word of criticism of the police during this debate.
It was not so many years ago that the public, encouraged, I fear, by the Press, were quick to criticise any fancied shortcoming among the police. It must be gratifying indeed to the police, and a powerful assurance to them that they are doing their job well, that we seem to have come right out of that unhappy period, and nowadays I have no doubt whatever that public and Parliamentary opinion is strongly on the side of the police. If there is any individual short-
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coming, as there is bound to be from time to time in a force of 90,000, it is recognised that that is an individual weakness and not a criticism of the police as a whole. I hope that this debate will give encouragement rather than otherwise to all ranks of the police. I wish many police officers could have been here to listen to it. I should just like to add a word for the special constables, who have hardly been mentioned. I take it that there is no restriction 3n the further recruitment of special constables, and I hope that in some forces—though there are many duties which special constables cannot perform—it will be possible to have campaigns to recruit more special constables, to relieve the regular forces of work which can be squally done by specials.
I should just like once again to thank noble Lords who have taken part for their valuable contributions, and to say that it may be necessary in months to come—perhaps at the end of 15 months—to revert to this subject. Meanwhile I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SAINT MARY, SUMMERSTOWN BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
MERSEY TUNNEL (LIVERPOOL/ WALLASEY) BILL [H.L.]
The Queen's Consent signified, and Bill reported with Amendments.

SALVATION ARMY BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with an Amendment.
House adjourned at ten minutes past six o'clock.