Lords Sitting of 17 April 1969

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Newcastle.

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

Representation of the People Act,

Derby Corporation Act,

Bournemouth Corporation Act,

Coventry Corporation Act,

Northampton County Council Act,

Chelsea College, University of London Act.

PROPOSED EUROPEAN SECURITY CONFERENCE
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will respond to the renewed proposal of the Warsaw Pact Powers that a conference should be held to end the division of Europe by military blocs and to further the peaceful co-operation of European States and peoples.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD CHALFONT): My Lords, as my noble friend will have seen from the communiqué issued on April 11, at the conclusion of the recent NATO Ministerial meeting in Washington (copies of which have been placed in the Library of the House),
"the Allies propose, while remaining in close consultation, to explore with the Soviet Union and the other countries of Eastern Europe
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which concrete issues best lend themselves to fruitful negotiation and an early resolution".
Her Majesty's Government intend to play a full part in this process.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, in giving qualified welcome to that statement may I ask my noble friend whether this is not the third time that the Warsaw Pact Powers have proposed a conference to end the confrontation in Europe? In view of the very hopeful movements towards a détente illustrated in the speech of President Nixon would it not be possible to try to secure a meeting between representatives of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, with a view to bringing about a European Security Pact?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, of course it would be an excellent thing if we could get European and other countries together on this issue; and when we are talking of NATO we must remember that it consists not only of European countries. Of course it would be a good thing if we got together. I must confess that I personally can see nothing new in the latest statement by the Warsaw Pact countries—that of March 17. The Budapest statement seems to me to contain nothing new and to reiterate certain unacceptable preconditions to this kind of conference. I must also draw the attention of my noble friend, in case he has not seen it, to the statement made by the Soviet Government on April 10, some time after the Budapest declaration, which was a highly polemical statement and leads me to believe that if this is the position of the Soviet Union there would not be very much use in having a conference on European security at all.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government be on their guard against any attempt by the Eastern bloc to separate the Western European countries from the United States of America and thus leave them at the mercy of anybody who cared to roll across Europe?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am much in sympathy with what my noble friend says. We consider that all members of NATO have a vital interest in the security of Europe, and that is why we believe that in any conference of this kind the North American members of

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NATO must be associated in it from the Outset.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is it not the case that this Party when in Opposition was strongly in favour of the Rapacki proposals for disengagement in Central Europe? And in view of that fact is it not desirable, even from the point of view of the liberalisation of Czechoslovakia and the Eastern European countries, that this confrontation of military blocs should be ended?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I think my noble friend over-simplifies when he says that this Party in Opposition supported the Rapacki proposals. Certain members of it did. Others had reservations about the actual Rapacki plan, which dealt specifically with military disengagement in Central Europe. I would remind my noble friend, as I am sure he is aware, that military disengagement on its own is not really a solution to political problems. Political problems have to a large extent to be solved before military disengagement can take place. I think those two things are closely linked together. In any case, this is not quite the subject of the original Question, which was on a European security conference; and if my noble friend would like to put down a Question on military disengagement in Central Europe I should be pleased to answer it.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that it would in any case be essential to have some kind of preliminary agreement between the super Powers on the future of Germany before any security conference of the type suggested would be likely to meet with any success?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, certainly I agree with the noble Lord that the major political problem of Europe at the moment is the division of Europe and the division that goes through the centre of Germany. Until there is some sign that people on the other side are prepared at least to discuss this subject it seems to me that a European security conference would have little chance of success.

THIRD LONDON AIRPORT
3.11 p.m.
THE EARL of SELKIRK: 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 given any advice to the Roskill Commission on the size of the area which will be required for the third London airport.]
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the Commission were required to consider the site for a four-runway airport. The Government have made available to the Commission advice on the air traffic control factors which would be likely to affect the size of the area required. The Commission have also received advice from the British Airports Authority about possible runway layouts and other relevant matters affecting the area required. In estimating the likely airport area for the purpose of the local inquiries the Commission will have taken these matters into account.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, is it not essential in making a selection for this site, to have some idea of the area which is likely to be required? Can the Government give some indication of whether they think that 15 square miles, which is roughly the area suggested in the preliminary Report of the Commission, is adequate, in view of the fact that this is not the third but the fourth and maybe the final international airport which will ever be built in the London area?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am bound to say that I am not quite sure what is worrying the noble Earl. Everyone asked for an independent Commission, not least the noble and learned Viscount who sits next to the noble Earl. An independent Commission have been set up. They have been given all the relevant facts in the matter. They themselves have come to the conclusion that an area of about 7,500 acres would be required for a four-runway airport, and until they finalise their recommendations I think it would be wrong for the Government to lay down any other figures.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the

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Roskill Commission are instructed only to consider the site of the new airport in isolation, or whether it is within their terms of reference to consider other possible developments such as the proposal for a deep water dock in the Thames Estuary, which might be most relevant to the question of the choice of the airport site?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the terms of reference of the Commission were:
"To inquire into the timing of the need for a four-runway airport to cater for the growth of traffic at existing airports in the London area; to consider various alternative sites and to recommend which site should be selected".
I think these terms of reference are fairly wide and would take into account various other economic factors.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, is it not clear that the Commission will be able to have regard to all planning considerations, including whatever plans there may be for the future development of the area in recommending, and deciding to recommend a possible site?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I quite agree with the noble and learned Viscount and I am much obliged to him. My impression is that this Commission are going about their job in a most sophisticated and enlightened way.

GERIATRIC DEPARTMENTS AND CHARGES TO PATIENTS
3.15 p.m.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper. I have to apologise for having framed it wrongly. It should refer to the geriatric departments of local hospitals.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the authorised charges against patients in local authority geriatric hospitals, whether the patients are entitled to pocket money and whether the patients' savings can be completely depleted to the detriment of their families and heirs.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (BARONESS SEROTA): My Lords, if the noble Earl is referring to geriatric departments in
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hospitals and not to residents in local authority homes, I would answer his Question in relation to patients. Those who are in hospital, either for short or long periods, are entitled to pocket money by way of supplementary benefit if they are without adequate resources. In determining such entitlement no account is taken of savings of less than £325, and much more than this can often be ignored, in some cases up to a maximum of £825. I hope that this is the information the noble Earl was seeking in putting down his Question. If it is not, perhaps he will write to me, and particularly if he is concerned about any individual case.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for her reply, may I ask whether she can say what is the maximum charge per week which may be made? Further, can she tell the House what circumstances should arise before a demand is made on relatives to hand over to the Court of Protection former assets and savings of the patient who is in the geriatric department?
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I still think we may be at cross-purposes here. No charges are made for patients in hospitals. I still feel that the noble Earl is probably concerned about elderly residents in local authority homes. The charges for care and accommodation in such homes are the responsibility of the local authority, and they vary as between the different authorities.

THE LEGISLATIVE PROGRAMME
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, at a convenient moment after half past three my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making a Statement on the legislative programme.
BLACKPOOL CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
KIDDERMINSTER CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
GLASGOW CORPORATION (SUPER-ANNUATION, ETC.) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report.

CUSTOMS DUTIES (DUMPING AND SUBSIDIES) BILL [H.L.]
3.19 p.m.
Read 3a.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass. Owing to the good work done by the Joint Committee our Consolidation Bills now tend to move through Parliament with hardly any mention at all. Therefore I thought that before this Bill was passed I should say that it is a short but useful Bill, consolidating the whole of our Statute Law on Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) as at present contained in the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act 1957, the Import Duties Act 1958, and the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Amendment Act 1968. The purpose of this Bill, as of all these Consolidation Bills, is to put all our Statute Law in one place instead of having it in several places. Obviously this is more convenient.
Apart from the two Bills which I introduced yesterday, we have not had any other Consolidation Bills this Session. That is partly because the Law Commission's draftsmen have been exceptionally busy on drafting Bills and partly because there remain, I hope, for next Session some really major Consolidation Bills, particularly those consolidating the 17 (as I think it is now) Finance Acts and also local government legislation. But our programme of gradually consolidating the Acts in our Statute Book, so that we get as many Acts as possible dealing with the same subject into one Act, is nevertheless proceeding, I think, satisfactorily. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

VEHICLE AND DRIVING LICENCES BILL
3.22 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE, ROYAL AIR FORCE (LORD WINTERBOTTOM): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received. Before I move the first Amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper, may I apologise to the House for a difference in wording between the Amendment laid before the House on April 10 and that laid before the House on April 16. I am afraid that I can offer no more excuse than that there has been a muddle. I assure noble Lords that there is no sinister intention in the change. We are substituting the word "foregoing" for the word "preceding", and for the words "for the purposes of functions which are not relevant functions" the words "for the purposes of relevant and other functions". This is purely a drafting correction and I am sorry that I have not been able to give noble Lords earlier notice of it.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Winterbottom.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Clause 2 [Provisions supplementary to section 1]:
LORD WINTER BOTTOM LORD WINTER BOTTOM moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 21, at end insert—
("( ) The Minister shall not make an order uncle the foregoing subsection with respect to the transfer of premises appearing to him to form part of premises held by a local authority for the purposes of relevant and other functions unless he has given notice to the authority of his proposal to make the order and has specified in the notice the time within which the authority may request that the order shall be in accordance with the following provisions of this subsection; and where the authority does so request and the Minister decides to make the order, then—

(a) the order shall secure that the transfer is for such period only as the Minister may determine, being a period ending not later than the end of the period of seven years beginning with the transfer date; and

(b) without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing subsection, the other terms of the transfer shall be such as may be specified in the order.")

The noble Lord said: My Lords this Amendment in its new form is the result

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of a debate in Committee on a related Amendment put down by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, who has at this stage of the Bill put down an Amendment prescribing a limit of seven years (instead of five years) from the transfer date on the period during which local authority premises which form part of premises used for functions other than licensing functions can be transferred to the Minister. In the light of misgivings expressed by local authorities and the strong arguments put forward by noble Lords in this House for a measure of certainty on this point, which I conveyed to my right honourable friend as I promised, the Government have decided that an Amendment should be made.
I should like to emphasise that the Government Amendment is similar in substance to that of the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, but it has certain technical advantages. It allows a local authority not to invoke the seven-year limit if it does not want to do so. This may be the case where the local authority have no objection to the Minister's taking over the premises but where they are not empowered to let him do so; or the authority may simply not wish to have a formal time limit. The Amendment is also drafted so as to pave the way for any transfers which may have to be made for a stipulated period. In such cases special legal arrangements about the status of the premises will need to be made, since the Minister will only be having their use rather than taking them over altogether. I should like to stress to noble Lords that it should be remembered that the powers of Clause 2(1) may well not be needed at all, and I hope that this Amendment of ours will meet the wishes of noble Lords and the local authorities as well. I beg to move.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for explaining the purpose of his Amendment and the correction which he has put into it, which has a refinement of drafting which does not seem to make much difference in substance to me. The substance is there and I thank the noble Lord for putting down his Amendment. I naturally had not expected my version to be accepted; that would not be in the best tradition. Nevertheless, I accept that the substance of it has been met.
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Local authorities were anxious that they might lose their premises indefinitely, and I thank the noble Lord for the Amendment that he has moved. I shall not move mine.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 12 [Provisions supplementary to section 11]:
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 13, line 37, at end insert—
("( ) A person who is aggrieved by any decision of the Minister that he is liable by virtue of subsection (1) of this section to pay duty under the Act of 1962 in respect of a vehicle may, after giving to the Minister notice of his intention to do so, appeal to a magistrates' court acting for the petty sessions area in which he resides or, if he resides in Scotland, to the sheriff within whose jurisdiction he resides; and on any such appeal the court or sheriff may make such order as it or he thinks fit and the order shall be binding on the Minister.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 3 on the Order Paper, which is in the same terms as the Amendment that I moved at the Committee stage. The Amendment goes to the substance of this Bill, and raises a quite important point. This Bill will introduce an innovation in the licensing of vehicles by establishing a new principle called "continuing liability", which means that all vehicles will be liable for tax. In so far as there is an owner or a keeper of the vehicle, he will be liable for the road tax unless a notification has been made to the Minister of Transport that the vehicle has been laid up. So if, in the future, an owner fails to notify the Minister that he is laying up his vehicle, he will nevertheless still be liable to pay the tax. I accept this innovation of continuing liability. It is quite an important one in law. It lays a heavy responsibility on the many millions of people who own vehicles in the community, and all I hope is that they will understand that they have this liability before some misfortune strikes them.
Perhaps I may briefly recapitulate the point which I was making on Second Reading. I should say that there has been some correspondence between the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, and myself in the interval, but the point has not been completely resolved. The noble Lord has given me further reasons why he thinks that my Amendment is not needed, or is not possible, but I feel

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that your Lordships should hear why he thinks it undesirable and why I think it could be desirable.
The point being established that continuous liability will be a new responsibility for vehicle owners, my Amendment provides that where a vehicle owner has failed to notify the Minister that he has laid up his vehicle, and a demand for arrears of tax is then made by the Minister to the vehicle owner, in a case of dispute the owner shall have the right of appeal to the magistrates' court. The Bill provides that the Minister shall have discretion to consider cases on their merits, and it does not need a great stretch of imagination to realise that there will be an infinite number of reasons why individual owners of vehicles may have failed to notify the Minister that they were going to lay up their vehicle. They might have had some terrible accident; the car might have run over a cliff, and that was an end of it; and it simply would not occur to them to write to the Minister and say that this had happened. They would not have a vehicle, and they naturally would not think of writing. Obviously, where we are concerned with many millions of cases there will be an infinite variety of possibilities.
I am sure that in most cases the Minister will use reasonably the power of discretion which this Bill gives him, but there will inevitably be some cases where the owner of the vehicle is not satisfied that the Minister has been reasonable; where the Minister is still demanding that the arrears of tax be paid. This is the case that my Amendment is designed to meet, to give the citizen concerned the right of appeal to a magistrates' court in order to have his case heard by an independent body, instead of by the Minister who is responsible for collecting the tax. I concede that there are technical difficulties, but there seems quite a hit to recommend my Amendment. That is why I feel justified in bringing it before the House again. I beg to move.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, may I support the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, on this Amendment? I should have thought it would be quite simple, when a vehicle was laid up, to ask for the registration book to be handed in to the local authority
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and for it then to be withdrawn at such time as one wished to nut the vehicle on the road again. It would not be a very difficult administrative job, and the book has to be handed in for re-licensing, anyway.
3.32 p.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, has said, while we were processing this Bill through your Lordships' House, we suddenly realised that we were talking about something that was not simply routine. The principle of continuous liability is of importance and is something new, and we had an interesting discussion, at the end of which the noble Lord kindly withdrew his Amendment in order to enable my right honourable friend to have another thought about the circumstances, particularly in the light of what your Lordships had to say on the subject. Before going on, may I make a small point? I think there is a small typing error in the noble Lord's Amendment. The correct reference is to subsection (1) of Clause 11, rather than to subsection (1) of Clause 12, as stated in the Amendment. It is the key clause that is of importance, rather than the subsidiary clause. But that point is entirely secondary and not of importance. The important point is one of principle.
Let us take first the Minister's decision that the person is liable for duty for some back period because the period has not been covered either by a licence or by a notice of laying-up. In these circumstances, the Minister has only two ways of recovering back duty from an unwilling person—I am talking now about the situation under the Bill, and not the situation as foreseen by the noble Lord. First, he can sue for it in a county court. The person can then argue that all or some of the duty claimed is not owed. Secondly, if the person later applies for a fresh licence from a current date the Minister can deduct any back duty owing and issue a licence for a shorter period. If this second situation arises, the individual has a right of appeal, under Clause 24, either to a county court or, in Scotland, to the sheriff. In both cases under the Bill the matter would be decided by a civil court and not by a magistrates' court and the power of appeal exists,

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However, we are proposing that the appeal should be to a civil court, while the noble Lord is saying that the appeal should be to a magistrates' court.
If we turn to the Minister's decision not to deem notice to have been given by exercising his powers under regulations which he will make under Clause 12(3)(e), then I think the individual would have to satisfy the court that the vehicle was laid up during the period and that he had some sufficiently good reason for not notifying the laying up in advance. But when we get down to the business of making this Bill work this is essentially a matter of administrative discretion and what is a reasonable excuse for not complying with the law. What is really at issue is not a conflict of evidence about facts, but a conflict of opinion about excuses. In our view in a tax-collecting field, which this is, this judgment can best be exercised so as to combine protection of the Revenue—which is important—with fairness to the individual—which is even more important—by the normal administrative discretion of the tax-collecting authority. Rather as Customs and Excise have discretion to waive duty in a case where a person has failed to declare something, the Minister would decide whether to exercise discretion and deem a notification of laying up to have been given. We think that the Minister will be in a better position than the courts to ensure consistency of treatment. The problem is that we have to treat individuals as reasonably quickly and fairly as we can; and with a single centre for deciding policy in this matter the Minister would be a better source.
If the Bill gave a statutory right to leniency, a major difficulty would arise from the need to define for court purposes, as would be necessary, an official list of excuses. It would be difficult to compile a really comprehensive list: there would almost certainly be circumstances which had not been thought of, and which the courts would not then be able to take into account. But the Minister will be able to recognise them in considering whether to deem a notification of laying up to be given. On the other hand, assuming that we listed the possible exemptions, the very existence of such a list in a Statute would, I am afraid, encourage certain people not to take the law seriously in the first place.
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In short, my case is that, so far as the matters at issue here are appropriate for decision by a court—that is, so far as they concern conflicts of fact, for instance, as to the identity of the vehicle and the registered keeper, as to the dates when the vehicle was licensed, as to whether notices were or were not given, and so on—the Bill already provides for these matters to be determined by a court if the person wishes. So far as the matter in dispute is the exercise of the discretion of the Minister as the authority responsible for collecting the duty—that is, deciding whether or not the person has a good excuse for failing to comply with the law and should therefore be let off some or all of the back duty which under the law he owes—I hope that I have said sufficient to convince your Lordships that these matters are best left to the discretion of the Minister. As was said in our earlier discussion, the Minister will be subject to constitutional checks of Parliament and, if necessary, of the Parliamentary Commissioner. For this reason I hope that the noble Lord will feel, on reflection, that the Bill as it stands provides a sound working basis for the introduction of the new principle of continuous liability (and he has been good enough to support the principle in general terms) and will feel able to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether or not this continuous liability will be indicated on the licence application form?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, this is a very major change and it will be announced very much in the form of a communication. There will be a major publicity programme before this new system is brought into effect. People will have to be told pretty clearly, by all the media of mass communication open to us, what this is all about. It is a little way off, but we intend by a massive publicity campaign to make the whole of this new principle abundantly clear to all the people concerned.
LORD HAWKE: Massive communication or not, my Lords, this doctrine of continuous liability is going to appear a very strange one to the people of this country. Where will it end, having started on vehicles? What about wireless licences? Has the person who takes out a wireless licence to inform the Minister

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if he ceases to listen to the wireless and does not wish to take out another licence? What about the person who sells tobacco, and so on? One could take it throughout the whole gambit of taxation. Is this a precedent? Is this the thin end of the wedge? Do the British people realise that this extraordinary doctrine is being imposed upon them? I very much doubt whether they do.
LORD BELSTEAD: My Lords, may I identify myself with the two noble Lords who have just spoken in being somewhat worried about how the public will be made aware of what my noble friend Lord Nugent has referred to as an innovation—to which, of course, in principle, we give our support? May I, at the same time, ask the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, about a matter which still worries me? At the last stage of this Bill my noble friend Lord Nugent referred to the different cases of dispute which undoubtedly may arise in this new process, involving over 10 million vehicle-owners. Among these cases, as he pointed out, will be cases of breakdowns in notification procedure, of people who have failed to understand the new law and of deliberate evaders. In all these cases, I suggest that if justice is not seen to be done by permitting an appeal to a magistrates' court—the point of this Amendment—there will often be a sense of grievance. If this feeling is added to the possibility that people guilty of licensing offences are sometimes poor payers, I very much fear that back duty due for contravention of Clause 11(1) may often remain unpaid, and this will presumably mean that these people will end up in the courts because they owe money—the very situation which the Government are apparently so eager should be avoided.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the right of appeal is not denied to the individual. What we are discussing today is to whom the appeal is made. We believe that the appeal should be made to the county court in extreme cases; and we believe that as this new principle is developed the Minister, with his overall view of the situation, will be in a better position to give uniform rulings over the whole field of—I will not say conflict, but of dispute between the individual and the legal machine. It is not a question of denying the individual his right of appeal.
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All we are talking about is: to whom does he appeal if there is conflict between the individual and the State?
Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, that of course this is not really a new situation. I think I mentioned the point in our earlier discussion that the principle of continuous liability exists in respect of wireless and television sets, but since they are not such expensive pieces of equipment as motor cars and the charges on them are not so heavy, perhaps we do not take the situation as seriously. As we know, if you sell your wireless set you cease to be liable for duty, and it will be an exactly similar situation if you sell your motor vehicle. But, as I said to my noble friend, we have had the principle before; it is not a new principle. It is, however, a very great extension of an existing principle, and we do not intend to spring this on the British people suddenly. They will be told about what is going to happen, about the benefits that they will draw from it—and there are real benefits which the British public will draw from it—and about what they will have to do to help the new procedures to work so that they can draw the benefits and so that the State can at the same time benefit from what will be in fact a much more efficient procedure. Nothing very terrible is happening here. All the individual has to do is to let the authorities know when he changes his address, if he sells his car or if he scraps it. He has to co-operate with the State to a certain extent, but, for the benefits that he will draw from it and the benefits that society will draw from it, I think it is very little to ask.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, the noble Lord has produced another new one on me. If a vehicle owner moves house, will he have to notify not only all his friends but also the vehicle licensing people that he has moved house?
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, are we not now in danger of discussing the principles of the Bill, and ought not the discussion which is now taking place to have taken place in Committee, on the Question, That the clause stand part of the Bill? What we are now discussing, or ought to be discussing, in my opinion, is the issue as between the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, and the reply of my noble friend—namely, whether the appeal should lie to

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the magistrates' court or to the county court. I believe that we ought to confine ourselves to that issue.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for trying to answer the various points that were raised. As I suspected, there is a certain measure of uneasiness about the very far-reaching implications which this new principle will have. I think most of us, at any rate, accept it as being the right way to deal with the evasion of tax due, which is now taking place on a widespread scale. But I still feel some uneasiness about it, although I have to accept that the noble Lord's arguments about the difficulty of defining what would be the matter on which the magistrates' court would be judging is a difficult one. For this reason, the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, says that the Minister could be much more consistent than the courts. It may be that he could, but if he always says "No" this is not going to give much comfort to the disgruntled citizens.
There is no getting away from the point that my noble friend Lord Belstead made, that undoubtedly the Minister will say "No" when cases are put to him from time to time. Very often, I do not doubt, he would be right to say "No"; but this will not alter the fact that the owner of the vehicle concerned will still be very angry and aggrieved. I think that the noble Lord may find that, in practice, this is not going to be a very easy piece of administration; that the Minister will find buzzing around his head continuously a hornets' nest of aggrieved motor car owners who feel that they had a perfectly good excuse for not letting him know that they had laid up the car and that they ought not to be charged the back duty.
However, I cannot think of a better way to deal with the problem. I agree that my Amendment is not entirely satisfactory, and so therefore I think we ought to accept the Government's view on this. But I should like the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, to give us the assurance that this will be something which the Ombudsman will be able to investigate, because I think he may be very busy on these cases in the future and I feel that some safety valve is necessary. However good the noble Lord's publicity cam-
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paign, people learn these new arrangements very slowly. However, having heard what the noble Lord has said to us, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
LORD WINTER BOTTOM: My Lords, with the permission of the House, may I answer one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent? I should like to repeat the point that I made: that the Ombudsman is empowered to deal with maladministration in this field.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.49 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 13, line 37, at end insert—
("( ) The period in respect of which the keeper of a vehicle may he held liable to pay duty following the end of a period in respect of which duty has been paid shall not exceed 4 months.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this Amendment—and this, again, is the same Amendment as that which I put down on the Committee stage—is to limit the period of arrears of duty which the Minister might reclaim in order to protect the owner of the car who had failed to notify the laying up of the car against a lengthy delay in the Ministry of Transport which resulted, therefore, in an excessive demand for repayment by the Minister, perhaps a year or so. For that reason, I have put down this Amendment limiting the period for which the Minister can reclaim arrears of duty to four months. Again, technical difficulties are involved here. The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, has been good enough to write to me about it. I think he has a good answer to it, and if your Lordships are prepared to accept it I shall be, too. I beg to move.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his co-operative attitude. I think the noble Lord and I are in sympathy with the individual who has defaulted. I am at the moment in a certain measure of default in that my licence is overdue and I have mislaid my log book. During the transitional period this is going to happen fairly often. As the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, said, one thing that we shall all have to do automatically when we change our houses and let our friends know that we have moved, is also to let

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the Ministry of Transport know that we have moved. In our discussions during the Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, made this point. He was kind enough to withdraw his Amendment before I had the opportunity of replying to it, and it may be of use to tell your Lordships the position.
The problem is: how is one to distinguish the innocent and forgetful man who forgets to notify a change of address and who has in fact laid up his vehicle from the owner of a car or goods vehicle who deliberately fails to notify changes of address and succeeds in evading not only the reminders and warning letters but also efforts to serve a summons on him—perhaps for a considerable period? If the Amendment is passed, anyone who can get away with this for four months will receive a positive encouragement to continue to seek to evade the law indefinitely, for his liability for back duty when he is eventually caught will be limited to four months. Cars and goods vehicles are essentially mobile objects. Not only car owners but some kinds of goods vehicle operators move about the country quite frequently and over quite long distances. Experience shows that they are very difficult to catch up with.
The type of people I have in mind are operators of dump trucks who follow excavations around the country; they are as mobile as the navigators who dug the canals. I am sure that to amend the Bill in the way proposed here would be a positive encouragement to these individuals to disappear from sight. So I believe that limiting the penalty to one of four months would encourage individuals to get away with as much tax as they can.
For this reason we oppose the Amendment. I can give the House the assurance that during the transitional period, after the period during which a massive publicity campaign will be mounted, the Minister will use his powers with the utmost sympathy. There must be a transitional period. With that assurance, I hope that the noble Lord will be willing to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for his reply. I think that I am satisfied with it, as I am
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sure are noble Lords generally. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 27 [Admissibility of records as evidence]:
LORD WINTERBOTTOM LORD WINTERBOTTOM moved Amendments Nos. 5 and 6:
Page 30, line 28, after ("Act") insert ("or a part of any other records maintained by the Minister with respect to vehicles")
Page 30, line 33, leave out ("the authority in question") and insert (", in the case of records maintained by a local authority, by the authority ")
The noble Lord said The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 on the Marshalled List. No. 6 is consequential upon No. 5. The purpose of these Amendments is to enable a statement in a document purporting to be an extract of the records maintained by the Minister with respect to the plating and testing of goods vehicles to be admissible as evidence in any prosecution brought under Sections 14(1) or 14(2) of the Road Safety Act 1967 which respectively make it an offence to use on roads a goods vehicle to which the Goods Vehicles (Plating and Testing) Regulations 1968 apply, without a plating certificate or a goods vehicle test certificate being in force for the vehicle. In other words, the Amendments would make it unnecessary for a Ministry official to be present at proceedings in order to give evidence that no certificate had been produced.
The Road Safety Act 1967 introduced statutory provisions for enabling the plating and testing of goods vehicles to be undertaken and, in particular, gave the Minister powers to make regulations to establish an organisation for this purpose. The Ministry have established heavy goods vehicles test stations throughout the country at which the necessary examinations of the vehicles are carried out. At the first examination a vehicle is allocated its plated weight (or weights) and a plating certificate is issued accordingly for it. At the same time a test certificate is issued, which remains valid until the vehicle has to be submitted for its next annual examination. Copies of both these certificates are sent to the Minister's goods vehicle centre in Swansea, where a central record of all plating and testing particulars is maintained. It may be necessary to prove in court, for

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example, either that no plating or test certificate has been issued, or that the period of validity of a test certificate has expired, and for this purpose it will be necessary to prove the date of expiry shown on the last test certificate. Unless provision is made for the courts to accept a document giving the relevant details which has been prepared at the goods vehicle centre by the person whose duty it is to maintain the records, it would be necessary for an official from the centre to attend in court to give evidence in person about these details. This would be very time consuming and could mean that additional staff might have to be employed to deal with such a requirement. To avoid this, Clause 27, as it is now proposed to be amended by Amendments Nos. 5 and 6, could be invoked, so as to enable the relevant evidence to be given in the form of a document rather than in person.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.

HOUSE OF LORDS REFORM: PARLIAMENT (No. 2) BILL
3.57 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, with permission I should like to repeat a Statement which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister about the Parliament (No. 2) Bill. The Statement is as follows:
"As the House knows, the Government introduced this Bill following consultations in the all-Party conference on Lords reform, as the measure best calculated in our view to modernise Parliament on a comprehensive basis, dealing with the powers of another place and its composition.
"Following the Government's decision to introduce early legislation for the purpose of giving statutory effect to some of the salient proposals in the White Paper In Place of Strife (Command No. 3888) it is now clear that the legislative priorities governing the Parliamentary time table for the rest of this Session must be recast in order to give right of way to the Industrial Relations Bill, and—as soon as this can be made ready—the Merchant Shipping Bill which my right honourable friend, the Leader of the House
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recently indicated that the Government wished to bring forward this Session.
"The Government have therefore decided not to proceed further at this time with the Parliament (No. 2) Bill in order to ensure that the necessary Parliamentary time is available for priority Government legislation including the two measures to which I have just referred."
My Lords, I propose to keep your Lordships informed, as my right honourable friend the Lord President of the Council will keep Members informed in another place, about the Government's further intentions in the matter of the Bill.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the Statement made by the noble Lord the Leader of the House will not come to your Lordships as much of a surprise. The Bill has been as good as dead for some time. Although the Government talk about not proceeding further with the measure "at this time", I think that none of your Lordships will expect that we shall ever see this Bill in its present form again. I must say that to me this is a disappointment.
The noble Lord will not expect me to accept the reasons given in the Statement for abandoning the Bill. Nor do I. But this is not the moment to recriminate. I am sad because I see an opportunity to reform your Lordships' House, with a considerable measure of agreement between the Parties, wasted; and your Lordships will remember that the White Paper proposals were approved in this House by an overwhelming majority. I do not believe that in the future it will be easy, or even perhaps possible, to get such agreement again. I must put on record that I, and I think probably the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, believe that the proposals in the White Paper would have made a workable, an acceptable and an authoritative House.
My Lords, I have seen it suggested in some quarters that the Government might consider introducing a short Bill to remove all power from this House and not touch the composition. To put it very mildly, I think that the Government would be very ill-advised if they did any such thing; and I hope that they will

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rather work to salvage what can be salvaged from this very sorry affair.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, I should like to endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has said, and to express my personal sympathies to the noble Lord, the Leader of the House, for having had to make this Statement, this depressing Statement, to-day. It must have been extremely repugnant to him, particularly when one realises the strenuous personal efforts and inspiration which he has given to try to make this measure of reform a reality. I share his disappointment. I believe it is a bad decision by the Government and a weak one, and I think it ironic that the battle to preserve the status quo should have been won by the self-styled radical reformers in another place. But the decision not to reform this House will also, in my view, put back the overdue reform of another place, and I believe that the Government must consider the tremendous implications of their decision to-day. I would ask them whether it is not possible to refer this matter perhaps to the Constitutional Commission. I believe something must be done, because it seems to me incredible that at a time when the whole political system of this country is forfeiting the confidence of the public the Government should shy away from a major reform of the Parliamentary system. My Lords, I believe this is a bad day for democracy and a bad decision.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, may I—
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I think it is customary for me to reply to the two Front Bench speakers first.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY:
Yes.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I shall follow the example of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and not get drawn into controversy to-day. I have noted what he has had to say about a possible Bill on powers, and I think he knows my view on that. I also noted what the noble Lord, Lord Byers said about the Constitutional Commission. That, of course, has always been a possibility and has been suggested in various quarters, but there has been no time to give it
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consideration in the new situation in which we now find ourselves.
My Lords, I must make clear that I repeated this Statement with a very deep feeling of regret. Notwithstanding all the controversy, I share the views of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and other noble Lords opposite, judging by the vote in your Lordships' House; and I know that I speak for the majority of my noble friends on this side of the House. I believe the proposals contained in the White Paper and those parts of them which were embodied in the Parliament (No. 2) Bill to have represented a good and practical arrangement for the reform of your Lordships' House, and I would emphasise that it was of course in the context of modernising Parliament as a whole. It is on that account that I feel regret, rather than at the time we spent in working out the scheme, and I appreciate the personal remarks to me of the noble Lord, Lord Byers.
I would not let this opportunity go by without expressing my very real appreciation to those of my colleagues who have worked on this subject; in particular the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, who chaired our discussions with great fairness, assiduity and skill; and especially to the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Byers, and to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, and also the officials who have worked so very hard on this matter.
Perhaps I may make one point which I hope will not be embarrassing to the Clerk of the Parliaments: I should like to express my appreciation to the Clerks of the House who, while preserving the absolute propriety of their independent position, have given valuable advice on technical questions, as they always do, to all Members of your Lordships' House irrespective of Party. In particular, I am bound to single out one person who at the present moment does not have the technical status of a Clerk of the House—that is, Mr. Michael Wheeler-Booth, who is Secretary to the Leader and the Chief Whip and who has devoted a very great deal of intelligence and creative thought to this matter. This occasion, therefore, can be only rather a sad one for me; but, my Lords, I still think that we have a lot of useful work to do in your Lordships' House.
4.7 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, may I say one word, as one of those who did not agree with this Bill? I am not quite clear, from what the noble Lord the Leader of the House said, whether this Bill has, as it were, passed into a coma—which would be quite natural after the battering that it had in another place—or whether it is definitely dead. I personally hope very much that it is dead, because I think it was an extremely bad Bill which would have been not only disastrous but dangerous to democracy in this country.
I would, however, add this: first, a word of sympathy with those who have tried so hard to find a solution, an agreed solution, to this very difficult problem. It is not perhaps their fault that they did not find a very satisfactory one, because nobody has done that up to now. I should also like to say how much I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Byers, when he said that he hoped the problem of the House of Commons could be tackled at the same time. I think that one of the worst things about this Bill was the attempt to reform your Lordships' House without any consideration of the other place. I hope that next time they will both be considered together.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, may I support my noble cousin in what he has said? Would not Her Majesty's Government agree that this abortive manæuvre, now abandoned, has wasted the time of both Houses of Parliament; and not only both Houses of Parliament, but the country as a whole? And will not Her Majesty's Government abandon these follies and fripperies in favour of serious legislation?
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I am one of those who would like to join in the tributes which have been paid to the Leader of the House and to those who worked so hard to find a satisfactory solution to what is admittedly an extremely difficult problem. I was not one of those who thought the solution which was produced by the Government at all satisfactory. I will not go into the reasons why I hold those opinions. I welcome the decision that this Bill is now dead and I should like to join in the funeral oration and the tributes. I also
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welcome the fact that it will no longer be necessary for me to try to qualify as a Cross-Bencher.
LORD RATHCAVAN: My Lords, may I ask the Leader of the House whether he is aware that there was a clause in the Parliament (No. 2) Bill which gave to Peers the right to vote in Parliamentary elections? This has nothing to do with the reform of the House of Lords, and I would ask the noble Lord whether the Government will bring in a short Bill to to give Peers the right to vote in Parliamentary elections which has been denied to them for hundreds of years when other members of the community have been given votes right and left.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I know the interest of the noble Lord, Lord Rathcavan, in this point. I must admit that it was certainly one to which we gave consideration and on which we came to a view. Whether there will be an opportunity in this matter I do not know, but I have indicated that any further consideration on the matter of the Bill will be reported to your Lordships' House. I think that he has made a significant point. As to the precise status of the Bill, I really cannot enlighten the noble Marquess, because I am not very enlightened myself on the subject; but I take his point. Equally, I will not be drawn by the reference of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, to funeral obsequies, though there is a certain quality of that in the discussion. May I say that I appreciate the remarks of the noble Viscount and of the noble Marquess as sympathetic and, if I may say so, more appropriate than those of the noble Earl, Lord Arran.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he realises that there is another side to this matter which has given some encouragement in certain quarters, in these days when the power of Government is getting so much greater, in that an agreement between the two Front Benches has been frustrated by the Back Benchers of another place? A great many people are—perhaps "deriving satisfaction" is too high a term, but are noting that Members of another place are not yet quite incapable of making their opinion felt.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I do not wish to be drawn further. The last time I made any comment relative to the proceedings of another place, rather greater weight was attached to its significance than I think had been done in your Lordships' House. I would only say to the noble Lord that the purpose behind the reform was to strengthen Parliament and to enable it to work more effectively in relation to the all-important question of controlling the Executive. As to the particular methods, the noble Lord may wish to return to the days of Irish Members—but perhaps I will not go any further.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, in view of the triumph of democracy, would not the Government consider putting up a statue to the Heavenly Twins—Michael Castor and Enoch Pollux?
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, in view of what has been said, I wonder whether one of the least conspicuous of Back Benchers in your Lordships' House may point out one thing. My noble Leader has said that a substantial amount of agreement was reached between the Front Benches. That is certainly true as regards the White Paper, but it is not true as regards the Bill, which bore very little relation to the White Paper, and a great many of us felt extremely uneasy and unhappy about it. Personally I am not one who mourns the Bill's demise.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I do not want to go on. One of the great difficulties is that I found that so many of the critics of the proposals had never read the White Paper. I can only conclude that the noble Lord has not correlated the Bill and the White Paper.

STREET OFFENCES BILL [H.L.]
4.14 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Chorley.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Offences of accosting or importuning for sexual purposes]:
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 1:
Leave out Clause 1 and insert the following new clause:
Definition
".For the removal of doubt it is hereby declared and enacted that in section 1, subsection (1), of the Street Offences Act 1959 the word 'prostitute' shall include a male and a female prostitute."
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 1. In doing so, may I say that this Amendment is one of a series which hang together, and I believe that I should be acting generally in accordance with the practice of the House if, in moving the first Amendment, I deployed, at any rate reasonably briefly, the reasons which stand behind the other Amendments which follow it on the Order Paper.
I know how keenly my noble friend Lord Chorley feels about this Bill. Last year he introduced a Bill on slightly different lines and he has come back to the attack this year. For that reason, I am all the more sorry to have to say to him—and I hope that he will understand that I am perfectly sincere—that I cannot persuade myself to think that this Bill is other than a very bad one. I voted against it on Second Reading. Your Lordships thought that it should be read a second time. If I divine correctly the thought in the minds of many of the speakers who took part in the debate on Second Reading, it was on these lines: "The Bill no doubt has defects. They can be examined further in Committee and such vices as are disclosed during the Committee stage can be removed." Many noble Lords spoke, but the only Amendments on the Order Paper are those which I hope I have not been too audacious in putting down. They constitute a series of proposals which I submit for your Lordships' consideration.
I think that legislation in this field is extremely difficult and extremely dangerous. It can touch every one of us. A wrongful conviction for the sort of behaviour with which the Bill deals is a disaster to the person convicted, unless

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he has been properly convicted, and even if he has been properly convicted. I am profoundly convinced that the Bill before your Lordships is one which substantially enlarges the risk of wrongful conviction. When he was speaking on the first version of this Bill, my noble friend Lord Chorley admitted so in terms. His case to-day would be that he has lessened the danger by narrowing the scope of his present proposals. I submit to your Lordships, with great respect, that he has not succeeded in doing so and that the Bill in its present form is every bit as dangerous as the Bill which he first introduced and in some ways is more dangerous.
I do not like this Bill for the following reasons. First, I do not think it at all necessary. There is quite sufficient legislative power to deal with the sort of behaviour which the House is considering. Secondly, I think that it would be almost entirely ineffective. Its only effect will be that from time to time some unfortunate person, owing to a bona fide mistake on the part of witnesses, will be convicted and his life made a tragedy. That will be the only effect it will have. Thirdly—and this objection I regard as far the most important—it gives rise to the risk of wrongful conviction and creates a danger for every citizen in this country. I hope that I do not exaggerate. I shall try to make that good, at any rate to some extent. If I do exaggerate, I hope that your Lordships will discount it.
May I take the first point first. It is difficult to measure the extent of the nuisance. Nobody disputes that the unwelcome attentions of a discourteous male are thoroughly disagreeable. There is no question that the sort of conduct which we are discussing is very much resented and I do not think that any noble Lord would wish to question that. But, with great respect, I do not think that that is the question we have to ask ourselves. That sort of behaviour is certainly a nuisance, but the relevant question we should put to ourselves in considering this Bill is whether it is a nuisance on such a scale that we ought to amend the criminal law specifically to deal with it and bring about the various consequences which I have ventured to adumbrate.
This also imposes an extra burden on the unfortunate police force. We had an exchange across the Floor of the House yesterday on recruitment to the police, and more than one noble Lord was disturbed about it. One noble Lord asked whether it was really right to keep police officers hanging about the courts in the way that they are these days when they have such a heavy burden upon them trying to protect us against serious crime. I would ask your Lordships to say that unless this is a nuisance of serious proportions we ought not to ask the police to undertake this, because it often means a police officer, who has perhaps been on duty all night, having to give evidence before the magistrates' court the next morning.
LORD STRABOLGI: I am sorry to interupt my noble friend, but may I remind him that this is a Committee stage and, very interesting as his speech is, it would appear to me, with great respect to him, to be a Second Reading speech about a general matter. I wonder whether he could perhaps start moving his Amendment and telling the Committee its advantages.
LORD CONESFORD: May I, before the noble and learned Lord replies, say that I think it is for the convenience of the Committee, no matter what the views of noble Lords on the measure are, that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, should explain the background of this series of Amendments, which he seems to be doing very efficiently and, I am certain, knowing him, with the maximum brevity, because every word that he now says will avoid spending time later on.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: May I support my noble friend in hoping that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, will go on putting forward the full reasons for his Amendment, which is very brief in its language, but very important in its effect.
LORD STOW HILL: I am obliged to all three noble Lords who have spoken. I will certainly try to conform with the practice of the Committee. I sought to indicate the reasons why I was proceeding in the way in which I was by saying that the Amendment to which I am now speaking is really fundamental to all the other Amendments, and unless I deploy

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the case for the Amendments as a whole the case for this particular Amendment will not become clear. This Amendment is to leave out Clause 1 and to insert a different clause. I cannot support the case I am putting before your Lordships in favour of deleting Clause 1 from the Bill, which is the clause which contains the whole substance of the Bill, unless I say what the objections are which I urge against it. But I will try to say what I have to say as briefly as I can, and I have already said a good deal of that which I wish to say in support of the Amendment.
I have given three reasons. May I deal with each of them as shortly as I can? How does one measure the extent of a nuisance of this sort? I should have thought, in a sense, that the best way was if each of us were to consult our own experience. Let each of us ask ourselves how often in the last year, the last two years or the last three years, this has been the subject of conversation; how often have reasonable, sensible women of our acquaintance or our family circle complained that they have been molested, or even raised the subject, discussed it or shown the slightest interest in it?
I have made some researches on these lines, and one sensible lady of my acquaintance said: "Of course, if you ask for that sort of thing you probably get it." If you go for a stroll by yourself at twenty-past nine in Rotten Row, for example, I daresay you may have your bag snatched and various things may happen to you. But sensible women do not do that sort of thing. I should have thought that one's experience tells one that sensible women, when somebody behaves like a blackguard and tries to molest them, just pass on and the thing is over in two seconds; nobody takes any more notice, and the lady concerned completely forgets about it.
The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, in support of the case which he deployed, referred to the Wolfenden Report. He is very anxious about kerb-crawling. I suppose that there are kerb-crawlers. I daresay I am not a very interesting proposition myself; I do not remember ever having seen any, but I am told that they do exist. I have no doubt that if I went to some parts of London at some hours of the night I might well discover some. But Sir John Wolfenden and his
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colleagues expressed a view about kerb-crawling. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, read out part of it. I do not wish to agree with what he said, but he told your Lordships that the Wolfenden Report contained no recommendation that there should be any specific measure taken to curb kerb-crawling. It was for this reason. The paragraph from which the noble Lord quoted continues as follows:
"To meet the problem it would he necessary to frame an offence the essential ingredient of which would be driving a motor-car for the purposes of immoral solicitation. Whilst we appreciate the reality of the problem, and we consider that it should be kept under review, the difficulties of proof would be considerable, and the possibility of a very damaging charge being levelled at an innocent motorist must also be borne in mind. We do not feel able to make any positive recommendation."
Is not that good sense? I should have thought that the Report is absolutely right in summarising the position as it does. There are no doubt unbalanced women who are firmly convinced that their often very modest charms are far more appetising to the male sex than anybody else would think that they conceivably could be. I think they are sometimes known as "ingrowing virgins". But I am talking about sensible women, ordinary, balanced, normal women that one knows. To them, I would respectfully submit to your Lordships, this is hardly a real matter of concern.
I have just read out what the Wolfenden Report says about kerb-crawling. But the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, thinks that the present legislation and the present authorities do not deal with kerb-crawling. He cited the case of Crook v. Edmondson, decided under Section 32 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, which, as I understood the noble Lord, seemed to him to be an authority in favour of the view that if you were insulted in a car you could not be prosecuted, whereas if you were insulted on foot, you might be. I can only say that I would beg the noble Lord to read that decision again. It really says nothing of the sort. However, if the purpose for which you are soliciting is the purpose dealt with in the 1956 Act, you commit an offence under Section 32; and it does not matter whether you commit it while driving in a motor car, flying a helicopter around somebody, or

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standing on your head in front of somebody. The question is: are you soliciting for a purpose which the Act considers a thoroughly immoral purpose? Are you soliciting an idiot woman? Are you soliciting a child? Are you soliciting for some purpose of that sort? If you are, then I should have thought it was obvious from the reading of Lord Justice Winn, who pronounced the leading judgment of the Court of Appeal in that case, that you could commit an offence under Section 32 of the Act.
If for any reason kerb-crawling is not included in the existing legislation—and I should have thought that it clearly was—it is certainly included in the Amendment on the Marshalled List, which I shall ask your Lordships to consider later on, which creates a new offence of molesting another person, which you can do on foot or wherever you may be. Therefore, I submit that this is quite unnecessary.
I should have thought that one's attitude to these things had rather changed. There used to be a time, I suppose, when we talked in terms of "a fate worse than death", and "an insult to a lady's honour" which could be avenged only in blood. Most of that sort of thing we left behind with the troubadours. I should have thought now that it was our pleasure and pride to contemplate our magnificent young 5 ft. 11 ins. viragos, splendidly developed in athletics, with fine complexions and clear eyes, every bit as determined to excel in whatever may be the career of their choice as the most ambitious and bouncing of her male counterparts. In point of physique, I should have thought that a sound box on the ears from a young lady of that type was every bit as effective a deterrent as the more conventional punch on the nose that perhaps in a bygone age might have been administered by her male escort.
We have three women Prime Ministers to-day. I should have thought there was to-day very much less room for the operation of the phrase that we used to revel in in our sentimental moments of the "weaker sex" and the "frail sex". That is one of the reasons why, in framing the Amendments which I have ventured to put before your Lordships, I have not limited molesting to molesting for an
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immoral purpose. If one goes to a place where there are coloured immigrants, one may see white louts walk after them and call some unfortunate coloured boy or coloured young man a name, or use some inappropriate epithet towards him. That is, I should have thought, just as bad a kind of molesting as molesting for an immoral purpose. Therefore I hope that the noble Lord will be able to forgo his preoccupation with the sort of behaviour which he describes and recognise that there are other forms of molesting which are just as bad. I hope that the Committee, if these Amendments are acceptable, will feel that I am right in including them.
Will the Bill be effective? I should have thought that I should not raise any dissent if I said that our personal disciplines prevent us from behaving in the kind of way the noble Lord has in mind. Our respect for women, and respect for ourselves, deters us from molesting women for sexual purposes. If it does not, if we are the kind of people who are not held in by inhibitions of that sort, I think it really is completely unrealistic to think that, because you might be fined 40s. in a magistrate's court if you are unlucky and get caught out, you are going to stop trying to "date" a girl or trying to force yourself on some lady in the hope that she may prove accommodating to your inclinations. Therefore, I think that in any case in this sort of legislation there is very little effect. It will go on just as it did before.
Then, should one bring in the person whom I might term "the customer"? The noble Lord has the laudable desire to equate women and men. I tried to go some way towards him by bringing in the male prostitute. I should have thought that the man in the street could not care less whether the male prostitute is or is not included in the 1959 Act, and would really be rather surprised that, in such a very exciting age, Parliament should take up its time in matters of that sort. But I have, I hope your Lordships may think rightly, put down an Amendment to say that "common prostitute" in the 1959 Act includes a male prostitute, and as a measure of justice I have extended to the male prostitute the protection which the 1959 Act gives by way of warning to the female prostitute. So I have gone some way to meet my noble friend.

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The noble Lord wants to put the customer on the same footing as the lady who provides the services for which the customer is seeking. We do not make prostitution itself an offence. Keeping a disorderly house, yes. Displaying yourself in public in such a way as to create a nuisance, yes. But the Legislature has never tried, and does not now try, to say that the act of prostitution is a criminal offence. Why? Because we have long accepted, I should have thought, that courts of law are not courts of morals; and in any case we could not stop it if we tried. It would be completely ineffective to try to prevent the act of prostitution. If so, is it not wholly illogical to say that the customer commits a crime whereas the prostitute herself, by prostituting herself, does not commit a crime?
I do not suppose that any of us feels any violent stream of sympathy for gigolos. If a gigolo hangs around a watering place on the look-out for an elderly lady whom the passage of years has not treated too kindly, I do not suppose that anybody would shed any bitter tears over his being brought within the scope of the 1959 Act. I think it is a little hard on the unfortunate elderly lady, who perhaps has to humiliate herself and give him a sports car in the hope that she may enjoy his companionship; and that would be one of the consequences of doing what my noble friend wants to do.
What about the risk of wrongful conviction? Speaking for myself, I think that one of the most precious experiences I have had is working closely with the police—and I hope that I have an understanding of their point of view. If an experienced police officer tells me that he kept somebody under observation for a period of time and that that person was molesting women, peering into their faces and so on, I should think that in nine cases out of ten he is right. Indeed, in 49 cases out of 50 he is right. But in the fiftieth case he may be wrong. And if he is wrong, there is a tragedy.
I do not want to speak in over-painted tones (if that is not a mixed metaphor) but I would ask your Lordships to consider the person who is absent-minded, who is short-sighted; the elderly man, perhaps, who lives in a room by himself and who really would like to have companionship and walks up and down and perhaps does look into people's faces. It
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is possible to make a mistake; it is not too difficult to make a mistake in that sort of case. However careful and fair-minded police officers are in these matters—and I am convinced that they are—even if they are right in 49 cases out of 50, they may go wrong on the fiftieth case and that is an unspeakable tragedy. I should have thought that the disaster which that means to an individual far outweighs the advantage to society of imposing a very slight curb on behaviour of this kind which this Bill, if it were passed, might impose.
I shall be told by the noble Lord that I do not know what goes on in courts because I am not a practising lawyer. I should have thought, if I may respectfully say so to him, that the right judge in this kind of situation is the layman, the ordinary person in the street, who can form a common-sense point of view about this question. The very first criminal case I ever appeared in in 1927 was that of a rather ineffectual middle-aged gentleman who was arrested for walking up and down at Leicester Square peering into ladies' faces. He was acquitted by the magistrate because the police fair-mindedly said that he had been walking in and out of public houses, and the magistrate thought he was probably rather intoxicated and did not know what he was doing. But he might have been convicted. And if he had been convicted, in that case it would have been a wrongful conviction. So my third objection, and the major objection that I raise, is that this Bill enlarges the possibility of wrongful convictions. Therefore, the first object of my first Amendment is to leave out the first clause.
I cannot help thinking, if I may respectfully say so to the noble Lord. Lord Chorley, that in any event the wording of that clause is most unsatisfactory. I should have thought it elementary that when one drafted criminal legislation one tried to draft it clearly. What he has said is that it is to be an offence:
"persistently to accost any person or persons with a view to offering or obtaining sexual services for payment or reward".
What on earth is a "sexual service"? If a young lady accompanies a young gentleman to the cinematograph and in the cosy intimacy of the cinematograph lets him hold her hand, is she affording him a sexual service? Why not? If she lets him put his arm around her shoulder

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and implant a kiss upon her lips, other than that which might be inspired by brotherly affection, is she affording him a sexual service? I should have thought he would experience far less pleasure in holding Mr. Jack Dempsey's or the late Mr. Primo Carnera's hand than he would experience in holding her hand, so why is that not a sexual service?
Without trespassing on the indelicate, I should have thought that there are all sorts of gradations in intimacy. Are we really to have the courts deciding, as a solemn matter of law, at what point an intimacy permitted transgresses the limit from being a non-sexual service to becoming a sexual service? Are magistrates who have to deal with these cases, and police officers who decide whether to prosecute, really to have to bother their heads by trying to find out whether it can be proved against him that the individual wanted to go beyond the Rubicon and solicit a sexual service? Surely that is an absolute reductio ad absurdum. The noble Lord says, "Oh, yes; but the service has to be for payment or reward." Is not buying a cinematograph ticket payment or reward? Is not a few drinks in a public house payment or reward? Is not a ride in a motor car without having to pay for the petrol payment or reward? I myself should have thought that this is about as undesirable language in a criminal Statute as one could well think of.
There is the second paragraph. The noble Lord will no doubt say, "Yes, but there you have a safeguard. That need not be for payment. It is just for molestation. It need not be for payment because there is a safeguard. that the person importuned has to give evidence." With great respect to him, it is no safeguard. In a case where there has been molestation, 99 sensible women out of 100 pass on and take no notice. The one case out of the 100 in which the woman was ready to give evidence might be just the case—I do not say it would be, but it might be—where the woman was prepared to exaggerate and to see more devils than vast Hell can hold. I could not help thinking that the letter which the noble Lord read out in 1968 when he was commending the first version of his Bill was rather a letter of that sort. It was a perfectly sincere letter from a
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lady who thought that Notting Hill Gate was full of streams of people riding about in cars, molesting anybody between the ages of 12 and 60, I think she said. Imagine that lady giving evidence in a case against a man who had involved himself in suspicion of belonging to the train of sexual service seekers.
What I ask your Lordships to do is, in effect, to jettison the Bill and to substitute for it in the first place provisions which put the male prostitute on the same footing as the female prostitute. That is what I formally move at the moment—that the first part of the Bill should be left out and that there should be inserted instead a provision equating the male with the female prostitute, as I proposed. If your Lordships decided that that Amendment should be carried, I should have formally to move the other Amendments because they go with it; but I have sought to deploy the case in favour of all of them. If I speak on the others I shall be very brief.
If I may just add one word on the new clause, I would say that it is deliberately designed to catch only the serious case. I will enlarge on that further later, if I may, but that is my case in favour of the first Amendment. I beg to move.
4.43 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: I am sure that it would be the wish of the Committee that I should start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, for the thoroughness and, if I may say so, the elegance with which he deployed the case for his Amendments. I am sure that it will save us time later on. I would go on to give the Committee the apologies of my noble friend Lord Derwent who was in charge of this Bill from this side of the House at Second Reading but who is prevented by illness from being with us to-day. In those circumstances, and because I was not present, or did not myself take part in the Second Reading debate (although of course I have since read the proceedings) perhaps the Committee will allow me just to express my attitude before I deal with this particular Amendment. My personal attitude is that I wish this Bill had not had a Second Reading. I hope that it will not get a Third Reading. But at the present time I would join with the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, in his efforts to remove what I believe to be some of its worst features.

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It is hardly necessary to add much in the way of further reasons for removing Clause 1, but I would mention two particular reasons. As at present drafted Clause I contains three elements, all of which were thoroughly considered by the Wolfenden Committee and firmly rejected. Subsection (1A) contains the need to prove that there has been persistence. That point was considered fully at paragraph 260 of the Wolfenden Report and firmly rejected. Subsection (1B) contains the need to prove that annoyance was caused to a particular person. That point also was fully considered by the Wolfenden Committee.
LORD CHORLEY: With respect to the noble Lord we are now dealing with an Amendment concerned with subsection (1A) and not with subsection (1B).
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: With great respect, the Amendment proposes to leave out both subsection (1A) and subsection (1B). The Amendment is to leave out Clause 1 and therefore covers both subsections.
LORD SANDFORD: We are indeed dealing with an Amendment to leave out the whole of Clause 1. I am adducing two arguments for supporting that Amendment, and the first of those reasons is that there are three elements in various parts of Clause 1 which were all considered fully by the Wolfenden Committee and firmly rejected. The second element, which is in subsection (1B) of Clause 1 of the Bill, that of the need to prove annoyance to a particular person, was fully considered by the Wolfenden Committee and firmly rejected. Further down, in the second paragraph of subsection (1B) of Clause 1 it is suggested that evidence is required from a particular person. That, too, was fully considered by the Wolfenden Committee (it is referred to in paragraph 255 of their Report) and was firmly rejected. So that, at least, is one reason for supporting the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill.
My second reason is that on the Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, made it clear in his speech (column 32) that in his view the new clause is likely to reduce the effectiveness of the present law in dealing with the abuse of our streets for the plying of their trade by prostitutes. Just exactly
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how, having said that, the noble Lord can continue to hold the view with which he began his Second Reading speech, that the Government are neutral in this matter, I rather fail to understand, particularly as in the conclusion to his speech he pointed out to your Lordships that the Criminal Law Revision Committee are about to embark upon a review of the whole area of sexual offences. Surely we should wait for that review before attempting a piecemeal amendment.
I would add to these two reasons a further consideration. My prime consideration in speaking on this Bill, and particularly on this Amendment, is by no means that of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. My prime consideration is the same as that of the Wolfenden Committee in their Chapter 9 on "Street Offences". It is to ensure that our public streets should be peaceful and pleasant places to walk about in and that the ordinary and decent citizens have rights to the enjoyment and use of these streets, and that those rights ought to be secured. I believe, with the noble Lords, Lord Stow Hill and Lord Stonham, that in the pursuit of abstract concepts of social justice the present Clause 1 seriously jeopardises the very fair success that the Street Offence Act 1959, as at present drafted, is having in the practical and worthwhile aim of keeping prostitutes off our streets as they ply for their trade. Because I believe that, I shall certainly support the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, in his Amendment and shall gladly go into the Lobby with him if he decides to press it; and I hope that many of my noble friends on this side of the Committee will accompany me.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: I wish to support the Amendments of my noble friend Lord Stow Hill because with the new clauses that he has put forward he has brought legal validity into this Street Offences Bill, which without them does not as a matter of fact bear any kind of legal analysis. I am afraid that I shall have to refer back occasionally to the earlier Street Offences Act, even at the risk of being accused of making a Second Reading speech. Lord Chorley's Street Offences Bill is a hotchpotch of good intentions, based on a social disapproval of prostitution which bypasses the fact that prostitution is not in itself

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illegal, as has been said by my noble friend Lord Stow Hill, and therefore is not a crime. This glaring omission, which was ignored in many of the speeches during the debate on the Second Reading, was illuminated best in the devastating speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter. With faultless logic he laid bare the muddled thinking behind this Bill, masked though it was by worthy principles.
The aim of the Bill as stated was to remove various discriminations in relation to street offences, discrimination between men and women; that is, between the prostitute and her client, and the discrimination between male and female prostitutes. The net was also to be drawn wide enough to catch the particular nuisance of kerb-crawling. In fact this seemed to be the main purpose of the Bill. If prostitution is no crime, then the 1959 Act takes care of the particular nuisance of soliciting in public places. As for the argument of sex equality, punishment equally for prostitutes and their clients, it might have been nobler, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, said in his speech on Second Reading, to remove the discrimination against prostitutes themselves.
My noble friend's short opening Amendment in precise legal language deals with both these objections and ensures verifiable evidence. The Amendments also bring male prostitution into line with female prostitution instead of just adding to Section 32 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. Without these Amendments the 1959 Act is endangered and the 1956 Act just patched up. The Amendments of my noble friend Lord Stow Hill are clearer and likely to be more just when put into practice.
No one will deny that kerb-crawling is a squalid nuisance, that it is a cause of annoyance, even of alarm to some women. But are we not exaggerating the alarm? I have been told by many young friends of mine that a sharp brush-off can he effective and cause alarm to the kerb-crawler himself. Surely the presence of a police patrol car might be more effective than to bring in a law. I am afraid that in some large cities in many parts of the world it is becoming hazardous in varying degrees for women
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to walk alone at night in dark and lonely areas. All the same, kerb-crawling, which is an irregular nuisance all over the country, should not be put in the category of a criminal offence.
Sometimes I think that we in the Western Hemisphere are full of hypocrisy in our attitude to all aspects of sex. When I see these beautiful and tempting young women with their disappearing skirts and abandoned looking coiffures I find it hard to believe the accounts of the traumatic effect on them of unwelcome advances from kerb-crawlers. Somehow it does not add up with reality. It seems ridiculous to assume that these free strong young women flaunting their sex cannot ward off unwelcome advances or approaches without one having recourse to legislation, which will be difficult in any case to prove and implement and which will increase the powers of summary arrest; legislation which is drawn so wide that the net will catch the innocent as well as the guilty. Perhaps the Minister of Transport, who sets a speed limit for certain stretches of roads which the motorist must not exceed, can set speed limits on other stretches of road below which any respectable man drives at his peril.
There is much serious crime, as many noble Lords pointed out, that needs our attention. I really think that there is something absurd as well as dangerous about legislating for kerb-crawling. Doubtless it will lead to many absurdities. If such a Bill became law many of us would be filled with apprehension. Suppose I were to transgress the conventions of this noble House and were to refer to the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, on the opposite Benches as my noble friend, might I be accused of importuning? With the lack of plain common sense and sense of humour which this Bill has, I must support the Amendments of my noble friend Lord Stow Hill.
4.55 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: If I may follow the noble Baroness, who referred to me, I certainly do not think that that limited advance would ever be regarded as importuning. I should like to encourage her to take a little further step forward. When I found that she had got near the line I would unhesitatingly warn her. On this occasion I am very glad to find that she has very clearly and

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very cogently expressed the views which I hold in relation to this measure. If I may say so, for once I find myself—and it has not been and I hope will not be the only time—on the same side as the noble Baroness and on the same side as the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill.
I did not speak on the Second Reading of this Bill. I had a great deal to do in another place with the passage of the Street Offences Act, as it now is. I thought that after the powerful speech made in this House on Second Reading by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham—one of the most powerful and effective speeches that I have ever heard him make, when he took this Bill and tore it to pieces line by line; there was hardly a word in that long speech which was not a word of condemnation—that that was the end of the Bill and there would be no need for me to contribute. But the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, gave some encouragement, no doubt, by refraining from voting in the Division that ensued.
I say this in all seriousness. The Government have a responsibility for the criminal law. The Street Offices Act of 1959 was a Government measure, and it really is deplorable if a speech like that of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, branding this Bill as an excrescence on our criminal law, is not followed by Government action to prevent its passing into law. I hope that we shall not have that line taken again to-day. The Government really cannot divest themselves of responsibility for maintaining the criminal law in good order.
I am opposed to Clause 1 of the Bill, which this Amendment seeks to delete, for this reason. If you take out Section 1 of the 1959 Act and replace it by this clause, you might just as well repeal the whole of the 1959 Act. If I may, I should like to remind your Lordships, very shortly, of the problem which had to be tackled in 1959. That Act was not an Act which purported to deal with moral questions; we tried to keep all moral questions out of it. What we were concerned with was the very real nuisance, in London and in other great cities, of the streets being infested with prostitutes. This Act was brought in; it met with a good deal of opposition; it was very strongly criticised, examined line by line, and was passed, to cure that evil. On Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord
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Stonham, paid great tribute to its success. I was glad to read it. It has worked and it has worked well.
But if this Bill is passed with Clause 1 in, that situation will revive again, because really—and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill—it will be quite impossible to obtain the conviction of someone who is loitering in the streets for the purposes of prostitution, or someone who is a prostitute who is seeking customers, under the terms of this particular provision. If the prosecution have to prove that there has been persistent accosting of a person or persons, does that mean that one person has to be asked more than once to make it persistent? I think it does. Or does it suffice to be able to establish that a number of people have each been accosted once? This is not clear at all. But you do not have to prove, difficult though that is, persistent accosting; you have to prove that it was done with a particular object. How can a person standing by, watching what is going on, assume and establish by evidence that the accosting was with a view to offering or obtaining sexual services?
I enjoyed Lord Stow Hill's examination of the content of the phrase "sexual services". It is not defined. No one really knows its ambit and what it embraces. Even if you get over those difficulties, you have then to establish that it was not voluntary; that it was for payment or for reward. How on earth is the policeman who is watching what is going on to be in a position to establish these matters? This is a complete charter for prostitutes and we shah have the same nuisance back on our streets as we had to tackle, reluctantly, in 1959.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, is most concerned with regard to kerb-crawlers. I believe that one of the consequences of the 1959 Act was that a lot of the prostitutes became kerb-crawlers. But are they any real nuisance? Is there any real need to amend the law to deal with them? I should have thought not. There are, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said, a number of local provisions which deal with this question. But, quite apart from that, if a man or woman is driving along a street in a town with his or her eyes on the pavement to see whether there is a suitable customer or victim (whatever the right word may

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be), is it not clear that that person is driving without due care and attention, and could they not clearly be convicted, on proof of that, of a motoring offence? I think it is ridiculous that we should go to all this trouble, as the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, does, to try to define a specific offence for kerb-crawlers.
I will not repeat the criticisms that have been made of subsection (1)(b) of this clause in the Bill. In my opinion they are completely valid. I welcome Lord Stow Hill's proposal not only to repeal Clause 1 of the Bill under consideration, but also to make it clear that the word "prostitute" includes "male prostitute". But I think that if his Amendment is carried he will require to have one further Amendment passed; namely, to leave out the word "common" before "prostitute". His Amendment does not do that. The words "common prostitute" have become almost a term of art, but I do not myself see that in these days the inclusion of the word "common" (which is pretty unsavoury) really does anything at all, and certainly I have never heard of a "common male prostitute". I would therefore suggest to the noble Lord that if his Amendment is carried, as I hope it will be, at a later stage an Amendment to leave out the word "common" would be desirable, and if he cares to table it I would certainly support it. For those reasons, and in the hope that what I have said may help to secure the removal of this clause of the Bill and preserve our criminal law, I have ventured to speak on this occasion.
THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER: On the whole, I would rather have this Bill thrown out, amended or unamended, but if we are going to have it at all I should much prefer to have it in the form as amended by the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill. I should like to ask the noble Lord one question about his Amendment. Is he absolutely certain that the words "male prostitute" will be interpreted by the courts as a man who is soliciting another man; or will the courts take the line that being a prostitute involves only heterosexual activities? It has been suggested to me that there is a real doubt whether the Amendment as it is phrased will in fact include either the female or male homosexual trying to get what she or he wants.
LORD STOW HILL: May I just intervene to answer the question of the right reverend Prelate? My own view would be that the answer to that is, Yes; but he having raised the point, may I give it further consideration if this Amendment is carried?
5.5 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: I should like to say something about this Bill. I have listened particularly to the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill really with astonishment, and also to the later speeches. What he is asking your Lordships to do is, in Committee, to reverse the decision which was come to by a substantial majority on Second Reading in a well-attended House. That is to say, on Second Reading the Bill was passed in principle. What Lord Stow Hill is now asking your Lordships to do this afternoon. together with others who have joined in—and, mark you, practically none of them favoured your Lordships with a speech in the Second Reading debate—is, in Committee, to reverse a decision of the House, and I say that that is altogether wrong.
LORD HENLEY: The noble Lord is quite wrong in saying that we made a decision to pass the Bill. Surely we did not; we only gave it a Second Reading in order to consider it.
LORD CHORLEY: I have always understood that a Second Reading is in fact a passing in principle of the policy of a Bill, and that a Committee stage is to put it into proper shape.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: Has the noble Lord never before heard of a wrecking Amendment?
LORD CHORLEY: Of course I have heard of a wrecking Amendment. There are on the Marshalled List before the Committee today six or more wrecking Amendments in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill. But these are wrecking Amendments of a kind which is most unusual. I have not seen wrecking Amendments like these before in Committee. My noble friend is asking you really to have a Second Reading debate this afternoon and to completely reverse a decision which was come to by a substantial House. Over 100 Members of your Lordships' House

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were present on that occasion, and we had a long and valuable debate in which the noble and learned Viscount opposite, the noble and learned Lord and the noble Baroness in fact took no part. Now they come here on the Committee stage and ask. for a reversal of all that afternoon's work. I submit to your Lordships that this is really entirely wrong and is reducing the legislative process to contempt.
I wrote an article in Public Law of which I sent a copy to the noble and learned Viscount opposite and on which he congratulated me in a letter which I was pleased to receive. He is now doing exactly the thing I complained about in the article. He is asking your Lordships to reduce the legislative process to contempt.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: The noble Lord really must not say that. He is misinterpreting the legislative process. He got a Second Reading for this Bill. I did not speak, it is quite true; but I was here, and I was satisfied by what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said. But the Bill having had a Second Reading we now proceed to the Committee stage, and it is our function to consider the Bill line by line and clause by clause and to take out the clauses we do not like. That is a perfectly proper legislative function.
LORD CHORLEY: You are proposing to take out every single clause in this Bill and to amend the Title, which had to be altered by, I think, the insertion of two words, otherwise it would have been quite out of order. It is as near the wind as that. Earlier this afternoon we were told by the noble Lord who leads the Liberal Peers that the country is beginning to lose confidence in its Parliament. Well, if Parliament behaves in this way the country will have no confidence in it whatever. There were the 60 Members of your Lordships' House who, having considered this matter, voted for it at Second Reading. That vote would be treated as a nullity. I said that with your Lordships' help I would try to improve the drafting of the Bill if it was given a Second Reading. Within two or three days of securing that Second Reading those who have been helping me draft this Bill met. We went through every speech very closely and we came to the conclusion that no really
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effective proposals to improve the drafting had been made, and there was nothing that we could do about it. Otherwise I myself would have put clown Amendments.
The Amendments put down this afternoon are nothing but wrecking Amendments, and the speeches this afternoon have all been Second Reading speeches. It was typical when my noble friend Lord Stow Hill said that he does not think kerb-crawling is a serious business, and laughed it off. I am sorry the noble Baroness is not here, because I thought that her speech about these young athletic women, and that sort of thing, was almost contemptible. The people who are worried and upset and very often made ill by this conduct of kerb-crawling are not these athletic young women who can knock the men back; they are young school girls. My noble friend Lord Stow Hill referred to one letter written by one of these girls and which I reed last time. I have received letters from all over the country from quite middle-aged and elderly women.
The noble Lord asked your Lordships to ignore the Home Office evidence on this matter. My noble friend Lord Stonham said that there was no question about this at all—that this was a menace. He used the word "menace". That is the Home Office evidence, and yet Members of your Lordships' House come here this afternoon and ask us to say on their authority—and some of them have talked apparently to a few athletic young women about it—that there is really nothing in this. I suggest to your Lordships that this is really altogether wrong, and that we really cannot do our work in this sort of way, in effect ignoring the Wolfenden Committee. It was suggested that I had not properly dealt with the Wolfenden Committee Report. I discussed that Report for nearly a column in Hansard. I gave the reasons why I agreed with the Wolfenden Committee that this was a serious problem, and I also gave the reasons why I did not agree with the conclusion of the Wolfenden Committee that it could not effectively be dealt with. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, who has had a great deal of experience in these matters, fully endorsed that view.
I do not want to make a Second Reading speech this afternoon. My noble friend Lord Stow Hill said that we are

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adding to the dangers because the police occasionally make a mistake. That can be said about any proposal to amend the criminal law. Indecent assault is one instance where from time to time a mistake is made. But is my noble friend suggesting that the law relating to indecent assault should be removed from the Statute Book because occasionally mistakes are made? It is quite absurd. It is the sort of legal argument which really reduces the ordinary man in the street to hysteria about the way lawyers talk, and it is so with all these arguments which have been produced this afternoon. If the noble Lord would make some real attempt to amend the wording of Clause 1 then I should be very happy to go along with him. But simply to condemn it out of hand in this sort of way, and in effect to say that the votes of 60 of your Lordships given on March 4 should be of no effect, I suggest is really something we ought not to take.
5.15 p.m.
BARONLSS BIRK: I should like to speak against the Amendment, and I would say that had I been here for the Second Reading I should have spoken in favour of the Bill, but I was in the United States on a Government assignment. My noble friend Lord Stow Hill gave three main reasons for his Amendment. First of all he said that the Bill was not necessary. With great respect to him, I would say that this is absolutely untrue. In the first place, Clause 1 of the Bill as introduced by my noble friend Lord Chorley does away, by making it an offence for "any person in a street … persistently to accost" with a term that most of us find so objectionable. I certainly, sitting as a magistrate, curl up with horror when a woman is referred to by the police as "a common prostitute". I know that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, has suggested a change, but that is not in the Amendment, so we are not considering that at this particular moment.
What this Amendment seeks to do is, in my opinion, an extremely retrogressive step. It seeks to turn a male prostitute into a common prostitute as well. It seems to me against the entire principles of British justice that a policeman can come into court and say, "This woman, who I know as a common prostitute", and so
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on. Why do we not have a policeman coming to court and saying, "This man who I know as a common thief"? When we sit in the magistrates' court, and when a judge sits in the High Court, we do not know, except in a case of a suspected person and some of us are very dubious about that, anything about the man or woman's record until the case has been heard. So on that first point it seems to me that this Bill is absolutely necessary.
Because the first clause sets out to say "persistently to accost" and "importune", I think it makes the offence absolutely clear and defines it more narrowly than, if I may say so, does my noble friend's Amendment further down. I must touch on this because it connects with the first Amendment where he uses the word "molest" which entirely widens the offence and could extend it to flag sellers and other people. This wording keeps it within the sexual field. I am not particularly happy—and I do not think any of us were who were working on this Bill—with the phrase "sexual services", but it was adopted in order to get round the point about "payment or reward". I have forgotten who it was, but one noble Lord spoke about the boy sitting in the cinema holding his girl's hand. We all know that this is absolutely ridiculous and it is becoming very dramatic, extravagant and fantastic, because everybody has a choice of sexual behaviour. If you are holding somebody's hand you are neither being accosted nor importuned; you are agreeing with.
The second point my noble friend made concerned the chances of wrong convictions. We all know that in almost any sort of case one can think of there is always a chance of a wrong conviction, and so far as possible the law must be legislated and administered in such a way as to cut down that possibility. His third point—the danger for every citizen—seems to me to be more or less connected with it. I think this is again, if I may say so with great respect, a very extravagant way to deal with something that is pretty clearly defined. The idea that the client, the innocent customer, is now going to be dragged before the court is also nonsense if one reads the Bill carefully. This arises only if the man or woman importunes or accosts; and this is only a question of equality of treatment.

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As the noble Lord, Lord Foot, said on Second Reading, it really is primarily a case of public order and seemliness. It has nothing to do with sexual morals. It is not a question of making prostitution illegal (which we all know it is not); it is a question of the behaviour of people. My noble friend Lord Stow Hill said that our personal disciplines prevent us from behaving in this way, but here again, I think, if I may say so, he is living in rather an enclosed and narrow world. We are not talking now about Members of this House and perhaps our friends, or about people we know; we are talking about a great range of human beings from different backgrounds and with different personalities. One of the arguments in favour of, for instance, the Race Relations Act was not that those of us supporting it felt that overnight one could change people's attitudes; but that one could control their behaviour. That is what this Bill is about.
May I also say, with great trepidation and respect, that when my noble friend said that we should consult our own experience over the last two years, I was thinking that the age level of this House is rather high for that as a very relevant argument in this matter. He went on to say that this problem is hardly a matter of concern to the ordinary sensible woman. But that just is not so. In the area of the court where I sit we have some woods and a road alongside them, and we are quite aware of a large amount of kerb-crawling. But under the present law, unless someone is charged with creating public nuisance or an assault, the position is very difficult and we cannot get at them at all.
It is no good talking about the sensible woman, or about these 5 ft. 11 in. girls. Incidentally, it seems to me that, somehow, the older men get the taller the girls get. I do not know why that should be. But this experience can be not only very unpleasant, but very frightening. One noble Lord said on Second Reading that some women and girls in this country will get into a car if there is nobody around because they are frightened of an assault. That sort of thing is on the increase. I read with great interest the Report of the Second Reading debate, and I noticed that even of those people unhappy about the Bill not one of them,
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including the Bishops who spoke, denied that kerb-crawling was on the increase.
My noble friend also mentioned the question of the mistakes that were made if somebody was short-sighted. I am reminded that on one occasion (I am myself short-sighted and also rather vain, so I do not like wearing glasses if I can avoid it) I went up and tapped a man on the shoulder and said, "Hullo, darling." He turned round and I then said, "I thought you were my husband"—which I did—to which he replied, "Your husband must be a very good-looking man". I do not feel that I should be terribly frightened if this Bill were in operation now, because I have mole confidence in our courts than some noble Lords who have spoken to-day evidently have.
With great respect, I do not think my noble friend Lady Gaitskell has understood the Bill (I am sorry that she is not here, because I always feel that if I criticise someone he or she should hear it) because the Bill does not make prostitution illegal. From my experience of her speaking, I think she always speaks on subjects of which she has great knowledge, but kerb-crawling does not appear to be something about which she is informed, because she asked, "Are we not exaggerating the alarm?" I do not think we are. What has changed in our society to-day is the fact that far more accosting by men is taking place, and while this Bill is not dealing solely with that problem we are dealing with the protection of girls and women, so far as one aspect is concerned. I find it quite appalling that the point should be made that the tempting young girls with short skirts are more or less getting what they are asking for. So long as a girl is not dressed in a way that is either obscene or likely to cause a breach of the peace, why should she not have from the law the same protection as anybody else? She really should have it. Following the logic of this argument, one could say that when skirts go down, as no doubt they will at some time—or perhaps I should say when the hems drop—that will also encourage men, because they will be so frustrated by not being able to see the girls' legs. So women will then be blamed for men raping them, because the skirts are longer and the men are therefore more frustrated. This argument

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about flaunting sex and so on is an awful one.
The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, talked about the streets being infested again if this Bill goes through. I think there is one important point about this. It is possible that there may be more prostitutes on the streets, but even if that were so I think it would be worth while. We should not go back to the pre-1959 situation, because a great deal of the 1959 Act is still operative. But even if we did, because this Bill is far more just and also treats men and women on a more equal basis, as well as dealing with kerb-crawling, I think that, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, said on Second Reading, that is a reasonable price to pay. However, I think that such an effect would be cancelled out by the effect of the deterrent. Once a law like this is passed, a great many men who normally accost or persistently importune women or indulge in kerb-crawling will be frightened, because there is a law in existence. In exactly the same way as many people do not now take out their cars and drive when they have had much less to drink than would take them above the alcohol level, so this law would act as a deterrent. I think that is a very important point.
Finally, may I say that one of the things that those of us who talk or lecture about this House are always very proud to say is that on so many of the controversial social reforms it has led the way in the legislative field. It would be a great pity if, by accepting this wrecking Amendment to-day, we showed ourselves as reactionary as some people seem to think we are. On Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Stonham said very frankly that this matter will not go to the Law Revision Committee very soon. There is no question of that now. Also, as I said on the Second Reading of the original Bill—and this is certainly a very much better one—we are deciding social policy here. We are deciding whether this law should be changed. I think it is up to us to decide the policy, and there is even more urgency now because it cannot be argued that if we wait only a few months we shall get another Bill. Speaking both as a magistrate and as a mother, I very much hope that this Amendment will be rejected and that the Bill will go through.
LORD FOOT: My Lords, I should just like to make two points against this Amendment and in support of the Bill. The first point that I should like to impress on the House is that if this Amendment to remove Clause 1 and to substitute the words on the Marshalled List is carried, the Committee should be perfectly clear that it is cutting the Bill's throat. The whole force and substance of this Bill is contained in Clause 1. If that goes and nothing comparable is put in its place, the Bill might as well be forgotten now. If this first Amendment to Clause 1 is carried, then the Bill is dead, and I think the Committee ought to recognise what it is being asked to do. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, that what we are now being asked to do by this first Amendment is to reverse the decision which was taken on the Second Reading of the Bill in this House.
The second point that I want to make—and I want to confine myself to the third of the reasons which were advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, for his opposition to the Bill—is about the risk that innocent people might be wrongly convicted. I fully share his anxiety over the risk of any innocent person being wrongly convicted for any kind of offence, and I agree with him that it is vital that in legislation one should try to build in all the safeguards one can to try to avoid wrongful conviction. But I think the noble Lord has overlooked the fact that the Street Offences Act 1959, as it stands, and as it would be amended by the Amendment which is now proposed by the noble Lord, is an Act which is wide open to wrongful conviction of innocent people. What it says is that once it is proved that a woman is a prostitute—with the contemptuous word "common" put in front of it—and once it is proved that she has loitered on one single occasion in a street for the purposes of prostitution, then she is automatically convicted of the offence.
What are the possibilities of a woman being wrongly convicted? All that is necessary is for a single policeman to say that he was standing in the street, that this woman was known to him as a prostitute and that she was loitering. How readily will the court infer that she was

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loitering for the purposes of prostitution! Is the noble Lord concerned about common prostitutes being wrongly convicted? What we have done, and what the sponsors of the Bill have done, is to try to correct that, to try to prevent a prostitute from being wrongly convicted. What we have done is to insist on importing the word "accost", and also that it should be persistent: it must be persistent. That is the alteration in the law which is made by the Bill, and that is the safeguard which the noble Lord's Amendment would now remove.
Under this Amendment, a prostitute, whether it be a female prostitute or a male prostitute, would be open to that awful hazard of being wrongly convicted simply because he or she happened to be loitering on one single occasion in a public place. Far from avoiding wrongful convictions, the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord would in my estimation be likely very largely to increase them. Of course, the noble Lord may say that it does not matter if a prostitute is wrongly convicted, but I really do not think the noble Lord would use an argument of that kind. I think that if a male or female prostitute is wrongly convicted it is just as had as if a respectable person is wrongly convicted. Everybody ought to be equal before the English law, and I dare say the noble Lord would agree that that is a reasonable proposition.
I therefore invite the Committee to say that it is not right that on this occasion we should carry an Amendment which, in effect, kills the Bill dead, and that the proper course here is to let the Bill be discussed and to entertain on this occasion only such Amendments as are really framed to try to safeguard us against risks, and things of that kind, but which are Amendments within tile framework of the objects with which this Bill was put forward.
5.33 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM)I hope that your Lordships will not object if I follow the noble Lord. Lord Foot, and talk about the Amendment that we have under discussion. If I do, it will be only the second speech, out of the nine that we have had, that does so. For whatever reasons—and my noble friend Lord Stow Hill put forward reasons, which were
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supported—we have had a Second Reading debate, and unquestionably, as the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, has said, the decision that the Committee is being asked to take this afternoon is one that would entirely reverse the decision on principle that was taken on second Reading. Or, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, put it, we are being asked whether we should now cut the Bill's throat.
I do not wish to enter into second Reading matters, but I must deal with one or two points that have been raised, and then I shall proceed as quickly as possible to deal with the Amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, found it difficult, in view of what I said at the end of my Second Reading speech, to see how the Government could adopt a neutral attitude to this Bill. At the risk of boring your Lordships, I must read again what I said on Second Reading. This is what I said in opening my speech:
"I hope it will be of assistance if I intervene thus early in the debate to indicate the Government's attitude to the Bill. As I understand it, the Bill's objectives are to remove discrimination between men and women, between prostitutes and their clients, and between heterosexual and homosexual behaviour in relation to street offences. Another of the proposed effects of the Bill is to make the con duct known as 'kerb crawling' an offence." [OFFICIAL REPORT, 4/3/69; col. 23.]
I went on:
"The issues involved touch on matters of social conscience about which strong opinions are held, and I should like to make clear at the outset that the Government adopt a neutral attitude to the principles of the Bill and believe it is right that your Lordships should be free to vote on the Bill, if there is a vote, as you will."
I think that gives a complete answer to the point raised by the noble Lord. I was talking about the principles of the Bill. But I then said that:
"… we have the clear duty also to consider the practical implications involved",
and I went on to point out what the Government regarded as defects in the Bill, which I summed up at the end of my speech.
The noble and learned Viscount, who I regret is not now in his place, saw fit to mention that when it came to the vote I too abstained. That was, again, for reasons that I thought quite good ones; namely. that I was the Minister, representing the Government, in charge of the Bill. My views on this issue are

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very clearly known. My personal wish, of course, would have been very much to vote for the Bill though I thought it right, obviously, as the Minister in charge on behalf of the Government, to abstain. Now that the matter has been raised, I can tell the noble and learned Viscount that when it is known on this side of the House that he is going in one Lobby, that is at least a prima facie case for somebody on this side of the House to go into the other. Perhaps that is why he made reference to it in his speech.
There is one other point. I regret that my noble friend Lady Gaitskell has not been able to stay (she told me that she had an urgent engagement), but I must correct an obvious lack of knowledge on her part, because she said that, "Kerb-crawling should not be a criminal offence". Of course it is a criminal offence now; and, as the noble and learned Viscount pointed out, there are Acts of Parliament under which men who commit this offence can be picked up and charged with it. So it is a criminal offence. On the same point, I must say this to my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill. Although he suggested that if we wanted to know whether this kerb-crawling was a menace we should consult our own experience, this, unfortunately, is something which I cannot accept. We in the Home Office know—and I said so during the Second Reading debate—that this is a menace. It is indeed a growing menace. This is not hearsay, and is not knowledge gained through consulting my wife or her lady friends. This is, unfortunately, a fact.
It is also unfortunately a fact that since the Crook v. Edmondson judgment there have been no prosecutions under the 1956 Sexual Offences Act; and it is the Government's intention, as I indicated on Second Reading, that when this matter has been considered by the Law Revision Committee—and we have recommendations from them—if legislation is then found advisable we shall of course proceed to deal with this problem. I should not like anybody to think that it does not matter. Therefore, let me say to the Committee once more that the Government's attitude on all these Amendments that we are to consider is a neutral attitude. In each case it will be my duty to give the facts and the Govern-
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ment's view of the Amendment, its merits and demerits—and that is what I now intend to do on this particular Amendment.
I would ask your Lordships to base your decision on what we have before us, which is Amendment No. 1. That Amendment proposes to delete the new offence in Lord Chorley's Bill and thus to leave untouched the existing offence under Clause 1(1) of the Street Offences Act 1959, which provides that:
"It shall be an offence for a common prostitute to loiter or solicit in a street or public place for the purpose of prostitution."
One of the effects of my noble friend's Amendment, if it were accepted, would be to leave that where it is. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, said that perhaps at a later stage my noble and learned friend might consider amending his Bill by removing the word "common". He found something objectionable in the word "common"; but it would still leave "prostitute". Apparently, that is not so objectionable. The noble and learned Viscount said in another place during the discussions on the 1959 Act, for which he was largely responsible, that there was no question of morality raised. It has been suggested that in the phrase I have just read there is not much question of justice, either. That is what the opponents of this particular clause of the Bill wish to alter.
As my noble friend made clear, his Amendment further provides that, for the purpose of that offence, the word "prostitute" shall include a male or female prostitute. I would point out that the wording of the Amendment would extend the term "prostitute" to include men, but only for the purposes of Section 1(1) of the Street Offences Act 1959 and not in any other context. I do not know whether that is my noble friend's intention.
LORD STOW HILL: Section 2.
LORD STONHAM: Well, it is not in respect of any other Statute. My noble friend has prefaced his new clause with the words, "For the removal of doubt". In our view, those words are probably superfluous; but that is a small matter. The wording of the prostitution offence in the Sexual Offences Act 1956 implies that the term "prostitute" relates only to women. There can be little if any doubt

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that offences relating to prostitution are generally interpreted in this sense. I believe that this was in the mind of the right reverend Prelate, for although he is, if I may say so, a strong opponent of the Bill, he dislikes the Amendment a little more. There can be little if any doubt that offences relating to prostitution are generally interpreted in this sense; namely, that it applies only to women. The criminal statistics show offences by prostitutes as being committed by women. The law has for many years recognised the term "prostitute" as applying to female prostitutes and, although the term has never been statutorily defined, the police and the courts appear to have had no difficulty in interpreting it in relation to women. In other words, prostitutes, common or otherwise, always mean, to the courts and to the police, women. No similar legal recognition of the term as applying to male prostitutes can be traced. The interpretation of that term would be uncertain. Because of this it is unlikely that the 1959 Act offence would ever be used to deal with male prostitutes. We are dealing with the 1959 Act now.
Alternatively, in our view there is the risk that the term "male prostitute" might be given a wider meaning than is intended; that is, a wider meaning than any of us intend and certainly a wider meaning than my noble and learned friend would intend. Such uncertainty in the criminal law is undesirable. On that I am sure we all agree. The Bill leaves untouched the provision in Section 32 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, which makes it an offence for a man "persistently to solicit or importune in a public place for immoral purposes."
It seems likely that this provision would continue to be used for cases of homosexual importuning. In other words, I am saying that in our view if the Amendment now before us were approved and the Bill became an Act, it would not lead to any prosecutions of men under this proposed new provision. As was indicated in the speech of the noble and learned Viscount, if the Amendment were to be approved it would leave the law in an uncertain state; and if it were so approved the Government would have to consider the position at a later stage of the Bill.
That is all I have to say about the Amendment, purely as an Amendment,
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and I have dealt with it faithfully and fairly according to the best advice available to me, Your Lordships may therefore feel that it would be wisest to let your attitude be decided on the basic issue of principle, which is whether to retain the term "common prostitute" (which is what the Amendment proposes) or to replace that term in the way that Lord Chorley has provided in his Bill, a Bill which was given a Second Reading a few weeks ago.
LORD CHORLEY: Before the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, replies, I should like just to say this. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, raised an important point when he pointed out that if this Amendment were accepted the law under the Street Offences Act 1959 remains on the Statute Book, including this discrimination against the common prostitute. The noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, in a speech in another place on this Bill (which I was told was a very eloquent one) pointed out how very unfair to the common prostitute is the present Statute. He said that it was not fair to them. He said that he had had experience as a Junior practising at the Bar in every police court within fifty miles of the Palace of Westminster which satisfied him that the law which enabled a policeman to say, "This woman I know to be a common prostitute, and this woman I saw loitering," meant that in almost every case she was bound to be convicted. Lord Stow Hill asks you to add to that a similar discrimination against the male prostitute; thus making two blacks instead of the one that we now have on the Statute Book. I should like him to deal with this point when he attempts to reply.
LORD STOW HILL: I believe that it is in accordance with custom that the mover of an Amendment replies to the arguments advanced. I will do this as briefly as I can. I will deal first with the speech of my noble friend Lord Stonham. I find it difficult to follow his reasoning in some points. He was saying, as I understood it, that Section 1 of the Street Offences Act 1959 would be construed as relating only to a female prostitute. But it was for that very reason that I put down the Amendment that the Committee is now discussing. That Amendment begins: "For the removal of doubt …". With great respect to the noble Lord, that phrase

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appears in Statutes over and over again. I have defended it over and over again. The Amendment reads:
"For the removal of doubt it is hereby declared and enacted that in section 1, subsection (1), of the Street Offences Act 1959 the word 'prostitute' shall include a male and a female prostitute."
By reason of the argument he was advancing about Section 1 of the Street Offences Act 1959 I put down the Amendment which your Lordships are now considering. I am asking Parliament to enact—
LORD CHORLEY: May I interrupt the noble and learned Lord? Are we not discussing the first Amendment, which is to leave out Clause 1? We have not got on to the second Amendment, which is after Clause 1.
LORD STOW HILL: The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, is a great expert on Parliamentary procedure, as he has just made clear to all of us, but may I, with great respect, refer him to what is in front of the Committee, which is to leave out Clause 1 and to insert the new clause, which I read out before? There are not two Amendments; that is the one Amendment which we are considering. It is the Amendment to which my noble friend Lord Stonham addressed a great deal of his argument, and it is the Amendment to which I am now respectfuly asking permission to reply. May I go on to say to my noble friend Lord Stonham that whatever the Home Office think about it, I cannot understand what the uncertainty is. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, suggested that I should put down a further Amendment to leave out the word "common". I am grateful to him for suggesting it and I should certainly like to consider it; but what the confusion is that my wording introduces passes my understanding. Probably that is my fault and not the fault of the noble Lord.
It is perfectly true that this Amendment, in inviting the Committee to leave out Clause 1, substantially abandons, substantially changes, the whole frame and scheme of the noble Lord's Bill. That is precisely what my intention was. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, feels very strongly on this subject, and he spoke in moving terms, but, if I may respectfully say so to him, vituperation is
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not always a substitute for argument. If I think his Bill is a thoroughly bad Bill, I do not know how I can interpret my duty to this Committee other than to try to devise an Amendment to improve it and to take out of it those characteristics which I think are bad characteristics. That is what I have tried to do. Having done that, I am not conscious of having contributed to the alleged decline in respect for Parliament about which he is so concerned. I will certainly think over my conduct, but I cannot really think that I am guilty of the charges he made in the highly coloured language that he has used.
I think, for the reasons I have said, that Clause 1 of his Bill is bad and what I have tried to do is radically to change it in order to make it apply only to the serious sort of soliciting. That I do in the second new clause that I move. I have generally indicated my reasons for that new clause, but, if I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, it is not as if, when a lady is subjected to intolerable conduct, the law will be powerless to deal with it if the Committee accepts my Amendment. The law will provide that a person commits an offence who persistently molests another person so as to cause annoyance in circumstances that a breach of the peace is likely. That is very close to what the law is already.
Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936 comes very near to an enactment in that form. It can be used now, and I believe I am right in saying that the police do now use Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936 to deal with cases where you get conduct which is beyond the bounds; where you do not simply get a boy trying to date a girl or, to use a phrase used nearly fifty years ago when I was young, giving a girl a "glad eye"—I do not know whether that term is used now—but where you get somebody who really is so persistent and tiresome in attempting to thrust his company on a lady that she really cannot be expected to tolerate it and she feels inclined to break her umbrella over his back; or someone else feels inclined to intervene. That is what the later Amendment which I have put down would effect, and I say that to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk.
I doubt whether it is really necessary, because the offence of insulting words

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and behaviour which is created by Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936 is, I believe—and I think I am right in saying that some police opinion coincides with my own—perfectly adequate, when you get the evidence, to deal with intolerable behaviour. The difficulty, as was pointed out on the last occasion by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is that you cannot get the evidence. A police officer said to me, "Sometimes, not often but sometimes, a lady rings up and says, 'Somebody kerb-crawled me; will you please do something about it?' The question is then, 'Well, did you get his number?', and the answer is, 'No, I did not.'". So what is the unfortunate police officer to do?
The difficulty is not that the powers are not there; they are there. There are ample powers. There is the Metropolitan Police Act 1839; there is power under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936; there is power to prosecute for indecent assault and for common assault, There are various powers. The difficulty is, you cannot get the evidence; and you will not be able to get the evidence under this Bill. Therefore, what I have tried to do is to say that prosecutions, if they take place, are to take place only in serious cases where the individual charged has gone beyond what can reasonably be expected to be tolerated.
I am in a difficulty in that I am now anticipating a further Amendment that I have put down, but so far as it is relevant I hope shortly to deploy the argument and invite the attention of the Committee to the Amendment, if we get as far as that, when we come to it in due course. Kerb-crawling either is or is not a serious nuisance. If it is, as the noble Lord said, it is now within the criminal law. It would be within the scope of the new clause that I have put down about molesting. If it is not a nuisance we need not bother about it; if it is a nuisance there is ample power to deal with it, if you find the evidence to prosecute the individual.
LORD STONHAM: If the noble and learned Lord will allow me to interrupt him, may I say that I am entirely with him about the difficulty of getting the evidence, whatever the law. But the 1839 Act is the only measure under which the police are now dealing with kerb-
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crawlers, or able to deal with them in the Metropolis and in certain parts of the Provinces where they have similar local Acts. But it is the case—and I ask my noble and learned friend to accept this—that we regard these powers as inadequate. The police are handicapped at times and we hope at a later stage to be able to deal with this matter.
LORD STOW HILL: If they are inadequate. I hope that my clause will be adequate. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, as I understand it is making—
LORD CHORLEY: I cannot take it from the noble and learned Lord that his clause will be adequate, because I shall certainly deploy reasons to suggest that it does not cover kerb-crawling at all.
LORD STOW HILL: I hope that they will be in less unfriendly terms than the reasons hitherto deployed, and I shall listen to them with interest. I also, if I may say so, have done some research, and have some slight knowledge of this subject. The noble Lord says that the Metropolitan Police Act 1839 is used. I know perfectly well that the Metropolitan Police Act contains a section which is the one which I think the noble Lord is referring to. It makes disorderly behaviour, insulting words and behaviour in a public place, an offence. That is used; but that section in the Metropolitan Police Act 1839, which applies only to London, has been repeated word by word in Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936, which is of general application and not only applicable to London. There is only one slight difference—that Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936 includes the words "or at any public meeting". May I read it out?
"Any person who in any public place or at any public meeting uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned, shall be guilty of an offence."
The words are the same as in the Metropolitan Police Act 1839, except that it includes the additional words, "or at any public meeting".
If the noble Lord is right in saying that the Act of 1839 was used, a fortiori, Section 5 of the 1936 Act can also be used. The view I would put to the House—and I believe that it is not only my view—is that the Act is per-

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fectly adequate to deal with cases of offensive kerb-crawling, offensive looking through a window and so on. I do not think there is any real need to amend the law at all, but in case that section turns out in experience not to be adequate I have put down a further Amendment which I hope your Lordships will consider in due course.
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, suggested that by leaving Section 1 of the 1959 Act in its present form I was opening the door wide to wrongful convictions. I am not opening any door there. That is the position as it is at the moment. I am told, on the authority of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that the Act has in point of fact worked perfectly well, without complaint, for some ten years. I did not like it when the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, in his capacity as Attorney-General, commended it in another place and I ventured to obtrude some modest arguments; but the noble Viscount's eloquence prevailed, as always, and I was voted down. I did not like the Act, and say so perfectly frankly, but it has worked. I hope that I am not being unfair to the noble Lord, Lord Foot, when I say that all that has been done in my noble friend's draft is little more than insert the word "persistently", the word that the noble Lord founded upon.
LORD FOOT: It makes two alterations. It leaves out the word "loiter", and under the present law the mere act of loitering for the purpose of prostitution constitutes the offence. And it adds persistence of the accoster.
LORD STOW HILL: It certainly would not break my heart if the word "persistent" were put into Section 1 of the 1959 Act, and if the noble Lord, Lord Foot, feels that that would be an adequate safeguard I should like to consider
it. I do not like the Act at all but it has worked very well. When the noble Viscount originally proposed it, I doubted whether it was really necessary. I have lived in London practically all my life and I cannot remember being seriously incommoded by any lady who tried to attract my attentions; but perhaps I am particularly obtuse in those matters and did not notice what other people did.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: If the word "persistent" were introduced, which I hope the noble Lord will not agree to, the noble Lord will probably notice the accosting.
LORD STOW HILL: May I say that I should like to leave this an open question. I am anxious to be helpful and to see what I can do to meet the point of view of noble Lords who feel difficulty about my proposals. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, has made a suggestion and I simply say that I should like to consider it, as I should like to consider the suggestion made by the noble and learned Viscount about omitting the word "common". I have tried to equate the male and female prostitute and, though I do not believe that the Heavens would fall if we did not suceed, I believe I have succeeded in doing so. I shall be glad to consider any suggestion from any part of the House, if the House thinks my approach is helpful and useful. If not, your Lordships will vote against it. If it does, I am amenable to any suggestion, so long as it does not put back the main purpose and principle of the Bill, which I thoroughly dislike.
6.5 p.m.
On Question: Whether the said Amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 58; Not-contents, 22.

CONTENTS

Ampthill, L.

Dundee, E.

Kahn, L.

Auckland, L.

Eccles, V.

Kinnoull, E.

Barrington, V.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Kirkwood, L.

Belstead, L.

Exeter, L. Bp.

Lambert, V.

Birdwood, L.

Falkland, V.

Lansdowne, M.

Bowles, L.

Goschen, V.

Lindgren, L. [Teller.]

Conesford, L.

Grenfell, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Gridley, L.

Luke, L.

Daventry, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Denham, L.

Hacking, L.

Margadale, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Henley, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Drumalbyn, L.

Jessel, L.

Merrivale, L.

Molson, L.

Rockley, L.

Somers, L.

Mountevans, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Stow Hill, L. [Teller.]

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Strang, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Sandford, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Raglan, L.

Sandys, L.

Vivian, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Selkirk, E.

Winterbottom, L.

Rea, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Wootton of Abinger, Bs.

Redesdale, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Leatherland, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Birk, Bs. [Teller.]

Listowel, E.

St. Davids, V.

Brockway, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Stocks, Bs.

Burden, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Stonham, L.

Chorley, L. [Teller.]

Moyle, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Ogmore, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Foot, L.

Phillips, Bs.

Wise, L.

Hilton of Upton, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Resolved, in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 2:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
Amendment of s. 2 of Act of 1959
". In section 2 of the Street Offences Act 1959 for the word 'woman' where that word occurs in the said section there shall be substituted the word 'person', and the words 'the', 'her' and 'prostitution' where they occur in that section shall be construed accordingly as applicable to a male or female person as the case may be."
The noble and learned Lord said: This Amendment is one which would accomplish, I hope, a fair measure of justice in procuring for the gigolo the advantage of a warning procedure which is at present contained in Section 2 of the Street Offences Act 1959. That procedure, as the Committee probably knows, is one under which if a police officer warns a prostitute that her behaviour is objectionable she can apply to a magistrates' court to have that warning expunged if she wishes to assert that it is unjustifiable. What this Amendment provides is that the warning shall be available to protect a male prostitute in exactly the same way as at present, under Section 2 of the Street Offences Act 1959, it is available to protect the female prostitute. In a sense, it really follows on from the previous Amendment. I beg to move.
LORD CHORLEY: I should not raise any objection to this Amendment. I think experience is that it is not of any particular value, and this section is very little used. Possibly the Minister can tell us something about the Home Office information on this point. Obviously, with
254
the Bill back more or less into the form of the 1959 Act, there is now a case for this sort of thing, and I should net object to it.
LORD STONHAM: I agree with what my noble friend Lord Chorley has said. This Amendment, as I am sure try noble friend Lord Stow Hill will agree, is virtually consequential on the passing of Amendment No. 1. But there is rather more to it than that, because the cautioning system is not a statutory procedure. It is given statutory recognition in Section 2 of the 1959 Act so as to provide that a woman who has been cautioned may challenge the caution and apply to a magistrates' court for an order that it should be expunged. This Amendment would apply the same procedure to men. But since women prostitutes are usually identifiable as such, the system with them gives rise to few, if any, practical difficulties. However, in our view, this would not be true of men or youths, and we feel doubtful whether a regular cautioning system would in any way be practicable in respect of men. Nevertheless, I would advise the Committee, in view of the fact that my noble friend's first Amendment was adopted, that this Amendment is consequential and should probably be accepted. But if it is accepted, I would advise my noble friend (because this would increasingly become Lord Stow Hill's Street Offences Bill) that we should have to consider with him, before the next stage, the practical implications of this Amendment. Beyond that, there is no further advice that I can give to the Committee.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: I was glad to hear the last words of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. In principle, there is

255
nothing against this Amendment. But I think there are implications in it which should be seriously considered, and I have no doubt that the noble Lord will consider them. Subject to that, I should have thought we could carry this Amendment without delay.
LORD STOW HILL: Needless to say, I should be glad to consider with the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, or any other noble Lord who may wish to make any proposal, how this might work.
6.20 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 3:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
Offences of molestation
". A person commits an offence who in a street or public place persistently molests another person so as to cause annoyance to that other person with the intention of causing a breach of the peace or in such a manner and in such circumstances that it is likely that a breach of the peace will be caused:
Provided that no person shall be convicted of an offence under this section unless the person annoyed by such molestation and, in addition, not less than one other person give evidence of the conduct relied on by the prosecution as constituting such molestation."
The noble and learned Lord said: This is an Amendment of slightly more substance. I have previously deployed the case that I seek to make on the Amendment. It seems to me that we should take steps to safeguard against mistaken convictions, so far as we possibly can, and I have tried to do it in this way. I have followed pretty closely Section 5 of the Public Order Act. As one precaution against wrongful convictions, I have inserted the words:
"with the intention of causing a breach of the peace or in such a manner and in such circumstances that it is likely that a breach of the peace will be caused."
The object of that provision is to limit the clause to the more serious case and to exclude from its ambit the more trivial case where a young man is audacious and saucy, perhaps, but has not transgressed beyond what in our daily concourse with 52 million people—we do not meet them all every day—we really have to put up with. That is the first feature of it.
Secondly, I have always felt uncertainty when I have listened to cases in which
256
the evidence is that an accused person has peered in the faces of various women. Over and over again I have heard the evidence of the prosecution that, "He walked up and down peering into the faces of women as they passed by. They appeared to be annoyed and went on." I always think myself that in that kind of evidence lurks the danger of a mistaken conviction in the kind of case I mentioned—a short-sighted, absent-minded person, perhaps really genuinely seeking some companionship, lonely and so on. I think that is dangerous, and therefore what I have provided is that there is no offence unless the accused person molests another person so as to cause annoyance to that other person. In other words, it must be shown there was an individual he would not leave alone; he went after that individual and kept on trying to attract the attention of that individual. Of course, he can commit a number of offences against different individuals, but in each case it must be shown against him that he persistently molested a particular individual. I believe that that is a safeguard because it would exclude from the ambit of the clause the kind of case I have seen so often where the evidence against an accused person is that he looked first at one woman and then at another woman, then at a third woman and then at a fourth. There can be mistakes in that connection.
Then I insert a proviso that at least two people have to give evidence, one the person molested and somebody else. It may well be said, "You will not often secure a conviction." That is my intention. I do not think one should often have convictions. There should be convictions only in the bad cases where, as I have said (I hope I do not repeat myself), the individual has gone too far and his conduct is really intolerable. There will however be convictions. Two women may be walking along and one is annoyed and gives evidence, and the other, her companion, will support her in evidence. A woman may be molested and a bystander is prepared to come forward to give evidence. That will happen only in a case where the incident is a more serious one. That is my intention.
I very well remember a case in an underground railway train (which I think would be a "public place" under the

257
Public Order Act 1936 and would, I suppose, apply here) where a young girl sat down in a nearly empty compartment. There was a gentleman opposite and a nasty disagreeable type came and sat next to the girl. He was very extrovert and insisted upon blowing his beery breath at her and making advances to her. In that sort of case the gentleman opposite may feel very much inclined to intervene forcibly. The young lady puts up with as much as she can and she then really becomes hysterical because he has gone too far, and the incident may end in the gentleman opposite requiring the disagreeable individual to go away. That would be a case in which both the young lady and the gentleman might be prepared to give evidence. It is a bad case where there is clearly a likelihood that a breach of the peace may be caused.
I am very glad to say that the gentleman concerned in the case I have in mind, known to me, asked the young lady if she would like to exchange places with him. She gladly accepted. The disagreeable person relapsed into a morose silence and the incident was ended. That is a case that ended in a different way, but it might well have come before the courts; and that would be my intention. I beg to move.
LORD CHORLEY: I think this is really a very dangerous Amendment. It goes beyond the Street Offences Act 1959, which is concerned purely with sexual offences.
LORD STOW HILL: I wonder whether the noble Lord would forgive me for interrupting because there is one other point I meant to add. I should be much obliged if the noble Lord would allow me to do so. I apologise for getting on to my feet again but there was one relevant point which I forgot to add. It is not limited to sexual offences. I said earlier that I regard the sort of molestation by a white lout of a coloured man in a place where a number of coloured people live as at least as objectionable and as something which the criminal law should be so fashioned as to stop. One can picture the white lout walking after the coloured man and using abusive epithets about him regarding his colour. That case I personally would
258
intend to cover. I think it would be within the scope of the clauses I have framed. I do not really see that there is any reason to limit this provision to sex solicitation. If one is really going to deal with molestation, let us deal with it properly. Let us bring in the kind of cases where there is really thoroughly disagreeable conduct which goes beyond what can be expected to be tolerated.
6.26 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: I am very glad that the noble and learned Lord mentioned this point, which in my submission is a very important one and makes this altogether too wide an Amendment. The Street Offences Act deals entirely with prostitution and with what one might call sexual nuisances in the streets. But this Amendment is not confined in any such way. It is true that the example which the noble and learned Lord gave when he mentioned that his Amendment had this wide extent is one which is allied to the sort of problem which is dealt with in the 1959 Act. But this Amendment is not of course limited like that in any sort of way. It is simply limited by this question of whether there might be a situation in which a breach of the peace could probably or possibly arise. That covers all sorts of conduct in the streets. It might cover the case of a too persistent flag seller. I myself have witnessed incidents where the too persistent flag seller has very nearly brought about a common assault. A much more serious case, and one which I suggest might happen quite frequently, is the case of the political leaflet distributor. Frequently one has seen in connection with the anti-Vietnam demonstrations and cases of that kind situations arising in which a breach of the peace is very likely owing to the persistence of the protagonists on each side, and particularly of course on the pacifist side. I do not blame them. They are making their case and are protagonists of very strong feeling in the community, and they carry that very often to a stage where a breach of the peace is likely to occur. It would be a very dangerous inroad on our methods of carrying out political propaganda in this country if we were to give the police the kind of powers for which the noble and learned Lord is asking.

259
I suggest that it is altogether wrong by a sidestep or a sidewind, so to speak, to bring into the Street Offences Act 1959 a matter of this intense importance. It is intensely important from the point of view of civil liberties. Last year in a powerful speech the noble Earl, Lord Arran, because he felt that my Bill might lead to interference with civil liberties, persuaded your Lordships in effect to throw it out. But I suggest that the danger inherent in this particular Amendment is far worse than anything that existed in last year's Bill. It is a matter which requires the very gravest consideration. It should be looked at from all angles, and I submit that a step of this kind should certainly not be taken by a sidewind in a Bill of this kind. I think there is a case, subject to proper safeguards, for making conduct in the streets which amounts to a nuisance—pedlars and such types of people often cause a nuisance—an offence, and it may well be that a properly framed Act of Parliament is needed to deal with this sort of conduct. But surely it ought not to be introduced by a sidewind in that way. Therefore I suggest to the noble and learned Lord that he should withdraw this Amendment and think about it again.
BARONESS STOCKS: The case of a man persistently following another man and making offensive remarks about his colour, as indeed sometimes happens, would surely already be covered by the Race Relations Act. Meanwhile, might not this Amendment be applied to importuning by somebody who supported a strike and wished to importune a possible strike-breaker? I agree with the noble Lord that it would open the way to all sorts of forms of molestation.
BARONESS BIRK: When my noble friend Lord Stow Hill was answering on the first Amendment he seemed to think it answered my point on the breach of the peace, but I entirely agree with my noble friend Lady Stocks, that this Amendment enlarges it. There would have to be a much bigger incident before the man or the woman had any protection, especially on the second paragraph. The words,
"and in addition not less than one other person to give evidence"
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seem to nullify the whole purpose of it. If a woman wants to complain about a kerb-crawler, or, if accosted, is inconvenienced and upset, it means that unless there is another witness—and usually these things take place where there are no other witnesses—she or he (because it may be a man) will have no case at all. These things together seem to me to nullify the effects of what the original Bill was trying to do.
6.33 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My noble friend Lord Chorley and my noble friend Lady Birk feel that this Amendment would increase the danger. I know this is a point that my noble friend Lord Stow Hill will look at. I have to say to all my noble friends that my view is that this Amendment will do almost nothing at all. May I say briefly why I take that view?
My noble friend Lord Stow Hill proposes by this Amendment to create the quite new offence of persistent molestation, and he intends it to cover many offences, including kerb-crawlers. We are doubtful, however, whether it would be effective for this purpose, or indeed whether it would have any practical value for any other purpose. My noble friend has once or twice quoted Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936, which, as he has reminded us, provides that:
"Any person who in any public place uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with the intention of provoking a breach of the peace, or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned, shall be Guilty of an offence ".
Section 9(1) of the Act has a definition of "public place" which in our view is wide enough to include a street. Although the Public Order Act offence was primarily intended to deal with disturbances arising in public meetings and demonstrations it was nevertheless thought wide enough to cover any conduct that would be likely to be caught by the proposed new offences, and I agree with my noble friend Lady Stocks that the kind of offence which she described is likely to be caught (or possibly it depends on the exact circumstances) under the Race Relations Act.
Admittedly, the words "persistently molests" used in the Amendment could by themselves cover conduct which falls

261
short of the threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour required for the Public Order Act offence. For example, the man who pestered a woman by persistently following her and speaking to her, without using patently insulting language, might be said to be persistently molesting, which I have no doubt is what my noble friend has in mind. But the proposed offence would require the conduct to amount to persistent molestation of the person so as to cause annoyance to that person with the intention of causing a breach of the peace, or in such a manner or in such circumstances that it is likely that a breach of the peace will be caused. Taking all these ingredients together I think that molestation in such circumstances would involve words or behaviour of a threatening, abusive or insulting kind, and I doubt whether, in practice, my noble friend's Amendment, if accepted, would cover any conduct that cannot already be dealt with under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936. Indeed, when we were considering the first Amendment I rather felt that my noble friend Lord Stow Hill was arguing to that effect.
There is the further difficulty to which my noble friend Lady Birk drew attention, that the new offence proposed to be inserted by my noble and learned friend would require evidence of the molestation to be given not only by the person molested but, in addition, by not less than one other person. We are all agreed that persons molested are seldom willing to go to court to give evidence of the fact, and the requirement that there should be evidence from at least one other eye-witness of the conduct would, in my view, make the provision perhaps even impossible to enforce in most cases. But if we are thinking just of kerb-crawling—and in the context of this Bill I think this is what we should be thinking about—the provision would in any event be unlikely to be of value in dealing with such cases, because in many of them it would be difficult to prove that the conduct was such as to be likely to cause a breach of the peace: and this quite apart from the fact that in most cases there would be no witness other than the person molested. I have not had experience of these matters, but I thought the usual form with the kerb-crawler was that he attempted to pick
262
up one women and so that there would rarely be a witness, and these would be the most serious cases, about which I am sure my noble friend is mainly concerned. There would not be a possibility, even if the molested person was willing to come forward, of getting a conviction under this clause because there would be no witness.
I am in this dilemma. I am impressed by what my noble friend Lord Chorley said; that he thought this was a danger. On the other hand, I feel that the Amendment almost does nothing, and therefore, as always, apart from any decision my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill may make about his Amendment it is entirely for the Committee to decide. We do not think that it would serve any practical purpose if it were included in the Bill, but if the Committee feel that there should be a separate offence of molestation then the Amendment may be accepted. But we should certainly have to give further consideration to its terms. with particular reference to the points made by my noble friend Lord Chorley. But, as I say, without further consideration I do not think the Amendment makes much difference to the Bill at all.
LORD CHORLEY: What the Minister has just said about the ineffectiveness of this clause to deal with kerb-crawling reminded me that in an intervention I promised the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, that I would adduce reasons why it was ineffective.
What the Minister has said about a breach of the peace is one of these reasons. But if your Lordships will look at the Amendment, you will see that it refers to "persistently molesting another person''. Let us try to apply this to the typical kerb-crawler. He does not persistently molest any particular person. He drives along soliciting one woman after another, and if one pushes him off he goes a bit further and tries to find another one. How could you possibly successfully bring a prosecution against him under the words of this Amendment? Indeed, could it be said that this was really molestation? Molestation is surely something a little more serious than driving up to a woman and inviting her to come for a drive, which is the typical approach of the kerb-crawler. So in addition to this breach of the peace point, which is another very

263
important point why this Amendment would not bite, so to speak, on the kerb-crawler, there are these two other reasons, each of which, I suggest, are unanswerable. Therefore, in a sense my clause has gone and the kerb-crawler is being given a charter, and I would suggest that the noble and learned Lord is leaving him with that charter, because this Amendment certainly will not touch the kerb-crawler at all.
LORD STOW HILL: I thought the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, might be grateful for small mercies. It might well be that if this clause goes the whole of his Bill goes. That would not break my heart. But at least I am putting something in place of it. When the noble Lord first got on his feet he was full of gloomy forebodings; he thought this proposal might have a terrific effect, with all sorts of people dragged before the courts. I thought the answer was given by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, very effectively when he said that in his view it would not have any effect at all. I do not know if that satisfies the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. If the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is right, I hope the noble Lord will agree that there is no really adequate ground for his anxieties.
May I come to the argument of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk? She says it will have inadequate effect, very little effect. It is my intention that it should be applicable only in a thoroughly bad case. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, says it will not apply to a kerb-crawler because he does not persistently molest one individual; he says something to one lady and then passes on and says something to another and a third. I think it would be repugnant to common sense if he could be prosecuted for that. What happens? He says something to one lady, who says nothing and passes on and forgets it, and he goes to a second and a third, who do the same, who take no notice and pass on. People ought not to be dragged into court and the time of the police and everybody else wasted if that is what they have done. If he does pursue one lady, goes 10 or 20 or 40 or 50 yards at a crawling pace beside somebody on the pavement, and persistently makes indecent remarks to her or something of that sort, then that should be the sort of thing the Bill deals with.
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I am not, if I may say so with great respect, content to leave the Bill in a position in which on the evidence of one person another person shall be convicted of an offence of that kind. Why? Because I should have thought that experience showed us that of 100 women subjected to treatment of this sort 99 take no notice and pass on; if there is a turning they turn to the left and leave the man in his car and that is the end of it. Generally speaking, if a kerb-crawler sees he is having no luck he gives it up because he is wasting his time. But if he does it persistently in the way I have described and is so persistent that she feels inclined to strike him—I suggested with an umbrella but whatever instrument it may be—if somebody else sees it (after all the streets are not completely empty; somebody else can see it and is equally indignant and equally inclined to take vengeance on the wrongdoer) that is the sort of case I have in mind which should conic to court.
I gave the example of the case of the Underground railway. That would be clearly within the scope of my clause: the case of the young girl sitting down and a ruffian comes and sits next to her. I do not want to repeat the circumstances of that case. If it had not ended in the way it did by her changing places with the gentleman opposite, and if the annoyance had got so that it was likely that one or other would burst out, the offence would be committed.
The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said a kerb-crawler does not generally molest two ladies at the same time. Sometimes he does. Sometimes the second person will be an independent person. It may be a companion of the lady; one does not know. Once you have the safeguard of two people ready to swear on oath, so that you can eliminate the risk of the unbalanced woman being the only person to give evidence against a man, I should be perfectly content for it to go to the court. That is the sort of case I should have thought Sir John Wolfenden was considering when he put into the Report the passage that I read about kerb-crawling. He is frightened of charges being made against innocent motorists. I try to eliminate the risk by saying there should be two people to give evidence. If it means fewer prosecutions, so much the better.
BARONESS BIRK: I wonder whether I may ask the noble and learned Lord a question. Am I correct in assuming that by the passing of his first Amendment the situation still remains where the prostitute can be called and known as a common prostitute? And now we have added the male prostitute, and left loitering or soliciting in the case of one person. But a man kerb crawling can go on and on until it is decided at some point that he has persistently molested enough people. It seems to me a most extraordinary discrepancy. Does the noble Lord mean that the Bill can go forward in that rather contradictory way?
LORD STOW HILL: I am sorry to incur the displeasure of the noble Baroness. I should have thought the clause described a perfectly clear and intelligible set of circumstances. If he speaks to one person persistently so that she is prepared to give evidence, together with somebody else ready to give evidence there being a likelihood of a breach of the peace. a provable offence is corn-milted. I do not see anything obscure in that. I said in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. that I did not think it would be right to bring before the courts a person who drove a car and said something to one person and then to another and then to a third, when what happens is that each passes on and does not pay much attention to it and that is the end of it. One has to draw the line between what is serious and intolerable conduct and the sort of disagreeable conduct that one has to put up with in everyday life. The police cannot insulate one against the latter; nor can the law. I would limit it to the serious sort of case, whether it is to do with sex or cat-calling or whatever it is.
The noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, asked whether the matter is not covered by the Race Relations Act. In some cases, yes, in some cases, no. Furthermore, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said a good deal of it would be overlapped by the Public Order Act, Section 5. I agree with him that in a good many cases it would. but I suppose not the case in which a person who has molested a lady or anybody else could not be shown to have used insulting or threatening language hut had approached her on a more conciliatory basis and in dulcet tones, and therefore it might be
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a matter of uncertainty as to whether insulting or threatening language was used. I say perfectly frankly that my object is to eliminate the sort of case which is not a serious case. Where it is a serious case it will be within the section and it will be subject to serious penalty. It is my intention that that should be the result; and I respectfully submit to the House that I do achieve it.
BARONESS STOCKS: Would it apply to the molestation of a potential blackleg in connection with a trade dispute? If it did, so much the better; but it would not be exactly a sexual offence.
LORD STOW HILL: No, it would not be a sexual offence, and it is my intention that this should not be limited to sexual offences. I can conceive circumstances in which that might happen. What would have to be shown is, first, that there is molestation of a persistent character of one person to his annoyance; secondly, that it was either with the intention of causing a breach of the peace or in circumstances in which it was likely to; and, thirdly, that the person molested, plus one other person, was ready to give evidence of the molestation. I submit that that is a reasonable result.
LORD STONHAM: I gather that my noble and learned friend wishes to persist in his Amendment and to add it to the Bill. I am not going to advise the Committee against that step, but I hope my noble friend accepts that we feel that if this Amendment is accepted by the Committee and added to the Bill we shall have to give consideration to its terms.
LORD STOW HILL: May I say at once that my only purpose in putting down these Amendments is to try in such way as I can to improve the Bill. I should be only too glad of advice and help. which I am perfectly ready to accept. I have not got far in achieving my objective, but I believe I have gone some distance in that at any rate the Bill has received some consideration. I should be only too happy to receive advice, and delighted to co-operate with the Home Office or the Government in any changes that they may wish to discuss with me.
6.52 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 3) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 29; Not-Contents, 12.

CONTENTS

Auckland, L.

Hacking, L.

Royle, L.

Barrington, V.

Hall, V.

St. Oswald, L.

Belstead, L.

Henley, L.

Sandford, L.

Bowles, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Sandys, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Lambert, V.

Sempill, Ly.

Conesford, L.

Lindgren, L. [Teller.]

Somers, L.

Daventry, V.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Stow Hill, L. [Teller.]

Denham, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Rankeillour, L.

Vivian, L.

Falkland, V.

Redesdale, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Beswick, L.

Collison, L.

St. Davids, V.

Birk, Bs. [Teller.]

Listowel, E.

Stocks, Bs. [Teller.]

Burden, L.

Phillips, Bs.

Strabolgi, L.

Chorley, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Wise, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
7.0 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL LORD STOW HILL moved Amendment No. 4:
After Clause 1 insert the following new clause:
Penalties and procedure
".A person convicted of an offence under the preceding section shall be liable

(a) on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £25 and on a second or subsequent conviction to a fine not exceeding £100, and

(b) on indictment to a fine not exceeding £100 or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months or to both such fine and such imprisonment:

Provided that a person against whom proceedings are taken summarily for any such offence shall be entitled, if he so opts, to be tried by indictment, and at the outset of any such proceedings such person shall be informed in open court that he is entitled at his option to be proceeded against by indictment and in the event of his thereupon exercising his option such proceedings shall continue in all respects as if they were proceedings by indictment."
The noble and learned Lord said: I hope I may deal with this Amendment shortly. It provides the penalties, and I think perhaps it is not necessary for me to say more than that they are not trivial but they are not gravely severe. The proviso enables an accused person to opt for trial by jury. That would not be effected by Section 25 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952. I think it is necessary only for me to say that it would not be brought about automatically by that Act, and therefore I have to provide for it separately. The
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accused has to be informed in open court, and he must opt straight away if he wishes to be tried by a jury. I beg to move.
LORD CHORLEY: The noble Lord has suggested that the present fines should be substantially stepped up. The 1959 Act introduced very much heavier fines than those which had previously existed in connection with these street offences, and I think the general feeling was that they were pretty steep. My noble friend is now suggesting that these should be heavily increased. The present fine for the first offence is £10; he proposes to put that up to £25. I think (if my memory is correct) the second offence attracts a fine of up to £25, which he proposes to put up to £100, which I suggest is a very heavy fine indeed for the type of conduct with which this clause deals. Fines of this nature ought to be looked at in connection with the other fines for this sort of conduct, and I think it is a mistake to approach individual offences of this kind piecemeal.
Moreover, in the later part of this Amendment it is suggested that this type of offence should be dealt with on indictment, and imprisonment, even on a first offence, would apparently be possible. I suggest that conduct like this is essentially the sort of conduct which should be dealt with summarily and not made the subject matter of the elaborate process of trial on indictment before a jury, with all the paraphernalia involved. That is making altogether too heavy weather of it. The noble Lord himself has said that in the ordinary way this is very trivial sort of

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conduct, and he hopes that very few cases will be brought under it. Yet he wants it tried on indictment, with a sentence of imprisonment as a possible penalty. I suggest that he should not press this Amendment.
LORD ROYLE: I would support my noble friend Lord Chorley in this matter, except that I do not agree with him and agree with my noble friend Lord Stow Hill with regard to paragraph (a), trial by magistrates and a fine not exceeding £25 on a first offence. I do not regard £25 as being too heavy, because obviously magistrates would exercise their discretion with regard to the matter and in accordance with the case. But I agree with my noble friend Lord Chorley that to think of these offences in terms of indictment is carrying the matter too far, and therefore we should not accept the second part, paragraph (b). I am prepared to accept paragraph (a) in the Amendment but not paragraph (b), because I do not believe this is something which ought to go through the whole course of the higher courts.
LORD STOW HILL: May I say, in answer to my noble friend Lord Chorley, that I deliberately made the maximum fines rather higher than those in the 1959 Act because, as I have explained to the Committee, it was my intention that this new clause should apply only to the more serious type of conduct. As my noble friend Lord Royle has said, the magistrates need not impose a maximum fine; this is simply an empowering clause which enables them to impose that fine if they think it appropriate. My noble friend Lord Royle asked whether one can envisage a case in which conduct of this sort ought, in the first place, to go to indictment. I take his point, and I should like to give it further thought. I should not have thought it was within the Rules of the House to strike out that point now, but certainly I will give the matter further thought. I should, however, be very reluctant to omit the proviso which enables the accused person to exercise his option to go before a jury. That is because, if there is a charge of this sort, frequently it will be one which involves his character, his sexual behaviour, his whole reputation. It may bring ruin to him, and it seems to me that that is a matter on which, if he
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desires the opportunity of trial before a jury, he should be entitled to have one. And I think that the defendant ought to be told that he can go before a jury if he wishes to do so. Therefore, while I do not, with great respect to my noble friend Lord Chorley, feel that the fines in paragraph (a) are too high, I see the force of the argument of my noble friend Lord Royle about paragraph (b), and trial on indictment in the first instance. As I say, however, I should be very reluctant to leave out the proviso. As it is not possible, I believe, under the Rules of the House, to move the Amendment in any other form than that in which it is on the Order Paper, I will ask the Committee to approve it, for the time being, in that form.
7.8 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: I am wholly in agreement with what has been said by my noble friend Lord Chorley and my noble friend Lord Royle with regard to penalties. I make it clear to your Lordships that as we have accepted Amendment No. 3 it is logical to accept Amendment No. 4, which is at present before the Committee. But the penalties will need a great deal of further consideration and amendment. Even if it were possible (and it is possible to consider a manuscript Amendment) it is extremely unwise to attempt to amend on one's feet. I would put it to my noble friend Lord Stow Hill that this Amendment would be unacceptable and most unwise, except on a clear understanding that he accepts that the proposed penalties must be modified.
But I think that the considerations of this Amendment go deeper than the mere penalties themselves. My noble friend proposes in the Amendment that the offence of molestation should be a hybrid, triable either summarily or on indictment, and it contains the quite unusual provision enabling an accused person who is proceeded against summarily to claim the right to trial by jury. We think that the offence of molestation is scarcely serious enough to warrant making it triable on indictment. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Stow Hill apparently recognises this, because the penalties imposed in the clause on conviction on indictment, as regards both the amount of the fine and the length of the term of imprisonment, are very low,

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being well within the maxima normally available to the magistrates' court. I am sure my noble friend is aware of these things. It is true that the comparable offence under Section 5 of the Public Order Act may be tried on indictment, but that provision is clearly designed to cover more serious misconduct than the proposed offence of molestation.
My noble friend made it perfectly clear that his object in this part of the Amendment is to ensure that a person accused of this offence should have the right to claim jury trial. But under the general law, in Section 25 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952, anyone charged before a magistrates' court with an offence for which he is liable to be imprisoned by that court for more than three months can claim to be tried by a jury. Apart from this general right of trial by jury where the maximum summary penalty is more than three months, there are very few precedents even in 19th century Statutes for giving an accused tried for a summary offence a right to claim trial by jury where the maximum penalty is less. Indeed, there is no such precedent in modern legislation and there seems no special case for this kind of exceptional provision which my noble friend suggests in relation to this proposed offence of molestation. But if the clause were redrafted so as to make available on summary conviction the penalties proposed on conviction on indictment, and if the specific reference to a prosecution on indictment were dropped altogether, the accused would still have the right to claim trial by jury without elaborate special provision, as I hope my noble friend will accept.
On merits, the case for providing for imprisonment for more than three months on conviction of this offence is weak, and we think it would be undesirable to provide for punishment greater than the offence warrants in order to enable a defendant to claim trial by jury. It would be equally unjustifiable to create a special category of case in which a defendant could, notwithstanding the relative triviality of the offence as marked by the maximum penalty provided by Parliament, and the established arrangements for the administration of criminal justice in relation to the less serious offences by magistrates' courts, determine for himself the mode of trial to be employed. I submit that these
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considerations are more serious than the actual penalties, although as I have indicated it would appear that the maximum penalties proposed by my noble friend are greater than would be justified by the nature of the offences.
I thought it advisable to say what I have said to him, in order that he could consider this aspect and the possibility of amendment at a later stage, so as to get rid of the alternative of an indictable offence, but leaving it to the person concerned under other legislation to apply for trial by jury if he felt so disposed. I hope my noble friend will accept that as an endeavour to be helpful.
LORD STOW HILL: I am grateful to my noble friend for endeavouring to be helpful, but I must say that I am not at all convinced by his arguments. To take, first, trial on summary conviction, of course I know perfectly well, having looked up the Statute, that if I had provided that the accused could be sent to prison for three months or more on summary conviction he would have had an automatic right of trial by jury. I think it not right that on summary conviction he should be liable in this sort of case to imprisonment. He should be liable, in my judgment, only to a fine. Therefore, if he is ever to be allowed to go for trial before a jury, it must be because he is specifically given an option by the Statute. That is what I seek to give him. I am not impressed by the argument that this is not a customary mode of legislation. This is one which deals with a very special sort of behaviour. To my mind, if a man is charged with soliciting women, with the result that he may be expelled from his job and his reputation ruined, he ought to be entitled to ask that the matter should go for trial by jury.
The noble Lord, from a brief which was obviously prepared before the argument that I adduced had been heard, talked about this offence as a triviality. I have tried again and again during the course of this debate to explain that I have endeavoured so to draft the clause that it should only apply to the more serious sort of misconduct and not to trivialities. I believe I have succeeded in doing that. I have introduced the element about a breach of the peace, persistent molestation of one person and so

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on. If this is not a triviality, then it seems to me that there should be a moderately heavy fine prescribed when the case comes before a magistrates' court.
I take the point—and would like to give it further thought—made by the noble Lord, Lord Royle, that there should be no option on the part of the prosecution to proceed by way of indictment in the first place. if, I may respectfully say so, I should have thought there was force in that argument, and that I was mistaken in providing as I have provided in paragraph (b). But I think it is essential in legislation of this kind, where a man's character and whole livelihood and possibly his whole mode of life for years—perhaps a young man on the threshold of his career—may be at risk, that he should be entitled, if he wishes to have a jury's opinion, to opt for a jury. That is what I have so provided. I would not myself feel able to accede to the invitation to accept the changes suggested by the noble Lord. I should like to ask the Committee to accept the Amendment which is before it in its entirety, but
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
Clause 2 [Definitions]:
On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD STOW HILL: The Motion in my name to leave out Clause 2 is really consequential on what your Lordships have already decided. I dealt with the aspect of the Bill which equates male homosexuals with female homosexuals, and I should have thought, in those circumstances, that this could be regarded as purely consequential. So is the second part of the clause—
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I would indicate without commitment that I should like to consider very carefully whether I ought to omit paragraph (b).
LORD ROYLE: I wonder whether I may appeal to my noble friend to proceed the other way round, to withdraw the Amendment and think again about it before the Report stage, to see whether he can meet with what is in our minds on the matter. It seems to me that that is the better way round, and if he is still sticking to his present views about the whole of the Amendment he can then put the Amendment down again in this form on Report stage. I should feel much happier if this Amendment were not carried at this moment, and if we had the opportunity to see an alternative draft at Report stage.
7.20 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 4) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 21; Not-Contents, 12.

CONTENTS

Belstead, L.

Falkland, V.

Redesdale, L.

Bowden, L.

Henley, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Kinnoull, E.

Sandford, L.

Conesford, L.

Lambert, V.

Sandys, L.

Daventry, V.

Lindgren, L. [Teller.]

Sempill, Ly.

Denham, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Stow Hill, L. [Teller.]

Dilhorne, V.

Rankeillour, L.

Trefgarne, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Birk, Bs.

Plummer, Bs.

Stocks, Bs.

Burden, L.

Royle, L. [Teller.]

Stonham, L.

Chorley, L. [Teller.]

St. Davids, V.

Strabolgi, L.

Collison, L.

Shepherd, L.

Wise, L.

VISCOUNT DILHORNE: May I ask the noble Lord whether all the other Motions and the Amendment in his name—to leave out Clause 3, to leave out Clause 4 and the Amendment to the Title—are not consequential? Because if they are all consequential, would it not be to the convenience of the Committee at this hour to deal with them together?
LORD STOW HILL: I think they are all consequential, and if it suits the convenience of the Committee I should very much like to deal with them together. I do not think they raise any issue of principle.
LORD CHORLEY: I do not think that the Motion to leave out Clause 3 is really consequential, although I would not raise any objection to it. That is the Repeals clause.
LORD STOW HILL: Clause 2 has not been put.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: Does the noble Lord wish to deal with the consequential Motions and Amendment en bloc?
LORD STOW HILL: The answer is, "Yes".
LORD STONHAM: Please let us do this thing in order. The Motion to remove Clause 2 is, of course, consequential on Lord Stow Hill's Amendment No. 1, but that to remove Clause 3, if the Committee agrees to it, is not consequential on anything. I would submit that the Motion before the Committee is that Clause 2 be deleted.
On Question, Clause 2 disagreed to.
Clause 3 [Amendment of s.1(5) of Act of 1959]:
On Question, Whether Clause 3 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD STOW HILL: I should have thought, with respect, that my Motion to leave out Clause 3 is consequential. That is the clause in the Bill which leaves out, in effect, the end of Section 1, subsection (5), of the Act of 1959. In other words, it leaves out that provision in Section 1(5) of the Act of 1959 which enables convictions under various Statutes which are mentioned in the subsection to be taken into account in answering the question whether the prostitute concerned is, or is not, a common prostitute. I would respectfully submit to the Committee that in view of the decisions already made, quite clearly those words must remain in Section 1(5) of the 1959 Act, and that in those circumstances my Motion is clearly a purely consequential one.
On Question, Clause 3 disagreed to.
Clause 4 [Repeal]:
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD STOW HILL: The Motion to leave out Clause 4 is consequential in this sense: that unless Clause 4 is taken out of the Bill which is before the Com-
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mittee then the warning procedure which is specified in Section 2 of the 1959 Act is no longer applicable. I should have thought that that was a clear protection for the prostitute or for the innocent woman who is mistakenly warned as a prostitute. There can be no doubt, as the original section of the 1959 Act is to remain substantially as it was, that the warning procedure should remain in.
On Question, Clause 4 disagreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
In the Title:
LORD STOW HILL: I beg to move Amendment No. 5 formally.
Amendment moved—
The Title: at end insert ("and for connected purposes").—(Lord Stow Hill.)
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: This Amendment being for connected purposes", should not this Bill in future be known as Lord Stow Hill's Bill and not Lord Chorley's? I am sure that we all sympathise with the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, who is leaving the Chamber, in his enthusiasm for what was his measure. I am sorry that he cannot give support for what has now become Lord Stow Hill's measure.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Title, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with Amendments.

MILITARY AIRCRAFT
7.32 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL THE EARL OF KINNOULL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the growing concern at the lack of specific plans for the future procurement of military aircraft. The noble Earl said: My Lords, we come now to a slightly different subject from street offences: to the future procurement of military aircraft. The reason for my Question to-night on military aircraft procurement for the R.A.F. is not, as the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, may suspect, to stir up the muddy waters of the past five years—although I must admit that the temptation to do so is strong; and the fact that £225 million has been paid out by the Government

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on cancelled projects should not be forgotten—but to seek information from the noble Lord in his relatively new capacity as the Minister responsible for the R.A.F. Perhaps I may add my belated congratulations to him on his appointment and ask whether he could explain to the House what the specific aircraft are going to be to fill the gap of our long-range strike reconnaissance aircraft in the mid-'70s when the V-bombers and Canberras are phased out.
This gap, my Lords, seems to get wider and wider as the months go by—and dangerously, in many people's opinions. Many of us who are less informed than the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, on the recent procurement policy of the R.A.F. have found it one of bewildering change, counter-change and dilemma. If one casts one's mind back to 1967, we were told then that the replacement of the V-bomber strike force in the mid-'70s was to be, in the first place, the F.111 which in turn would be replaced by the AFVG, the core of the future defence policy. It is history now, and sad history, that within six months both of these were cancelled and that since that time no specific aircraft with similar capability has been ordered by the R.A.F.
There have been, as the noble Lord will know, in the month before Easter two debates in another place covering the R.A.F. Anyone who has read those debates, as I have, and has studied them will have come to the conclusion that at the present time the contingency plan to replace the V-bombers is divided into two parts. The first part would promote aircraft which in 1967 were considered to have had insufficient capability to lead our tactical strike force. The second and corresponding one is to reduce our commitment to meet the reduced capability of this force. I sincerely hope that this conclusion is erroneous and that the noble Lord will seize the opportunity to-night to explain positively what replacements are planned to fill this gap.
The second point I should like to make to the noble Lord concerns the numbers of aircraft which the R.A.F. have in service. The Minister of Defence, in a recent speech, I think to NATO, set out in table form the balance of aircraft power in Europe. It is very noticeable that
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Britain comes well down in this league table. Such countries as Germany, France, Italy; and even Sweden, all have more military aircraft in service. The question that comes to one's mind is: how is it that the Government are so satisfied that they have equipped the R.A.F. with a sufficient number of aircraft to cater for an emergency, to defend over 58 million people in our country, when neighbouring countries—some with only a quarter of our population, if one takes Sweden—can afford, and consider it wise and prudent to afford, more aircraft.
My Lords, I turn briefly to the various projects planned for the re-equipment of the R.A.F. The one that I think we are most anxious to hear about to-night is the MRCA, which I venture to call the white hope of our 1980s defence policy. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to give us further news on this project. The project has reached the project definition stage—a stage, one must remember, which the late European air-bus reached in 1967. So there is a long way to go. This is the stage when both partners in the project commit themselves to development costs. I am wondering whether the noble Lord can inform us of the likely costs of Britain's share in this project and whether the chief designer for the project has yet been appointed. Could he also say whether it has been decided whether the aircraft are to be twin-engined or single-engined? Finally, perhaps he could advise us what percentage of common specification in the aircraft is anticipated between the British and German requirements.
The MRCA project, and its success, must be now quite vital to the re-equipment programme of the R.A.F. The sands of time must almost be running out when one considers that this project is now the third attempt to replace the TSR 2. I hope that the Government will give this project all the firm and resolute support that it needs and will overcome the almost inevitable pressure of cancellation which seems to be the modern malaise of British aircraft projects.
Turning now to projects closer to fruition, the Jaguar, I would ask the noble Lord if he can tell us to-night whether there has been any cost escalation with this development programme and whether the project is on schedule.

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If I may turn to the VTOL Harrier, I wonder whether the noble Lord could explain one of the queries which is in the minds of a number of people about this aircraft? How in practice will the Royal Air Force support the Harrier in the field in order to use it to maximum advantage? Will they be placing further orders for the Chinook helicopter? Also, I think it would be helpful to know whether there is any further news about the suggested U.S. Marine Corps order for the Harrier. Much play was made by the Government in another place about the exercise by the squadron of Lightnings that flew from Scotland to Singapore recently and were refuelled in the air. The refuelling was carried out by Victor tankers and I think it would be of interest to know what are the plans to replace these Victor tankers.
I should like to ask the noble Lord a question on a topic which, although outside the central core of my Unstarred Question, I am sure he will construe as being within its ambit. I refer to the Air-Sea Rescue Service of the Royal Air Force. These duties have been performed in the past with exceptional skill, courage and devotion by the Royal Air Force. It is a duty which I believe the country, perhaps wrongly, had begun to take for granted would be fulfilled by a peace time Royal Air Force. The need for an air-sea rescue service around our shores is I am sure, one which will be a continuing and increasing requirement. Whether or not this need should be met by the Royal Air Force is not a question which I should wish to pose to-night. Nor do I wish to comment on the recent tragedy about which we all read in the Press. I should like to put two questions to the noble Lord. What has been the cost of this service over, say, the past two years as provided by the Royal Air Force, and how many lives have been saved? Can he explain what steps are at present taken by the Royal Air Force when a service is planned to be withdrawn from an area?
My Lords, I would end by saying that the re-equipment of the Royal Air Force is, I am sure, an expenditure which very few would begrudge as being inessential to our defences. I hope that the noble Lord can assure us that the capability of the aircraft which the Royal Air Force
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will have in service in the late 1970s will continue to be considered as a deterrent not only by this Government but by less friendly foreign Governments,—a deterrent strike-back to inflict unacceptable damage on the enemy. This I believe to be the minimum requirement for the Royal Air Force.
7.43 p.m.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, in rising to speak very briefly in this debate I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Kinnoull for raising a matter which is very pertinent at this time. Like the noble Earl, I do not think it particularly profitable to go back over the past history of undoubted mistakes in aircraft procurement—they were not confined to the present Administration—but none the less it is perhaps worth while remembering (some of us may not agree, but the point should be made) that the cancellation of the TSR 2, leaving aside the other cancellations made at that time, was regarded by the experts as catastrophic; and nothing that has happened since then has in any way tended to change that view.
At the time of the cancellation we were told that the long-range strike and reconnaissance role of the Royal Air Force would be replaced by F.111s which would be bought at very considerable expense from the Americans. The cost of that order apparently escalated, so it was cancelled. Then, as we all know, Mr. Healey told us that the AFVG would now become the corner stone of our strike capability, but that, too, fell by the wayside. Finally, the role was apparently to be filled by Phantoms and. to a lesser extent, by Buccaneer aircraft which were ordered to fill the gap. If the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, seeks to reject the contention of my noble friend that there are no specific plans for future aircraft procurement, I hope that he will at least outline to us the plans in some respects.
I should like to put to the noble Lord some points specifically relating to aircraft not mentioned by my noble friend Lord Kinnoull. First, regarding transport aircraft, the present fleet of Andovers, VC 10s and Hercules aeroplanes will come up in due course for replacement. The Hercules have only just gone into service and they are hardly modern aircraft. The production line for these

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aircraft, as we all know, had to be reopened to build them for the R.A.F. as they had long since ceased to be manufactured for the American forces and for the Canadians. So we had a none too modern aircraft when we had it new. Now it is supposed to be forming the backbone of Transport Command, or rather Air Support Command as it is now called. What are the plans for replacing the Andovers and the VC 10s as they come up for replacement?
Secondly, my Lords, I should like to look briefly at the field of communications aircraft. As I understand it, the aircraft used at present are the B.206. or Bassett as it is called in its R.A.F. guise, the Devon and a number of Pembrokes and Percivals. The Bassett was built specifically to meet an R.A.F. requirement but only 20 were ordered. We understand that when delivered the aircraft was not entirely as the R.A.F. had wished it. My information is that the R.A.F. has only itself to blame, because like so many other aircraft projects, not confined to the R.A.F., the customer insisted at the last minute on all sorts of extra equipment being added which many people thought unnecessary and which added to the weight of the aircraft so that it could no longer meet the performance requirements for which it was designed. I further understand that there is now a supercharged engine available for this aircraft which the R.A.F. apparently has declined but which would restore the aeroplane to the performance specification which was originally required. If so, would it not now be possible or desirable for the R.A.F. to order additional Bassett aircraft to meet the requirements to replace the aging Devons and other aeroplanes which the R.A.F. still has?
Finally, my Lords, there is the question of training aircraft. I do not wish to go into that question in too much detail, but the older jet Provost will be coming up for replacement shortly. Is it the intention to replace this aircraft purely with more up-to-date Provosts? The latest one has a pressurised cockpit and is, I understand, now available. Is it the intention to replace all the older type jet Provosts with the new type or are they looking for another aircraft? The ab initio training role in the R.A.F. could perhaps best be met by ordering
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Beagle pups. This has, I know, been suggested. Can the noble Lord say whether the R.A.F. has any intention of ordering this aircraft and, if so, when are we going to hear about it, because the requirement to replace the Chipmunks is very urgent. I do not think that I have any further points to make. I would once more thank my noble friend Lord Kinnoull for raising this matter and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, will be able to allay at least some of our fears
7.49 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, if I say anything which appears controversial in the few words that I wish to add to those of my noble friends Lord Kinnoull and Lord Trefgarne, the intention will be no more than skin deep, except possibly in small patches of already calloused tissue. The noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, my noble friends and I have the effective defence of this country equally at heart, and particularly in this debate the part which the R.A.F. must play in that defence. This is an Unstarred Question and I shall try not to abuse that formula. If I put questions which appear to be loaded, I shall be as happy as anyone if the Minister can de-fuse the implied charge behind them.
My Lords, five years ago we still had the largest aerospace industry in Europe, competing on equal terms with the United States and in many respects the envy of the American industry. Can it be said that this is so to-day? In late 1964, and in 1965, decisions were made which effectively cancelled three leading British aircraft projects. Of these, I believe that the Government must, in their hearts, deeply regret the cancellation of both the TSR 2 and the P.1154; and, to do them justice, they must be extremely glad that they were unable by the terms of the contract to cancel the Concorde civil project, as they declared at the beginning of their reign to be their intention.
I have heard Ministers groan audibly and histrionically when the TSR 2 was mentioned. But I believe, and many others believe, in America as well as in this country, that were it not for their destructive decision that aircraft would be not only flying to-day but earning orders from the United States, who have signally failed to produce its equal, or even its competitor, and our balance of payments

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problem would be that much less of a headache to the Government to-day; because, of course, if the United States were buying it, then certainly other countries would be buying it as well. I am not going to ask the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, to chastise himself to the extent of pronouncing his confidence (which I believe to be real) that we should now be selling the TSR 2 to America, but I think that it is fair to prick him into saying whether it is quite conceivable to him, or even probable in his mind, that this would be the case.
The TSR 2 prototypes, which were deliberately, and to some of us with unseemly haste, converted into scrap within weeks of the new Government's taking their decision, have vanished into rusty limbo. I went to see them in a Bradford scrapyard. What we have to ask, and what the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, really has to answer, is: what is going to take the place of the Anglo-French VG aircraft, which was to take the place of the F.111, which was to take the place of the TSR 2, which would now, but for its deliberate extinction, be earning us valuable dollars and assisting with the defence of the Free World as a whole?
There are disturbing rumours about the MRCA, the multi-role combat aircraft, upon which hopes are pinned. In the debate on European technological co-operation some weeks ago, the question was asked about the proposal reportedly made by France to Germany that Germany should withdraw from this project and take part instead in the development and production of a new version of the Mirage. On that occasion, the most the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, at the Dispatch Box felt able to say was that the rumours that the R.A.F. would eventually be equipped with the new Mirage were "premature". Can the Minister to-day say whether those rumours are still premature, less premature or totally misconceived?
The noble Lord who answers this debate will refer to the success story of the P.1127, now known as the Harrier. We shall applaud this success story, and our applause will be quite unaffected by the fact that it is the success story of the previous Administration. He will speak of the Jaguar, where there is an-
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other success story; and again the volume of our applause will not be affected by the fact that it was my right honourable friend Mr. Julian Amery, now once again in Parliament, who launched the policy of co-operation with Continental countries in the aerospace industries.
We have to appreciate—it would be blind not to appreciate—that the cost of research and development in this field is titanic and beyond the economic reach of any single European country, including our own. The answer must be a European aircraft construction policy. But can the Government claim that such a policy exists to-day, even though its beginning was part of the valuable heritage of 13 years of active productive Tory Government? In this context, the debate on European technical co-operation to which I have already referred, though interesting and, as usual, extensively well-informed, was not altogether happy. I thought, in its conclusions. Our sincerity—that is to say, Britain's sincerity—is doubted to-day in a way that did not exist five years ago. The withdrawal from ELDO and other technological aspirations cannot enter into this debate, but they form a part of the pattern of uncertainty and suspicion regarding Britain's attitude to the Continent of Europe and particularly to technical co-operation; and into this field comes the aerospace industry.
I am not pretending that simply because some European countries come together and agree that it would be a good idea to build a certain type of aircraft, this aircraft is therefore bound to be a winner. The Jaguar, commercially, is going to be a success story. In May of 1965, when Britain and France signed the agreement, the two countries undertook to build 300 aircraft—150 for each country—and this was later increased to a total of 400. It was a going concern from that moment forward and no-one doubts that it will be a fine investment.
What I should like the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, to do—and I have no doubt that this is the purpose of the Question of my noble friend Lord Kinnoull—is to contradict credibly the belief that Britain's confidence (and by that I mean the confidence of Her Majesty's Government) in our own aircraft industry, is shaken or dwindling. It is a matter

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of Parliamentary experience that if anyone on this side of the House, in particular from the Front Bench throws doubt upon the quality or effectiveness of Service equipment, he is accused of "knocking" the R.A.F. or whatever Service may be involved. The noble Lord opposite knows, I hope, that I should be no more capable of "knocking" the R.A.F. from this Bench than he will be of so doing from the same Bench in a matter of months. When we are roused to indignation is when we think, and because we think, that the men of the R.A.F. are not being given the aircraft and the weapon systems they deserve.
I repeat again the question that the Minister himself must wish to answer more than any other. What is to be the long-range—this question was put by my noble friend, and perhaps because it was put by my noble friend it is not necessary to listen to me.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I was just wondering what this had to do with the Question on the Order Paper, that is all.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, this is a question of aircraft procurement. I understand that the noble Lord the Leader of the House has enormous and wide responsibilities, but I am referring to aircraft procurement in a debate on that subject. I repeat again the question that the Minister must wish to answer more than any other. What in two or three years' time shall we know is to be the long-range, all-weather, strike and reconnaissance aircraft in the hands of the R.A.F.? He and I know that all the officers and men of the R.A.F. require is equipment equal to that of a possible enemy. We know, and they know, that their skill is superior to that of the men of most air forces, perhaps of any air force; but the attitude of this Government seems to have been up to now, "If you think you can finish the job, then you can probably do it with older tools, fewer tools and preferably somebody else's tools." I should like this evening to hear the noble Lord's contradiction.
8.0 p.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I came this evening to answer what I thought was a comparatively simple Question, the point put to me by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, whether we
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"…are aware of the growing concern at the lack of specific plans for the future procurement of military aircraft."
May I straight away say that I hope the noble Earl will not think that I ant being discourteous if I leave out the question of air-sea rescue. That is an important question, but it certainly does not fall within the particular Question that he has put down. I should be glad to discuss the matter with him perhaps on another Unstarred Question, because it is important.
As I have said, I came to answer a limited Question but I am willing to extend it a little in order to reply to the points made by the three noble Lords who have spoken. Basically, the Royal Air Force at the moment are in good heart, because they are receiving over almost the whole range of their equipment new aircraft of high performance. That is a simple fact of life. They are now receiving the Phantom and the first squadrons are forming. They are receiving the Buccaneer. They are receiving the Nimrod. They are receiving the Harrier, and in the not-too-distant future they will be receiving the Jaguar. These are all hard facts, and hard facts expressed in terms of operational conversion units taking the aircraft and training the men in them: or actual facilities which the noble Earl must realise are necessary for receiving them or, in the case of the Jaguar, the prototype flying and testing, in preparation for their entry into the Royal Air Force and into the French Air Force.
In addition—and this has not been mentioned this evening—we have the package agreement with the French for the new generation of helicopters which are required for the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. Since aircraft in service life have a life of 10 to 15 years, the fact that we are receiving this wide range of new aircraft, into the Air Force means that the future procurement of military aircraft does not weigh on our minds as heavily as the introduction into service of the new aircraft that we have already ordered.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to interrupt? He speaks of aircraft having a life of 10 to 15 years, and he mentioned the Buccaneer. Does he mean to say that the Buccaneer is going to last another

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15 years? It is not even a supersonic aeroplane.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: I think the noble Lord is a little confused. In fact, it is not the aeroplane that matters but the missile that it delivers. The Buccaneer in many fields is an extremely versatile, advanced and important aircraft. I am speaking now off the cuff, and I hope that wiser men than myself may correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that one of the problems in aircraft that we face at the moment is the problem of sophistication. What you want to do is to get, not an aircraft to a certain point, but a weapon to a certain point. The Buccanneer in many ways is extremely well-equipped to do just that. One of the questions that I ask myself (and perhaps on April 29, when we have the Defence debate in this House, I shall try to answer myself on the subject) is whether extreme sophistication is what we now require. That is a question that I suggest noble Lords should ask themselves. We see our American friends struggling in Vietnam. We see a highly sophisticated machine struggling with men of high morale with unsophisticated weapons.
When we talk of the multi-role combat aircraft—and I shall be talking about this further in a few moments—we must remember that it will not fly faster than the Phantom. It can do many other things better, but I am almost certain that it will not fly faster. So simple speed alone is not the important thing; it is the total range of capacity of taking a weapon from its base and delivering it on an enemy field.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord yet again, but he really cannot have it both ways. The cornerstone of the Government's argument for having smaller fleets and military air fleets than other countries is that we have more sophisticated and better aircraft. Now the noble Lord says that we do not need sophisticated aircraft. Which way is it?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: I did not say that. I said that sophistication is not speed alone. It is short take-off and landing. Anyone who sees the Phantom
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landing realises that it lands like a brick. When we are operating in Western Europe we may want aircraft that do not land like a brick. But we want something that can face a situation where sophisticated landing fields and the rest are not available. That is one of the interesting things about the German argument in the MRCA which I commend to the noble Lords: that other things may be required than top speed, which very often leads to high landing speed, which could be a nuisance in a period of confusion. The fact that the Buccaneer is not supersonic does not mean that it is not a good aircraft. It has many virtues which other aeroplanes have not. I am sorry if I have been carried off course, but this is a case in point: speed is not the only factor in aircraft construction.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am slightly disturbed. I follow the noble Lord, and I realise that he always talks sense, but I do not think he is answering the whole sense of my noble friend's question. We all agree that speed is not the only essential of sophistication, but I hope he will not give the impression that he discounts speed among the factors of sophistication; because if we are up against faster aircraft they can overtake us, but we cannot catch them.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: But we are not chasing each other; we are going along the ground at low level, below enemy radar, in order to put a missile on a certain enemy site. The air is not going to be full of aircraft fighting splendid dog fights; they will be doing something quite different.
What I will do, if I can find my place in this voluminous brief, is to give to noble Lords the position about various types of aircraft and the role they have to play as the present aircraft that we have phase out and the new generation of aircraft phase in. We are at the beginning of a new era. I say this with trepidation when I think of my return to my Department, but I believe I can say that in the field of re-equipment the Royal Air Force are pretty satisfied with what they are getting. We are talking of long scales of procurement for seven to ten years. Take the Jaguar, which was a successful project which is proving successful; it was launched by

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the signature of the present Secretary of State in the presence of my noble friend the Leader of the House. We are at the beginning of a new generation of aircraft. The Royal Air Force are satisfied with them, and I am willing to say this in public.
I should like to explain to noble Lords the role in each field that these new aircraft have to play. The long-range strike reconnaissance role was mentioned by noble Lords. As they know, this at present is met by the Canberra and the Vulcan. The Vulcan is shifting from its strategic role to a strike and reconnaissance role, where in the next few years it will carry on. The Canberra, oddly enough, is carrying on for a long time in certain specialised roles. It is a marvellous aeroplane, and it still has a role to play. The Buccaneer is, we agree, a transitional aeroplane. It is entering into service with the Royal Air Force this year, and the main force will build up in 1971–72. From then on it will with the Vulcan take over the Canberra role. Then—and this is an important point which noble Lords are probing—from 1976 onwards, assuming that we can reach agreement with our friends in NATO, the M.R.C.A. (the multi-role combat aircraft) will replace the Vulcans and the Buccaneers in their overland role.
I would suggest, since noble Lords are probing into the future—this is very much within the terms of the Question I have been asked—that I should talk for a few moments about the multi-role combat aircraft. As I have told the noble Earl, he has raised this question at a moment when the whole issue of the M.R.C.A. is under discussion. I think it true to say that this Government have in fact started and brought into being the techniques of international co-operation for the production of aircraft. To produce a new type of aircraft is fiendishly expensive, as noble Lords know. So the sensible thing to do, if we are to develop the potential of Europe as a European military concept, is to use the techniques of mass production in order to get our sophisticated aircraft at a reasonable price. The only way we can do this is by international co-operation. We in Europe are facing two super-Powers, the Americans and the with their vast markets, with
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their capacity to produce many aircraft in a single run. The M.R.C.A. in Europe gives us this possibility. The number of aircraft required is about 1,000, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has informed us. We have learnt how to work with the French. ·The Concorde, as we know, is working. The Concorde administrative system is working—with some difficulties, because this was our first attempt. The Jaguar system is working a great deal better because we have learnt how to tackle international co-operation. The helicopter scheme is working so well that we do not hear anything about it, as are the collaborative operations in the field of missile production. Nobody has questioned this. It is a question of good news being no news. This is going all right.
But now we are moving into a field where four nations are trying to collaborate in the mass production of an important and sophisticated new aeroplane. I suggested to the noble Earl that he might put a Question down to-day in order that we could have an advance discussion of the situation. But perhaps in a month, or two or three months, from now we might know rather better how we are going in this field. But do not let us think it is easy for four nations to get together to agree to the mass production of a highly sophisticated aeroplane. This is the situation that is facing us, and this is really what we are talking about in the terms of this Question: what is the future of the British aircraft industry in the field of combat aircraft? It is the M.R.C.A. It is not easy. The Germans naturally want to reconstruct their aircraft industry. They want to be able to produce sophisticated modern aircraft in the same way as the French do. Therefore, there is argument about who should have design leadership; there is argument about who should produce the engines. There is also argument about the whole field of the management of this very large project indeed. Perhaps your Lordships will permit me to stick to my brief at this point because, having told your Lordships that the whole matter is still under international discussion, I should like to tell your Lordships the state of play.
All the countries concerned—that is ourselves, the Germans, the Dutch and the Italians—are now evaluating the re-

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sults of a series of feasibility studies that are taking place, together with the estimated costs of the production of the aircraft; and considering the form of the arrangements which will regulate the future progress of the project if it goes ahead. I believe that the Governments concerned will very soon have the necessary information available so as to enable decisions to be taken within the next few weeks; it is as close as that. It has to be very soon, because we are not talking about a long-term matter. I spoke about 10 or 15 years. If the project goes ahead, we are aiming at the aircraft coming into service in 1975–76. That is the kind of time-scale we are aiming for.
It will of course be a twin-engined aircraft. This is a point in which I believe the noble Earl is interested. The difference between the British concept and the German concept is that we want a two-seater because we are thinking in terms of longer ranges than the Germans, and the Germans are thinking only of a single seater. But, as we know, this is not a major problem. The Harrier has single-seater and two-seater versions. A human being is comparatively light and simple compared with the other objects that have to be fitted into an air frame.
The noble Earl may ask what will happen if the project should founder. This project is so important that I say, "Do not let us start on the assumption that the project will founder". We must make it succeed. And I do not want to talk about fallback positions now. But BAC have a first-class design team, and if we keep it together we have in fact the resources to find our own solution to this problem if the MRCA does not in fact come off. But I feel that ail of us who want to see a European defence community emerging hope that this particular project will succeed.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, I wonder if I may interrupt again, on the point of the MRCA. The noble Lord says that he expects it to come into service in 1975, assuming the go-ahead. When are we going to decide whether or not we shall go ahead with this aircraft? Or has the decision already been taken?—because surely it would be better to reach the decision to undertake our own project, if for any reason we had to do so, as early as possible.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I think the noble Lord is doing a piece of special pleading. I think we should all hate to undertake our own project, but we may have to do it if necessary. What we want to see is a European Defence Community (if I may resuscitate the old phrase), and a European aeroplane where we can have over a thousand aircraft built in series, when the costs will come down remarkably. We shall never be able to match the super-Powers of the world unless we as a Continent place our production resources against the production resources of Russia and the United States. That is the state of play.
It is all very early days. The principal firms involved have made good progress towards collaboration on design and development. The feasibility study has been successfully carried out under joint arrangement, and, as noble Lords will know, B.A.C., Messerschmitt Bölkow, Fiat and Fokker have recently agreed on the formation of a joint company for these purposes, registered as PANAVIA. I wish I could peer into the future clearly and say whether this collaborative effort is going to succeed. I believe, and I know, that it is the aim and policy of Her Majesty's Government to make it succeed, because we shall not be able to develop the potential military strength of Europe unless we work collaboratively in projects such as this.
So, my Lords, I cannot tell your Lordships with certainty what the specific plans for the future procurement of military aircraft in this country are to-day. All I can say is that we have procured, and are delivering, a complete range of aircraft which are suitable for the next decade; but that in the decade from 1975 onwards we require a long-range strike reconnaissance aircraft, a new aircraft—the MRCA. This is now—I will not say on the verge of birth; but we are at the point where the various conflicts between national interests are being harmonised, and where we hope that a very sophisticated, although not necessarily an enormously fast aircraft, with a British engine, will in fact be the one chosen for the defence of Western Europe.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down could he answer just some of the questions which

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I put in my remarks? I appreciate that his brief may not have in it every detail, but the two points related to the possible acquisition in the near future of any further Basset aircraft, possibly in the new form, and also the possibility of the R.A.F.'s acquiring Beagle Pups, which I understand is a pressing requirement to replace the now very old Chipmunks.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, this is an interesting point but it is not of the first importance. In communications we have the Hawker Siddeley 125, which is a very good aeroplane indeed. Speaking quite frankly, from the R.A.F. point of view we should love to have a fleet of Hawker Siddeley 125s; and possibly Jetstreams, something sophisticated and very good. On the other hand, we are getting on well with the aircraft we have; namely, the Basset and the Devon. These will not affect our military future. At times we have to cut our suit according to our cloth—if that is the phrase; and whereas I should be delighted to provide those of us who nip about the various Commands with the highly sophisticated aircraft which are now available, I think we shall have to soldier on with the old ones for a little time longer. This is not going to affect national security.
Turning to training, I admit that the Chipmunk is an old-fashioned aeroplane; but, on the other hand, it is very sound: it gives people ab initio training. I am
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sure we should all be pleased to have something more sophisticated and "with it", but the fact remains that the Chipmunk does its job.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord yet again, but this is an important point. I understand—and as the noble Lord may know I do have a certain amount of inside knowledge of this matter—that negotiations are in progress for the Pup. Can he tell us how far these negotiations have got and whether any order is likely to be announced now or in the near future?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: Oh no, my Lords; this would be most improper. If I knew, I would not tell the noble Lord; and, quite frankly, I do not know.

BRISTOL, CLIFTON AND WEST OF ENGLAND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BILL [H.L.]
Examiners' Certificate that the further Standing Orders applicable have been complied with: Ordered to lie on the Table, and Bills committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes past eight o'clock.