Lords Sitting of 25 February 1969

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

NIGERIA AND BIAFRA: SUPPLY OF ARMS
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what consultations or inquiries have taken place with other Governments in respect of the supply of arms to Nigeria and its dissident minority; and what consideration has been given to the proposal that Her Majesty's Government should seek agreement with the French Government by which Her Majesty's Government would now cease to supply arms to Nigeria provided the French Government prohibited its nationals from supplying arms to this dissidents.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, we have had discussions with other Governments about the general problem of Nigeria. The French Government denies that any arms are being supplied from France to either side in the war.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, does that mean that the Russian Government has refused to consult with other Governments on this matter? In regard to the second part of my Question, is it not a known fact that arms are being supplied from private sources in France; and, in the circumstances, seeing that conditions to-day are very different from those which existed when the war began in Nigeria, would not the possibility envisaged in my Question be worth exploring, psychologically and politically?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, Russia has admitted that she supplies arms to
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the Federal Government of Nigeria. On the question of discussions with the French Government, I find it hard to see how we can proceed, because on three occasions the French Government has said clearly that it neither exports arms to either side in Nigeria nor permits it. On the other hand, French arms are to be found in Nigeria.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is it not a fact that while the French Government is not providing arms directly, arms are arriving through Gabon and through the Ivory Coast? Is it not therefore desirable that we should approach this question not merely by asking the French Government to stop its supply of arms, but also by seeking negotiations with all the Governments supplying arms for a complete embargo on such supply?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the position of Her Majesty's Government is that we believe this rebellion to be wrong and that the Nigerian Government were justified in resisting it. In regard to the French arms supplies and the manner in which they arrive in Biafra, there is, as the noble Lord will know, a certain amount of conjecture. I have spoken many times about the great difficulties of an effective arms embargo unless both sides agreed to it. But if both sides would agree we should certainly see what we could do to implement it.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it would be displeasing to the French Government if we were to prove, in spite of the assurance to the contrary, that arms were being supplied from private sources in France?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, this is a Nigerian and an African problem, and I think the responsibility for such proof really lies with the Nigerian authorities.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend—for this is particularly important—whether he is aware that Colonel Ojukwu and the Biafrans have now declared in favour of a complete arms embargo? Is it not possible for Her Majesty's Government to consult with Lagos to a similar end?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, if Colonel Ojukwu agrees to an arms embargo, that is a step forward. I am not aware of such an offer standing by itself.

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As my noble friend knows—and we had a good debate on this subject last week—there are many mediators and many friends who wish to help in this matter; but in the end a satisfactory solution must depend on the two sides themselves coming together to agree.

RAIL SERVICES AND COMFORT OF PASSENGERS
2.40 p.m.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: 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 instruct or encourage British Railways—
(1) when wintry weather disrupts the railway services, to give adequate information to the travelling public, waiting often for hours on cold platforms or in freezing trains;
(2) to make some effort to unfreeze the train heating system when they must know that it is frozen-up and when they have ample time to do this while the train is waiting at the larger stations;
(3) instead of spending vast sums of money on stations, to allot more money for the proper maintenance of their rolling stock.]
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the matters the noble Earl has raised are all ones of management and the responsibility of the Railways Board. The Government have no powers to instruct the Board on them. But I understand that there are standing instructions issued by the Board to their staff to advise passengers, by the most effective means, of any exceptional delays to trains. The Board are well aware of discomforts caused to travellers by cold weather. They tell me that the equipment of locomotives and coaches has been modified progressively in recent years to improve train heating; but in extremely severe conditions valves in the heating system may freeze up and when this happens the trouble cannot always be cleared during the time a train is waiting. Any failures of heating equipment are reported immediately and are put right at the first
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opportunity. The Board assure me that maintenance of their rolling stock is not allowed to fall below a satisfactory level because of restrictions on expenditure.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for his apologia for British Rail, may I ask whether he would not admit that the Government should take some interest for the sake of the people of this country? A short time ago, entirely owing to lack of maintenance, a diesel engine caught fire. If the fire had occurred to the other diesel, next to the dining car, it could have been very dangerous and have caused disaster.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, this is a matter generally for the management of the Railways Board. The noble Earl has referred to a particular accident. As he knows, there are procedures: there is an inquiry, and the Minister can apply a recommendation of such an inquiry if he considers it necessary.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, would the noble Lord do something to try to persuade British Rail to secure that the information they give is given in an intelligible form? Is the noble Lord aware that last Thursday night, when the trains to Scotland were running very late, efforts were made by loudspeaker to tell intending passengers what was happening, but as those announcements were in neither Scottish nor English it was quite impossible for me to understand them?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble and learned Viscount cannot help me further by giving me the nationality of the announcer.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, we appreciate the statement that this is a matter of Railways Board management; but is the noble Lord not aware that these difficulties must arise over these diesel engine boiler systems because of the number of failures that take place? Sometimes the trains become too heated and at other times, particularly in cold weather, there seems to be very little improvement upon the old steam engine days. Surely we can expect improvement upon those days. Would he ask his right honourable friend whether he would not make further representations to the Railways Board to improve the heating systems, particularly of the diesel locomotives?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I will certainly convey what my noble friend has said to the Railways Board. I think that if he has travelled on some of the newer coaches he will know that they are a considerable improvement on the old stock. As my noble friend will be aware, it is taking too long for some of the older stock to be taken out of service.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, it is not necessarily the stock that is at fault. This happens because the boilers on the diesel engines are failing repeatedly and are not providing enough heat to get through to the rolling stock.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I bow to my noble friend's greater experience in this field. I am merely a Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, with reference to item (3) in the noble Earl's Question, does the noble Lord not think that much greater sums of money are being spent on stations than on trains for passengers who want to get from one point to another? Is the noble Lord aware that the Railways Board have spent £15 million on Euston Station and then are closing local lines that people are desperately anxious to keep? Would the noble Lord please ask the Board whether they can stop this business of building palaces for people to stay in when what is wanted is as many trains as possible for people to travel in?
LORD SHEPHERD: The noble Lady must not exaggerate. With regard to the third item in the noble Earl's Question, I understand that annually some £5 million is spent on railway stations, whereas some £25 million is spent on rolling stock. I do not know whether the general public using Euston will share the view of the noble Lady. The complaints I usually hear are about the standard of the older railway stations in London.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, can my noble friend give an assurance that the proper maintenance of rolling stock will not preclude the spending of money on stations (other than Euston) where this money is desperately needed for the comfort of the travelling public?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I suggest that my noble friend has a con-
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versation with the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood?
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, as the noble Lord has undertaken to make representation to the Railways Board, will he represent to them the desirability of improved maintenance? Is he aware that I have had as many as three locomotives on the train bringing me from Berwick-on-Tweed to London and that I am constantly complaining? I get perfectly civil replies from the management but there seems to be no improvement at all. The last time when there was no heating on the train, the excuse given by the guard was that there had bean no heating since the train left Aberdeen.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, clearly it is the Scots who are suffering from this, but I will certainly see that the Board's attention is drawn to it. I must say that the noble Lord was fortunate in that three diesel engines were waiting for him.

GAS SUPPLIES IN COLD WEATHER
2.48 p.m.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what failures in the supply of gas to domestic consumers took place during the recent cold weather.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONITAM): My Lords, I assume the noble Lord refers to failures directly accountable to the cold weather. Gas pressure was reduced for about 48 hours on the eastern and western fringes of the North Thames Gas Board area during the week-end of February 8 to 10, and for a shorter period in the West Surrey district of the South Eastern Gas Board. Gas supply failed for some 12 hours on February 8 in the Princes Risborough district of the Southern Gas Board. The shortfalls were caused by the freezing of equipment in exposed places.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, are not these failures in gas supply becoming regular events at the onset of every winter? Cannot the gas authorities appreciate that in winter there is likely

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to be snow and frost against which their undertakings require protection?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I do not agree that these failures are very regular. Out of the 12 Area Boards in the country only three were in any way affected and these were minor failures. Indeed, there was no failure in gas supply except in the Princes Risborough district which lasted for 12 hours. Exposed equipment is insulated and also can be protected by electrically-heated tapes. In this instance, the equipment was being brought into use for the first time and the insulation was not fully effective due to the very sudden drop in temperature.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend a question on the matter of gas? It is a non-critical and friendly question. Is he aware that there are hundreds of thousands of people who have installed gas-fired central heating in their homes, people who are not technical and who are really frightened about what may happen if the pilot light goes out when a sudden lowering of gas pressure occurs? Can my noble friend approach the various Area Boards to make sure that they publicise a simple explanation, probably through the Press, as to what people should do in such circumstances?
LORD STONHAM: Yes, my Lords; I will certainly consider that. We should be very concerned about any anxieties of the public in this matter. But in the particular case that I mentioned at Princes Risborough, fitters called at no fewer than 3,000 homes, and steps were taken to open the district offices to deal with all kinds of cases. In one case portable butane heaters were provided for a home containing a newly-born child, and in another case a butane heater was supplied to a chicken hatchery. We do everything that we possibly can.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, is it not the case that when the local authorities and the great statutory companies were responsible for supplies these failures were of much less frequent occurrence?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I cannot accept three incidents, two of which resulted in a lessening of supplies—not a cessation of supplies for 48 hours—and the other in 1,700 consumers being with-
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out supplies for 12 hours, as matters of frequent occurrence during a winter lasting months over the whole area of England and Wales. These incidents are regrettable, but they are incomparably less than they were years ago when the noble Lord's Party were in office.

FOREIGN COMPENSATION BILL
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I should like to inform the House that, following a number of representations, it has been agreed, through the usual channels at any rate, that the Report stage of the Foreign Compensation Bill, which is on the Order Paper for consideration this afternoon, will be postponed. I hope that after consultation it will be possible to announce, either later this afternoon or certainly on to-night's Order Paper, a new date for the Report stage.
BRISTOL, CLIFTON AND WEST OF ENGLAND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and referred to the Examiners.
TWEED FISHERIES BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
WORCESTERSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.

CALDERDALE WATER BILL [H.L.]
2.53 p.m.
Tim CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.
LORD ST. OSWALD LORD ST. OSWALD moved, That it be an Instruction to the Committee to whom the Bill is committed that, having regard to the high amenity value of the Hard-castle Crags Valley and to the rejection of

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a previous Bill to authorise the construction of a reservoir in the valley, special consideration should be given by the Committee as to whether there is a need for additional supplies of water and as to the availability of alternative sources. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper, in the form of an Instruction to the Committee to whom this Bill will be committed. Let me first declare what interest I have, though I think your Lordships will regard it as a suitably unselfish interest. I own none of the land which the Promoters are setting out to acquire by compulsory powers under this Bill. I live some 27 miles as the crow flies, and something like 43 miles as the river Calder flows, from the area affected.
My interest is simple enough. As a Yorkshireman, I wish to prevent a serious blow to the amenities of my county—a blow which I perceive as both grievous and unnecessary. A large part of the land which the Promoters are trying to acquire was handed over to the National Trust to preserve in its existing state for the nation. That provides another reason for my concern. I am an admirer, and indeed a devotee, of the cause of the National Trust. By way of concrete proof, I have handed over my own home, Nostell Priory, also in Yorkshire, to the Trust so that they may hold it for the nation. The directors and officers of the Trust have never given me the faintest cause to regret that considerable decision made in 1952: in fact, the reverse. Their sense of responsibility towards the properties made over to the Trust is, in my experience, faultless.
What this Bill seek to do is to give the promoters power to take 307 acres in the Hardcastle Crags Valley, there to construct a reservoir at a cost of some £4¼ million. The reservoir would be built by throwing a dam 200 feet high across this lovely valley and flooding 1¾ miles above the dam. There can be no doubt whatever that this would destroy a very great deal of the beauty of the valley. Today the whole length of Hardcastle Crags Valley is of outstanding beauty—a deep gorge, thickly wooded, with the Hebden Water flowing along its floor. Three donors, acting in the same spirit and confidence as mine—my noble friend Lord Savile, Mr. H. M. Ingham and Mr. Abraham Gibson—gave or devised this
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land to the National Trust to preserve it for the pleasure of the many thousands who go there every year to enjoy it in its present unspoiled state. This dam will alter the whole character and prospect of the valley. Walking up it as it is now, the beholder sees the wooded valley rising before him all the way until it emerges into the open moor. If this scheme were implemented, the view would be blocked by the intrusion of a totally artificial barrier 200 feet high, an earth dam cutting off any sight of the upper valley. The wooded slopes of the upper valley would themselves, of course, disappear, drowned under the waters of the reservoir. They might total some 3,500 trees under the water.
In the minds of those who know it well, there is no doubt as to the æsthetic value, the essential and irreplaceable value, of what they regard as one of the remaining scenic jewels in our part of England. I use the word "essential" as well as the word "irreplaceable" thoughtfully and deliberately. In a densely populated oblong of territory in northern England, this is one of the few places untouched by the cold aseptic hand of the planner, or the sooty and sulphurous grasp of industry. It is a reminder of what nature is like—and, fortunately, there are many who find it good, who find it inspiring.
This is an area containing to the South, Liverpool, Wigan, Manchester and Sheffield, and to the North, Preston, Blackburn, Burnley, Bradford and Leeds. Many thousands from these and other towns have signed the petition forms made available in the valley to visitors. In this area, where perhaps 15 million people live and work, there is a superfluity of man-made structures without adding another wall 200 feet high, a scarcity of open country without enclosing another stretch of what remains.
I had intended last week-end to drive up and remind myself in daylight of the country in which Hardcastle Crags Valley lies. I had arranged to do so, but I was warned that all the approaches to the district were choked with both fog and snow, and I was unable to carry out that plan. But two fellow Yorkshiremen came to speak to me, two men who live in that area and who are immediately concerned in its preservation. Neither of them would call himself a poet, and they spoke in unemotive phrases of the splendour they are trying to protect. These

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were some of the points they made. They said that this place is unique in our part of England in respect of its form and size. The latter enables hundreds of people at a time to roam or rest in the valley out of sight and sound of each other. It is remote from motor roads and the noise and smells which motor traffic carries with it. It has the tranquillity of a huge cathedral open to the sky. The upper end, which is the part to be submerged, is gladly frequented by parents because of its safety for children. They can paddle and play in the pools and shallows without danger. They could hardly be allowed near the deep waters of the reservoir.
We think of this place as being a delight in summer. But last week there appeared a small descriptive piece in the Yorkshire Post, the writer giving only his or her initials. Here are one or two passages from it:
"It might have been Switzerland, Austria—perhaps even Norway. Trudging up the gorge, for the most part along the barely discernible riverside path, one half expected to come across a party of ski-ers … or hear a horse-drawn sleigh jingling the broader way between the shivering trees.
"As it was, the only human exercise in evidence was the invigorating walk, usually to canine accompaniment; though some hardy Scouts were braving winter in their stone-built Crags headquarters, and a couple of snow-covered bivouacs were spotted close by. Apart from the hark of the occasional dog, as it submerged in a drift or misjudged the leap across a frozen stream, the only other sound to attract attention was the call of a grouse, fluttering to join half a dozen others on a slope.
"Yet there was another sound; heard but not listened to, because it is ever present and the ear dismisses it until the brain begs concentration. It is the hiss of the river faltering beneath ice, over rocks, around stepping stones. Yes, it might have been Switzerland or Austria; perhaps even Norway."
My Lords, those words were written, presumably last week, describing a place eight miles from Halifax, thirteen miles from Rochdale, each with 90,000 inhabitants, and nearly as close to six or seven other great centres of industry: Huddersfield, Bradford, Keighley, Burnley, Oldham and Ashton-under-Lyne. They were written by somebody totally unconnected with any of the Petitioners against this Bill, perhaps even ignorant of the threat. They were inspired by something more incalculable. It is not only nature lovers as such who object to this scheme. The
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late Sir John Cockcroft in 1967, shortly before he died, signed the Petition against the project. Belonging, as he did, to a Todmorden family nearby, he knew the valley; but he was, of course, famed as a leader and champion of technological progress. He had his priorities right.
My Lords, I have probably said more than is necessary to demonstrate the beauty of this piece of country. It is acknowledged in the Preamble to the Bill. The Promoters, however, claim that by landscaping their works they will actually enhance the beauty. Making the fullest allowance for enthusiastic advocacy, this seems to me a fairly astounding claim. They say that by the opening up of new roads more people will be enabled to come and their pleasure will be increased by being able to sail on the reservoir and to picnic round it. The urge to provide more opportunities for sailing in Yorkshire is no doubt benevolent; but, my Lords, I ask: Why here, and at such vast expense?
If the water board wish to encourage it they have nine reservoirs already built in the upper regions of the river. For instance, there is Widdup Reservoir, 90 acres in extent. The existing road from Colne to Heptonstall and Halifax runs along one of its banks for about a mile. The charm of Hardcastle Crags is its peace and its freedom from the motor car. It should be left as a haven for those who enjoy it as it is now, close to industrial towns but with superb access for walkers. My Motion asks for an Instruction to the Committee which will examine the Bill, to establish two facts: first, whether there is a need for additional supplies of water; secondly, if this could be proven, whether there are not alternative sources available.
Is the need established? I submit that it is not. So far from there being any likelihood of an increase in population within the area supplied by this water authority, a decrease is expected, according to the survey of the Yorkshire and Humberside Development Committee. In 1948, when a Bill was introduced, to which I will refer in a moment, to establish a reservoir a few hundred yards away from the site now proposed, the water authority sought to justify their proposal by a forecast that there would be a shortage

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of water in the area. My Lords, twenty years have passed. In those twenty years there has been no shortage and existing supplies have throughout been sufficient for a whole six months' requirements. Why ought we to believe that the water authority's prognostications are any more realistic now than they were then? It is also pertinent to mention that within a ten-mile radius of the proposed site two large reservoirs are already under construction; one to lie beside the trans-Pennine motorway close to Huddersfield; the other at Ripponden, near Halifax.
Even if, despite all this, it could be argued that a shortage was possible, could not the water be provided by other means, avoiding damage to this beautiful valley? My noble friend Lord Ilford, calling on his great experience of the earlier Bill, may say that all other possibilities have been explored. But is it not now recognised by all water engineers that the right way to increase capacity is not by pocking the country with additional reservoirs, but by a more modern method? I mean, abstracting water from the lower reaches of rivers and pumping this into conduits leading directly to the filtration plants supplying the districts themselves.
My Lords, I will go a little further. We are all waiting for the report this summer by the Water Resources Board, in which, let us hope, we shall see plans for the development of a national water grid and other imaginative schemes for increasing our supplies in a large-scale way. Some years of work may be needed before these supplies could be tapped and co-ordinated to meet the needs of this area. In the meantime, if the water authority must insure against what seems a most unlikely short-term contingency, I submit that they would do better to turn their attention to the abstraction system I have mentioned.
One notable feature of this scheme is that it is nearly a carbon copy of a scheme included in a Bill—the Halifax Corporation Bill—introduced in the Session of 1948–49. The difference is that under that Bill the reservoir would have been some hundreds of yards further downstream. The relevant section of that Bill was, understandably, rejected by the Select Committee of your Lordships' House, and I will quote the Finding:
"The Committee are not satisfied that the Promoters have made out their case, and we
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are of the opinion that insufficient effort has been made to find alternatives. They have decided that Part IV is struck out of the Bill."
After careful study, I cannot see that the Promoters have been any more successful in making out their case this time. I am convinced that they have still not made adequate efforts to find alternatives, if indeed there is any realistic need for any such scheme. It is worth noting that in the twenty years since that Bill was presented the number of people coming to enjoy this valley every year has more than doubled, so that twice as many would be adversely affected by this Bill.
In these circumstances, my Lords, I might have felt justified in asking your Lordships to refuse a Second Reading to this Bill. That is not the action I am seeking; and in view of what I am sure will be the very reasonable attitude of my noble friend Lord Ilford, I think that it would have been improper. I am personally confident that if the Committee examine the effects of the scheme on the amenities, and go into the questions of whether the need has been proven and the alternative sources of water explored, they will find once again that the case for the Promoters has not been made. The National Trust are petitioning to be heard by the Committee; so are the Council for the Preservation of Rural England. Side by side with them are the Hepton Rural District Council and my noble friend Lord Savile. All these Petitioners, as myself, think it most probable that, once the Committee go into the aspects of the scheme mentioned in my Motion, the construction of a reservoir in this lovely valley will be avoided, and avoided for all time. My Lords, I therefore beg to move my Motion.
Moved, That it be an Instruction to the Committee to whom the Bill is committed that, having regard to the high amenity value of the Hardcastle Crags Valley and to the rejection of a previous Bill to authorise the construction of a reservoir in the Valley, special consideration should be given by the Committee as to whether there is a need for additional supplies of water and as to the availability of alternative sources.—(Lord St. Oswald.)
3.9 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I think it might be for the convenience of the House if I were to say a few words

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now about the procedural aspects of the Instruction which has been moved in a most interesting and well-informed speech by the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald. I can see no procedural objection whatever to the acceptance by the House of this Instruction since it does no more than reinforce the points which will be made by the Petitioners against the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, has pointed out, there are four Petitions against the Bill. Among those Petitions are the Petitions of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, and of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and the Hardcastle Crags Preservation Committee.
I am sure that, even if this Instruction had not been moved by the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, the Select Committee to which the Instruction will be referred, if your Lordships agree to it, would require to be satisfied both that there was a need for the powers proposed in the Bill and, if so, that suitable alternative sources of water supply are not available, before they reported to your Lordships that the Bill ought to proceed. I think those were the two points to which the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, drew the attention of the House.
However, I should like to point out to your Lordships that whereas Select Committees on Private Bills in this House do not normally set out in their Report the considerations and reasons which have led to their recommendations, in cases where an Instruction to the Select Committee has been passed by the House the Committee usually makes a Special Report dealing with the points raised in the Instruction. I have every reason to suppose that this would probably be the procedure of the Select Committee in this case.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): My Lords, it might be for the convenience of the House if I were to say that the Government also welcome this Instruction. I share the convictions of the Lord Chairman of Committees that the Committee would, without doubt, have done what is asked in the Instruction, even in its absence, but the presence of the Instruction marks the particularity
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of this proposal of the Calderdale Water Board, which is, above all things, that they propose to take National Trust Land, which is not a thing that happens every day in the experience of this House and its Committees.
LORD METHUEN: My Lords, I should like very much to support this Motion. As we have already heard, the National Trust is strongly opposed to what it is proposed to do, and so is the Rural District Council, and it seems to me that what they have brought forward as an objection is unanswerable. I should like to emphasise, however, that it is up to all of us to give the National Trust all the support we can. After all, it is the guardian of our amenities and it is doing its best to fulfil that function. It would seem rather silly at this moment to give in to this demand. When the National Grid comes to maturity it may well produce a satisfactory solution to the problem and so prevent the possible despoliation of a natural beauty spot which is used for amenity purposes. So I hope that the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, will have the full support of the House in respect of this land, which belongs to the National Trust and over which local authorities seem a little careless in taking compulsory action.
3.14 p.m.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE: My Lords, I have put down my name this afternoon, not for the purpose of opposing the Motion of my noble friend Lord St. Oswald but rather to help to ensure—if help were needed—that this Bill gets a Second Reading. It is obvious that such help is not required, so I will I cut short my speech, but I think something should be said so that there is not on the record apparently only one side of the case. Having had over twenty years' experience of the water supply industry, I have in that period seen a great many changes, and in the particular context in which this question is being debated this afternoon changes, I think, almost universally for the better. I believe—and I share the belief with many others—that in this day and age a reservoir, properly constructed, properly landscaped, can be, and frequently is, an enhancement of the amenities of the area in which it lies.
In this particular case I appreciate the concern which has been expressed by my noble friend Lord St. Oswald and the

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noble Lord, Lord Methuen, on the amenity aspect, more particularly since this area lies so close to many densely populated areas on the South and West and East, but in conjunction with the construction of a properly landscaped reservoir, often beautified by surrounding trees, there is also the provision of boating and fishing facilities and facilities for birdwatching—all under proper control—that can be of great public benefit. I should like to feel that in due course the Committee, when they are considering the question of amenities, will also bear in mind that aspect.
The other point mentioned by my noble friend, Lord St. Oswald was that nowadays it is becoming more and more common and desirable that water companies should draw their supplies from the lower waters of rivers. That is not so in every case. I will not dogmatise about this particular case, because I think that it should be a matter for the consideration of the Committee, but when we talk about other sources being available here I hope we understand that by "available" we mean available in the truly economic sense.
3.17 p.m.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I have a rather special interest in this case because I recall, twenty years ago, when I was in active practice at the Bar, promoting a Bill for the Halifax Corporation to construct a reservoir in this valley. We got it through in another place but we failed in your Lordships' House, and I will not this afternoon say whether I think the decision which your Lordships gave then was right or wrong. As has been pointed out, the matters mentioned in this Instruction are all matters which the Committee will in any event have to take into account. When the Petitioners make out their case they will have to deal with all these matters.
The Petitioners are, of course, well aware of the natural beauty of this place. Everything possible which can be done to safeguard the natural beauty of this valley will be done by the Promoters. They are anxious to do that. I have only one comment to make on my noble Friend's speech this afternoon which, if I may say so, was a very reasonable and moderate speech—much more moderate than some of the criticisms which water authorities encounter. My noble friend refer-
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red more than once to what he described as "a 200 ft. wall". The days when one dammed a valley by building a wall across it are gone. To-day an earth dam is substituted for a wall, and I understand that this dam will be terraced up to the height of the embankment and planted with trees, and everything possible will be done to ensure that it fades into the natural surroundings in which it stands. I think there will be no great difficulty in ensuring that the natural beauty of this spot, although perhaps it may be disturbed to some extent, will not by any means be destroyed.
As my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve has pointed out, the construction of waterworks involves only limited interference with the natural appearance of the place where they are constructed, unlike the construction of buildings, and in particular industrial buildings. All that is done is that where there has been an open valley—and it may he a rough and rather intractable valley, as I recollect this one is—it is turned into a lake; and many people consider that the scenery, so far from being damaged by substituting a lake for an empty valley, may very well be improved. I hope it will be so in this case. The Promoters have engaged an experienced and well-known landscape architect who will apply all the methods of landscaping which are now commonly used to ensure that there is the minimum of interference with natural surroundings.
May I say one word about the need? The need for this additional water is urgent and insistent. The yield from the existing undertaking is at present less than the supply requirements of the undertakers. In a dry year there might well be a shortage. Faced with that contingency, I cannot think that, if every effort is made to preserve the natural character of this valley, there should be any serious objection to the construction of this reservoir.
3.21 p.m.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, in view of the fact that my noble friend Lord Ilford is not opposing this Instruction and the noble Earl the Lord Chairman of Committees has agreed that from the procedural point of view there can be no objection to it at all, it is not necessary for me to add anything further to

1015
what has been said. The noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, mentioned that in order to make a new reservoir, if there be one, more attractive they could plant trees round the edge. It is rather an undesirable precedent for that to submerge the large number of beautiful trees that are there at the present time.
The argument for the beauty of the reservoir is one which is advanced on all occasions. I am reminded of a remark made by the late Mr. Lloyd George when he was sitting on a Committee of this kind. It was proposed to submerge a beautiful Welsh valley in order to provide water for Warrington, and it was argued by counsel that in point of fact submerging the valley would make it look very much better. Mr. Lloyd George said, "If Warrington were submerged under water it also would look very much better, but that in itself is not sufficient reason for submerging it".
As for what my noble friend Lord Ilford called the urgent and insistent need for this water, that of course will have to be proved to the satisfaction of the Committee. I have very little doubt that Lord Ilford is quoting exactly what he said some twenty years ago when he tried unsuccessfully to persuade a Committee of this House to agree to a reservoir being made at that time. As my noble friend Lord St. Oswald has pointed out, the insistent and urgent need of water in 1948 has not shown itself in the intervening twenty years. It is quite true that the Committee would no doubt give attention to these points in its consideration of the Bill. But your Lordships' House has a high and honourable reputation for seeking to preserve the amenities and beauty of the countryside, and I am sure that it is desirable that the Committee should be instructed to give special attention to these points. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will agree to pass this Instruction.
3.24 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I should like to add a few words to what has been said about this matter this afternoon, if only to thank the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, on behalf of the National Trust and its 160,000 members for having presented one of our most lovely country houses, which is appreciated by the thousands of visitors who
1016
go to St. Nostell's every year. I suppose that I ought to declare an interest, although to some extent it is probably an interest which is shared with almost every Member of this House—at least, I should be rather ashamed if it were not so; that is, membership of the National Trust, which, as your Lordships know, is petitioning against this Bill. I am also a member of the Council of the National Trust and of its Executive Committee, and to that extent I speak with perhaps a rather special interest.
I can assure your Lordships that the National Trust attaches very great importance indeed to this particular property, which was in fact presented to us partly by Lord Savile and partly by other generous donors after the rejection of a previous Bill. So that it was not a question of its being given to the National Trust so that the Trust could fight a Bill which was coming on. Sometimes people try to make use of us in that way. I can assure your Lordships (and I have been on the Committee for about forty years), that we look very carefully at all gifts of this kind to make sure that we are not being used in this way. If we come to the conclusion, as we have done from time to time, that we are being offered a property in order that we may take on the job of resisting the requirements of some national authority, then we turn it down.
I had thought of moving an addition to this Instruction; namely, to add some words requiring the Select Committee to pay particular attention to the position of the National Trust as an institution which has been specially established by Parliament for the purpose of keeping inviolate the most outstanding pieces of natural beauty which this country of very great beauty indeed has inherited from the past—and this is undoubtedly an area of much more than just local significance. Among all the beautiful places in the great Pennine Range, this is a peculiar piece of country with a very special interest and value of its own. In the end, I decided that an addition of this kind was not necessary, because I am sure the Select Committee will take a wide view of this matter and not just treat it as a matter of local interest and significance. It is, indeed, as I have said, a piece of country of outstanding value and importance. The Savile family have been extraordinarily generous, not only in giving

1017
this wide area to the nation, to their fellow-countrymen, but in treating it in the most careful, sympathetic and anxious manner over a long period of years, keeping it as a real place of rest and recreation for the thousands of people who live so near by. All these are matters of very great significance.
I feel also that the Select Committee are entitled to—indeed, I would submit that they should—pay special attention to the problem of the National Trust at the present time. Although the Trust was established sixty years ago for the purpose of protecting the historic buildings and natural beauty of this country, it has been only within the last year or two that really serious attacks have been made upon the inalienability of the properties which it owns. Indeed, within the last twelve months three properties of outstanding value have been attacked, and the only one on which a decision has been announced is Saltram Park. In that case, after a very careful hearing, the decision went against the National Trust. Right as that may be, it has caused a very great loss to the National Trust in the eyes of its supporters up and down the country, because people are beginning to feel that what they had thought absolutely secure is no longer secure. While no doubt it is right that if the national interest, as opposed to some local need, requires that encroachment should be permitted, that should be so, nevertheless I think it does mean that the Select Committee should take a national attitude in this matter arid not regard it as a matter of purely local significance and interest.
3.28 p.m.
LORD STRANG: My Lords, this is an important and controversial Bill. It is a Bill which requires careful examination by your Lordships' House, and I think the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, has done well to draw special attention to it. Normally your Lordships' House is reluctant to issue Instructions to Select Committees. The argument is that Select Committees can be trusted to take all relevant considerations into account, and it could be argued that this is the case here. The points mentioned in the proposed Instruction are obvious. There are four Petitions against the Bill. The Petitioners can surely be counted upon to make their case von those points.
1018
However, as I have said, this is an important and controversial Bill. Experience shows that these water Bills are often extremely complex in their circumstances and that very often there is conflict of evidence on crucial points. The Lord Chairman of Committees has pointed out that one consequence of an Instruction is that the Committee may well be moved to submit a Special Report to the House giving their reasons for the conclusion reached on the point referred to them. It would in my view be of great utility to the House to have a Special Report on this Bill, and for that reason, among others, I support the Motion.
3.30 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, it is clear, I think, that this Instruction is going to be passed with universal approval. I should simply like to thank the noble Earl, the Lord Chairman of Committees, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for their clear and reasoned statements of why the Instruction would be quite welcome. If it is necessary to disclose as an interest membership and work for the National Trust, I must do so. Indeed, it was during the thirty years in which I had the honour of serving on the Executive Committee, that the property, some of which this Bill proposes to take from the National Trust, was given to the Trust. The value of this property to the National Trust and to the country has been ably stated by my noble friend Lord St. Oswald, and although this Instruction, for the reasons that have been given, may not be strictly necessary, it is desirable for the reason given by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and I am very glad that it has been welcomed in the way in which it has been.
BARONESS HYLTON-FOSTER: My Lords, may I add a few words supporting the Instruction to this Bill? I do so for two reasons. The first is because I watched with great interest the building of the Derwent Dam on the Derwent on the borders of Northumberland and Durham. That is what I think the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, had in mind. It is all mud and concrete. A lovely gentle sloping valley now ends in a straight line of concrete arid mud, and although it was constructed some years ago, the dam still looks the monstrosity it did when it was first built. We can have reservoirs that

1019
beautify the countryside and look lovely, but I think we have to decide whether we want real countryside like the Calder-dale project is at the moment, or whether we want urbanised countryside. An amenity such as sailing means that all sorts of other buildings have to be built on the side of the dam, and this immediately takes away the countryside aspect. At the moment Upper Teesdale is suffering the same fate, and I would beg the Government to give all the consideration they can to the other schemes concerning water—the barrage schemes and desalination—in the case of all the other dams. For those reasons, I support the Motion.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY BILL
3.35 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, the Shipbuilding Industry Bill is a short Bill. It has two purposes, one main one and one subsidiary one. The main purpose is to raise the limit on outstanding liabilities under guarantees from the £200 million which stands in the parent Act to £400 million, in order to facilitate financing of orders placed by British shipowners with British shipyards. The subsidiary purpose is to make a change in the arrangements about what happens when a debtor defaults. Under Section 7 of the parent Act payments by the Minister where the debtor defaulted would not count against the limit—it was then £200 million—even though the Minister failed to recover the money from the debtor. Under the section as amended by the Bill now before the House, the amount available for guarantees is limited not only by reference to the actual total of guarantees in force at any given time but also by any amounts paid by the Minister on guarantees, so far as they have not been recovered. In this it is analogous to provisions in the Industrial Expansion Act.
Why is £200 million not enough? I think the answer is contained sufficiently in the following figures. In 1966 the percentage of new orders placed anywhere in the world which came to British shipyards was 2·6; in 1967 it was 4·9; and in 1968 it was 10. So your Lordships will see that the percentage of the world
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shipbuilding which is coming to us in the form of orders has been doubling over each of the last two or three years. This really makes clear the reason for the need to keep an increased amount of money in play, and therefore to raise the guarantee ceiling with which the Government covers the financing operations. Guarantees up to a liability of £104 million have already been issued. Since this Bill was debated in the House of Commons it has gone up from £86 million to £104 million under the existing provisions, and other guarantees which will bring the outstanding liability up to £200 million are already offered and documentation is in the hands of lawyers. Thus there is now a need to raise that total of £200 million to £400 million.
Let us look at the question the other way up: is the proposed increase in the ceiling of £200 million going to be enough? It is meant to last only until 1970, when the Government will be reviewing the whole situation in connection with the future of the Shipbuilding Industry Board itself. Lengthening order books will make it more difficult for the Board to give the recommendations they have to give, and they have to satisfy themselves that the recommendation will use resources which otherwise would shortly be unused. Therefore the Government will be reviewing the need for further guarantee arrangements after this in the context which I just outlined.
One might ask: why does not the present success of British yards, which I have just outlined in terms of the share of the world market, make this Bill unnecessary? My Lords, there are two reasons. The amendment, the increase that we are talking about, is designed first to stop British shipowners' orders from going abroad merely because they can get better credit there, and to do that it is essential to be sure that you have a cover on everything that British shipowners may wish to order. Secondly, it is the main help—in fact it is one of the largest weapons in the hands of the Shipbuilding Industry Board—in the Board's efforts to reorganise the industry.
Before a guarantee can be given by the Government, through its agents in the City, the Board must give a recommendation taking into account the shipbuilder's reorganisation of resources and the contribution which they are making

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by the proposed order to fuller employment in their part of the world. The Board have refused only one application for a guarantee, but following discussions with the particular shipbuilder they later issued even that recommendation, so that there has been no continued refusal of a guarantee by the Board. It is the belief of the Shipbuilding Industry Board, a belief shared by the Government, that the power to withhold a recommendation for the guarantee continues to serve a useful purpose.
The figure which I gave about the share of the world market refers only to orders; it does not relate to ships built. The output of the British shipbuilding industry continues to be not so high as it might be and not so high as we hope to get it. It is a question of causing the output to live up to the very good order books which are now in existence. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Kennet.)
3.42 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for his introduction of this Bill and for explaining its purpose. We shall be happy to support its Second Reading. We welcome the reason for it in the admirable increase of new orders, of which the noble Lord gave us figures, over the last two or three years. This has meant that the original provision of a credit of £200 million is no longer enough and that more is needed. That is good news, and we hope that the rate of these new orders will rapidly be translated into an increasing rate of production in the yards themselves, because that is what we really want.
In passing, I would point out that the money for this credit does not come from the Government but from the central clearing banks, which provide it at the very cheap rate of 5½ per cent. on the Government's guarantee. It is ironical that at this moment, when the banks are extending this new, large, cheap credit-buying at the Government's request, they are, also at the Government's request, cutting down by £150 million the credits to their existing clients, credits which are lent at normal commercial rates. I am sure that Lord Kennet in his reply will pay some tribute to the central clearing
1022
banks for their remarkable co-operation in carrying out Government policy. They are travelling in both directions, even though it is somewhat unattractive to them from the profit point of view.
The noble Lord has explained that the credit line in the 1967 Act is for ships built for British shipowners. In t hat way an anomaly was corrected. Up to that time, except for the short period covered by the £75 million in the 1964 Conservative Act, the British shipowner had the direct incentive of going to foreign yards where cheap credit schemes were provided by foreign Governments, making foreign building more attractive than building in home yards. The objective of the 1967 Act was in every way sensible. The purpose of the 1967 Act, which this legislation continues, goes far beyond providing cheap credit. Cheap credit is one of the major weapons in the hands of the Shipbuilding Industry Board in order to tackle the major task of modernising the British shipbuilding industry.
When this Bill was debated in the other place the Minister apologised for the absence of the Shipbuilding Industry Board's Report, which was not then available. Indeed, a number of Members of Parliament complained that they did not have before them this important document in considering whether another £200 million credit should be made available in the light of the record up to date. We in this House are more fortunate, because since the Second Reading in the other place the Board's Report has been issued. We have the benefit of it in considering the terms of this Bill, which seeks to extend the credit line from £200 million to £400 million.
I feel that I should draw the attention of the House to two paragraphs in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Comptroller makes a careful and measured survey of the Board (this is its first Report) but finishes up in the last two paragraphs by asking the Board two very important questions. I quote from paragraph 11 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report:
"I asked the Board whether it considered that the merger arrangements and the approved financial assistance were likely to enable U.C.S."—
that is the Upper Clyde Shipbuilding Group—
"in due course to compete successfully in world markets."

1023
And, my Lords, that was the whole object of the 1967 Act and the Geddes Report, and, indeed, the object of this Bill. The Board then gave him an answer which in general terms he records. The latter part of the Board's answer was as follows:
"Although the grouping and reorganisation should considerably improve the chances of competing successfully in world markets, the question of whether this objective was likely to be fully achieved could not be answered with certainty. The Upper Clyde Shipbuilding Group had already had a good deal of success in securing orders, which rendered the prospects of ultimate viability brighter than when the merger took place. On the other hand, negotiations with workpeople had run into difficulty, which might have serious effects if not overcome."
Then in paragraph 12 the Comptroller and Auditor General says:
"I also asked the Board the reason for the inclusion in the merger of uneconomic shipyards, one of which it was planned to close down. The Board informed me that this was necessary to secure the labour …".
In other words, they gave him an answer.
Noble Lords will recognise that the Comptroller and Auditor General asked the right questions. It is for noble Lords to judge whether the Board was able to give satisfactory answers. I have not read the paragraphs in full; noble Lords can read the Report for themselves. I personally do not feel entirely reassured. I should have liked to see a more forthright answer than that, since these are the key questions if this Bill is to do what we want it to do. The Geddes Report, which everybody accepted as first-rate, certainly recommended the grouping of the existing yards—some 28 of them at that time—into four or five groups, but the Report went on to recommend many other things as well.
Sir Eric Geddes made quite clear in his Report that the object of the grouping was to make the businesses big enough to sustain such basic features as first-class management, market and design teams, efficient purchasing organisations and so on. He thought that something of the order of 8,000 to 10,000 employees might be the sort of groups in which they would settle down. But, above all, the Geddes Report advised on the need for improvement in industrial relations, and this need was described as,
1024
"one of the prime conditions of the survival of shipbuilding as a live industry in this country."
In this context, the Geddes Report advised a reduction in the number of unions to five, and also advised that they be encouraged to play an increasingly constructive role in the industry.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and other noble Lords on the Government Front Bench, will, I am sure, accept that in asking Parliament to approve these very large lines of cheap credit Government have an obligation to see that this basic transformation which we all want to see achieved, and which was advised by Geddes and embodied in the 1967 Act, really is being achieved. I am sure noble Lords will not think I am making a facile criticism. I recognise the immensity of the undertaking to modernise our shipbuilding industry. This industry, my Lords, is a classic example of a 19th century world leader which has gone into decline. Even twelve years ago it was making quite a good profit, but to-day it is making a loss. There is no doubt at all that this is a case where a great history is a handicap, and where it would be infinitely easier to start a new industry from scratch. In years of decline (and we have seen this in the other great 19th century industries) both management and men inevitably drift into defensive attitudes, and to achieve the changes that we now want they have somehow to be led out of them. This calls for a tremendous effort of leadership by the Shipbuilding Industry Board, by the leaders who are already in the industry, and perhaps by others who are to come in.
Although the market at present is good for British shipyards, and although we have the very encouraging figures which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, has given us, the present advantages will not last for ever. The advantages that our industry has are substantial. Devaluation has probably given an edge of something like another net 10 per cent., and the annual subsidies that are going into the industry are reckoned to be something of the order of about £20 million a year, with the benefit of the Regional Employment Premium, the capital grants, cheap loans, et cetera. So this is a very large slice of help that the rest of the economy is giving to this industry, presumably on a relatively short-term basis.

1025
The point I want to make about the world market for shipping is that, although it is growing and will probably continue to grow, there is every sign that, at the same time as the total volume of shipping grows, the total size of ships will grow with it, and the 300,000 ton tanker that we see to-day may even become a 500,000 ton or 750,000 ton tanker. So there may well be a prospect of bigger ships and fewer ships, which will certainly sharpen the competition in world markets even more than it is now. The Japs will see to that. So we want our industry to get, just as fast as it can, into a position where it can face tough competition, stand on its own feet and work on small profit margins.
I hope that the Shipbuilding Industry Board, with the extra £200 million that we are voting for it to-day, will succeed with this great task. I am sure the Board will need all the help that Her Majesty's Government can give it. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, will take back to his right honourable friend in another place the message that they have a tremendously formidable job but that we shall look forward with keen interest to the next Report from the Shipbuilding Industry Board. I hope that it will arrive a little earlier, so that we can judge more quickly how they are doing, and I also hope that it will be a Report showing really solid progress along the lines on which we want to see the industry moving.
It is all the more necessary that we should see that, following the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, because next year, 1970, the Government will wish to review the whole structure and to decide what is needed for the future. It looks to me pretty certain that some continuity will be needed, but it will need the most careful thought, and of course conclusions will have to be reached in the light of the progress that has been made under the existing structure. Again, I do not wish to sound in any way facile. This is a tremendously difficult thing to do. The Shipbuilding Industry Board certainly has my best wishes, and I support the Second Reading of the Bill.
3.56 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I am glad that noble Lords opposite support this Bill in outline and in detail, if I under
1026
stand the position aright. Of course, I listened with understanding and sympathy to what the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, had to say about the clearing banks. I hope I did not give the impression, inadvertently, that this is Government credit—it is not, by any means. It is a Government guarantee of a credit line from the clearing banks, as the noble Lord said. The Government are glad indeed about, and rely very much on, the fact that the clearing banks are able to provide this line at 5½ per cent., although I imagine that the presence of the guarantee makes it easier to do that than the absence of the guarantee would.
The noble Lord raised the exchange of courtesies between the Auditor General and the Shipbuilding Industry Board, as shown in the Report of the latter. This matter will be going to the Public Accounts Committee and they will be looking at that exchange. I have no doubt that they will also take account of the noble Lord's remarks in this debate. It would probably be wiser if I did not seek to put any gloss on the remarks of the Shipbuilding Industry Board on this point, and I think I should leave the matter where it constitutionally belongs for the moment, which is with the Public Accounts Committee. Lastly, let me say how much the Government agree with the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, about the importance and the sheer size of the task which lies ahead in completing the modernisation and adaptation to new circumstances of the British shipbuilding industry, and how confident I am that the present signs of a great upturn will turn in due course into the actuality of a great upturn.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

MINES AND QUARRIES (TIPS) BILL
3.58 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Clause 4 [Notification of beginning and ending of tipping operations]:
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 4, line 20, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
("(1) If at any time tipping operations from a mine or quarry of a prescribed class or description—

(a) are to be begun on premises which at that time are not the site of a tip to which this Part of this Act applies, or

(b) are to be resumed at a tip which at that time is a closed tip,

the owner of the mine or quarry shall give notice to the inspector for the district of the intention to begin or resume the tipping operations not less than thirty days, or such shorter period as the inspector may permit, before the beginning or resumption of the operations.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with this Amendment I should like to take Amendment No. 2, which is consequential. This Amendment fulfils an undertaking which I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, during the Committee stage. Its effect is to give discretion to Her Majesty's Inspectors to allow a shorter period of notice than the full 30 days which has to be given of intention to tip on a new site from a mine or quarry of a prescribed class or description. The existing clause already provides a power allowing a shorter period when tipping is resumed on a closed tip. It is scarcely necessary for me to add that while there should be little need to use this new power, because planning permission will in any case have to be obtained first and any site investigations required by regulations carried out, the Amendment introduces a further element of flexibility. The power which will be given by the amended clause will not be used unless the Inspector is completely satisfied that safety will not be prejudiced.
We have taken the opportunity in this Amendment to combine subsections (1) and (3), the effects of which are now familiar although the circumstances in which they apply are different. This has simplified and shortened the clause. The Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, moved in Committee was expressed to apply in exceptional circumstances. The discretion given to an Inspector in the present Amendment is not restricted in the same way because, first of all, it will be exercised only exceptionally and when the Inspector is completely satisfied from the safety point
1028
of view; and, secondly, in this respect there is no reason to treat differently the beginning and resumption of tipping operations. I beg to move.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. As he says, this fulfils an undertaking that he gave me on the Committee stage. It fully meets my point and I am extremely grateful.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 2.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 32, leave out subsection (3). —(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 14 [Notice requiring owner of disused tip to carry out remedial operations]:
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 12, line 30, at end insert—
("() Where a local authority serves a notice under this section on the owner of a disused tip, then, within the period of twenty-one days beginning with the day on which the notice was served, the owner may serve a counter-notice under this subsection in the prescribed form requiring the local authority to exercise its powers under section 17; and where such a counter-notice is served—

(a) the local authority shall serve a copy of the counter-notice on every person on whom, under subsection (4), it served a copy of the notice under this section;

(b) the notice under this section and any copy thereof served under subsection (4) shall be deemed for the purposes of the following provisions of this Part of this Act never to have been served; and

(c) the local authority shall, as soon as reasonably practicable, exercise its powers under section 17 in relation to the disused tip in question.")

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment also implements an undertaking that I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, in Committee. Its effect is to enable the owner of a disused tip who has been served with a notice under Clause 14 requiring him to carry out remedial operations to require the local authority to proceed instead under Clause 17. The owner must exercise this option by serving a counter-notice in a form prescribed by the appropriate Minister (the "appropriate Minister" being the Minister of Housing and Local

1029
Government or the Secretary of State for Wales or the Secretary of State for Scotland) on the local authority within 21 days within which he would otherwise have to exercise his right of appeal under Clause 15. The local authority must then send a copy of it to every person on whom a copy of the original notice was served under Clause 14 and, as soon as reasonably practicable, exercise its powers under Clause 17.
When the owner serves a counter-notice, the original notice by the local authority is deemed never to have been served—it just did not happen. The owner will thus have to take no further action on the original notice and any appeal initiated by him or by a recipient of copy of that notice automatically lapses. I explained the advantages of this procedure on Committee. I need not go into details, but will merely say that it will open the possibility of a grant whenever remedial operations are required under Part II of the Bill and could be —and, I hope, will be—of considerable help, not only to the owner of the freehold but also to a leaseholder who may technically be the owner for the purposes of this Part of the Bill. Should such a person be served with a notice under Clause 14, there is, of course, nothing to prevent the owner of the freehold or, for that matter, any of the contributories, if they are willing to do so, being employed by the local authority as its agent to carry out the work. But, as was made clear in Committee, the fact that a grant can be paid when operations are carried out under Clause 17 does not mean and cannot mean that it will be. The Exchequer is to be regarded only as a safety net and the local authority's right to recover their expenses remains unchanged. I believe that it meets the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and that it should ensure fair play all round. I beg to move.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, once again I am very grateful to the noble Lord. As he realises, I was concerned about the position of an owner who might have had notice served on him under Clause 14, might have been what the noble Lord described as "a financial lightweight" and might have been in great difficulties about finding the money to undertake the remedial work required. Under the new subsection he will be
1030
enabled to serve a counter-notice requiring the local authority to proceed under Clause 17. I realise that this does not give him any prescriptive right to a grant but at least it opens up the whole question and allows the possibility of a grant from the Treasury. It fully meets my point. I know the noble Lord fought nobly on my side—I think I managed to convince him before some of his advisers on this Amendment—and I am grateful to him personally and to the Government for moving this new subsection.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

GENERAL PRACTITIONERS' DEPUTISING SERVICES
4.7 p.m.
BARONESS STOCKS BARONESS STOCKS rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether tic Health Department of the Ministry of Social Services will promote an inquiry into the extent of general practitioner deputising services, with reference to their recent expansion, the quality of service, and any influence their operation may have on doctor-patient relationship. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, there is an old song which, if I remember it aright, runs something like this:
"I know where I'm going and
"I know who's going with me.
"I know who I love, but
"The de'il knows who I'll marry."
If one can personify the National Health Service—or rather the general practitioner side of it, with which I am concerned this afternoon—that song might be rendered thus:
"I don't know where I'm going.
"I don't know who's going with me.
"I know what I want, and
"The de'il knows if I'll get it."
What we all want of the National Health Service, what we hoped to have when it was first hammered out in 1946, is a general practitioner service free to all, giving to men, women and children in this country the services of the general practitioner based on the old doctor-patient personal relation. That is what we want. The question is: have we got it?
My Lords, since the establishment of the National Health Service two obstacles have obstructed that dream. They may

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have been predictable obstacles, but certainly they did not arise at the time predicted. One of them is the shortage of medical manpower, which means that the National Health general practitioners now have immensely heavy case loads—legally up to 3,500 per doctor. In fact I think that the average for England as a whole is well over 2,000 list patients. This is too much if perfunctory treatment in the surgery is to be avoided. The surprising thing is how often the treatment is not perfunctory. But sometimes it is; and it is difficult to talk freely to a doctor in the surgery when you know that a crowd of very impatient fellow-patients are champing outside, longing, it seems, for you to come out. That is an experience with which some noble Lords in this House will not be familiar, but other people are. That is one obstacle.
The other obstacle is really the inexperience of the patients. A huge number of patients, especially in working-class areas, have never been accustomed to the kind of general practitioner service with which the rich were acustomed in the old days. They do not know how to use it. Often they have rather low standards of medical practice—five minutes in the surgery and a bottle of medicine. In other cases they are over-demanding and prepared to take the view that the doctor is now their servant, paid to do what they want, and that if they send for him he has to come. This sort of attitude is often met with in patients—too often, indeed. Only yesterday I received a letter from a doctor friend of mine in which, when speaking of this, she said:
"The demand for doctors 'out of hours' is very seldom for a real emergency (which no doctor would object to) and has given rise to this need for the service",
which I am going to describe. The letter goes on:
"For example, an urgent call to several doctors, to the emergency service and a hospital resulted in an elderly doctor going out to a late call to find a child with chickenpox."
In the old days, in the general service to which my father as a private practitioner was accustomed, that sort of case would have been dealt with by an experienced nanny, who would have known perfectly well that in such a case you do not ring up a doctor in the middle of the night. But I am afraid that
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a great many emergency calls are of that nature. Those are the two obstacles to the achievement of the kind of dream that we had in 1946, and the result has been a growth of commercial emergency services for the relief of doctors.
Perhaps I may just outline how such an emergency service works, because it is strangely unfamiliar, I think, to most people in this country except those who use it and the doctors who benefit from it. A company or an individual establishes a centre with a manned telephone perpetually on call, and also engages a panel of general practitioners who are equipped with radio cars and are constantly on call. The panel must consist of qualified practitioners, though the kind of practitioner varies. In many cases, they are hospital doctors who are anxious to earn a little money in their spare time —and, heaven knows!, they need it; a number are newly arrived immigrant doctors who have not yet fitted themselves into the practitioner service or hospital service; and some are National Health doctors with very small lists and time to spare. But they all have to be suitably qualified as medical practitioners —indeed, I think they all are.
A National Health doctor in contract with the Executive Council, which is responsible for the service, is able to subscribe to one of the deputising services for certain times, certain days. He can subscribe to have his night calls taken on certain nights, his week-end calls taken for certain week-ends, his calls taken during half-holidays or whatever he wants. There is no doubt whatever that those services meet a very urgent need. It is surely quite obvious that a single-handed practitioner cannot be expected to be on call for 24 hours a day for 52 weeks in the year. He must have relief; and it is less easy than it used to be to get that sort of relief by contacting some practitioner colleague in the neighbour-hood who is prepared to stand in, because most of them are already overworked.
There are four such services now operating in London, and similar services are also operating in nearly all the big urban centres of this country. For instance, there are services of this kind in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Leicester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Derby, Belfast, Coventry and Leeds. There is also a National

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Association of Medical Emergency Services, to which most of these services belong. I do not really know what the Association does, but I suppose it diffuses information and helps to keep up standards. A little while ago, in London, one of the commercial services got into financial difficulties, and the National Association leapt to its rescue and helped to tide it over and set it on its feet again, which was a useful job. As I say, in London there are four of these services, and they began in 1956. The first of them was thought about in 1955 but became operative only in 1956; and it was instituted as a registered company by two doctors, Dr. Solomon and Dr. Bane. At the present time, about 65 per cent. of the National Health practitioners in the Inner London area make some use, at any rate, of the deputising services.
Let me consider the advantages and the disadvantages of the system. There is obviously a very real need at the present time for some such relief, especially, obviously in the case of the single-handed practitioner. Whether it is equally necessary when there is a group practice of four or perhaps more general practitioners, I am more doubtful, because to my mind a group should be able to arrange—and very often can—a rota system in such a way that no one member of the group is continuously on call. I happen to live in a part of London which is served by just such a group, of four doctors, and they make no use at all of the deputising services. At any moment one of those doctors is on call; and, of course, they all have access—and this is important—to the medical records of the patients, which are kept at their reception headquarters. So whether such a system is necessary for groups, I do not know, but I think it must be considered.
It is true that such a system makes it easier for a doctor to live away from his surgery practice; and there are areas in London, and I have no doubt elsewhere, where no doctor wants to live, or, rather, where no doctor's wife wants to live—Stepney, Poplar or Hackney. If a doctor can arrange for his night or distant calls to be taken, and can feel that his patients are well served, then of course he can go and live in Epping, in Woodford, in Mill Hill, or in some salubrious area where he gets what he
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regards as better education for his children. It is a very natural feeling, with which one must sympathise. So, on the whole, it is true, I think, that the development of the commercial deputising services has been welcome to general practitioners, though the services are not of course used by all of them.
What about the attitude of the patients? May I refer to what I said about the inexperience of patients. To so many patients, certainly in East London, it is not a question of "my" doctor; it is a question of "a" doctor. One doctor is as good as another; and if they feel that there is what is generally known as "the emergency doctor" somewhere on call, that is all right. It sometimes happens that "the emergency doctor" is preferable to the doctor on whose list they happen to be, and who may be a somewhat elusive personality, as is indeed sometimes the case. There are areas in East London—Cable Street is one—where the telephone number of the local emergency service gets fairly well known and patients are apt to ring up direct—to the distress of the subscribing doctor, who finds that he has to pay for a call which he may not regard as necessary, and which perhaps is not.
On the whole the system has been popular among general practitioners in these particular areas, and is quite popular among patients. I think that probably the majority of the deputy doctors are immigrant doctors. Of course, that is not peculiar to that particular service. The system is quite popular among patients, and I have never had any experience of anything resembling race or colour prejudice against Commonwealth doctors. I am not saying that it does not exist: I am saying only that I have never come across it.
The recent reports of the Ministry of Health which I have read—I cannot pretend that I have read everything that has been published—make no mention at all of the existence and strength of the commercial deputising system. If we look at some of those valuable pamphlets issued to the public telling them how to use the National Health Service and what services are available, there again we shall not find, so far as I know, any mention of the commercial deputising services.
The only public document in which there is such mention is the Report of the

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sub-committee of the Standing Medical Advisory Committee on The Field of Work of the Family Doctor, under the chairmanship of Dr. Annis Gillie, which was published in 1963, before the deputising services had operated to anything like their present extent. Dr. Gillie writes in paragraphs 101 and 102:
"Single-handed practitioners (now only about a quarter of all established principals) often co-operate with neighbouring colleagues, usually single-handed like themselves, but in single doctor practice areas any deputising assistance may be impossible to obtain, especially during the winter.
"Rota systems were organised in built-up areas in the years before and after the introduction of the National Health Service. Recently, especially in Greater London, commercial emergency doctor services have become established and partially replace the rota system."
This is an important phase.
"The weakness of this system is the deputy's lack of knowledge of the patient. Regulations introduced in October, 1962, involve further control of deputising arrangements. From 1st July, 1963, each doctor in contract is required by his Executive Council to obtain consent for employment of a deputy provided by a commercial service."
I think that Dr. Gillie, who is an experienced practitioner and who has been for many years a member of the London Executive Council, put her finger on what is perhaps the main difficulty of the deputising services; that is, the lack of knowledge of the patient. When the emergency doctor (to use the current phrase) arrives, the patient is not always skilled or knowledgeable in describing a previous operation, what has been done and what has been prescribed, and it is not surprising that mistakes are sometimes made.
The Order requiring doctors under the National Health Service who use the deputising services to notify their Executive Councils of the extent to which they use those services was issued in 1962, with a covering letter to Executive Councils from the Ministry of Health. The letter says:
"In a few areas there are companies, firms or persons who, in return for payment to themselves, undertake to provide a deputising service to cover off-duty periods. As from the 1st July, 1963, a practitioner who wishes to use one of these deputising services will not be able to do so without the consent of the Executive Council."
That is the case at the present time. A doctor who may want to use the deputis-
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ing services has to notify the Executive Council of the periods during which he switches his telephone to this service and of what use he makes of it, and it is the business of the Executive Council to "vet" the services and convince themselves that the panel doctors are suitably qualified and that the administration is effective.
Very soon after that, a certain amount of Press publicity was given to the services. In September, 1962, there were a number of articles in the Press. There was an article in The Times about the use of deputising services in London and a little later there was another article in The Times, indicating that the questionnaire issued by the London Executive Council had been objected to by the doctors to whom it was issued. It was regarded as inquisitorial. Perhaps it was. At any rate, it had to be modified. There was a discussion of this in the British Medical Journal in 1962. About the same time, the Medical Officer of Health for London wrote a letter to the London Executive Council on the subject, saying that there had been some delay among the deputising doctors in respect of calls for ambulances. They were not completely au fait with the proper procedure and the Medical Officer of Health quoted certain cases where things had gone wrong. But they were not very serious.
That is the system, and the reason I am asking this Question is that very little is known about the system by the general public outside the doctors who actually use it and the patients on whose behalf it is used. I should not be surprised if a number of noble Lords had heard of it now for the first time and were quite unacquainted with the way in which the deputising services work. There are a number of questions I am anxious to have answered, because here is a development which was not contemplated at all by the framers of the Act in 1946.
First, is the existing control by the Executive Councils really effective? Secondly, is there among certain doctors an over-use of the deputising services, leading perhaps in the direction of what one might call "office hours" general practice? Thirdly, how rapidly is the service growing outside London and how rapidly is it likely to grow in view of

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the present shortage of manpower? Fourthly, what proportion of the money —which is not enough, in my opinion—which is paid to general practitioners working under the National Health Service is in fact going through the pockets of private practitioners operating on behalf of commercial deputising services? Fifthly, is there a practicable alternative to this system? Some time ago— in 1966, I think—Dr. Bane, who was responsible for the first emergency call service in London, now the largest, issued a memorandum in which he suggested the desirability of systematising the whole scheme by taking it completely under the National Health Service. It seemed to me a very good scheme but nobody seemed to take much notice of it. Sixthly, how far, in view of the shortage of manpower and the inexperience of patients, must we abandon that dream, which many of us dreamed in 1946—certainly I did—of a general practitioner service free for everyone in the country and giving them something of the doctor-patient relationship which the well-to-do enjoyed in the years before the National Health Service was established?
These are the questions which I think should be considered and answered, because here is a development which has so far been pushed under the carpet of public consciousness, but which may profoundly affect the future of the National Health Service and our conception of what a National Health Service should be. Where are we going and who is going with us?
4.20 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I am very pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, has raised this Question to-day because, as she rightly says, it is a service that not many people know about. It is one about which I think people should know something, particularly those who are interested in the work of the general practitioner, both from the point of view of the practitioner and from the point of view of the patient. After all, there are two important thing, about a general practitioner. One is that he must be readily accessible when a patient wants him (that, of course, does not apply to the general practitioner only. but to all members of the medical profession), and the second, which I believe is extremely important for the general
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practitioner, is that he should provide some kind of continuity of care and treatment.
But, of course, we all accept, including the noble Baroness, that no man or woman can work seven days a week 24 hours a day. What we hoped would have taken place in the Health Service was the growth of group practices and more and more partnerships, and the growth of what is quite common, certainly in London, of doctors practising by themselves but making individual arrangements with their friends or neigh-bours to cover their work upon occasions. I think the fact that a deputising service has grown up shows that some sort of service is necessary, because the various alternatives that I have put forward do not seem to have entirely filled the gap. Therefore I believe that there is a need for a deputising service. But I do not think—and I imagine that any medical person would agree—that it should turn the work of a general practitioner into an office job, working from, say, nine until five. That is why I am pleased that the noble Baroness has put this Question down.
The deputising service is one of which very few details are known. We know that it exists in London, in the Midlands and where there are large numbers of people living together. What one hopes is that the Minister, when she replies, will be able to give us some idea, with some sort of official background for what she says, of the extent to which the service is used, and whether there is some possibility of its being used more than it is to-day.
There is one final point that I should like to make, but as I have not given notice of it perhaps the noble Baroness will not be able to answer it to-day. Supposing you are a young doctor, qualified in England, before you can get on to the Medical Register you must do two Periods as a house officer in an approved hospital. In that way you do get some experience. Does the same apply to doctors coming from abroad? I think it does, but I am not quite sure, and if the noble Baroness could give me an answer to that question I should be grateful. It seems to me that we might get people coming here not of that calibre. I do not think we do, because they cannot get their names on the register unless they

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have done a year's work in an approved hospital. That is the question that I should like to add to those which the noble Baroness has asked.
4.34 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, while I cannot agree with the implied criticism of the deputising services which I feel is embodied in my noble friend's Question, I welcome this debate, because it focuses attention on a certain aspect of our medical services which is closely related to the shortage of manpower. Far from criticising the deputising arrangements, I think we should congratulate those who have provided the overworked general practitioner with the relief to which he is fully entitled. If it were not for this deputising service, the trickle of general practitioners leaving this country, which has now become a stream, might well become a flood.
The single-handed general practitioner (my noble friend indicated that she thought there were more than she said; I think that probably one-third of the general practitioners in London are single-handed) is the only worker in the country who is expected to do a day and night shift and work on Saturdays and Sundays, at work involving great responsibility and physical strain. I should say it is work that calls for the maximum possible amount of relief and leisure. He is not long-lived. I would invite my noble friend when she is looking at the statistics to look at the obituaries in the British Medical Journal, and she will find that the general practitioner is not a long-lived individual. But doctors in the Ministry of Health, in our public services, have fixed hours —I think my noble friend called them office hours, or something like that—and in most cases six weeks' holiday, with a paid deputy.
The failure to recognise the elementary needs of the general practitioner for leisure is one reason why over 400 doctors are now emigrating each year, with the result that we have to encourage Commonwealth doctors to take their place. Last year, 500 to 600 Commonwealth doctors were added to the number already here. One can measure the change that is taking place in the country when one realises that one-third
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of our hospital doctors were born outside Britain. This incredible change which is taking place in our country is taking place very quietly, and we are without compunction taking doctors from Commonwealth countries where there are millions of poverty-stricken and disease ridden people. I always feel that this particular brain drain should be in the opposite direction and that doctors from the affluent countries should be going to the poverty stricken countries.
But, so far as we are concerned, even this source could dry up, and now in desperation we are sending missions to Canada and the United States to try to persuade doctors to return. Last year, 27 consented to return—probably they might have returned, anyway—out of the hundreds who have gone. This shortsighted policy is bound to fail. Doctors are responsible people who do not emigrate lightly. They have to sell their house, dispose of their practice and take their children from school before they settle in another country; and before settling, of course, they find a suitable practice in the country of their choice. It is extremely difficult to reverse this process once it is established.
The question we are talking about to-day is really the importance of adequate leisure for general practitioners. The importance of this question is recognised in the countries to which our doctors are going. May I prove my point? I have here the British Medical Journal of last Friday, February 21. There are about 10 advertisements from America, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. I should like to call the attention of your Lordships to five of them. They are beautifully phrased to appeal to the exhausted doctor in this country. Apart from giving the facilities on the premises —this was a case where they wanted only young practitioners—one of them says:
"And there will be ample time to indulge in extra-curricula pursuits."
Then we come to Ontario:
"Seven weeks annual holiday and study leave."
In Canada, Manitoba:
"One month paid vacation yearly."
New Zealand:
"Good income available but at the same time reasonable leisure time."

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Canada, again:
"Reasonable leisure time. Fishing, hunting and plenty of sport."
Western Australia:
"Good recreation amenities."
My Lords, these advertisements were framed for the exhausted practitioners of this country. And here we are to-day talking about a deputising service, which we ought to thank Heaven for, and this deputising service alone is managing to keep a large number of doctors in this country.
I might also have read from the British Medical Journal in regard to a locum, if one can he obtained. I read that a locum demands 60 guineas a week plus accommodation generally for his family and a car. When we recently read in the papers about general practitioners getting a few pounds extra a week, I thought of the young men I know aged about 40, with three or four children, who send their children away for a holiday, and the exhausted general practitioner joins them halfway through it for a fortnight because he cannot afford 60 guineas a week for a locum.
I find the expression "doctor/patient relationship", referred to by my noble friend, difficult to understand. An emergency call in the middle of the night, which she has been talking about, is one made by a family in desperation. It is made because they are worried, and made generally because the patient looks very ill. The only emergency call that my noble friend mentioned is that for a child with chicken-pox. She said that in her day the nanny would have recognised it. We live in a country without nannies.
BARONESS STOCKS: We do.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: We live in a country where most women are exhausted at night because they have no domestic help during the day. We live in a country where they are nervous and apprehensive because of this. Therefore, if any individual in the middle of the night shows that lie or she is ill, whoever is in charge feels that a doctor must be called in. What that person wants is a fully qualified doctor—and I can assure my noble friend that every doctor in the deputising service is a fully qualified doctor—who can of course recognise,
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let us say, an acute appendix, a coronary or a pneumonia.
Neither the family nor the patient is looking for a familiar face. Neither the family nor the patient feels, "The doctor must have my record card". I have attended a number of emergencies in both Houses. It has never occurred to me to say, "I cannot look after him because I haven't seen his record card." A record card is very useful when one is examining the whole medical record of an individual, and it is nice to look back to see what happened three or four years ago; but an emergency is something which calls for immediate diagnosis from a doctor. If it is necessary for the doctor who comes to see the patient to be absolutely familiar with his record card because otherwise the patient would suffer, then I should think that the patient would expire immediately if he went to a hospital, where he would find nalf-a-dozen doctors, of all nationalities. Does anybody think that at night a consultant is called to the patients whom he may be treating during the day? Of course not. A deputy, a paid deputy, sees the patient if he is sent to a hospital: the registrar, the house physician or the house surgeon. Nobody says that the patient is suffering because the record is not there and that the patient/doctor relationship must suffer.
Most of the criticism in this connection comes from people who are sure to spend every night of their lives in a cosy, comfortable bed, undisturbed by a bell or the telephone; from people who know that for the rest of their life they will have seven or eight hours of undisturbed sleep a night. These are the critics of the "exhausted general practitioner." My noble friend said that she was brought up in a doctor's household. So was I. Still, when I hear a bell at night, for me it is the night bell of my father, who was one of these "exhausted general practitioners", who never knew the meaning of leisure or rest. When he rested it was in order somehow to gain enough strength to carry on and perform his surgeries and visits the next day.
My noble friend says that we are moving into a new time. We are moving. I am hoping that the change in our Health Service is not only a change for the patient but a change for the doctor

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as well. We must recognise that there are two sides of this Service: those who take the service and those who give it. I am conscious of the fact that if this deputising service were not in being the doctors, who have already revolted and are leaving our country rapidly—after we have educated them and paid for their education—would continue to do this. They will in fact continue to revolt and to leave the country unless a change is made in the attitude of the Ministry of Health.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend for just a moment? I have not for a moment questioned the necessity of deputising services. I have not said that they are not manned by highly qualified and perfectly well qualified people. I have merely asked whether this is the best way of securing the very necessary help that practitioners need.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I was going to deal with this point. The Ministry of Health should have done this. My noble friend has been on an important Committee all these years. Has she ever pressed for what is needed?
BARONESS STOCKS: Yes, my Lords.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I remember my noble friend criticising this service years ago in very strong terms. My noble friend has made her point. If one looks at the Order Paper, it is quite clear that my noble friend's Question is critical. She asks about
"the quality of service, and any influence their operation may have on doctor-patient relationship".
These are the matters I am dealing with.
What has happened is that other people have come along and provided a deputising service. My noble friend keeps using the words—she has used them so often —"commercial service". It just happens that no organisation can be set up unless somebody is prepared to do the work involved. The doctors themselves take the line of least resistance and leave the country, and they have left it to somebody else to set up the service. When one refers to a "commercial service", it is a fact that these doctors who are in the deputis-
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ing service are of course paid. I suppose that one might say that money is commercial; but one must not keep criticising it as a commercial service in a way which is a little disparaging, because these doctors are providing a service without which the general practitioner could not function to-day. The rota system has been mentioned. The position now is such, and the shortage of doctors is so great, that even when a doctor is part of the rota system he still has not sufficient rest, and so he also becomes part of the deputising service.
I really wonder where our priorities are these days, when I read about the commotion caused in the Government about the housing of certain weird, inanimate objects in the Tate Gallery, and even a threat to take neighbouring premises used for medical work to house these artistic monstrosities. It is even suggested that a medical institution should be taken. I ask your Lordships to consider the difficulty all over the country to-day of getting accommodation for an old person. Our hospital wards are crowded; our mental hospitals are a disgrace. And yet we can get the Prime Minister, the whole Cabinet and the newspapers interested in these objects, which excite more ridicule than admiration, objects which will have long been forgotten when the neglect of the National Health Service is still remembered. So I hope the Government will make health its priority.
Finally, my Lords (and this debate is quite topical to-day), there has been a recent criticism of the work of foreign doctors and a Minister has declared that the National Health Service could not function without them. This is not a defence: it is a confession of failure. It is a measure of the failure of successive Governments to provide a medical education for boys and girls. If they had done that, and if there had been sufficient qualified medical people coming forward now, this discussion would have been superfluous, and my noble friend's criticism of the Service would not have been forthcoming.
4.52 p.m.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, I must confess that I welcome this debate this evening somewhat less warmly than previous speakers, because I have grave doubts

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about the wisdom of holding a Government inquiry into this problem. This is the second time within a week that Her Majesty's Government have been asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, to promote an inquiry, and if the theory of "Never two without three" is anything to go by, one is left wondering on what subject the next request for a Government inquiry is likely to be. I can only hope that on this occasion Her Majesty's Government will reject this request for an inquiry as emphatically as they did the one last week on the subject of ritual slaughter.
My Lords, these deputising services could never have survived for so many years had they not served a definite need. As the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, has already said, they exist not only in London but in many of our large provincial cities. From my own personal experience I have found that they are often manned by experienced, well-qualified doctors. many of them quite highly skilled. Several have degrees from Australian and New Zealand universities, and many are reading for higher medical qualifications in order to become specialists. Some deputising services are approved by the British Medical Association and have now been enrolled as members of a National Organisation of Emergency Treatment Services. They are assisted locally by professional advisory committees; medical applicants who wish to join them are carefully scrutinised and have to attend for an interview before this committee. They are always able to obtain advice on the professional and ethical aspects of their duties, and there are certain essential requirements for any doctor who wishes to enlist the services of a deputising agency.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, has already mentioned, as long ago as 1962, Circular ECN 415 was issued by the Ministry of Health (as it then was) to all doctors, reminding them that they must not only obtain the consent of the Executive Council before using these services, but also give precise details of the name and address of the deputising agency, the periods in which the deputies were employed, and whether all types of cases, including obstetric emergencies, were covered by the deputies' services. Some of these doctors are also required to give details to the deputising doctor of any emergency on which he is
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likely to be called out. That, I think, provides, so far as any doctor can humanly provide, a record to the deputising doctor of the history of the patient's previous illness where cases of probable emergency are known.
Nearly all the conceivable defects in the existing scheme are already accounted for. Unless the deputising doctor himself is in contract with the Executive Council, the summoning doctor is fully responsible for the professional conduct of his deputy, and is himself liable to be held responsible for any inadequacy of treatment on the part of the deputising doctor.
What, then, are the safeguards open to the patient? These are numerous. But any doctor who is called to visit a patient at night may be faced with endless complaints. He himself labours under severe handicaps. How can he prescribe on an emergency night call? The chemists shops are nearly all shut. The patient is almost entirely dependent on the few emergency drugs which the doctor may happen to carry with him at night, and these may not be the drugs required for the patient's particular illness. Occasionally the call may be quite trivial, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, has mentioned. I know of a doctor who was summoned to visit a patient in the early hours of a bitterly cold morning, and arrived to find the patient sitting up in bed with a cheerful grin on his face. The doctor was greeted with the remark, "Oh yes, doctor, I had a funny feeling in my throat half an hour ago, but I am quite all right again now". Fortunately, such a case is very rare, and indeed quite exceptional. But what of the case of a patient who is seriously ill in the middle of the night? Some cases may require immediate admission to hospital, or even an immediate operation. Here the family doctor is not absolutely essential, and any skilled deputising doctor can undertake to arrange the patient's admission to hospital, without an undue strain being placed on the doctor-patient relationship. For even if the family doctor is called out and arranges the admission, the doctor-patient relationship becomes temporarily in abeyance while the patient is under the care of a hospital doctor.
So many of these night emergencies, unfortunately, have to wait for their medicines until the chemist's shop is open

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in the morning, and in regard to these delays in treatment the deputising doctor is in precisely the same position as the family doctor finds himself. And, as for reassurance—which is often the major part of emergency treatment at night—the patient can often feel far more reassured by an expert, fresh opinion from a well-qualified deputising doctor, than by the same old opinion of the same old doctor who may have become too familiar with his constantly recurring symptoms. So there is a great deal to be said in favour of a fresh opinion from a deputising doctor. Quite often in medicine two heads are better than one.
The variations which may occur during a night emergency call are almost infinite, and it would be quite wrong to generalise them in a debate such as this. From first to last, things must be left to the sense of duty and dedication of the doctor in attendance, whether he be the patient's own family doctor or the doctor employed by the deputising service. The general public can feel assured that the vast majority of deputising doctors will not be found lacking in their devotion to anyone who is ill, at any hour of the day or night. That is why I feel that Parliament is hardly the most suitable forum for ventilating this subject.
Sometimes a doctor, particularly after a very hard day's work—and we all know how hard most doctors are worked these days—may be dilatory in visiting his patients, especially in the bitter cold of a winter night, or in a remote country cottage that is relatively inaccessible. Rarely, there may have been a case where the doctor, whether the family doctor or the deputising doctor, may have been rude to a patient; but it is always the summoning doctor who is liable for any breach of service committed by the deputising doctor, and it is always the summoning doctor who runs the risk of being fined. In cases of any gross breach of professional conduct the patient is of course always free to lodge a complaint with the General Medical Council. Then the deputising doctor is always subject to normal medical disciplinary procedure.
But the fact remains, my Lords, that to-day the deputising services appear to fill a definite medical need. They supply
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a need not only for the dwindling number of doctors who are working single-handed but also for doctors working in a group practice, or in partnership, or on a medical rota where the doctor on duty is suddenly taken ill and a deputy may not always be available. I am firmly convinced that these deputising services should be left very largely as a problem for the medical profession itself to decide. The noble Baroness herself is a member of the Inner London Executive Council and also of that Council's Doctor-Deputising Arrangements Committee. Surely, with her wise counsel and able assistance, these bodies are the ones best qualified to deal with this problem.
I remain completely unconvinced that Parliament is the best place to discuss this issue any more than it is the best place to discuss the highly controversial issue of ritual slaughter. Every patient to-day has a ready means of redress and can lodge his complaint with the Executive Council or the General Medical Council. But the holding of this debate to-day might conceivably, and quite unjustifiably, be the cause of alarm and despondency among highly nervous patients, and on these grounds I feel that it is somewhat to be deprecated.
Nor could the timing of this debate have been more unfortunate. Just when the Government's Green Paper is under discussion, when the Report of the Redcliffe-Maud Committee is being awaited, when the hospitals are under fire with shortages and criticisms of their resident medical staff, surely a worse time could hardly have been chosen for further badgering the already hard-pressed general practitioner. That is why I earnestly hope that Her Majesty's Government will to-night emphatically turn down this request for an inquiry into the general practitioner deputising services.
5.3 p.m.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, it is with a considerable amount of trepidation that I enter into this debate, which seems to have been conducted up till now by those who are experts. Far from agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Segal, as to the undesirability of having a debate of this nature at this time, I think that any debate which takes place and which impresses on people the desirability, in fact the necessity, of taking some of the

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weight off the family doctor's shoulders the better it will be both for the service and for the general public. I have had certain experiences in this regard, and it is only for that reason that I intrude into this debate.
I remember on one occasion staying with a doctor, and after his wife had gone to bed we sat chatting, and then the telephone rang. He said, "I will be away about half-an-hour. Wait up for me." I waited, and the doctor came back and we chatted, and eventually we went to bed, and I slept very soundly. When I saw him in the morning he said, "During the night I very nearly committed murder". I said, "What happened?" He said, "After I left you, I was getting into my pyjamas and the telephone rang again, and on two other occasions the same thing happened. Finally at about 4 o'clock when I was getting into bed my wife woke up and looked at me with a bleary eye and said, 'Have you been out?', and that was when I very nearly committed murder."
I live in the country, and my own doctor told me recently that he had been called out at 2 o'clock in the morning, very urgently that it was absolutely necessary for him to go at once. He had some miles to motor, and when he arrived at the house and asked the lady what was the matter she said, "Doctor, I cannot get to sleep". That is really quite appalling. I suggest that in ordinary simple cases people should be trained to some extent what to do. The noble Baroness who opened the debate talked about the child who had chicken pox and the nannie being there. That was all very well when we had nannies, but we do not have any nowadays. In those days, we had mothers who seemed to have been brought up with some kind of knowledge of what was wrong with their children when they started shouting in the middle of the night. I am one of eight children, and my mother never had to ring up the doctor in the middle of the night.
I think some education should be given in schools and colleges to both men and women to cope with the simple situations. There should not be any need to call out doctors unnecessarily during the night. I appreciate very well what a terrible thing it is when a child is really
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ill in the middle of the night and you do not know what to do about it. There comes a point when you have to call the doctor. In most cases I have run into—and we had seven children—my wife was able to say, "This can wait till the morning and we will call the doctor then". I believe that more education in regard to the simple ailments would save the doctors a very great deal of time and worry. I press, therefore, that there should be the utmost increase possible in the deputising services and also in the formation of group practices. These two things can save a very great deal of time and worry, and I am sure they will bring ever greater respect to the great profession to which the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, belongs.
5.7 p.m.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I want to intervene for only a brief moment. May I begin—although she is not with us at the moment—by offering my congratulations and good wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Serota, in her new appointment. I cannot wish her anything better than that she should enjoy herself in that Department as much as I did a few years ago.
The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, is faced with the very delicate problem of trying to strike a balance between the points of view of the two noble Baronesses behind her. I certainly agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Segal, said, that there is no need for an inquiry into these deputising services. I emphatically disagree when he says that this is not the sort of subject Parliament should discuss. I think it is exactly the sort of thing Parliament should discuss. The Government are responsible for the whole of the National Health Service, and at any rate in theory the Government are still responsible to Parliament. I do not see why the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, should not ask the Question. Why should she not ask for assurance that the deputising services are adequately controlled by the Executive Councils?
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, if I may intervene, I fully agree that the noble Baroness was more than justified in putting down this Question. I did not agree that she made out a case for holding a Government inquiry into the deputising services.
LORD NEWTON: I may have done the noble Lord an injustice, and if so I apologise. But I seem to recall that he said that this debate should not have taken place at all this afternoon. I leave that for the moment. Among the other questions which the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, asked, as I have said, were whether there is effective supervision, and the amount of use—do the Government think the amount of use is right; ought there to be more or ought there to be less, and various other questions like that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Summer-skill, put very clearly indeed, I thought, the beneficial advantages which accrue from these services, both to general practitioners and to the National Health Service as a whole. I would agree with that in general. I think everyone realises and understands, as my noble friend behind me pointed out, that nowadays all doctors—particularly, perhaps, general practitioners—are entitled to as much leisure as other people in the community to-day expect to have. At one point I thought that possibly the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, was pleading too much, but I can understand why that was. The noble Baroness, for obvious reasons, was particularly concerned with the position of the doctor; and, as I understood the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, her particular interest was the patient—, and why not? The doctor/patient relationship is not just one-sided; it is really two sided, and they are equally important.
Again I think everyone would accept that when there is an emergency call— either genuine or (shall I say?) a "misinformed" emergency call—in the night one cannot expect to get one's own doctor. As the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, and the noble Lord, Lord Segal, said, it probably is not necessary. All you want is a good and fully trained doctor, and whether he knows your medical history or not does not really matter.
Many people would agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, that an ideal doctor/patient relationship is one of the things that a very large number of people want. I think also that many people would consider it is absolutely the backbone of the general practitioner service, and that is the reason why we cannot afford to lose the general prac-
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titioner service. The noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, quoted Dr. Annis Gillie, for whom I have the greatest possible respect, as saying that in so far as there are disadvantages to the deputising services it is lack of knowledge of the patient which is perhaps the biggest, or at least one of the biggest.
Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, asked the Government whether there is an alternative to the deputising services. I shall look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, says about that. I, myself, should have thought not, except possibly very large group practices. But there again, if we had very large group practices predominating in the service all over the country the chances of getting doctors whom one did not know and had never met before when one was really in need would be pretty high indeed; and that, to an even greater extent, I am sure, is true of large partnerships. I will not trouble the House any longer, but I must say again that I look forward to hearing the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, preserving the balance.
5.14 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Newton, has suggested that it falls to me to preserve the balance. If I might say so at this point of time, I would not attempt to adjudicate between the merits of whether there should be a question nut or not, but would make some small attempt to make the Government's reply to the Question which my noble friend has posed. I think, as always, my noble friend Lady Summerskill put her finger on the vital point: the shortage of medical manpower. I think this was mentioned by my noble friend, Lady Stocks, herself, when she opened her Question, and again by my noble friend Lord Segal.
I know something in a personal way of the problems of the young, struggling general practitioner, and I felt very much in sympathy with the picture painted by my noble friend Lady Summerskill of the young man feeling at the end of his tether, opening a medical journal and reading of this inviting opportunity to go to Canada at four times the salary, and to get the opportunity to hunt—did I understand?—and fish. Even if not of the hunting and fishing type, I know a young doctor who said to me on the

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telephone one, day, "I wish I did not keep reading how exciting it would be if I went to Canada or Australia".
I think all speakers in this very short and interesting debate have agreed that the crux of the question is the shortage of medical manpower. My noble friend, Lady Stocks, put a certain number of specific questions. Her first one was whether the existing control by the Councils is really effective. If I were to take the easy line, I might say that my noble friend Lord Segal, in his remarkably expert analysis of the situation, answered this; but I would offer the reply on behalf of Her Majesty's Government that, as we have heard from several noble Lords, the family doctors in the National Health Service are obliged by their terms of service to obtain the consent of the Executive Council for their area before using a deputising service, and Councils may impose such conditions on a doctor's use of a deputising service as they consider necessary. Councils have been asked to review periodically, in the light of their experience of the service, any consents already given; and such reviews may lead to the withdrawal or restriction of existing consents. A doctor may appeal to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services against a decision of an Executive Council refusing, restricting or withdrawing their consent to his use of a deputising service.
As my noble friend will know, my right honourable friend's Department gives detailed advice to Executive Councils on the stages they should take, including periodic requests for information, in order to satisfy themselves, before granting doctors consent to use a deputising service, that the staffing and equipment of the service will enable it to provide a satisfactory standard of service for doctors and their patients. The Department will continue to call periodically for returns from Executive Councils on the operation of deputising services in their areas. I would assure my noble friend that the information the Department has received so far from Executive Councils has suggested that Councils in the areas where deputising services operate are properly discharging their responsibility to supervise these services. These Councils include, of course, the Inner London Executive Council, to which the noble
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Baroness has given such valuable service for so many years and from which, to our regret, she is now retiring; and I should like to reiterate the words of the Minister in the letter he sent to my noble friend on the long service she has given in this connection.
I think she asked whether there was over-use by certain doctors. It is obviously not possible to give a straightforward answer to this. I think that she may have this information, other noble Lords will not, but in November, 1968, the Inner London Executive Council had given consent to 940 doctors to use the deputising services, out of 1,400. In other words, 65 per cent. of the doctors in the Inner London Executive Council area had been given consent to use the deputising services. Figures showing how far certain doctors have used such services are obviously not available. I am not certain that the Department, or even the Executive Council, would find it easy to obtain this information. Seven doctors of this group were given consents because of age and infirmity. Here we come back to the question of the single-handed practitioner, and I think my noble friend Lady Summerskill mentioned that there are still quite a large proportion of these in Inner London.
My noble friend also asked whether the service is growing outside London. The figure I have here is, of course, for 1967. It shows that at that time 16 services were being operated, in the areas of 40 of the 118 Executive Councils in England. I also have a note which says that we do not know of any deputising services in Wales. I am rather pleased about that, because it seems to suggest either that conditions are easier or that the Welsh, as is so often the case, are slightly ahead with their group practices or health centres.
The noble Baroness also asked what proportion of money paid to general practitioners goes into the deputising services. I am sure that she will appreciate that I cannot give her a direct answer on this point; in fact, I am not sure that anybody could give her an answer. The two noble Lords who are experienced in the medical profession and who took part in this discussion have emphasised that value for money has been the key note of the deputising services.

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The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, put to me a point about overseas doctors. I am not sure that this is the complete answer, but deputising services generally are understood to require doctors whom they employ to have at least six months' experience of general practice or one year's hospital experience. This does not say whether or not they are overseas doctors, but I will see that the noble Lord has this information.
All speakers in this short debate have paid tribute to that remarkable group in our population, the general practitioners. If they are to give the best service to their patients, it must be possible for them to have adequate time for rest and relaxation. The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, told us a story which those of us who are older know only too well; the story of the much-loved general practitioner who literally worked himself to death. Happily, this situation need no longer apply; but it is part of any system that there must be an opportunity for these doctors to have adequate time for rest and relaxation. This implies some form of deputising arrangements, and these are often made with members of the same practice or group or with other local doctors, rather than with a deputising service. In the main, deputies will be on duty at week-ends and out of normal working hours on weekdays, and generally they will deal with medical and surgical emergencies where the need is for immediate medical attention.
Each of the professionals who has taken part in this short debate has emphasised that there is no reason for the patient or his relationship with the general practitioner to suffer, so long as the deputy who attends him provides a service efficiently run and staffed with experienced doctors. I believe that it was the late Aneurin Bevan who said that he would rather recover in a large and impersonal efficient hospital than die in a cosy, inefficient hospital. It seems to me that there is the crux of the matter. What one wants in an emergency is somebody who can deal with the situation. I would pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Summerskill, who is probably the most called upon medical practitioner within your Lordships' House. Therefore, she may well claim that her patients recover and are a tribute to her attentions in emergencies.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: They have all survived.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): There is also the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, deputising.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: Then both noble Lords can congratulate themselves. To sum up, my Lords, in my right honourable friend's view, adequate safeguards are afforded by Executive Councils' obligations and statutory powers and by the arrangements whereby they and his Department receive information on the operation of the deputising services. He does not consider that they need to be supplemented by a special inquiry, but he will keep the position under review and will consider from time to time whether further advice should be given to Executive Councils.

VEHICLE AND DRIVING LICENCES BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
SAINT MILDRED, BREAD STREET BILL [H.L.]
Examiner's Certificate that the further Standing Orders applicable have been complied with: Ordered to lie on the Table. Bills committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
TEES AND HARTLEPOOL PORT AUTHORITY BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.