Lords Sitting of 9 July 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 Lichfield.

THE YEMEN
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is now proposed to recognise the present Government of the Yemen in view of the apparent stability of that Government and the failure of military resistance to it; and whether our diplomatic representative is likely to be appointed to Taiz or Sana'a at an early date.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD CHALFONT): No, my Lords, I have nothing to add to the Answer given on June 25, 1969.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he does not agree that if the Yemeni Government could be recognised, this would materially assist relationships between this country and not only the Yemeni Government but the South Arabian Government? And can he say in what circumstances Her Majesty's Government are likely to recognise the Yemeni Government? May I also ask him whether meanwhile we have any diplomatic representative at all in the Yemen, and what is happening to our legation?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I take note, of course, of what my noble friend has said, but the criteria for recognition of a régime are, in our view, not fulfilled. The civil conflict has clearly abated, but the situation in the Yemen still remains confused. So far as diplomatic representation is concerned, as my noble friend will know, the legation at Taiz was closed in February, 1963. A very full Answer
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was given on this point on December 4, 1968, and all I can say is something which I think is already within the knowledge of my noble friend; namely, that the Italian Embassy in Taiz are at the moment responsible for looking after our interests, which are of course extremely limited.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend what other Governments have recognised the existing régime, de facto at least, in the Yemen?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I do not have that information immediately to hand, but if the noble Lord will put down another Question I will of course answer it.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he will seriously consider the now position that has arisen in the Yemen? Is it not a fact that the Royalist Government now has no significant place and that the commander of its forces has joined the Yemen Government; and are we not losing great opportunities by being among those who decline to recognise the Government?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I fear that the situation in fact is not as clear at it appears to be in the mind of my noble friend. The criteria for recognition are quite clear in our minds, and in our view they are not yet fulfilled.
LORD KILBRACKEN: My Lords, as the only Member of your Lordships' House who has travelled extensively—probably the only one who has travelled at all—in the Royalist-held areas of the Yemen, may I ask the noble Lord, first, whether he is aware of the great satisfaction with which his Answer will be received by the Royalists of the Yemen? Secondly, may I ask him whether he would agree that the success of the revolution of 1962, in so far as it was a success, was due solely to the massive intervention by a foreign Power, Egypt, who were acting from no kind of altruism but simply from motives of colonialism, and that despite this massive intervention, including at one time over 100,000 men—
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? He is supposed to be asking a question, rather than making some interesting but debatable points.
LORD KILBRACKEN: My Lords, in view of the fact that the Royalist armies in fact still control wide and important areas of the Yemen, I hope the present situation will continue.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, that pious hope can scarcely, I think, be categorised as a question. I can only say that on neither side of this argument are the facts entirely clear. The criteria for recognition, as noble Lords will know, are that the regime should be seen to enjoy the obedience of the mass of the population and the effective control of the greater part of the territory, with some prospect of permanence; and I can only repeat that in our view those criteria are not yet met.

GIBRALTAR: HOUSING AND AMENITIES
2.42 p.m.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what investigation has been conducted into the housing conditions of Gibraltarians; what steps are being taken to provide adequate modern accommodation for them; approximately what would be the cost of providing this accommodation; and what amenities exist to serve the needs particularly of young Gibraltarians.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lord, the problem of housing in Gibraltar has engaged the close attention of the authorities in Gibraltar for many years. Since the war 2,263 housing units have been constructed and 373 units are at present under construction. The cost thus far has been about £.7½ million. Amenities are unavoidably restricted because of the limitations of space, but the Gibraltar Government intend to improve them by developing the Victoria Stadium when circumstances permit.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware, as I am sure he is, that according to reports
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a large number of Gibraltarians are living in the most appalling conditions? May I further ask whether something could be done to speed up accommodation for these unfortunate people and in so doing reward them for their loyalty to the Crown?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, as I am sure all of us know, in the field of housing none of us can ever be satisfied. Unfortunately, many Gibraltarians who once lived in Spain now reside in Gibraltar, and this has, of course, put very great pressures not only on the authorities but also on the space in Gibraltar. The bad conditions are being dealt with. I understand that there are some 215 applicants who come into what is called the priority list, and I hope that these will be dealt with within the 373 units at present under construction. The accommodation of other families who now live in what was old barrack accommodation has been improved, but I hope that we shall be able to make further improvements in the not too far distant future.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, can the noble Lord give us any information as to whether it is possible for young Gibraltarians to borrow money to purchase houses, or have access to any building societies for private purchase?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the only building society in Gibraltar is relatively small, and the number who are able to use it is clearly limited. Also, the quantity of housing of this sort that is available is again limited. In the main, I think development must depend greatly on Government-aided assistance.

MIDDLE EAST: FOUR-POWER TALKS
2.43 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made in the Four-Power talks between the U.S.A., the Soviet Union, Britain and France to facilitate a settlement between the Arab nations and Israel.]
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, some progress has been made in the Four-Power talks, and I am sure my noble friend will not expect me at this stage to go into details. The four have decided to postpone fixing a time for their next meeting because of important consultations which are taking place among Governments. But a working group of deputies will continue to meet.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that Answer, may I ask whether he can confirm that the American representative who is going to Moscow will call at Paris and London en route there? If so, could Her Majesty's Government urge some immediate steps, if not a comprehensive settlement, in regard to this problem which is so dangerous to the peace of the world?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot confirm the itinerary of the American representative mentioned by my noble friend. I can, of course, say that we should like to see a settlement of this problem. It is urgently needed, and that is why we have been active from the outset in the quest for a settlement. We expect these talks to resume in a matter of weeks, and I hope that we may then see some further progress.
LORD BROCKWAY: But, my Lords, is not the matter most urgent? Is it not the case that yesterday there was the biggest air conflict since the war and the troubles in Suez and Jordan? Is it possible for Her Majesty's Government, in view of the danger to the peace of the world, to urge a United Nations peacekeeping force to prevent the conflict between the two sides?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, of course Her Majesty's Government would agree that any violations of the ceasefire make settlement of this problem more difficult. In reply to the second part of my noble friend's question, I can only say that I think it would be wiser to await the further outcome of these talks among the four. If the four great Powers could arrive at some proposals which they would then put to the people mainly concerned in the area, I think there would be some chance of their proposals being accepted. But before we think in
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terms of any other kind of action. I believe we should wait and see how far the four Powers can get in proposing some kind of settlement.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, are we not in danger of becoming somewhat selective in our support of the United Nations? If we repudiate decisions of the United Nations which we regard as manifestly unjust, as in the case of Gibraltar, can we deny to other countries the right to repudiate United Nations' decisions which they feel may endanger their own security?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I think this is a question partly of the Charter of the United Nations and the actions that are allowed within the purview of that Charter. Certainly we should not deny to any other country the right to take any action or any attitude that it wishes in its own interests, and this of course is what Her Majesty's Government would do.

MEDICAL EDUCATION: THE TODD REPORT
2.47 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any statement to make on the action that they propose to take on the Todd Report on Medical Education.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): My Lords, On April 14 my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services announced in the House of Commons the Government's decision to increase by 1,000 the places at medical schools by 1975. He also said that he would make further announcements later about the other recommendations of the Todd Report.
The Government have now completed consultations on the Report's proposals for post-graduate medical education, and my right honourable friend will make a Statement as soon as he can. Discussions

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between the University Grants Committee, the University of London and the Health Department are continuing and will be extended to the appropriate hospital interests. My right honourable friend also hopes to make an early announcement on the progress of these discussions.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for that reply, which I think will go some way towards smoothing over a certain amount of worrying about what has been going on in regard to this Report.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, in view of the fact that this Report was made nearly two years ago and that it involved a tremendous amount of work, may I press my noble friend to make some Statement with regard to the other recommendations as soon as possible?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, my right honourable friend is well aware that his Statement is urgently awaited, and there is no avoidable delay going on.

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

DEVELOPMENT OF TOURISM BILL
2.49 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend the Leader of the House.
Moved, That the membership of the Committee be increased from twelve to fourteen, and that the Earl of Selkirk aria the Lord Hughes be added to the Committee.—(Lord Beswick.)
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, before the Motion is agreed to, may I say that while I am most honoured to serve on this Committee, I regret that I shall not be able to attend on Tuesday of next week. I shall be able to be there on Monday and Wednesday, but not Tuesday. If any other noble Lord is able to be there the whole time, I feel that that might be an advantage.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I have no doubt that that invitation has been heard by other noble Lords in the House. As was made clear by my noble friend when the original Motion was put before the House, it is, of course, open to any noble Lord who wishes to do so to attend at the meetings of this Committee.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CIVIL AIR TRANSPORT: THE EDWARDS REPORT
2.50 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE rose to call attention to the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Civil Air Transport; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, this civil aviation Report of 394 pages is indeed a monumental document which reviews the past and the present of civil aviation and makes suggestions for its future. I know that the Government have stated that they are studying this Report, and a White Paper has been promised. I understand that the White Paper is not now likely to appear before the autumn. Nevertheless, to-day—which is the first occasion in either House of Parliament on which there has been any debate upon this Report—gives an opportunity for some exchange of views, as it were a two-way traffic. Also, we can express the hope that we shall hear some Government thinking on the main issues raised in the Report.
The first point that I would make is to urge the necessity and importance of speed by the Government in coming to their decisions. Since the publication of the Report a period of stagnation has descended on all initiative and adventure in civil aviation. Very understandably no one will enter into commitments, financial or otherwise, until the policy of Her Majesty's Government has been declared. This state of affairs is bad, and I urge a speeding up to the greatest possible degree of Government decisions and their subsequent publication.
In order to be brief and not to detain your Lordships unduly, I can only comment in broad terms on the main recommendations in the Report, many of which require study in depth and many of which I cannot even mention, important as they are. My first criticism

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of the proposals in the Report is the danger that civil aviation will become over-administered and over-centralised. It is an industry which is already weighed clown by both those characteristics. I think there is a danger in these proposals of unduly and needlessly tying up civil aviation in regulation, in control, and in direction by Government and Government-sponsored bodies. It seems to me rather curious that just as we are engaged in freeing the old form of transport, the railways, as much as we can from control as regards fares and operation, we should be engaged in tying up the new form of transport in so many different directions.
I do not like, and I do not believe your Lordships will like, the recommendation in the Report for periodic statements of Government policy by Statutory Instrument. I dislike that for two reasons. The first is that from the Parliamentary point of view a Statutory Instrument is not the appropriate body for promulgation of Government policy. Government policy should he by Statement and by Bill, and we do not want what I call "packets of instant policy" produced by Statutory Instruments. My second objection is that what civil aviation needs is not frequent change and frequent declarations of policy but a clear run on set policy lines for a period of years. Civil aviation over the past has been bedevilled by politics, and I want to see civil aviation fly above Party lines on a good long flight.
I must dwell for a moment on the very important proposal in the Report for a National Holdings Board. I will keep my quotations to the minimum, but I must make one quotation on this subject from paragraph 531, which says:
"… as trustee and controller of the public sector capital of the air industry,"
this Board
"would concern itself with major strategy of the airlines, the quality of their management, financing and investment, diversification into new fields, and the monitoring of the results of the undertakings within the group."
That is quite a task. I believe, and I hope, that this proposal will find very few friends anywhere, within and without the air world.
Many objections could be raised but I stand on one main objection only. In a sentence it is this: I believe the functions of this proposed Board would be
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either a replacement or a duplication of the functions, duties and responsibilities of the existing Boards of the two nationalised Corporations. Really this proposal would reduce the functions of the Boards of B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. to those appropriate to a management committee. The proposal, I submit, cannot stand up to examination when the Report suggests that this Holdings Board will be analogous to a holdings board i1 the private sector of industry. As many of your Lordships know, in the private sector a holdings board of an industry is the ultimate authority. That can never be so in the case of a National Holdings Board because ultimate authority must rest with the responsible Minister, with the Treasury and finally with Parliament. I would summarise my objection to this proposal in that I see little merit in interposing an unneeded body between the Corporation Boards and the final authority of Parliament. The proposal renders impotent those appointed to carry responsibility, and I believe would result in a confusing dichotomy.
Of course, as the Report says, closer co-operation between B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. is needed. I do not think the cooperation in the past has been all that it might have been, but it is no good going over the past; what we have to look at is the present and the future. And I do not think the National Holdings Board is a solution as regards closer co-operation. In the final event, closer co-operation depends on human relations, and I believe that now there is being established between the leaders of the two Corporations a degree of relationship which will bring about that essential co-operation.
The next most important proposal is that for the creation of what the Report calls a "second force", which means putting on certain overseas routes covered at present by B.E.A. and B.O.A.C. a second operator from the independent sector. The Report suggests two such areas, the North Atlantic and London to Paris, as suitable. Quite bluntly, this means taking from the Corporations some of their present traffic and sharing out future traffic growth between them and private enterprise. I have read in the Press that the unions concerned are already strongly rejecting this proposal. Very understandably, the two Corporations also dislike it, and I think it will

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be a very hard proposal for a Labour Government to accept.
Like many noble Lords interested in these matters, I have tried to give the proposal a lot of consideration. I have had ten years' experience as a Board member of British European Airways and, naturally, I have what I would call a conservative outlook. But to set aside doctrinaire approach, either from the Left or from the Right, one can produce arguments on both sides and I think there must he a balance of considerations. A second force in the near future can be built only by diminishing the Corporation's present patterns of routes, and by restricting their share of future traffic growth.
The question which I put to myself, and I hope that the Minister may reply to it, is: Would a second force of independent competitors on scheduled routes, rather than the present policy of a single designated operator, be for the benefit of British civil aviation? Would Britain's traffic share overseas be increased? I do not mind who operates the designated body. I am not advocating a national or a private enterprise. But would two operators on any of these routes really be to Britain's advantage? In the case of the London to Paris route, British European Airways are restricted in frequency to match the French frequency. At the present time, you can put on a second operator only if you cut into the franchise of B.E.A.
We have had some experience of a second force on main domestic trunk routes from London to Glasgow, and from London to Edinburgh. The result has been a division of existing traffic and of growth traffic, between the private and public sectors. The final result has been two losers; both have been losing money, instead of one breaking even or possibly making a profit. On the other hand, I must say that the public has benefited from the competition of the independent. The public has had better, sharper service, and I believe that British European Airways would be the first to admit that the competition has been a spur to them and has caused them considerably to improve and polish up their services.
Again, in the case of overseas routes, if it had not been for the initiative of the
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independent British United Airways, there would to-day be no British aircraft flying on the South Atlantic. I believe that that example alone justifies the plea for the independents. But if the independents are to play a part, they must have a fair chance on scheduled routes as designated carriers. I hope that I have not wearied your Lordships by expressing my thinking. Thus, on balance, I would support a second force, but would give it designated scheduled overseas services away from London Airport, operating from Gatwick or from the future Third Airport, and operate from our great provincial cities to continental points; an area which, in some directions, I feel the Corporations have not been exactly energetic in developing.
As I see it, the question which arises about creating a second force on these lines is: Would it justify the financing of new equipment? I believe that it would, because it may he that in the future the money lies not in the scheduled services, but in the development of this great new method of holidays abroad on inclusive tours. While the Corporations must also be kept in the picture, as the Report recommends. I should like to see restrictions on inclusive tours lifted. Indeed, I heard on the radio early this morning that the Board of Trade has sanctioned tariffs for inclusive tours this winter which are approximately half the cost of the scheduled service fares. In doing so, it is overriding the International Air Transport Association, which exists to protect the airlines and their interests against inclusive travel. I hope that something on those lines might be developed, which would satisfy the desire, which many of us rightly have, to see private enterprise having a good chance, without at the same time diminishing the Corporations' existing services or future growth.
I pass from that for a moment to the proposal for British air services within Britain. The Report suggests that the present network should be enlarged and the present operators combined, but leaving the main trunk routes to the Corporations. This is an excellent proposition, if you can get the existing interests to combine; but sometimes it is not a very easy task to knock together the heads of people in the aircraft world. The Report also

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says that a considerable degree of subsidy will be required. Let private enterprise do this. I strongly support the view expressed in this document, that there should be no cross-subsidising; that is to say, the profitable London to Nice service should not be used to subsidise the Highlands and Islands. If a service will not stand on its own, and yet is required for social purposes, as is the case in the Highlands and Islands, let the Government come forward with a direct subsidy to make good the loss which they consider must be faced in order that those services can be provided.
I should like to say a special word about Scotland and the services in the Highlands and Islands. They are long-term, definite losers, and the inhabitants need services for which they will never he able to pay. I think we need a bold imaginative set-up for Scotland, and it is a wonderful area for a unique experiment in "bush" operations.
The Report says very little about vertical take-off aircraft, about helicopters. When I tell your Lordships that one 35-seater helicopter carried a total of 55,000 passengers, including the Prime Minister on several occasions, from Land's End to the Isles of Scilly and finally came out just on the right side financially as regards the operating account, one can see that the helicopter is already here and should be taken into account. I should like to see the fixed-wing aircraft going, as at present, from London to Aberdeen, to Inverness, to Edinburgh and to Glasgow. But I should then like to see 12 aerodromes to the North shut down. The economies would be tremendous—no great maintenance staffs, no fire engines on duty, probably for 24 hours, day and night, and no great radio control organisation. I should like to see the subsidy which the Government may have to give—say a quarter of a million pounds—added to the economies which would come from closing down the aerodromes; and then I think it would be justifiable to ask for a Treasury grant towards the technical development of vertical take-off machines. Add those three items together, and then use that sum of money to make up any deficiency which may occur in the operating costs of a fine, unique, helicopter network all over Scotland.
Take, for instance, a service from Inverness to Invergordon (where there is
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going to be a great new industrial development) stopping at Dingwall; then on to Dornoch and Brora, where the coalmine is; and then un North to Wick and Thurso, and around the Highlands. There need be no airports—just a concrete landing pad—and no large staffs. The pilot will land, there will be one man on the pad, the rotor will be kept going, off will come one set of people and on will go another, and then the pilot will take off again. That is a picture of the sort of service—what I call a "jump-bush" service—which I believe could be developed for Scotland.
I do not believe, as some noble Lords may, that a small aeroplane taking off on a short runway is the answer. Directly you put passengers in something which has to go forward at 150 miles an hour into the muck and bad weather you must have proper radar, proper radio aids and proper control—and then your economy goes. In the case of a helicopter, if you do not like the weather very much you put it down in somebody's football field, and there is no trouble. As to the regularity of service—and the Isles of Scilly have proved it—this, I believe, could be accepted. I have merely painted a word picture of something which I should like to see examined in depth by Her Majesty's Government when they consider this Report.
The last recommendation on which I should like to touch is this. This Report proposes a new Authority to take over the work on civil aviation of the Board of Trade, the Air Transport Licensing Board and the Air Registration Board. In general, I support the proposition, for I think the Air Transport Licensing Board needs revision, and I believe its members will be the first to admit that. What I do not like, however, is the proposal that the Air Registration Board—that independent body which is responsible for the safety of design and construction and for ensuring maintenance up to an airworthy condition—should be merged with this Authority, which would really be too close to it. It would be part of something which it should be judging. My noble friend Lord Kings Norton, whose work with his colleagues of the Air Registration Board has gained the complete confidence of the aircraft world, is, I know, going to speak to your Lordships on this subject a little later on.
Just a final word on airports. The British Airports Authority is doing a fine job, but with its capital of £60 million—rather more than £60 million—I believe that that body deserves the status of a corporation, and should not have a part-time chairman. The responsibilities are so great and the finance involved is so big that we should have someone employed whole-time on a salary scale comparable to that of a corporation; and let me say at once that I can think of no one better for such a position than the present part-time chairman, Mr. Peter Masefield.
Some rationalisation of ownership is needed in the interests of efficient economy. Again, take Scotland as an example. The position there is silly. There are Turnhouse, owned by the Board of Trade; Abbotsinch, owned by Glasgow Corporation, and Prestwick, owned by the British Airports Authority—three different owners, three different sets of facilities, three different sets of administration. That ought not to be allowed to go on a month longer. It is a waste of money, and I hope that as a result of this Report, and perhaps of the views which may be expressed to-day by other Members of your Lordships' House, the Government will realise that when they finally produce their White Paper they must put an end to that absurdity. Probably the end should be a Scottish Airports Authority allied to the British Airports Authority.
My Lords, I conclude my remarks with a warning and a tribute. Let the operators and the airport authorities, especially the big and privileged ones, remember that, particularly in their handling of passengers on the ground—I think that passengers are handled splendidly in the air, but I am referring now to the handling on the ground—their enterprises are run for the benefit of travellers, on whom they finally depend for economic survival. There is a menace, I believe, in an attitude that regards passengers as necessary bundles of humanity to be pushed around for the convenience of those operating the services. My Lords, my tribute is contained in paragraph 1057, which says:
"… there is nothing radically wrong in British civil aviation … calling for really urgent surgery".
My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.18 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, for introducing this Motion and for giving us an opportunity to discuss the Report of the Edwards Committee. I support what he said about the Report. It seems to me a splendid document—splendid in conception, in analysis and in presentation. From all those interested in aviation—and they are a critical lot of people—we have heard praise. It is readable, factual and fair. Its very fairness, indeed, may in one sense be its weak point, since it makes action on the recommendations that much more difficult to decide. I agree with the noble Lord that an early statement of Government policy is important, but I hope he will agree with me that it is never an advantage to arrive early at the wrong place. A few weeks longer, to allow for more adequate consultation and consideration, will be time well spent: and, of course, what is said to-day will also be studied. My right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade intends to publish a White Paper on policy as soon as possible, but it will not now be before we rise for the Summer Recess. The timetable, I imagine, will provide for a debate on the White Paper after it is published and for any required legislation as early in the new Session as the legislative programme allows.
I expected to hear from the noble Lord. Lord Balfour of Inchyre, to-day, as we have heard over the years and from all sections of the industry, of the need for stability of policy and less interference from the politicians. The difficulty is that some want this stability but only after the politicians have made yet more changes which improve their own relative position. The degree of patience for change tends to be closely related to the position one holds in the aviation field. Indeed at times one is reminded of that famous bridge on which
"Those behind cried, 'Forward'
And those in front cried, 'Back'."
On the other hand, there are many interested, informed and objective observers of the aviation scene who believe that, given certain changes, it will be possible to give the customers an even better service and gain for the country an even bigger percentage of international air traffic.

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One truth is that there will always be change in civil air transport. An industry which will be three to four times its present size by the end of the next decade, cannot avoid change. It is estimated that over that same decade some £2,000 million will be invested: re-equipment on that scale, much of it embodying new technology, is certain to require administrative adjustments. What is now needed is a regulatory framework for the industry which will permit. indeed stimulate and encourage, maximum growth with a minimum of chopping and changing, a continuity of evolving policies and no sudden veering from one direction to another. The Government's ultimate decisions on the Edwards Committee Report will he judged, I suggest, by this criterion.
May I first deal with the recommendations for regulating the industry? The noble Lord was rather scathing about the regulations and the prospect of tying up the industry. I suggest that in this one particular at least he did not resist sufficiently strongly the temptation to exaggerate. The Edwards Committee recognise that, inescapably, this is a highly regulated industry, and I doubt whether any noble Lord who knows the facts of aviation life will wish to dispute that. It is true here; it is true elsewhere in the world. The Edwards Committee reappraise the whole of the present system. They lay great stress on the importance of the regulatory authority taking a comprehensive view. They point out that all aspects of an airline's activities have a bearing on the safety of its operations. Similarly, what is done to improve safety and reduce noise levels inevitably has financial and economic consequences. It follows, says the Committee, that decisions in one area should be taken with full knowledge of all the facts in related and adjacent areas. There is no suggestion that present arrangements are grossly inadequate. Indeed, the Report praises both the Air Registration Board and the Air Transport Licensing Board. I was particularly intrigued by the sentence referring to the A.T.L.B. which said:
"The longer this inquiry has gone on the less critical we have become of the existing Board".
Nevertheless, the Report recommends the constitution of a new Authority with responsibility for both economic and
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safety regulatory functions. Most interested people will agree—and the noble Lord himself has already agreed—that there is a need for change. The question is, precisely what kind of change? The main issue before the Government is twofold. They have to weigh the very powerful arguments which are advanced that safety and economic regulations should be kept apart so that safety standards are not compromised in any way. As I understand what the noble Lord has said, he agrees with that viewpoint. On the other hand, if one accepts the Committee's view that overall responsibility is required, how should this be exercised? It would be helpful to have the views of other noble Lords on this subject. It would be quite feasible to bring all responsibility directly within a Government Department. Or there is the possibility of a completely new statutory Authority, separate from Government Departments but working to a policy directive which would be approved by Parliament.
The Report itself sets out four possible alternatives before coming to its own recommendation of a new, all-embracing Civil Aviation Authority. But there seems to me room for further consideration of the extent of the responsibilities to be placed on this new Authority. A dividing line could rationally be drawn between those safety functions now vested in the Board of Trade and those now fulfilled by the A R B. This would mean that the new Authority embraced responsibility for economic regulations; for those safety responsibilities now vested in the Board of Trade; for the planning of airports and for air traffic control, but leaving the Air Registration Board to carry on, at any rate until problems in the other sectors have been clarified. The argument for leaving the A.R.B., I suppose, is that their C. of G. is nearer the aircraft construction than the air transport operating industry. They could indeed be regarded as the bridge between the two complementary industries. There are arguments for all the permutations. I know that my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade is anxiously considering them all. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, will need no encouragement from me to give his views, and certainly with his

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long experience they will carry great weight.
There is one further point which I would make—and in this I follow what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour. Practically throughout the development of this exciting air transport industry, certainly since 1945—and I think I am right in saying even in 1938 and 1939, when the noble Lord himself, in another sphere in another place, had particular responsibility for the implementation of another Report—we have had the conflict of ideas as between public ownership and private enterprise. In some respects this has been a good thing; in other respects, and as time went on, it became an infernal nuisance. The decisions which now have to be taken about the structure of Britain's air transport industry ought to be taken and can be taken quite separately from any ideological consideration. It is now possible to determine, in a way which it was not possible in the 1940s, whether airline A is more efficient than airline B. The question as to whether airline A should have a licence to operate a route rather than airline B or C should be and could be, determined on the basis of ascertainable data and not on political theory. As I said earlier, what is wanted is the best possible service for the customer consistent with fair conditions for the worker and the biggest possible percentage of international air traffic for the country. How these objectives can be achieved should, within a proper directive, be settled by an objective professional body. Such a body would not be a passive, licensing authority. It would be a positive, innovating body, actively engaged in securing that kind of industrial structure and route pattern which in its professional judgment we need.
Such an Authority, of course, would have to work within the framework of its directive. The noble Lord himself suggests that the Committee's proposal of a policy directive in the form of a Statutory Instrument as recommended by the Report is inappropriate. I am inclined to agree with that, since a Statutory Instrument must be legislative in character. What it seems to me would be more appropriate is a statement of the Government's policy in suitable formal terms, which had the approval of Parliament
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and was binding on the Authority. One way of doing this would be by laying a White Paper before Parliament and subsequently making this a Schedule to the Act setting out the new Authority's powers and functions. There is a precedent for this in the field of Prices and Incomes policy.
In its analysis of the public sector of the operating industry, the Committee support the judgment of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries that the two Air Corporations are efficient organisations, and they emphasised, too, that there is value in retaining the identity of these two Corporations. But to meet the very cogent arguments of those who say that there are also benefits to be gained by merging the two Corporations they propose the creation of a National Air Holdings Board. This proposal, to put it mildly, has aroused some dissent. Many feel that the compromise would be the worst of all worlds, with the addition of one more layer in the chain of command as the price to be paid for uncertain benefits.
Conceivably, my Lords, there has been some misunderstanding as to what this proposal entails. On the one hand, the Committee did not want the Chairman of the Holding Board to become what they call an "airlines boss" and they suggest that at least six of the ten Board members should be directors from the two Corporations over which they were to be placed. They go on to say that the reins of control were to be held lightly. On the other hand, as the noble Lord himself said, the Committee were clearly thinking of the analogy with private business, where a holding company does not interfere with the day-to-day running of its subsidiaries but, if at the end of the year the results are bad, it sacks the managing director of the unsatisfactory subsidiary and starts the next year with a new team. At such a point of decision, it seems to me that the term "a light rein" is something of a euphemism.
The Committee stress that the kind of decision needed to effect economies and to gain benefits are best made by inside men with inside information. This was their idea of the working of the holding company composed of inside men. But since the initial decision to accept or not to accept this particular proposal must be made from outside the Corporations, it

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is, as noble Lords will agree, necessary to test very carefully the strength of available evidence before deciding that a different institutional framework is required for their realisation.
The Report also recommends that this Air Holdings Board should have a holding in a company created or initiated by Government action from the merging of existing independent companies. This idea of a so-called "second force" has also aroused criticism. It may be that this proposal, too, has been misunderstood. Its purpose here is more to do with the rationalisation of the private sector than with the dismemberment of the public sector. The fact is that regardless of the question of ownership, B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. are the country's principal airlines, and nobody in his senses, least of all the Edwards Committee, would wish to weaken them.
B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. will both continue to grow vigorously. The question now is: how best can the independent airlines also contribute to the balance of payments and to the strength of the economy? I am sure the Committee have made a good case for there being fewer and stronger airlines. But are they right in maintaining that there is room for only one independent scheduled international carrier? If this is so—and the Committee produce some strong arguments—it is impossible to lay down precisely and in advance how big the proposed second force airline would need to be in 1975, in order to be viable and to guarantee the route network that would achieve this. The airline, if it came into being would clearly have to prove itself and to evolve progressively. Much would depend on the actual rate of growth of traffic on particular routes and on the success of the airline in getting its share of the traffic. Much would depend on the particular routes it might have. I put it to your Lordships: ought these decisions to be taken at this stage even in principle, directly or indirectly by Parliament?
One possibility which the Report suggests (and the noble Lord referred to it) and which is now being looked at is dual designation on the North Atlantic. The argument here is that although a second British carrier would attract some traffic from B.O.A.C., in the longer run it would
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also win traffic from foreign airlines. This net gain in traffic would increase the aggregate contribution by British airlines to the balance of payments. It is conceivable that certain rationalisations of route structures of the British carriers, even if this involved some net transfer on a modest scale, might benefit both, or at least produce a better aggregate result for the balance of payments and for the economy. But these are propositions that need to be examined carefully in relation to particular routes, and it seems to me that a Civil Aviation Authority, constituted in the manner that I have indicated, if it is established, is precisely the point at which decisions on these propositions should be taken.
My Lords, the Report also makes proposals for strengthening that part of the industry that operates regional services, both through structural changes and through subsidies. Looking at this sector of the industry dispassionately, there certainly seems room for rationalisation of the route patterns and of the structure of the industry itself. Both have grown up haphazardly over the years. Changes could result in economies of scale and of specialisation. The noble Lord, as I understood him, spoke about "knocking heads together" in this sector. I am not sure to what extent it is preferable to have one's head knocked rather than to he tied by some regulation. But certain it is that a number of airlines engaged in regional services have made clear that they wish to retain their independence, although some would like more co-operation and would not be averse to an exchange of routes on a fair and reasonable basis. What they do not want is compulsory acquisition, or the imposition of a monopoly. Here is another example of an area in which the regulatory authority and the airlines might seek to work together.
The question of subsidies which the noble Lord has raised is a difficult one. Until now Governments have held firmly to the line that the decision whether or not to operate a service must rest with the airlines in the exercise of their commercial judgment. The Report recognises that the link between the existence of air services and the pace of regional development has yet to be demonstrated; and unless and until it has been demonstrated that there is such a link, it would

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be difficult to justify the giving of subsidies on these grounds. There is, of course, an exception (to which the noble Lord referred) in the case of the Scottish Highlands and Islands services. A special feature of this case is the fact that surface communications in the Scottish Highlands and Islands are particularly difficult. In other parts of the United Kingdom there are some quite good surface communications which, in many cases, have been greatly improved in recent years and are still being improved. There is an obvious need to guard against waste through the competitive subsidisation of air and surface transport, and especially do we need to study quite new technical possibilities.
The introduction of advanced passenger trains or guided hovercraft or new types of V/STOL aircraft could revolutionise the whole situation. Although one must consider what the noble Lord has said about helicopters, since he had such an active and intimate recent experience with them, I am not so sure as he is that V/STOL aircraft will not prove a more economic proposition, in the regions at any rate, although of course there is a difference when it comes to servicing certain islands or the oilrigs, and so on.
My Lords, there are other quite important aspects of the Report on which I have not touched. I should have liked, for example, to say something about industrial relations in this industry which, on occasions, seem to fall so far below the standard which we have a right to expect. I must also resist, at this point at any rate, the invitation to follow the noble Lord in the whole question of airport development. At this stage I think that the best service I can render to the House is to listen to what others have to say.
3.40 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, the House is indebted to my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye for taking us aloft with Edwards to-day and for the very constructive way in which he did so. I am grateful, too, for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, admittedly studiously "cagey" comments, on the subject of the Edwards Report. I join with him in saying that this is a remarkable document. I think that the highest compliment I can pay it—and I do so—is to say that it is as remarkable
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and as competent as one would expect, given its authorship. What particularly impressed me in reading the Report is its open-mindedness, the fact that its authors lay no claim to omniscience and that the structure for the aviation industry which they have suggested is one which has a built-in flexibility. I am sure that is wise.
Like other noble Lords, I shall try to be deliberately selective in my remarks and I should like to turn straight away to the objectives of our aviation policy. So far as these are concerned, the Report puts the emphasis where I believe it should be placed; namely, on the customer. I particularly like what they say about this and, if I may, I should like to quote their words:
"So let us say that in our view the primary long-term objective of a national policy towards commercial flying should be to see that our customer, be it for personal travel or freight, gets what he wants—not what somebody else thinks he ought to want—at the minimum economic price that can be contrived. Romantic, interesting and important though the airline business may be, it is, in the last analysis, there to do the same job as butchers, bakers and candlestick makers, i.e. to provide services for money."
I do not think that these objectives could be better stated. I should like to add only one more. I am told that world air travel is likely to expand by a factor of four in the next decade, and clearly it should be a major objective of our national civil aviation policy that Britain should get its full share of that growth.
So far as the way in which these objectives should be embodied is concerned, I should like to say straight away that I share the doubts that have been expressed by my noble friend and by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, about whether the Statutory Instrument is an appropriate vehicle for laying down policy guide lines. I find myself in entire agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, on this. So far as the statutory Authority is concerned, many different views have already been propounded and many different solutions are possible. But, equally, I think that most people will recognise that the present situation is messy. I believe that the Edwards Report has made out the case for a strong and independent regulatory body and personally I am rather taken with the solution which they propose. I believe that it has a great deal to commend it.

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I have been impressed, for example, by what I have read and learned about the Civil Aeronautics Board in the United States, and I believe there is a great deal to be said for setting up a rather similar body, which would have a real measure of independence and which could evolve a steady forward-looking policy towards the industry and accumulate the corpus of knowledge and technique and other experience which is really required here. Because, as the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has said, and I entirely agree, there are now objective criteria on which, if we ask the right questions we can judge the performances of individual airlines. I think that a body of this sort would give assurance both to the two nationalised Corporations and to the independent air companies. I believe in addition that there is a good deal to be said for the hiving off of Governmental functions in this way. It is, after all, what Fulton has recommended. In the words of their Report:
"It may well be that in modern political administration the machinery is so complex that immense departments of state may be made to work better if the agency device is used more freely."
I believe strongly that that is the case. After all, it is what we have done with some of our ports, and we have the recent precedent of the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, for Lord Hall's Post Office Corporation.
The critics of the proposal have fastened, of course, on the view that it would be wrong to bring the A.R.B. under the wing of the proposed new Authority. Personally, I found the argument in Edwards about the main regulatory function of the Authority to be compelling, and I should have thought that we would get a read-across from the technical and the operational to the economic and vice versa. Nevertheless, like other noble Lords, I await with interest the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton. If he is against this, and I understand that he might be, because the A.R.B. is rightly held in high regard both in this country and abroad—and I think much of that is due to its independence—I wonder whether he could tell us whether certain of the intermediate solutions we have heard suggested would not be perfectly feasible, like bringing the new Authority into being by stages or
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perhaps treating the A.R.B. as a separate division, with something of its own personality within it.
I now turn to the public sector—the Corporations. I think it is true to say that B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. receive a good chit from Edwards. As the Report states:
"B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. are both held in high esteem in the international airline community and have established reputations as innovators in technical and operational fields."
I should like to endorse that. They point to the fact that the growth of the Corporations has been about par for the international course. On the whole, I believe these bouquets to be well deserved and, by and large, we can take a lot of pride as a country in the way these two Corporations are now running. Of course, by the same token, I do not think that we should overpaint the lily. For example, both Pan-American and B.O.A.C. are comparable in certain respects, as they are both basically long-haul operators, but so far as I know, whatever its financial difficulties, Pan-American have never had to write off £100 million plus of capital. But to that qualification, I should like to add one more, and dwell for a moment on a point on which my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye touched; namely, the standard of service to the customer. I must say, particularly in the case of B.E.A., that this sometimes falls short of what one could reasonably desire. For one reason or another, I fly a good deal to Europe. So far as all the operational aspects of the flight are concerned—the plane, its punctuality, its safety and so on—I believe that B.E.A. has no peer in Europe. But on the little things, the petits soins, for travellers, especially on the ground, I believe that many of their European competitors order things rather better and I hope that attention will be given to this.
The Committee considered the whole question of ownership and came to the conclusion that:
"no indisputable case can he made for a policy of denationalisation."
I, for one, would be prepared to try my hand at making an indisputable case for denationalisation, but I doubt whether I would persuade the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and I do not think that I should detain your Lordships at the present moment with that argument. But let me

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say straight away that I believe that there is a far stronger case for the injection of private capital into the Corporations' capital structure than is suggested in the Edwards Report. They say that:
"they see little merit in artificially contriving a minority holding",
and go on to say,
"But we would certainly not oppose private stakes should there be good practical reasons."
I believe that a case can be made that there are good practical reasons for the participation of private equity in the Corporations. A private sector would, in my view, give the Corporations greater independence, and it would expose them even more directly than they are exposed at the moment to normal commercial competition, particularly if the private share were quite substantial. There is the point that a large number of European competitors of B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. now have considerable private stakes in their equity. With Swiss-Air, it is 70 per cent.; with K.L.M., 49·5 per cent., Lufthansa, 25 per cent., and with Sabena and Al Italia, 10 per cent. If this is considered sensible abroad it is at least arguable, proud and parochial though we British may be, that it is sensible here.
In any event, my Lords, although I do not go the whole way with the Edwards Committee on ownership, I go a long way with them on the organisation of the Corporations. The Committee considered the case for and against amalgamation, and they came down against it. I personally agree with that judgment. As they have pointed out, there is no clear advantage in sheer size. Indeed, the experience of the American airlines points the other way.
Next, I should like to turn to a point which has already been touched on by other noble Lords: the consideration by the Committee of the necessary cooperation between the two national Corporations and their judgment that, although there was co-operation in certain fields, this was insufficient; and from that their suggestion of the establishment of a National Air Holdings Board with an independent Chairman.
There is a great deal in this Report that I like, but I say at once that, with my noble friend, I do not like this suggestion one little bit. I am convinced that if we are to have nationalised bodies
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and national Corporations they must be allowed, once their targets and their strategical objectives are set by the Minister concerned, to get on with the job. The thing that is above all to be avoided in the public sector is "back-seat driving", whether by Ministers or by Committees. This would tend to weaken the authority of the organisation; it would be bound to blur responsibilities, and would be bound to act as a decelerator to decision-making in a field where urgent decisions are often required.
Mr. Michael Foot was kind enough the other day to describe all of your Lordships as "political castrata". I think the suggestion which has been advanced in the Edwards Report would turn those otherwise virile leaders of industry, Sir Anthony Milward and Mr. Hardie, into commercial castrata. I am not saying that there should not be closer co-operation in various common fields between the Corporations. There should be. It is insufficient, as I think they themselves recognise; but I really think that, on balance, I should prefer the unnecessary duplication which may exist at the present time to this unnecessary bureaucratic monster.
I should like to turn now to the private sector. Here I find myself largely in agreement with what the Report has suggested. In this respect I think it is a very impartial Report. It rightly recognises the enterprise which the independents have shown, for example. in making a success of the South American route when B.O.A.C., for understandable reasons, gave it up. The Edwards Committee also, quite rightly, paid tribute to the inventiveness which the independents have shown by, for example, the development of the inclusive tours—"I.T." traffic as it was called: as the Report puts it:
"One of the most important credit items in the performance of British civil aviation in the recent past…."
I believe that these tributes not only are overdue, but give the independents their due. We on these Benches hold, and hold strongly, that whatever the right structure and ownership of the Corporations may be, there is not only a justification but also a real need for a strong private sector in the aviation industry. The alternative might very well be one single nationalised monolith. Edwards

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comes down very firmly against this; and that concept has been demolished, I think, in very telling language in two brief pages of the Report. But we also need an active private sector for other reasons. We need it since the industry as a whole, and those who regulate it, would benefit by an alternative yardstick to the nationalised concerns. We need, as the Report puts it:
"more than one source of expertise, judgment, experience and enterprise".
Again, my Lords, the private sector can be justified by the contribution which it makes to our foreign exchange earnings. For example, British United Airways are not only making a profit now on the South American route, where B.O.A.C. were losing well over £1 million a year, but they are thereby also making a quite significant contribution to our foreign exchange earnings. But this is only one side of the coin. In South America, B.U.A. stepped into shoes which B.O.A.C. had discarded. The Edwards Committee, however, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, suggested, have argued that in the case of certain international routes—for example, the New York route—there is room for two major British airlines. I believe that this would be in the national interest from the standpoint of our balance of payments. It is interesting, for example, that the British share of this route has dropped from nearly 40 per cent. in 1962 to not much over 25 per cent. in 1967. May not a contributory reason for that be that there is only one British airline operating scheduled services on this route?
For example, it is significant that B.O.A.C.'s summer capacity on this route this year amounts only to 28 per cent., while T.W.A. and Pan American have 27 per cent. and 26 per cent. respectively, making a joint capacity of 53 per cent. The Bermuda statistics are even more striking. The British held 32·4 per cent. of this traffic for 1962, the year in which the Eagle licence was revoked. The percentage of this important route now held by this country has dropped to 16·4. That, of course, is quite apart from the question of the consumer choice. I accept that on many routes there is not scope for two operators, let alone two British operators; but where there is such scope, it is surely a good thing that the consumer should be offered as much choice as possible.
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For all these reasons, my Lords, I am glad that the Edwards Committee attach so much importance to the private sector, which they believe may become by the 1970s perhaps one third of the civil aviation industry. They envisage also, as my noble friend has pointed out, a strong second force (why they call it a "second force", I am not certain: I should have thought that it would be a third force, given B.O.A.C. and B.E.A.), possibly built around B.U.A. and Caledonian as the main element here, operating a mix of long-distance and short-haul scheduled services, and active also in the I.T. and charter field.
Alongside that they think there is real scope—provided that there is the necessary rationalisation in the private sector—for other private operators in the domestic field, and in the internal inclusive tour, charter, air freight and air taxi business. I am sure that this is so, and that these rather specialised fields are really carved out, or almost carve themselves out, for the independent operator. But, my Lords, it is one thing for Edwards to express these views; it is another for the Government to accept them. I hope that in the months of summer cogitation on the Edwards Report they will move further forward in this respect.
Secondly, having accepted the principle, I trust that the Government will take the action which requires to flow from it. Much of course depends, as the Report points out, on pricing policy. For example, the Edwards Committee advocate a good deal more liberal policy towards inclusive tours and charters, and they make a very interesting suggestion that on certain routes, which they describe as "holiday routes"—I suppose that is the Minorcas of this world—the charter operators, the I.T. operators, should be given a free hand as an experiment. I think this would be well worth trying; it would be good for the operators and, more important, it would be good for the consumer.
Most important of all, if the Government decide to make this difficult choice for the second force—and I hope they will—they must have the courage of their convictions. There are two essentials here. The first is that the second force should have a really viable route I structure of scheduled services, including

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long-distance services. The Report has suggested that the airline, or agglomerate of airlines, would need to be provided with 4,000 seat miles by 1975 to have a really viable stable of aircraft to be able to support it. A layman like me would not dream of querying that estimate, or even of venturing an estimate of what route structure would be required. Clearly—and here I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Balfour—it would mean that the second force would have either to replace or double up with the Corporations on some of their existing scheduled routes.
What does this mean? I have talked to one of the airlines which might be involved in the second force. All I can say is that they believe that they could be given a route structure which would enable them, for example, to go to the City and raise the money which they would need for this stable of aircraft. They could get a viable route structure without undue damage to the Corporation's prospects. They estimate that if they were given what they think they would need for a viable route structure, it might cut back B.O.A.C.'s growth rate from an estimated 12 per cent. per annum to something around 10 per cent. per annum. I am rather a new boy at business, but I should be perfectly happy to have an assured 10 per cent. per annum growth rate stretching out ahead of me. I am also extremely bad at compound interest, but I think it means you would double the size of your business within about seven years.
Secondly, it is important to remember that under the Edwards recommendations the Corporations themselves would stand to gain in a major way. They are now proposing to break in a big way into the I.T. trade, the trade which independents have pioneered. I understand, for example, that B.E.A. will be operating their Comet fleet from Gatwick next year. I think that this is a good thing and that Edwards thinks it is a good thing, because the distinctions between the scheduled services and the nonscheduled ones are becoming increasingly blurred. What seems to me reasonable is that if the Corporations are to be allowed to break into what has been up to now the preserve which has been pioneered by the independents, the in
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dependents should be enabled to make at least a small dent in what has hitherto been almost the preserve of the Corporations, the scheduled routes. If that is so, I should have thought that a bargain could be struck, and that with that in mind it would be wise that the decisions regarding the second force's entry on to the scheduled routes, and the Corporations' break into the I.T. market should be taken coincidentally.
Apart from that, two things seem clear to me. If the Government do opt for a second force concept, they must not be half-hearted about their choice. They must opt either for a proper second force, or against it. They should at all events avoid a "botched-up" compromise here, because if we are to have a second force, as Edwards recommends, we need one with two wings, not just one. I know this may be asking quite a lot of the Government, but I hope that they will not only say that they will grasp this rather difficult nettle, as they have said they will grasp one or two other difficult nettles recently, but that they will actually grasp it.
I hope it will be possible for these decisions to be taken reasonably quickly. I was a little worried about the tone of Lord Beswick's remarks here. As Edwards says, the independents are:
"urgently awaiting clear guidance from the Government on the future size and shape of the private sector."
This, as I understand it, means that these decisions are in certain respects very urgent. For example, if the second force is going to be a viable one, it will need, first, supersonic aircraft, and secondly, large fuselage aircraft. It has to get into the queue for the purchase of those aircraft, and it cannot do it until it knows roughly what the future holds for it.
So far as the smaller domestic services are concerned, may I say that I agree that these services have an important part to play in regional economic development. I also agree that if they are to be subsidised the subsidy should be an honest and visible one. Let us not embark on regional airline services just "for the heck of it" and unless there is a real need for a competition with surface means of transport here.
There was one passage in the Edwards Report which I found particularly interesting. That was where it

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pointed out that at the present time we are spending in public funds something like £300 million a year in regional development. The Committee indicated their preference—a preference which I share—for a selective approach to regional development, the support of infrastructure at selected points rather than the more scatter-gun approach which we seem to be adopting at the present time. They pointed out that if we spent only one per cent. of £300 million on the development of regional airlines, that would amount to £3 million per annum and could make a very important contribution to the whole development of our regional airline network. So far as the area of the world so dear to my noble friend Lord Balfour is concerned—Scotland-I would support his plea for a deep examination of this problem, and I hope particularly that there will be a real examination of the proposal which he has put forward. I hope he will allow that examination—as I know he will—to include the small, fixed-wing, short-take-off aircraft, as well as his favourite helicopters.
In conclusion, may I say that although I have ventured one or two criticisms of one or two of the recommendations in the Edwards Report, I believe that taken in the large it is an admirable and, indeed, splendid document. I hope the Government will decide to carry out its main recommendations. Without wishing to press this unduly, I particularly hope that they will give free enterprise the fair crack of the whip which Edwards has asked for. My final hope is that their decision on this matter will not be unduly delayed. I trust that the promised White Paper will come before us at least in the autumn. Certain of these decisions are urgently required, and if it is not going to affect the main package of the decisions there is no reason why the Government should be inhibited from announcing individual decisions in advance of the White Paper. That could be really helpful in certain fields.
4.9 p.m.
LORD KINGS NORTON: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, gave your Lordships a most interesting commentary on the proposed Civil Aviation Authority, and the alternatives to it. I, too, should like to speak in particular about that proposal, and in some detail. The
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Edwards Committee propose that a single Authority should be:
"… responsible for almost all the technical and economic regulatory functions, now performed by the Board of Trade, the A.T.L.B. and A.R.B. for the civil side of the Joint National Air Traffic Control Services, for operational research, for long-term airport planning and for the main work of traffic rights negotiation."
In speaking to-day I must declare an interest because, as I think many noble Lords know, I am the Chairman of the Air Registration Board. This interest which I declare is not a financial interest. The Chairman and the members of council of the Air Registration Board, eighteen in number, received no payment for their services. I should also like to emphasise what I am sure your Lordships would in any case assume, that I speak personally and not in an effort to represent the views of my A.R.B. colleagues, although I cannot help being aware of some similarities between their outlook and mine. The formal views of the Air Registration Board are of course in process of being made known to the President of the Board of Trade.
I should like to say something a bout the origins, the character and the past of the A.R.B. because I believe that all these are relevant to decisions on its future. We in the A.R.B. have al ways been conscious that there is something a little odd about us; and we have always been proud to feel that this oddity is something peculiarly British and, as time has shown, I believe, peculiarly good. The oddity is that we exhibit the unusual administrative pattern of a great industry regulating itself. A Minister is indeed always in the last analysis responsible for what we do. At present it is the President of the Board of Trade; in the past it has been at various times the Secretary of State for Air, the Minister of Civil Aviation, and the Minister of Aviation. But the President and his predecessors have depended for their formal actions in the field of airworthiness upon the A.R.B.'s advice, and I like to think not only that the A.R.B. has never let them down by giving them bad advice, but that the Minister has never let the A.R.B. down by rejecting the good advice it has given.
The organisation of this Board derives from the Report of the Committee which sat under the chairmanship of the late Lord Gorell, himself once the Minister

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responsible, inter alia, for civil aviation, and which reported in July, 1934. The other members of that Committee were also unusually distinguished and included not only the noble Lord to whom we are so indebted for initiating this debate to-day, then Captain Harold Balfour—whose views on the Air Registration Board I was so interested to hear—but Mr. Handley Page, Colonel Moore-Brabazon and Mr. Lindsay Everard, all of whom regrettably are no longer with us, and one other great pioneer, Mr. Gordon England, who is. At that time the civil aviation industry had become dissatisfied with the way airworthiness had been administered by Government. Government, on the recommendation of the Gorell Committee, had the great good sense to make the sweeping change by which the A.R.B. came into existence.
The report of that old Committee was followed by the work of a Committee under Handley Page, to draft the details of the new scheme for regulating airworthiness, and the outcome was seen in the Air Navigation Act 1936, which gave the Secretary of State powers to delegate his functions in respect of the airworthiness of civil aircraft to a Board, a Board ultimately defined—and this is extremely interesting—as consisting of four representatives of constructors of aircraft, four of operators of aircraft, four of insurers of aircraft, together with four co-opted members—to-day known as the independent members—and two more members appointed by the responsible Minister, not to represent him, but one to be a pilot and the other to represent the public interest. The Minister has no say in appointing the other 16 who are nominated by the interested sections they represent. The whole 18 choose one of themselves as Chairman. That is how the governing body of the A.R.B. is still constituted and what makes it a body of essentially independent character.
The A.R.B. Council, when it came into being in 1937, began the task of creating its executive: and I am proud to say that I was its first Chief Technical Officer. To-day it has a staff of well over 400. This organisation has stood the test of time, and when we of the A.R.B. consider ourselves dispassionately—and from time to time we do take a careful stock of ourselves—we conclude
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that the recommendations of the Gorell Committee, the work of the Handley Page drafting Committee and the Air Navigation Act 1936, produced an extraordinarily appropriate top administrative structure for aircraft, a structure which has itself created an excellent staff, high in morale, efficient and economical in character, and with the best possible relationship with the industry with which it has to work and which, indeed, in the matter of aircraft safety it has to control.
It is successful in this for a number of reasons, but two are outstanding. One is that, of all forms of control, the most effective and the least obnoxious is self-control. As I said earlier, the Air Registration Board is unusual, possibly unique, in manifesting a great industry regulating itself. The other outstanding reason is the A.R.B.'s financial independence. In its early days, and with diminution of civil aviation in the war, it had to depend on Government aid to make up its deficit. But for many years past it has enjoyed financial independence through its income from fees for certificates of airworthiness, from contracts proper to its duties, such as for aiding the airworthiness administration of Commonwealth countries, and from certain technical work for the United Kingdom Government. This financial independence has been a source of great strength to the A.R.B. An organisation which stands on its financial feet, like a man who stands on his, develops a different ethos from the recipient of aid, which, like an overdraft, is rarely without strings.
The proposed civil aviation Authority would not be in the enviable position the A.R.B. has achieved. The Edwards Report estimates that it would cost the Government £13 million a year. It is difficult to conceive an organisation such as the proposed C.A.A., in administering a deficit of this magnitude, organising financially self-sufficient units in its midst. It is difficult to conceive its administering a personnel policy which did not affect the development of the A.R.B. staff system, a system which has shown itself singularly well suited to the well defined, and wholly technological, functions of the Board.
But more important even than these considerations, in my opinion, is that in the C.A.A. there would be a mixture of

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economic and technical regulatory functions in that the working of the Air Transport Board and the working of the A.R.B. would be under the same direction. But I cannot believe that this is good, and in this I differ from the Edwards Report and, I think, from the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe. The approach of the Air Registration Board in a spirit of creative collaboration with industry, and the approach of the Air Transport Board, essentially judicial and discriminatory, seem to me to be difficult to reconcile. It is this incompatibility which has kept these two functions of licensing and safety in different organisations in the United States of America. If I understood the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, correctly, I think he believed that these two functions in the U.S.A. were in the same Authority; but they are not.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I apologise for being out of the Chamber during most of the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, but I do not believe that. I know that the contrary is the truth.
LORD KINGS NORTON: Certainly they are not. In fact the technical function is in the F.A.A. which has not so far been mentioned, and the economic function is in the C.A.B. I know that it is unwise uncritically to copy, or to admire, arrangements in other countries, and I assure your Lordships that I point to the United States arrangement only after careful study. They have evolved their organisation in this field differently from us, but in the matter of principle, as I feel it is, of keeping these two functions apart, they have done as we have. I think we are both right, and that a revolutionary change, as the C.A.A. in this respect would be, is unwise. An evolutionary change which in this case would include a strengthened A.T.L.B. is in my view much to be preferred.
There is a good deal of consideration in the Report of the Edwards Committee of what they call "interfaces". Until I read their Report, I had managed quite well without ever using this word. Now I find that I cannot avoid it. They say clearly, on page 244, that there is no a priori case for reducing the number of interfaces. But they clearly believe, from the arguments they advance, that interfacial liquidation is a good thing.
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On the whole I agree. As an engineer, I feel that the fewer moving parts there are in a machine the less likely it is to go wrong, and that is probably true of administrative machines as well But one has to be very careful. If at present there are seen to be interfaces between the A.R.B., the A.T.L.B. and the regulatory departments of the Board of Trade, have we reduced the interfaces by putting these bodies under the C.A.A., or have we increased the total number of interfaces by one? The right number of interfaces, as in an internal combustion engine, is that which gives maximum performance, if possible with minimum lubrication.
My Lords, I believe with other noble Lords that Sir Ronald Edwards and his team have done a remarkable job, and it would be more than remarkable—it would be miraculous—if everyone interested agreed with them. What I found particularly good about their Report was that they displayed alternative organisations before reaching a conclusion to support one of them.
In the matters to which I have been referring, it seems to me that they have done this displaying extremely well, but in my view they have not chosen the best of the possibilities they have outlined. At the risk of boring your Lordships by telling you what you have already read. I should like to recall, from page 245, that they define four possible schemes: (i) the economic regulation in an independent Air Transport Board on the lines of a strengthened Air Transport Licensing Board, the technical regulatory functions being disposed as at present; (ii) both economic and technical regulatory functions in two separate boards outside the Government service; (iii) all regulatory functions within the Government service; and (iv) all regulatory functions placed outside Government in one civil aviation Authority headed by a hoard appointed by the Minister. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for indicating the possibilities of other alternatives. Certainly one of his variants appeals to me very much.
In their subsequent argument in the Report the Committee dismissed (iii)—all regulatory functions under Government—and with this dismissal I agree. They plump for (iv) the Civil Aviation Authority—which is certainly preferable

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to (iii), but suffers from the disabilities which I have indicated. I do not say that it is unworkable, but I do say that for it to work well it would require continuing dispassionate judgment of a high order in the selection of its members and quite exceptional skill in administration on their part. Even then, I am sure that strains and stresses would develop. It represents a very big change, and it would have to deal with a future which I find difficult to visualise and assess. I should prefer—and I hope that when the Government have considered this, they will also—administrative evolution with natural selection, so to speak, by interested parties for the formation of the controlling bodies, rather than an inspired choice from above. So, in my view, the alternatives (i) and (ii) in the Report are better. Certainly, let us have an Air Transport Board on the lines of a strengthened A.T.L.B. That, with no other change, would be alternative (i). This would involve, as the Committee recognises, the minimum of change.
I believe we could stand a little more change than that, if it seemed desirable after examination. I believe we could stand a little more without too much upset or the danger of administrative indigestion. In other words, I believe, of all the Edwardian alternatives—and Sir Ronald, like me, believes that one can have more than two alternatives—(ii) is the best, and is worth detailed examination. This would give us the strengthened A.T.L.B. and an A.R.B. type of organisation in which the aircraft safety regulatory functions could be joined progressively by some of the operational safety functions performed by the Board of Trade and others. At a time when operational and aircraft safety considerations are increasingly interdependent—as, for example, in auto-land—it is obviously sensible to examine this. We could go, if necessary, step by step.
As I have said already, evolution is for us, in this country, generally better than revolution. The aftermath of the Gorell Committee was rather revolutionary but I think the circumstances were then more readily definable than they are now, and in the present circumstances I would recommend evolution. First, we could form the new Air Transport Board—the strengthened A.T.L.B. At the same
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time, a committee like the old Handley Page Committee I have referred to, which followed the Gorell Report, could scheme a developing combined airworthiness and operational safety organisation, taking account of the criticism which Edwards levels at the idea of two separate boards. I believe that two sensibly constituted boards, which I am sure would be sensibly constituted—a licensing board and a safety board—could readily evolve a method of communication which would ensure that there was no unnecessary duplication or overlapping in the inquiries they would undertake.
To sum up, my Lords, what I fear is my rather specialised view, I think it would be found to be quite satisfactory, whatever changes are made as a result of the Edwards Report, if the A.R.B. were left as it is. Conceivably, it might prove desirable to add to it some of the administrative operational safety functions of the Board of Trade, and this, I am sure, should be examined in detail, with the idea of a possible step by step process in mind. But whatever is done, the identity of the Air Registration Board should not be lost in a larger complex. If it were, I think much more would be lost as well.
4.29 p.m.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, in rising to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, I should like to add my own thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, for introducing this Motion, and to make a short contribution to your Lordships' deliberations. I am hound to say that I found this Report something of an anti-climax. Months, indeed years, of preparation went by. In fact I was one of those who at one stage brought pressure on your Lordships' House—a pressure which I think, in retrospect, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, rightly resisted—for the Edwards Committee to produce an earlier Report than they were at that stage planning or, ultimately, did produce. However, when the Report was produced one rather felt as though one had been present while the elephant went into labour and gave birth to a mouse.
The Report calls itself, Air Transport in the 'Seventies, but I wonder whether it is not more of a historical examination of air transport in the '60s—indeed, I

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would pay tribute to the diligence of the Committee's research and to the vast mass of information that the Report gives. I am sure that it will be of great value to all of us in the industry, both now and in the years to come; and in that light perhaps my criticism of its title is unjustified. But I rather felt that the function of such a Committee is to produce concrete proposals, which to some extent surely they do. But I am hound to say that I find them disappointing.
I should like to consider these proposals shortly, and then to comment on one or two thoughts of my own. First, the proposal that aeronautical policy should be decreed periodically by Statutory Instrument I find, to put it bluntly, quite appalling—and perhaps I had better say no more, for fear of becoming un-Parliamentary. But the prospect of having every so often, a quite undefined period of time, suddenly to change course is to me quite unacceptable, and I hope the Government will resist that proposal when they come to publish their White Paper.
Secondly, there is the proposal to create a National Air Holdings Board which, in addition to controlling the bulk of the equity in the State Corporations, would apparently hold some of the equity in what they call a "second force" airline which they suggest should be created. Like other noble Lords, I can find little to recommend that proposal. It seems to me to be only a creation of bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy; and air transport has enough bureaucracy already. I do not suggest that we are at this stage overregulated. Of course we all accept that safety and traffic rights are matters which cannot be left to individual concern, to individual commercial judgment, although perhaps, in the last resort, in some cases they have to be. But, by and large, the present system, in which Lord Kings Norton's admirable organisation controls the safety of operations, or at least the safety of aircraft, the Board of Trade controls the safety of flight operations, as such, and the Air Transport Licensing Board controls the traffic rights and licensing of particular routes, is satisfactory. Those three elements in the system, although they may have individual defects, are quite acceptable at this stage, and ought to be allowed to continue.
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But to create a further vast monolithic organisation to have exclusive financial control of the State Corporations and an unspecified amount of financial control in the principal element of the independent sector seems to me unwise.
With regard to the Committee's suggestion to create this second force airline, I wonder whether "second force" is an entirety accurate description, since we already have three forces in the envisaged set-up; namely, B.O.A.C., B.E.A. and British Air Services. So I think perhaps it ought to be called the "fourth force". Whatever we call it, it seems to me to be perhaps less objectionable than the other two proposals, though it needs certain qualification. First, of course, the new force must have a viable route network; and this the Report accepts.
But secondly (and this I believe to be perhaps the most glaring omission from the Committee's Report), it must have access to sufficient funds. The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, said that he had been told that a possible candidate for the second force airline had told him that if they had a viable network they could go and get funds from the City. I have some experience of this, and I am hound to say that in general the institutions are unwilling to invest in aviation projects, particularly in the independent sector, although I accept that this may have been because hitherto, at least, a viable network has not been available to them. But there will need to be some radical changes of thinking in the City if a second force airline is to be able to obtain the very large quantities of money that will be required to purchase the new aircraft to meet the commitments which the force will be given on its creation. It may therefore be necessary for the second force airline, as it is called, to have access to Government money if it is to meet its obligations fully; and this, I should have thought, would make it so close to B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. as to call in question the need to create it at all.
The fourth proposal made by the Committee is for the creation of a Civil Aviation Authority, and this was dealt with at some length by the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton. I am bound to say that I thought that what he said made excellent sense because, like him, I should regard with great concern any threat to

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the present independence of the Air Registration Board, one of the few elements of the bureaucratic side of civil aviation at the present time that does not make a loss. I think its profit is fairly modest, but at least it keeps in the black, which is more than can be said for the Board of Trade Aviation Department, with particular reference, of course, to their air navigation services.
I should like now to consider briefly the particular proposal made by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, in relation to the Highlands and Islands. I am bound to say again that the suggestion to convert the whole operation away from fixed-wing aeroplanes to helicopters, with the apparent abandoning of all the radar and runway networks that have been created, sounds to me nonsense. I cannot imagine how we can operate without radar, what must be regular services, because the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, is surely deluding himself if he thinks that helicopters can operate in weather conditions in which fixed-wing aircraft cannot operate, or vice versa.
In my view, my Lords, the answer to this problem is to use short take-off aircraft, smaller aircraft than now in use, operating at a higher frequency, thus providing what I should have thought at present but spread out at more frequent intervals during the day, and so providing what I should have thought would be a better service than has hitherto been provided. B.E.A. have for years grumbled at having to continue the Highlands and Islands services at enormous loss, but one can understand their difficulties, because they are obliged to operate the services with the equipment they have, which I think is not really suitable for that sort of operation. There are a number of aeroplanes now being produced all of which, if operated correctly, could perhaps do a better job than is at present done by B.E.A. Viscounts. The Jetstream and Skyvan are obvious contenders.
Finally, I should like to make one further comment on the proposal that the State Corporations should be allowed to enter into the inclusive tour market. As we know. B.E.A. are about to operate a very substantial inclusive tour company from Gatwick, and for that purpose are proposing, we understand, to delegate
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their Comet fleet of aeroplanes and to start operations next summer. The Edwards Committee seem to accept this as a reasonable proposal but, like the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, I feel that this should be allowed only if the independents are given similar encouragement and additional licences on some of the cream of the scheduled routes. We know that B.E.A. have British United Airways as a competitor on the Belfast route and that until recently they had competition on the Glasgow route. I think competition remains on the Edinburgh route, but it is very restricted. British United and British Eagle (as they then were) had granted to them only a limited frequency for those operations, and it was hardly possible for them to operate a viable service on that basis. If now B.E.A. is going to branch out into the inclusive tour business on a substantial scale, it is only right that the independents should be given some encouragement on the cream of the scheduled services.
That is all I have to say. I was proposing to raise some query about the subsidy granted to B.E.A. and B.O.A.C. for the purchase of British aircraft. I understand, however, that the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, would prefer to deal with this matter on the Committee stage of the Air Corporations Bill, which we shall consider formally on Second Reading after this debate, and I will raise that matter then.
4.42 p.m.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, the greater part of the Edwards Report and the greater part of this debate have been spent, quite rightly, on an examination of the civil aviation industry and how to make it more efficient. I am not going to enter into that part of the argument, which has been so well discussed this afternoon, except to say that, like most members of the modern Labour Party, I am in favour of more competition wherever possible, and sometimes find that I am more in favour of it than noble Lords opposite. At any rate, I warmly welcome the suggested support given to the second force—that is a form of additional competition—and I warmly welcome some of the easing up of price restrictions which are referred to in the Report.
In particular, I want to talk about two paragraphs along these lines. The first,

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is the much vexed question of Provision I, under which inclusive tour operators are forced to charge more than they would want to, or need to, in order to protect the fares on scheduled flights which are agreed upon by the International Air Transport Association. It is clear to anybody who is trying to watch things from the point of view of the consumer that this is a blatantly restrictive practice which must be viewed with the greatest suspicion. Such attempts to avoid economic reality may often lead to sheer silliness, and this is no exception.
If you want to make up a group to charter an aeroplane at the reduced price which capacity allows, it is not enough to get together a number of people who all want to go to the same place; you must show that they have some other interest in common. You must show that they are what is called an "affinity group"—an archeological society, a women's institute or something of that kind, which has really nothing to do with the need to travel. Of course, the result is deceit and mockery, because the difference in fare is so big that people are prepared to go to great lengths to get the reduction. My daughter the other day went to the United States and back for £80. The scheduled flight fare is, I think, £170. I do not know what affinity she claimed, but any system which invites evasion in that way and ignores the realities of economic needs should, in my opinion, be looked at closely.
The Edwards Committee have looked closely at Provision 1, in paragraph 704 and the 30 paragraphs which follow. They explain why some protection and regulation is necessary if the regular scheduled flights which link the parts of the world together to-day are not to be undermined. As a farmer, I have a good deal of sympathy with managed markets and maintained prices, and I do not take the extreme view that regulation in certain circumstances of this kind is necessarily wrong. The Committee certainly have fully recognised the absurdity of the present rules, which may end, as they say, in people with blue eyes qualifying for reduced rates; and they poke quiet fun at the mystical definitions of distances which are elaborated in trying to define affinity groups.
Their final recommendation that such means of protecting scheduled services
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should be maintained only on routes where the scheduled services are worth protecting is admirable and I give it full support. The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, referred to it earlier. My only wonder is whether it might not have be en a stronger and more effective decision if they had recommended the abolition altogether of Provision 1, with the proviso that it would be reinstated on certain lines where the scheduled services were particularly vulnerable. It is extremely important that the huge economies which the coming of jumbo-jets ought to bring should be passed on to the traveller, and not dissipated in a vain attempt to protect existing fares.
The only other point I wish to refer to is the question of protecting the customer from the financial failure of tour promoters. The Committee refer to this in paragraph 719. They say, rightly that this protection need not depend on price regulation. The Association of British Travel Agents have a scheme called "Operation Stabiliser", and that has gone some way to meet the need, but I agree with the Committee that it is unlikely to be a complete answer to this problem, particularly as I understand that its funds have been severely eroded recently through a number of failures. The Committee say that it may be necessary for the Authority to require inclusive tour licence holders to put up a bond, regulated to the size of their tour programme. I feel certain that that is necessary, and I am sorry that the Committee said only that it may be. I should like to see such provision made compulsory and extended to all holiday travel, not only by air. A further possibility might be to set up a compulsory insolvency indemnity scheme for the whole travel trade. There are, I believe, firms in the City which do business of this kind, and the Consumer Council has been assured that there will be no particular difficulty in arranging it.
I do not apologise for bringing in these rather detailed matters to to-clay's debate, because I honestly think that this is what the whole subject is about. It is no good having a very elaborately organised and highly efficient industry if you do not leave enough competition to let the customer take advantage of the fact and of the possibilities of the savings through modern development. My Lords, apart from these two quite mild criticisms, I

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personally support the recommendations. I am glad that they have been so well received to-day, particularly by both Front Benches, and I hope that we shall shortly see Government action upon the Report.
4.48 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, I should like to add my thanks, along with other noble Lords, to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, for moving his Motion to-day on the Edwards Report. I would also add my congratulations to him, both for the timing of this debate and for the clear, lucid and concise way in which he introduced it. Having listened to the other noble Lords who have followed him, I think that the noble Lord has some grounds for feeling a little satisfied with the way the debate has gone.
As we have already heard this afternoon, the eagerly awaited Edwards Report has been given, perhaps understandably, a mixed reception. Its recommendations cover a number of delicate areas of the industry, and for that reason have proved, not surprisingly, contentious. The trade union side of the N.J.C. has described it as "an old-fashioned" Report and a "doctrinaire document aimed at creating wasteful competition." The Chairman of B.E.A. has described it as "inconsistent", and (I think this was his personal view) has rejected outright two of its major recommendations. Others in the industry have been more welcoming.
But despite the mixed reception the Report has received, every shade of opinion, I am sure, will agree that the Edwards Report is a most valuable analysis and record of the industry, compiled by a Committee who have been shown to be extremely hardworking and thorough in their investigations; who have travelled the world in search of comparative industries; who have taken evidence from no fewer than 167 United Kingdom individual and corporate witnesses; from 37 foreign witnesses, from Government Departments to independent authorities, spreading over 10 countries, and who have clearly attempted to produce a Report balancing both the good of the industry, on the one hand, with the
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good of the country, on the other. For this reason I should like to join with other noble Lords in expressing our thanks to the Edwards Committee and to its Chairman, Sir Ronald Edwards.
Perhaps to some of us the most important general observation made early on in the Report (and I think the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, mentioned this) is that the industry at the present time is in a fairly healthy condition, and that nothing calls, we are told, for really urgent surgery. Having said that, the Report rightly warns us that the industry is bound up in a flexible and changing world, in a fast expanding and fiercely competitive market; and that if it is to retain its impetus and virility, and to hold on to, and even increase, its share of the world markets it must be given the right framework, to include both a clear policy and the right conditions in which to work. Both these prerequisites, of course, lie in the hands of the Government. The ball is now firmly in their court, along with the long-term future prosperity of the industry.
Other noble Lords have already touched on the four main recommendations of the Report: the National Air Holdings Board; the second force; the Civil Aviation Authority; and the domestic route operators under B.A.S. I think it would be true to say of the first of these principal recommendations, the setting up of this new National Air Holdings Board, that this concept has received, both from the industry and from many noble Lords to-day, very little enthusiasm—and indeed, from many quarters, positive hostility. In fairness to the Edwards Committee, I should say that when examining the problem in depth they gave three possible choices to achieve one essential objective, that of obtaining more co-operation between the two Air Corporations without actually merging them into one.
The choice the Committee selected, the National Air Holdings Board, did not by any means appear an automatic choice; in fact, the Committee themselves appeared to be somewhat diffident about it, saying that its success or failure rested largely upon the wisdom of the new Board's members; that is, the wisdom not to interfere with the existing management and yet at the same time to be

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directly concerned—and I quote here from paragraph 531:
"with major strategy of the airlines, the quality of their management, financing and investment …"
A slightly conflicting responsibility, many of us may feel. The reaction of the two Air Corporations, as we well know, is understandably critical on this recommendation. The Chairman of B.E.A. is on record as saying:
"Such new superstructure would create a serious weakening and undermining of the management of the Corporation".
Others of us to-day see it perhaps as the first inevitable step to a merger between the two Corporations as surely as night follows day. Both these criticisms, to my mind, have weight, and the birth of the National Air Holdings Board seems a stiff price to pay for closer collaboration.
The problem of collaboration between the two Air Corporations is not, of course, a new one; indeed, as we see from the Report it has been with the Corporations for the last 24 years. The Airlines Joint Chairmen's Committee was set up many years ago to work out the areas of cooperation. Progress has not been barren and the result of their work, we see, has been the setting up of a joint medical centre, a joint pilot training college, a joint pensions scheme, and a joint hostels scheme, amongst other things. The question, of course, that strikes one forcibly on reading this Report is why, in practice, this Joint Chairmen's Committee could not now expand into further areas of co-operation, into the grassy fields which the Edwards Committee see are waiting to be grazed. Such areas as marketing, route patterns, computer programming, hotels—these are but a few examples the Report quoted. Is it a sound argument to say that, just because progress of co-operation over the past years has been slow, it could not be quickened if the Joint Committee were given the proper directive?
May I turn briefly to the question of a merger between the two Air Corporations? The Committee are, I think, to be congratulated on the clarity with which they set out the pros and cons of a merger. The fact that they came down firmly against a merger, and that this only confirmed what previous Committees had
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concluded in the past, will I hope convince the Government that more would be lost than would be gained by a merger. The two fundamental conclusions which the Committee reached on this point, and which must persuade many cirtics in this matter, are first, that size does not necessarily mean greater efficiency in the airline business, and, second, that the identities of both B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. are too valuable to be lost. I hope very much that the Government will reach an early decision on this point and so remove what must be a running sore for the Corporations.
The second major recommendation of the Report, the creation of a second force, has already been covered pretty fully in the debate. This proposition opens up the fundamental question of what is to be the future role of the independents in civil air transport. Are they to gain a more viable share of the scheduled services, while perhaps giving away a share of their inclusive tour market—a market, one must remember, which they created and built up so vigorously—or, as we have already heard, are the Corporations to be allowed to hang on to the 90 per cent. of the lucrative scheduled services whilst at the same time being allowed to enter vigorously into the charter market? Are the Edwards Committee right when they call for fair play between the two sections of the industry? In my view, they certainly are.
The recommendation by the Edwards Committee of the creation of a second force is, of course, entering into an area of sensitivity. The Committee in their Report built up, I believe, a pretty convincing case that the formation of a second force would be to the overall benefit, in both the short-term and the long-term future of the industry, and this surely is the ultimate criterion for judgment. They have reached the conclusion, with some confidence, that there is room now for this second force. And, who knows? in this fast expanding industry by the turn of the century there may well be room for yet a third force. The conclusion which the Committee reached cannot have been an easy one, in face of the opposition from the Air Corporations. The Committee have clearly studied the route patterns with some care; have assessed the minimum requirements that a viable second force

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would require, and have judged the effect it would have on the Air Corporations.
The success or failure of this second force, as my noble friend Lord Jellicoe has already said, lies partly in two areas: first, it must be granted a viable route structure, and secondly it must be in a position to invest in the new generation aircraft of the 1970's. As my noble friend has emphasised, this capital investment in these new generation aircraft amounts to a considerable sum: I believe that for the second force it has been estimated at between £70 million and £80 million. Clearly, such an investment can be attracted into this second force only if it can be shown that it is a viable proposition.
The recommendation of the creation of the second force was partly motivated, or so we are told in the Report, by a sense of fair play—fair play, that is to say, to those independents who have ventured in the past in British aviation; who have risked capital to pioneer and build up the charter market. Fair play between the Air Corporations and the independents is, of course, a matter of considerable concern among the independents. So far as the independents are concerned, the Air Corporations appear to be rapidly declaring war on them. Not only do they apparently wish to block any encroachment into the scheduled service market, but they are now setting up to compete in the hitherto independent field of the charter market. Fair competition is something to which few of us would object; but, to the independents, commercial competition with the Air Corporations is very much a one-sided affair.
It is pointed out that the Air Corporations have a considerable pecuniary advantage—an advantage, for instance, in the writing off of over £2 million of accumulated losses over the last five years; an advantage in receiving capital loans at 5½ per cent. instead of at the market rate of, say, 12 per cent.; an advantage of receiving subsidies for operating British aircraft similar to those operated by the independents. Such a situation, which in practice amounts to a commercial feather-bedding of the Air Corporations, must be one good and sound reason to support the creation of the second force.
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The third major recommendation by the Committee, of the setting up of a Civil Aviation Authority, has already been dealt with in some detail. In general, the Committee's case for setting up this new central body to co-ordinate policy and prevent overlapping, appears, on the face of it, to be a very strong one. A strong aviation Authority, ready to negotiate international traffic rights, to promote British aviation, to co-ordinate the many and various airports and to include a strengthened independent A.T.L.B. within it, appears very attractive. The only doubt about this proposal which I now have, after listening to the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, and to his persuasive and powerful argument is whether the A.R.B. should be included in this new body.
The noble Lord's intervention this afternoon, which I am sure we all welcomed and valued, introduced what appeared to be two very powerful arguments in favour of retaining the A.R.B.'s independence. The first was its present financial independence and the value of that; and the second was the potential incompatibility between the technical and the economic functions. This latter argument is supported in practice by the Americans. I personally feel that both of those arguments have merit, and I trust that the Government will give careful consideration to what the noble Lord has said this afternoon.
The important and firm conclusions reached by the Edwards Committee about the charter market, the inclusive tour market, are obviously ones to which the Government must pay particular attention. As we see from various tables in the Report, the past growth rate in this area has been very rapid and the future growth looks all set to continue to spiral. If the Committee are right in their forecast this side of the industry will soon be vying with the scheduled services for a major role.
The Committee's proposals to allow a more liberal licensing policy while at the same time keeping out the undesirables by applying rigorously certain qualifications of financial strength and safety are, I believe, sound. The examination by the Committee of the workings of Provision I, as the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, has mentioned, and the effect which it

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is now having on certain charter routes was perhaps a revelation to some of us who have never understood the finances of package tours. The suggestion to modify Provision I further, and even to abolish it on certain routes where the growth rate is at its greatest, is a suggestion which the Government must study with some care. The pitfalls of adopting such a course are obvious, but, equally, the benefits to the market and to the public will be very substantial.
The fourth major recommendation of the Committee, the development of the regional airlines for domestic routes under the umbrella of the B.A.S., is again a very important one. I like the concept of the regional airlines operating from local airports; but whether they should all be under the umbrella of the B.A.S. is, again, perhaps open to argument. I believe that the licensing must be strong, and a reasonable period of time—I suggest 10 years—is required in order to give the independent carrier a period of stability.
On the question of the unprofitable local services, the view of the Report that these should be operated with the help of an open subsidy from the public purse, and not hidden in cross-subsidies, will meet with many supporters. The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Enchrye, mentioned specifically the Highlands and Islands services, and, as we all know, he is a great supporter of helicopters. If those could be proved economic—and I must say that I was a little surprised when he said that the Isles of Scilly service is economic, because I understood that the North Sea gas contract—
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I said that it made an operational profit, not an overall profit.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: In any case, my Lords, if helicopters could be proved economic, I am sure they would act as a very good substitute. But I wonder how often those helicopters will be able to operate in the Scottish mists in winter. I would favour the use of the Britten-Norman Islander on some of those routes, rather than the Viscount which B.E.A. at present operates and which for most of the year must be operating with a very low load factor.
I shall conclude by saying that, however the critics may describe the Report, it
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must be considered a most valuable analysis of civil air transport. It weighs up for us most skilfully the balance of choices in the various fields. It reminds us that the industry is both competitive and expanding. It exhorts us to have a clear but flexible policy. It exposes certain weaknesses in the system at present, and it makes certain other recommendations. But, above all, it reminds us, as other noble Lords have said, that the principal objective of the industry is that you and I together should be the people who matter. Along with others, I think that that is a very worthy objective.
5.8 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am sure that the Edwards Committee which laboured very hard and very intensively in this field, must be gratified at what has been said about the results of their labours; that is to say, of course. with the one possible exception of what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne. We have had a useful discussion, and I thank all noble Lords for the constructive attitude which they have displayed. May I also take this opportunity of expressing appreciation at the ready agreement which I received before we started, to the proposal that we should take the Second Reading of the Air Corporations Bill formally, in order not to diffuse this debate, on the understanding, of course, that any particular points arising from that Bill can be raised at later stages.
As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said, I myself have every reason to be satisfied with the way the discussion—and it has been a discussion rather than a debate—has gone. There have been differences of detail, with a different point of view about certain parts of the Report, but by and large we have all had the same general approach. I am glad that the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, emphasised what he called the open-mindedness of the Edwards Committee, which I take it is another way of saying what I said, that it is a fair-minded Report. I hope, too, that he will accept my point, that the very fair-mindedness or open-mindedness of the Committee, and the careful balancing of the arguments, means that it is a little more difficult to come Sown on one side or the other. It is only right, because of the details which they have exposed and the very careful and fair way in which they have balanced all the

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arguments, that there should be proper consideration before coming to any final conclusion.
I was especially interested in the support which the noble Earl gave to the idea of a new statutory Authority for decision-taking in the future in this field. I only wish the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, had been here last night—if I may have the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale, for one moment—when we were discussing the new statutory Authority which we propose to establish in the Post Office, so that he might have lent us the benefit of his very weighty support in the arguments which I tried to advance against those put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Erroll.
My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, had something to say about the idea of back-seat driving in connection with this idea of a holding board over the present two Corporations. I quite agree with him. This is a criticism which can be sustained, and it is one which is now being put by a number of people and, of course, not least by the two Corporations themselves. On the other hand, I should have liked him to give some thought to the possibility of a holding board which was a true analogy to that existing in private enterprise: not back-seat driving by any means, not sitting in the sort of uncomfortable posture which he indicated, but quite potent people able to take decisions, able really to control the two executive divisions beneath them. This is another conception; this is a development of the idea of a holding authority. It is not one which necessarily commends itself to my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade, but it is one the merits of which I should have liked to have heard ventilated in this House.
The noble Earl looks rather puzzled. I was thinking of the possibility of a holding board composed in part of outside people, underneath which there would be two executive boards, two executive managerial teams, each with responsibility for a division which would be separately accountable and the results of whose work would be seen in the same clear way as that in which we can now judge the activities of B.E.A. or B.O.A.C. In this kind of set-up, the
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Hardies and the Milwards would sit on the holding board and not on the executive boards below.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, but he said I was looking puzzled. I am afraid that it was just the laborious process of thought working itself out. I had in fact given some consideration to the concept which he has advanced, but it seems to me that the analogy with private industry is not really accurate because if, in private industry, you have a set of companies with a holding company on top of it, that company is able to exercise authority. The trouble here is that there will be yet another authority on top of the holding board, and that will be the Minister. It will just be an extra washer, to use the term which I think Sir Anthony Milward has applied. But if it is not that, if it is going to be really potent, with potent people upon it, then I very much doubt that they will use the loose rein that Edwards has described; and it seems to me, then, that the logic of that would be working towards amalagamation—the amalgamation which Edwards has dismissed. It seems to me that there is a dilemma here, and you will sit on this dilemma as long as you have the board.
LORD BESWICK: There are complications here, I quite agree, and I am not suggesting that this is a proposal which is necessarily going to be followed up. I simply say that here is another possibility which one would have liked to have heard discussed in this House.
The noble Earl also had something to say about the possibility of the Corporations, in return for their stake in the inclusive tour field, giving up part of their scheduled routes. He seemed to think that it was proper, if the Corporations went into the I.T. field, that the tour operators should be allowed a share of the present or future traffic of the Corporations. I am not sure that this necessarily follows at all. Indeed, one of the points which comes out very clearly in the Report is that it is very difficult now to draw a clear dividing line between the charter field, the inclusive tour field, and the scheduled services. Another factor which also emerges from the Report is that those independent companies which concentrate exclusively on charter and inclusive tour work are

1105
in fact among the most profitable. So it is not necessary to compensate them, as it were, with scheduled services if the Corporations engage in the inclusive tour market.
But the point I make here—and it is one which I tried to make earlier—is that this is precisely the kind of thing which ought not to be decided in general in a Chamber of this kind, or even in a political assembly of any kind. This is precisely the sort of thing which ought to be looked at by professional people in the sort of atmosphere in which some people envisage the new Aviation Authority would operate. The decision should be taken on particular routes; not as a matter of political principle but as a matter of statistical judgment, as to what would benefit British air transport in relation to a given route.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, missed out of his historical account of the Air Registration Board the Helmore Committee, which was established just after the war to review the constitution of the A.R.B. I was hoping that he might have made some reference to that because I have such happy memories of sitting on it for some weeks; and since that time I have paid particularly close attention to the work of the Board over which he now presides.
LORD KINGS NORTON: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord to say that I had to leave out many things or I should have been too long-winded; but it was the Helmore Committee which really stimulated the Air Registration Board into financial independence.
LORD BESWICK: I thought we had improved it to some extent. I doubt whether I can say more about the future of the Air Registration Board, and the noble Lord will quite understand. I simply say again that the considerations he put forward are very much in the mind of my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade, and they will be taken into account before any decision is made.
The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, was not quite so happy about the Report as a whole. He said he found the prospect of a Statutory Instrument to deal with policy in the future as quite appalling, and he asked to be excused from
1106
not using stronger language. He had no need to use stronger language. Both the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, and myself had said that we thought there were better ways to deal with this, and I think that on that point, at any rate, the noble Lord can rest secure. I was a little surprised that he should have gone on to say that there is an advantage in an organisation of the A.R.B. type because it makes a profit, as distinct (he said) from the Board of Trade, which did not make a profit. We shall bear in mind what the noble Lord says when we come to consider in the future Orders relating to airport charges. My recollection is that every time we have discussed these matters in the past the noble Lord has criticised any increase in rates. I take it that from now on if there is a claim for an economic charge he will support it.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, put the Corporations' case for separate identity very persuasively. I am not sure whether he gave sufficient weight to the arguments advanced by the Committee for the holdings board. Nevertheless, what he said on this matter will certainly be considered. He emphasised very forcefully the need for fair competition as between private enterprise operators and publicly-owned operators. Certainly I should not try to argue in favour of unfair competition; but the difficulty here, in the context of the national interest and the customer's interest, is to decide in any given circumstance what is fair and what is unfair. Here again I suggest to him and to the House that these are questions which can beat be examined by the proposed civil aviation Authority.
I should have liked to have heard a little more about the possible directive which might be given to the proposed C.A.B. This seems to me an important factor and it would have been good to have had a little more guidance on that. I should have liked to have heard views expressed about that. But, apart from that, I think that we have covered most aspects of the Report very fully and very fairly. Again, I offer my thanks to all noble Lords who have taken part and especially to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, who put down the Motion.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I will not stand between the House

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and further business for more than one moment. I wish only to thank those noble Lords from various quarters of the House who have taken part in the debate to-day and to say that one of the purposes of the debate has been fulfilled: the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has heard a lot of different views, which is what he asked for. With regard to the other purpose of the debate, hearing what the Government have to say, my mind can only go to the words of that great statesman the leader of the silent and absent Liberal Party to-day: "Wait and see". My Lords, we wait and we hope we shall see. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

AIR CORPORATIONS BILL
Read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS BILL
5.26 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ROYLE in the Chair.]
Clause 20 [Orders for committal to care of local authorities]:
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 24, line 33, leave out from ("(a)") to ("attains") in line 36, and insert ("when the person to whom it relates").
The noble Baroness said: Under the present law approved school orders run for three years if the boy is not above the age of 16. If he is above the age of 16 they continue until the age of 19. If under the present law a child is com-
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mitted under a fit person order to the care of a local authority that order expires when the child reaches the age of 18. The Bill abolishes approved school orders and fit person orders, and the Government have adopted the approved school precedent in fixing the duration of care orders. It would be far more sensible to terminate care orders at 18 with the possibility of extension as provided in Clause 21.
I would remind the Committee that only a few months ago the Government brought forward a Bill to lower the age of majority from 21 to 18 and to allow voting at 18. The case which the Government put forward for this was that to-day everyone is mature at 18. Yet they are now proposing that 18-year-olds should remain under the care of a local authority for an extra year, until they are 19. Quite frankly, it does not make sense to me. I hope that the Government will not quote the Latey Report in support of the strange things they are doing. The Latey Report stated that nothing that they recommended was to be taken as applying to the criminal law. What we are discussing has nothing to do with the criminal law; these are civil proceedings. This Amendment offers the Government a way of getting out of what will otherwise be an absurdity. I beg to move.
LORD STONHAM: There are two favourable features about the Amendment which has just been moved by the noble Baroness. One is that it was moved with her customary brevity and the other that she gave me some engaging and helpful advice—advice which I do not intend to take. But I understand that we are dealing only with Amendment 28 and not with No. 29. Amendment No. 28 would telescope paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (3) of this clause together to read:
"A care order shall cease to have effect when the person to whom it relates attains the age of eighteen".
As the Bill stands, Clause 20 provides that a care order made before the 16th birthday shall expire on the 18th birthday unless previously revoked by the court or extended by the court to the 19th birthday. The care order made after the 16th birthday lasts until the 19th birthday unless previously revoked. Under the Amendment moved by the noble Baroness, a care order will expire

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on the 18th birthday even if made after the 16th birthday, unless extended under Clause 21(1).
A care order is not a sentence. Its object is care, treatment and control. This fact is basic to all the provisions of the Bill about care orders, including, in particular, Clause 20. Two important consequences flow from this basic fact. The first is that the length of time for which care, treatment or control under a care order is required is bound to vary from one case to another. I hope the noble Baroness will agree that it cannot possibly be foreseen with certainty at the time the order is made. It is essential therefore, in the Government's view, that the law should allow sufficient time for treatment, and sufficient flexibility to vary the actual length of each order according to the circumstances of the individual child. The whole of this Bill is geared to the needs of the individual child.
The agency made responsible for the treatment of the child must be given the necessary powers to carry out that responsibility in accordance with its assessment of the needs of the child. It cannot sensibly be made subject to the dictates of some outside body which has neither the responsibility for the care and control of the child nor the detailed knowledge of the child which is essential to the proper fulfilment of that responsibility. A court is not a treatment agency: its proper function is judicial—that is, to decide whether circumstances justify the making of a care order in the first place, and to decide whether to revoke the order if an application is made by the child, his parents or the local authority.
The short reason why this Amendment is not acceptable is that it is in conflict with this principle. It would make the care order less flexible and less apt for its purpose, and in this way would reduce the power of a local authority to do its job and to fulfil the responsibility placed upon it by the order. The noble Baroness referred to the fact that the age of majority is now 18; that it has been argued previously that everybody is mature at the age of 18—the new age of majority—and the inference from that is that the maximum here should be 18, as she desires in her Amendment, unless extended under Clause 21(1).
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I can understand the noble Baroness hoping that the Government will not quote the Latey Committee Report, because that Report, far from supporting the point of view which the noble Baroness has put forward, is really against it. The Committee said:
"The general capacity of young people to order their own personal affairs should not affect the criminal or penal field since"—
and this is the important part of it—
"it is the irresponsible, the disturbed and the inadequate who become involved in anti-social behaviour and law-breaking regardless of chronological age."
The Government agree with this. The age of majority is not really relevant to the issues raised by this Amendment. The reasons why Clause 20 provides for a care order to last until the 19th birthday, if made at the age of 16, are clearly given in paragraph 34 of Children in Trouble. If the Bill did not provide this, a care order made when a young person was nearly 17 would last for only just over a year. I submit to the Committee that in many cases this just would not be long enough for the treatment which the child required. The length of treatment required does not automatically diminish as a young person approaches his or her 17th birthday; and if the aim of the care order is to provide the treatment required, which it is, and if that aim is to be realised, the law should allow at least two years in all cases.
The noble Baroness referred, quite properly, to the possibility of an extension under Clause 21(1). This could be done only in very limited circumstances, that is, the circumstances of a young person's mental condition or behaviour. They are the only circumstances in which Clause 21(1) allows a care order to be extended to the 19th birthday. I think it would be wholly wrong that this power should be widely, and perhaps improperly, used to secure extensions of care orders made after the 16th birthday, as would be the case it this Amendment were accepted. We submit that it is far preferable that the law should allow sufficient time for treatment in the first place.
It should be remembered that under the present law, as the noble Baroness will be well aware, a juvenile court dealing with a 16-year-old has the option of making an approved school order which I lasts up to the 19th birthday. Under

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the provisions of this Bill that option will disappear. One of the reasons for the very powerful general support which was expressed, in comments not only on the last White Paper and on this Bill, but on the first White Paper, for the idea of abolishing the approved school order, was the rigid time limit attached to approved school orders which have a fixed maximum term and a normal minimum. Provided that there are adequate safeguards—we believe that there are full safeguards—a more flexible care order is much preferable because it allows a longer period of care where necessary and also (and this is important) an earlier return home where justified as compared with the present approved school order.
Under Clause 21 the child, his parent or guardian, or the local authority may apply to the court at any time for the discharge of an order and may repeat the application after three months if it was not successful the first time. This is a safeguard which does not exist in the case of approved school orders. Another safeguard is contained in Clause 25(4) which requires a local authority to review the case of every child in care at intervals of not less than six months, and, if a care order is in force, to consider whether to make an application for the discharge of the order. Yet a further safeguard will be laid down in regulations made under Clause 41. They will require more frequent reviews where children are in secure accommodation and will require the reviews to be conducted by a committee containing at least one independent person.
Care orders under the provisions in the Bill as we have them will be a continuation of a well-established system under which many thousands of children have been dealt with over many years; and it combines the advantages of flexibility with built-in safeguards for the child and parents. I submit to the noble Baroness that this Amendment is not necessary as a safeguard and that, if accepted, it would reduce the flexibility of the care order and cut across the safeguards now in the Bill. In view of this careful explanation which I have given, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the Amendment.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: May I ask the noble Lord to clarify a
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point which he has just made? I think he said that the cases would be reviewed every six months. As he knows, when a child is put on probation the probation case committee reviews the case periodically during the course of the year. Can the noble Lord explain this to me? Will there be two types of reviewing committee? If a child is put on probation, will the probation case committee deal with the child? If the child is put direct under the supervision of the local authority, what reviewing committee will the local authority set up, and how will these two interact and work together?
LORD STONHAM: I was speaking just now of the approved school order and comparing it with the new system. As the noble Baroness rightly said, there will be an automatic review of the case of each child in care every six months and this will be conducted by the local authority.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: Does that mean a special committee of the children's committee, or what sort of committee?
LORD STONHAM: It is a committee set up by the local authority which, as the noble Baroness surmises, will in all probability be a special committee of the children's committee. The exception to this will be when a child is in secure care under arrangements made or approved by the Secretary of State. Then in the case of a review there must be a totally independent person present, so that no child is kept in care of that kind unless the independent person is thoroughly satisfied that it is right.
EARL JELLICOE: I wonder whether I may come back to the point which my noble friend has raised? I think she was referring to the fact that when children are placed under probation orders there is an automatic review, which I think involves the magistrates, but I do not know. I should like to bring to the attention of the noble Lord the procedure which obtains at present in Oxfordshire and which has been brought to my attention. It has, I think, a great deal to commend it. It is a procedure by which the child care officers and members of their staff meet at six-monthly intervals with the magistrates to review all fit person orders and supervision orders within their jurisdiction.

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Therefore, every child who has been placed under a supervision order or a fit person order under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court has his or her case subjected to a review which is a really independent review; it is not merely a review within the children's department or some internal review. It is a review by the magistrates and the children's department staff. I understand that this experiment has gone very well, and both sides have found it a very useful expedient. Could not this system be introduced and extended? It seems to me to have a great deal to commend it, and since we have reached this point I wonder whether the noble Lord could let us have his views on it.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, on the question of probation orders, which the noble Baroness introduced for the purpose of comparison (because under the Bill there will be supervision orders), it will be for the court to decide whether or not the probation officer is used as a supervisor.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? This is the point that troubles me. Paragraph 12 says that a child may be put under a probation order by the court only with the consent of the local authority—personally I think that that is a pity. but never mind. If that is the case, there will be two sets of review committees: the probation case committee of the probation office and the other. I should have thought that some sort of amalgamation, such as the noble Earl has suggested, is necessary.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I think the Committee will agree with me that we are not on this point at the moment, but in any case I think the noble Baroness is wrong. The position under the Bill is that a child under 14 will be supervised by a probation officer only if the local authority consents and if that probation officer is dealing with the family now or has been dealing with it in the past. I cannot see how this question of who is supervisor affects the six-monthly review and the body by whom this review is conducted.
The noble Earl cited the Oxfordshire Committee. Certainly the local authority will be responsible for the new body,
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and I think we can be reasonably confident that it would not be just members of the children's department who would decide these things. I am glad to say that I know something of the quite remarkable work that has been done in Oxfordshire in recent years by the means which the noble Earl has described. He could hardly have raised a more "bull" point for the whole Bill than what has been achieved in Oxfordshire, where, precisely for the reason he stated, there has been a marked and steady drop in approved school orders made by the court and a corresponding marked rise in the work done by the care officers and the local authority. Obviously, this practice in Oxfordshire is excellent and must be studied by other local authorities, which, because of the results, ought to be predisposed towards it. But I have to say that the actual methods followed by individual local authorities are matters for the authorities.
This discussion does not seem to have much direct relevance to the Amendment which the noble Baroness moved. The issue is simply this. We want it to be possible, when a young person is just under 17 and a care order is made, for that order to continue to 19. The noble Baroness wants it to end in all cases at 18, subject only to the possibility of extension under Clause 21(1), which could be only because of the mental health or behaviour of the young person. We do not think that that extension is sufficient.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, the noble Lord said that I had made a "bull" point for the Bill, but I am not concerned with making "bull" points. I drew attention to what was being done in Oxfordshire because the noble Lord himself, in answer to my noble friend, raised the question of review machinery and agreed that it was useful. I raised it precisely because the noble Lord referred to all the safeguards and mentioned, in particular, that this six-monthly review procedure has been written into the Bill. What concerns us is whether these safeguards are adequate, because we doubt whether this is so with an entirely internal review of this sort. That is why I mentioned the procedure at Oxfordshire where the review is conducted by the staff concerned and the magistrates, thereby bringing in an outside independent body.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for the care with which he has answered my Amendment. It was a probing Amendment. I was anxious to find out what was in the Government's mind about this point. To quote his own words, he gave it most careful consideration. I am most grateful to him, and now beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.46 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE EARL JELLICOE moved Amendment No. 29:
Page 24, line 37, at end insert—
("Provided that no order shall remain in force for more than three years, but without prejudice to the power of the court to make a further order.")
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment is linked with the subject we have just been discussing. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, congratulated himself and the Government on having been able to bring into the Bill a procedure which had the twin advantages of flexibility and adequate safeguards. I do not dissent from the first point. I think that this is a more flexible machinery, and provided that the safeguards are adequate, I am very much in favour of this. What worries me, and many other people, is whether the safeguards are adequate.
We must remember that as a result of this legislation care orders will be more frequent than in the past, and the range they will cover, and the responsibilities that will be placed on local authorities, will be wider. I am going to tread delicately here, and what I am saying is subject to correction; but my understanding of the position is this. Under the present position, which will obtain until this Bill becomes a Statute a child or young person can be sent to an approved school only if an approved school order had been obtained. In the case of a child or young person in care, if those supervising him find him too unruly, and that some other form of treatment is necessary; and if they come to the conclusion that the best thing is for that child to go to an approved school, there is no question of the child's going to an approved school without a further application to the court.
In future, of course—and I am not quarrelling with this—there will be no
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approved schools as such: they will be absorbed into the community school complex. But in practice, of course, they, or something like them, will for quite a long time still exist under another name, although not de jure or by name. Under the Bill as it stands, a local authority with a child in care would not need to obtain an approved school order, or to go back to the court, if it decided that a child entrusted to it needed more secure, more formal supervision. This is clearly implied in Clause 24(2), under which the local authority will not only have the power of a parent or guardian but will be able also to restrict the liberty of the child or young person concerned "to such extent as the authority considers appropriate". That is fairly wide phraseology. The local authority will be in a position to exercise these very wide powers for anything up to eight years. That is not a short period in a young person's life. What worries me is that it will rest largely with the local authority itself, within a department of the local authority, perhaps with one person, whether that child remains in care for the whole of that long period.
It is true, as the noble Lord has pointed out, that under Clause 25(4) provision is made for six-monthly reviews of the case to be made to see whether a particular care order should be discharged. But I wonder whether this is really a sufficient safeguard. Most children's departments are extremely conscientious, as I know, speaking from personal experience, and so are almost all children's officers. But everybody in this world is fallible, and some people are less conscientious than others. Mistakes can be made—and we have all seen the Hammersmith case which was reported in the Press yesterday. There could be cases—I would not wish to put it higher than that—with this purely internal review procedure, in which the procedure for review could be operated in a purely mechanical and perfunctory way. Again, the children's officer concerned may well have an idée fixe about the children. It is not only children who get an idée fixe; adults do, too. They might judge that it was in the child's best interest to remain in care, when quite conceivably some other person, equally qualified, or perhaps more qualified, might take another view.
There is, indeed, another side of the coin. In certain cases a child may be

1117
remaining in care against the strong wishes of the child, and it might help the local authority to have the reinforcement of a further order. I know that an application to the court for the review of a court order can be made under subsection (2) of Clause 21 by the child, his parent or guardian. It was argued in another place—and the noble Lord has reverted to the argument—that this constitutes an additional safeguard. I recognise that it is some safeguard, but I wonder whether it is really a sufficient safeguard. Take the case of a child making an application. We all know that many children have a keen sense of justice—some of them, in fact, are embryonic barrack-room lawyers. Do we really expect every person affected in this way, placed under a care order, to carry the precise wording of subsection (2) of Clause 21 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 in his head? One only has to ask the question to see the absurdity of it. Most of us in this House—and we have been looking at this Bill now for some time—have a great deal of difficulty in understanding all the provisions, and it is surely asking a lot of a child to carry them in his head.
Take an application by the parent or guardian. The noble Lord has argued that this again is an additional safeguard. I admit that it is. But is it a sufficient safeguard? The parent or guardian may have moved from the area, and may have forgotten all about the child. Indeed, even by definition, the parent or guardian concerned is likely to be an unsatisfactory parent or guardian; they may not care about the child, and even if it was in the child's best interests for that parent or guardian to make an application to the court for a review of the care order, there is absolutely no guarantee that it will be done. I doubt, therefore, whether that particular safeguard is entirely adequate. Indeed, even with well-intentioned parents, they may not know their full rights here; they may not have it brought to their attention either by the child care officers concerned or by the magistrates (this does happen) that they have this right of application.
In these circumstances, given the number of child care orders which are likely to be enforced; given the range of treatment which they are likely to cover;
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given the fact that I cannot feel any certainty that the internal safeguard, she internal review procedure, is a sufficient one—and likewise I, at least, can feel no certainty that the safeguard of applications triggered off by the local authority, the child, his parent or guardian can, in all the circumstances, be a sufficient safeguard—is there not a case for an independent review at three-yearly intervals by an independent body? This would mean that the particular child concerned could not remain in care for more than three years without the local authority having to go back to make an application to the court. That is the purpose of the Amendment. I beg to mow.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: I should like to support the noble Earl in what he has said. Three years is a long time in a child's life. Cases occurred not so long ago of foster children who had been neglected. We know that the children's department is already overworked. Those of us who have had to deal with children know that the department will have to be reinforced strongly, and possibly with a rather different type of person from those they have at the moment. Until this is sorted out and one feels confident that the children's department is fully and properly staffed to carry out these duties, I should like to support the Amendment which the noble Earl has moved.
LORD STONHAM: May I first deal with one or two things which the noble Baroness has said. Surely she is aware that the relevant parts of this Bill will not be implemented until there is sufficient staff. We have given that assurance often enough. If the noble Baroness will study Clause 32 she will be fully aware of the answer to this point. I would deprecate what the noble Baroness said about additional staff, and perhaps not properly qualified staff.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: I did not mean not properly qualified. I think everybody will agree that at the moment the children's department is largely staffed by women officers We shall have a great many naughty boys, and I should like to see a far greater number of men and married people recruited into the service.
LORD STONHAM: This sounds like a reflection on women officers, who are

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in the main dedicated people who do wonderful work; and it is against the trend. The noble Baroness mentioned naughty boys. We have a lot of naughty boys in detention centres—at the moment about 2,000 of them doing three months or six months. All the social workers in detention centres are women. We have some even naughtier boys up to the age of 21 in Borstal—nearly 6,000 of them—and, as the noble Baroness may be aware, we have recently decided not only to have women matrons and other women workers, whom we have always had in borstals, but also to have women governors of borstals.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, I am all for a mixed service, and in a service where there have been only men to import women is a very good idea. If there were only women, I should like to see more men employed—a mixed service. I make no reflection upon the present children's care officers, but I think they are going to have a very big, new and heavy responsibility put upon them. I want to be quite certain that the staff is adequate to the new responsibilities.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, yes, they certainly will have a very big and heavy responsibility put on them. The total trained staffs of the social services, which are being increased at a more rapid rate than ever before—the number of children's officers has been doubled in the past five years, an incredible increase, and the rate will increase relatively faster—will ensure that there will be the people to deal with the situation.
May I come back to the noble Earl's Amendment, and deal exclusively with that and with what he said about it, and with its effects. It may help if I read what the noble Earl wants to do. He wants to say:
"… in any other case, when that person attains the age of eighteen"
the order shall cease to have effect
"Provided that no order shall remain in force for more than three years, but without prejudice to the power of the court to make a further order."
The noble Earl made a very persuasive speech. He agreed that this Bill provided a more flexible machinery, but he said that what worried him was whether
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the safeguards were adequate. That worries a lot of people, and it is quite right that it should worry them and that it should be raised in this way. He said that under the existing system you could send a child to an approved school only with an approved school order. That is quite right.
What safeguards have we then? As the noble Earl is aware, the order can last up to the age of 19—I repeat, the age of 19—and there is only one appeal. The safeguards we have now are, first of all; appeals repeatedly and at any time. How much more valuable a safeguard there is in that! I wonder why noble Lords have not been worried about this matter which has been going on over all these years, of only one appeal against an approved school order. Now—and I should have thought this would have been welcome—we are bringing in a system whereby if a child is in a community home, of whatever kind, there is a review every six months, and an appeal virtually as often as you like, without limit. So far as the frequency of reviews is concerned, in the most important cases, although there will not be many of them, for children in secure care there is a review every three months, and an independent person—and it might be the noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley—will have to be present to decide those cases. I do not want to name the kind of case, but it is in the minds of all of us here.
The other safeguard is the openness of care. Throughout the community care system there is a great openness—in approved schols, in all but a very few places. I am most concerned about this subject and about the kind of newspaper comment that I saw after our last discussion. I do not have the cutting in front of me, but I was particularly disturbed to see an editorial in the Daily Telegraph, which is a very great newspaper and has always very balanced and informed comment. At the end of the editorial it said something like: Under these new arrangements, once the local authorities get them, they just bung them anywhere. I am not quoting the Daily Telegraph; that is a paraphrase of what was said. It is both misleading and hurtful.
What happens? Take the Bill. A child is brought before the court and is thought to be in need of care. He

1121
can be brought before the court for one of five reasons. If the court decides to make an order, it has these alternatives: the order can ask the parent or guardian to enter into recognisances to take proper care of him—that means sending him home. It can make a supervision order. It can make a hospital order within the meaning of Part V of the Mental Health Act. It can make a guardianship order. All those four can be considered before the court makes a care order. I think it right to say that a court will only make a care order, which in normal circumstances would mean the child would be kept in a community home of one kind or another, if it thought it was necessary. That is not "bunging a child anywhere".
Then we come to the kind of community home. When I hear some of the discussions and read some of the comments I would almost imagine that the members of local authorities, the elected members, were some sort of ogres; that they did not care for the children in their care; that the local authority officials were looking for customers and that they could not possibly bear to part with one. In fact, all those that they can part with, in the sense that they can be released because they have improved, are successes. I do not deny that there is sometimes a misjudgment, but, please, just because we have a Bill in front of us which envisages changes, do not let us talk as if this great system, which has been built up over the years and is constantly being improved, was not somethings of which every one of us ought to be proud.
I would ask the noble Earl to consider this point first of all: the effect of his Amendment would be to parade all children in care, which means from the age of nought to 18, infants in arms, every three years before the courts. Does any of us want that? Does the noble Earl want it? Do you want to create this anxiety among the great majority of children and parents, 20,000 and more of them? We have 20,000 children in care now. Do we want to do all this just to catch one or two cases where a local court might take a different view from the local authority? Assuming they were likely to take a different view from that of the local authority, would they not he likely to do so if the parent, or the child, or the guardian appealed? They
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can appeal as often as they like—that is what the safeguard is for.
This Amendment would make a radical change in a system which has been operating very successfully for the past 36 years. A care order under tie Bill corresponds to a fit person order under existing law. There are well over 20,000 children in care under fit person orders, including a substantial number of offenders. Many are children with difficult behavioural problems, and a larger number are committed to care for their own care and protection. There is nothing in the experience of the past 36 years to justify restricting fit person orders to three years at a time.
This Amendment, if it were accepted, would limit all care orders in this way from the age of nought, and I cannot possibly see that this can be justified. If for one moment we thought it was necessary, of course we could have it; but this operates against all experience. Care orders under the Bill will be a continuation of this well-established system under which many thousands of children have been dealt with over many years. The care order combine, the advantages of flexibility with these built-in safeguards for children and parents which I detailed and which are far greater, far more effective, than any safeguards we have now.
I submit to the noble Earl that what is provided in the Bill is a very great improvement on the position we hove at present. The child who goes in future, as approved schools are being abolished, to what he calls the equivalent of an approved school, will, through its parents or guardian, have far greater safeguards against the danger he feared than have children who now go to approved schools So far as these children being "bunged" anywhere (as the newspaper said) is concerned, this is a reflection on everybody concerned. It is a reflection on the courts, which will first of all decide on the kind of order to make; and it is a reflection on the devoted people, voluntary and professional, who will have to make these decisions and decide where, and under what treatment, it is in the best interests of the child that he should be placed. I hope that when he considers what I have said the noble Earl will feel able not to proceed with this Amendment.
6.12 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: Although I have listened very carefully to the noble Lord's explanation, I cannot say that I am at all happy about the matter. Quite frankly, it seemed to me that a large part of what he was saying was addressed to an editorial in the Daily Telegraph rather than to a speech made by myself. The question of the contrast between the present position as affecting approved school orders and the position envisaged under this Bill was at the heart of a great deal of this discussion, I think. I would merely point out that of course a child can remain in care, as the noble Lord himself said, not for the eight years I have mentioned but for 18 years. An approved school order runs for only three.
The noble Lord then referred to the possible gravity of the consequences which lie behind all this. The noble Lord argued that my fears here were incorrect. I do not think they are, because what worries me is that, because of the flexibility which is being introduced (and I should not quarrel with that if the safeguards were there) the courts may well make a care order on a child envisaging some very mild form of treatment, certainly not envisaging the approved school type of treatment, and then for some reason or other—it may not be the child's fault; it may be due to the circumstances; he may not get on with a particular person who is supervising him—there may be an act of rebellion or something of that kind, and the local authority may decide that some far more strict form of supervision is required. In that event, unless the safeguards operate, the whole matter lies within the orbit of the local authority.
The situation then turns on whether the safeguards are adequate. Quite frankly, the noble Lord has not answered my fears here—that is to say, whether the necessary procedure operating the safeguards would be triggered either by the six-monthly review procedure or by the child itself, by the parent or by the guardians, let alone by the local authority, which was very much involved. For these reasons I confess that I am still profoundly unhappy about this particular issue.
One thing, however, inclines me not at the moment to press this Amendment. That is what the noble Lord has said
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about the fact that under the Amendment some 20,000 children would automatically, every three years, have their cases reviewed before the courts. That is something which I personally should not wish. What I should like to ask the noble Lord is this. Would he not at least consider introducing the additional safeguard which we are keen to have placed in the Bill, for children over a certain age? If that could be conceded, I personally, and I believe many of my noble friends, would be a great deal happier. I very much hope that the noble Lord will be able to say that between now and the Report stage he will consider some such additional safeguard.
LORD STONHAM: I feel strongly that this is not an issue on which the Committee should divide. I believe that we all want the same thing. I have tried to explain as well as I can how much better the Bill safeguards children than does the present position. As the noble Earl will appreciate, the difficulty of acceding to his suggestion lies in the Amendment which the noble Baroness moved a little earlier, by which in certain circumstances children had to be kept until they are 19—is something I have said not understood?
EARL JELLICOE: No; I was asking my noble friend why that was an added difficulty.
LORD STONHAM: Because the noble Earl suggested we might consider bringing in his suggestion at a certain age. Quite obviously, if we are in difficulty already when a child is made the subject of a care order just before it is 17, then we are in difficulty in bringing in what the noble Earl suggests at a certain age. I mention this now only as my first reaction to what he said. But certainly between now and Report stage I will look at what the noble Earl has said and let him know whether it is possible—and I can make no commitment about this—to meet him. If not, of course he will then be perfectly free to raise the matter again at a later stage of the Bill.
EARL JELLICOE: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that hedged-about offer. I realised that he was not in a position to say anything more at this stage. Certainly I am not anxious unnecessarily to press any matter to a

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Division, especially on a Bill of this nature. But I must again tell the noble Lord very frankly that I personally—and I suspect many of my noble friends feel the same—am not at all happy about this position; we are not at all certain that the safeguards are adequate.
It is true that radical changes are being made; and I am not necessarily objecting to that. But when we make radical changes we must be very certain of the effects of those changes. I am not myself by any means convinced that the effects of this particular change, with the added flexibility, have been sufficiently carefully thought through. It is certainly my present intention, if the noble Lord is not able to meet me between now and Report stage, perhaps with an Amendment of his own, to come back to this matter at Report stage with an Amendment which will be specifically directed at the upper age bracket. But, that said, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 20 agreed to.
Clause 21 agreed to.
Clause 22 [Special provisions relating to interim orders]:
6.20 p.m.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE moved Amendment No. 29A:
Page 26, line 8, at end insert ("or (c) the court or justice has dispensed with the attendance of that person.")
The noble Baroness said: It is clearly necessary that where a care order, other than an interim order, is made the boy or girl should be before the court. However, in the case of interim orders attendance is not invariably necessary, because the court can reach a decision on information provided by the local authority, the police or any other authorised person. The provision in this clause merely reflects the existing law (which is Section 23 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963), but surely there is no reason why these provisions should not be made more flexible; because to sensitive children attendances before justices can be extremely unsettling. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is himself particularly sensitive to the effect upon children of certain proceedings, and I
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would ask him to give the most earnest attention to this Amendment.
Since it will be open to the courts to make interim orders in a wide variety of situations it should also be open to the courts to dispense with the attendance of children where circumstances make this desirable—for example, where routine inquiries as to the home background, the adequacy of the parents, and perhaps the medical history, are proceeding. Surely these are occasions when it may net be necessary to have a juvenile present at the court, and I hope that the Government will consider this possibility for the sake of the children themselves. I beg to move.
LORD STONHAM: As the noble Baroness rightly said, I am very sensitive to the effect when any child is taken to court, and particularly if it is taken unnecessarily; and this is especially true in the case of a baby, which is virtually what this amounts to. But I would ask the noble Baroness to consider the position as we see it, and the effect of her Amendment. Subsection (1) of Clause 22, with which we are now dealing, requires a child or young person to be before the court which makes an interim order (we are talking only about maximum 28-day orders) unless the child is under live or cannot be present by reason of illness or accident. The Amendment moved by the noble Baroness would enable the court or the justice to dispense with the attendance of the child or young person in other circumstances, not specified, which seemed right to the court or to the justices.
There is nothing to prevent a court from making an indefinite number of successive orders, in the same way as, in criminal proceedings, the court can make an indefinite number of remands. There are two safeguards against the abuse of this power. One is the right of a person in custody to apply to a High Court Judge for release. So far as interim orders are concerned, this right is contained in subsection (4) of the clause. The second safeguard is that the person is present before the court. He (or his parents) can say to the court, "Is it not time that you came to a decision on this case?".
Under the Amendment the court could make an interim order for twenty-eight days and dispense with the attendance of

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a child or young person at the end of that time—this is the danger—when it could make a further interim order. The child or young person would have no opportunity to represent to the court that he should be released if the court was not then in a position to proceed with the case. This is the danger of the Amendment—a danger which I am quite sure has not occurred to the noble Baroness; otherwise it is not the kind of proposal that she would make. The child's only alternative would be to apply to a Judge of the High Court, which is a cumbersome and difficult procedure and ought to be used only when an application to the juvenile court has been refused.
Of course I agree that appearance in court is distressing and unsettling to most children—to all children, probably—and that is why the main object of the Bill, which I have stated many times, is to keep children out of court unless a court appearance is necessary. But surely everyone agrees that liberty should not be infringed without a court order, which is what the Amendment would allow. Liberty can be infringed without a court order: under the Amendment the court can merely renew an interim order without having the presence of the person concerned. We feel very strongly that interim orders should not last indefinitely, and that is why the Bill, like the existing law, provides for a limit of twenty-eight days. If this period of twenty-eight days can be extended from time to time without the child's appearing before the court then, in effect, the interim order becomes indefinite and the child or young person (or his parents) have no remedy except to apply to a High Court Judge. We do not think that this should be the law, and I am quite sure the noble Baroness does not think so, either. We consider that the existing exceptions, relating to children under five and children and young people who cannot be present by reason of illness or accident, go as far as is right. I hope that, with that explanation, the noble Baroness will feel that the Bill is right and that her Amendment is not only unnecessary but undesirable.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: I am once again most grate-
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ful to the noble Lord for having taken considerable trouble to make something clear to a non-lawyer, to a mother of children who might find one of those children being brought up before the court (though I think they have reached an age now when they are beyond that stage) for having made crystal clear the implications of this Amendment. My sole anxiety in moving this Amendment was to try to make it possible, as I said, for some of the more sensitive children to be excused from an appearance in court. However, I am quite content to accept the explanation which the noble Lord has given. I think I know him well enough to know that had there been any way of avoiding this situation he would have made it possible. While thanking the noble Lord, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD STONHAM: Amendment No. 29B is consequential on an earlier Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 36, leave out ("young person") and insert ("person who has attained the age of fourteen").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 22, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 23 [Remand to care of local authorities etc.]:
LORD STONHAM: Clause 23 deals with the remand of young persons in criminal proceedings. Since children under 14 may be prosecuted for homicide it is necessary to provide for their remand and committal for trial. This Amendment No. 30, does this. The effect is that a child charged with homicide who is not released on bail will be committed to the care of the local authority. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 27, line 16, after ("court") insert ("—

(a) remands or commits for trial a child charged with homicide or remands a child convicted of homicide; or

(b)").—(Lord Stonham.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 23, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 24 [Powers and duties of local authorities etc. with respect to persons committed to their care]:
6.30 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE EARL JELLICOE moved Amendment No. 31A:
Page 28, line 21, at end insert—
("Provided in the case of a care order that no person's liberty shall be restricted under this subsection for a continuous period of more than seven days without the express permission of a juvenile court.")
The noble Earl said: The point to which this Amendment is addressed is fairly close to the one we discussed at some length just now. As I said then, under Clause 24(2) a local authority not only has the same authority over a child or young person under its care or control as the parent or guardian of the child, but also the power to restrict his or her liberty to such extent as the authority consider appropriate. Again we wish to strengthen the safeguards available for those persons who are subject to care orders. I should like to make it clear that I am not pro-court or pro-magistrates or pro or anti local authority in this matter in any way; I think I have already made clear my admiration for the work which the local authorities do in this area. Yet, as we all know, mistakes in human society do occur, and here we are dealing with a very delicate field of restriction of liberty. Parenthetically, I should be grateful if the noble Lord, when he replies, would tell us rather more about what is involved here: the type of case involved and the type of restriction of liberty to which this clause is addressed.
In dealing with this general point—although not with this precise Amendment—at the Committee stage in another place, the Under-Secretary who was in charge of the Bill said that the decision to move the person in care to secure accommodation would not necessarily or even usually involve keeping him there for more than a few days or even hours, and it was only a question of dealing with a sudden outburst. That I accept. I believe that emergency powers of this sort are necessary. Anyone who has been at all acquainted with these matters knows how a child can become suddenly very severely disturbed, and unless action is taken can do dam-
1130
age to himself or herself and can throw out of gear the whole operation of the community or home in which he or she may be. I quite understand the question of emergency action covering a few days or even hours, to quote the Under-Secretary's words.
But then he went on to say the t in a few cases the local authority may consider it necessary to keep the person in secure accommodation for a longer period, without specifying what that longer period might be; and it is that which concerns us. It is very close to the point we were discussing on Amendment No. 29. We feel that in such cases there should be a chance of an independent review, and this Amendment is designed to see that such a person could not be kept in secure accommodation and have his or her liberty restricted for more than seven days without a juvenile court specifically sanctioning it.
I know of the rights of appeal which exist, but I feel that they are not watertight, and I have yet to be convinced on that point. But I do not wish to dwell on this argument again. I am also aware of the safeguards which exist in Clause 41(2)(c), under which regulations will be introduced requiring the approval of the Secretary of State for the arrangements for secure accommodation. But those regulations, I should judge—I speak subject to correction from the noble Lord—will be really concerned with the conduct of the community homes or the secure parts of them; they will be concerned with their internal administration, and not with the safeguards involved. It is in order to reinforce the safeguards, which in this area we consider still to be too flimsy and inadequate, that we feel some such proviso as is proposed in this Amendment should be introduced into the new machinery. I beg to move.
LORD STONHAM: As the noble Earl said, this Amendment is a further expression of the anxieties which have been expressed in our previous discussions about the safeguarding of the liberty of the subject and the feeling which at least some noble Lords have that the powers which the Bill gives the local authorities are excessive where they enable an authority to restrict liberty in the course of providing necessary treatment for a child who, by order of the court, has been committed to their care.

1131
The effect of the Amendment would be to make it impossible for a local authority to accommodate a care order child or young person in secure accommodation for longer than seven days without applying for and obtaining the permission of the juvenile court. The Bill as it stands makes the use of secure accommodation a matter for the local authority by giving them, under subsection (2) of this clause, express powers to restrict liberty without relying on the powers which it also gives to them to exercise the rights of the parent. The local authority are vested by subsection (2) with the same powers and duties with respect to the person who is in care under a care order as his parent or guardian would have but for the existence of that order, and the local authority may, even if a parent would have no such power, restrict the person's liberty to the extent which they consider appropriate, but subject to the regulations which will be made under Clause 41(2)(c) and (e) governing the use of the accommodation in community homes approved for this purpose. I appreciate that when we are talking of a clause which gives regulation-making powers it is not possible for us to have fully informed discussion without seeing the regulations, but I assure the noble Earl that it is my right honourable friend's intention to see that there are full safeguards in the matter.
But the chief issue in this Amendment is that it would destroy the main principle of the Bill, which is that a local authority should be fully responsible for the welfare and control of a child or young persons committed to their care. The children or young persons committed in this way will, of course, include some persistent absconders or some with such aggressive habits that the authority, unless they are free to place the child in secure accommodation, either cannot care for him at all, in the case of the absconders, or cannot protect others from injury, in the case of the aggressive ones. It is perfectly proper for a court to relieve the authority of responsibility by discharging the order.
I know the noble Earl said we have already been told about that safeguard; but it is there. It would be quite unreasonable and unworkable to give the authority responsibility by maintaining
1132
the order in force and at the same time to deny them the power to discharge it by overriding their judgment as to the measures called for in a particular case. The noble Earl is well aware from his own Ministerial experience of the crises, the difficulties, that occur, not only in the care of adults who are in custodial care but also with children in care, and this duty which he would place on local authorities, that they can deal with a child for only seven days without getting another order of the court, is going to raise acute difficulties. I submit that it is certainly not necessary, and certainly is wholly wrong, for the court itself to give a local authority this responsibility and this duty and then to override it in this way within seven days.
It is not as if there were no safeguards against the ill-judged or negligent use of powers by a local authority. The additional safeguard was added on the Report stage in another place, as the noble Earl is aware, at the behest of the Opposition, who expressed themselves well satisfied that this addition had been made. They particularly welcomed this in another place.
I would say to the noble Earl that the power that he now wishes to give the court is a power such as no court now possesses. I know that he will say that that is no reason why we should not start now. But if you are going to create a complete precedent in this kind of way there has to be convincing evidence that it is necessary. Care orders in future will apply to children and young persons who, under the present law, may be the subject of approved school orders, and eventually those under 17 who may be sent to borstal. Some approved schools and some borstals provide secure accommodation. When that accommodation is to be used in a particular case, or for a particular time, is not decided by the court. It is not decided by the court now. It is quite properly decided by the authorities responsible under the court order for the welfare and control of the child who is the subject of the order.
As I said in a previous discussion, the subject of a care order under this Bill will have more rights than the subject of an approved school or borstal order; namely, the right to apply to the court for the discharge of the order. I regret that once more I cannot accede to the noble

1133
Earl's argument, but I feel that there is good reason for not doing so.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: Can my noble friend tell me, in all the years that local authorities have been looking after children in their care, whether there ever have been any difficulties arising from lack of an arrangement such as this?
LORD STONHAM: In answer to my noble friend, I may say that during my own years as a Minister I have come across cases of children in approved schools who I think have been there far longer than they need have been, and they have then been released. But I must remind my noble friend that as of now there is only one appeal for release from an approved school. When this Bill becomes law, there will be not only the six months' review, but appeals without limit, which of course is the safeguard.
6.45 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: I seem to be having a bad day with the noble Lord to-day because he keeps expressing the hope that I will he satisfied with his explanation, but—this sounds awfully churlish—once again I am forced to say that I am not satisfied with the explanation. I was anxious to learn what was really involved here. This I have not yet got at because the Under-Secretary in another place said that the type of restriction of liberty concerned would not necessarily or even usually involve keeping the person concerned restricted for more than a few days, or even a few hours. I was wondering what form of restriction was involved, in what type of community home; how often there would be cases in which there would be a longer period envisaged, and in what type of accommodation that would be. It is most important for us to know what we are talking about. If we are talking about locking up a young person for two or three years, and that power is being vested subject to the safeguards—which I think are too flimsy—in a local authority without any reference back to a court, then I am seriously disturbed, and I remain seriously disturbed. And the noble Lord, in failing to respond to my invitation to let us know more about what was really involved in practice, has not alleviated my disquiet.
He again referred to the fact that at the present time the authorities in approved
1134
schools or in borstals have the power to confine those in their charge in specially secure accommodation. Of course, both he and I know that that is the case. But this does not really meet the point which worries us at the present time, because to me it seems possible that a court may make a care order on a young person or a child appearing before it, thinking it may have been marginal whether a care order would be appropriate in the circumstances, or whether it should be a recognisance under subsection (3)(a) of Clause 1 or a supervision order. These things can often be marginal—thinking that some quite mild care regime is all that is required, and not envisaging for a moment that the result could be that the child or young person concerned could have his or her liberty restricted for a period of years.
It turns of course on whether the safeguards are adequate. Here, at the risk of wearying the noble Lord, I must say that I have yet to he convinced that these safeguards are adequate. I only hope that when he reads the inadequate remarks which I must have made in that respect in addressing myself to the previous Amendment, Amendment No. 29—I know how thorough he is in following up these matters—some slight shade of doubt may cross his mind as to the amount of adequacy there is in these safeguards. I ask the noble Lord to do that. But because this Amendment is linked with Amendment No. 29, and in the light of the highly qualified assurance which I received from the noble Lord on that Amendment that he would half consider it between now and the Report stage, I shall once again give him the benefit of the doubt and not press this Amendment to a Division.
LORD STONHAM: Before the noble Earl sits down, may I remind him that I did mention the regulations to be made under Clause 41. Under the regulations proposed to be made for secure accommodation, short-term locking up will be limited to seven days; but for longer periods express permission in writing will have to be obtained. As the noble Earl is aware, this long-term custodial care (I will call it that for the moment) would have to be reviewed every three months, with independent participation. May I just add this? Of course the noble Earl is absolutely right that, with the great majority of children in

1135
respect of whom a care order is made, there will be no question of what the world would understand as "locking up". A great many children will be with foster parents; some will be in special boarding schools; others will be in the wide variety of community homes that we already have—though they do not call them "community homes"; cottage homes under a house mother, and so on.
I would also remind the noble Earl, since he is quite rightly thinking of the more serious cases—the minority: the more difficult cases—of a discussion in a debate we had some 18 months ago about approved schools. That was, of course, long before this Bill was introduced. In that debate I outlined our thinking on approved schools, and pointed to the fact that at present in quite a number of approved schools—perhaps most—we have a minority of exceptionally difficult children, disturbed children, who of course have a bad effect on the remainder, and that it was rather hoped that we could have a few special schools with special treatment for children of that kind. We shall hope to achieve that objective through the regional committees.
Much accommodation, of course. will be supplied by local authorities in their own areas and in their own right, but in the more rare types of accommodation it will be for these regional committees to consider what is to be provided. When we talk of secure conditions I am not thinking only of, perhaps, the one or two notable homicides; I am thinking also of the rather larger, but still relatively very small, number of seriously disturbed children for whom special arrangements will have to be made. This is the kind of thing we have in mind, and it will be for the regional committees to get together with their local authority constituents, make their plans, and submit them to the Home Secretary for approval. This is the kind of set-up that we envisage.
EARL JELLICOE: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for that further information which, after some gentle teasing, we have elicited from him. I should like to ask him one question on what he has said about the range of people in secure accommodation which is envisaged. Does he envisage that children or young persons who require restrictions on their
1136
liberty (and I am now talking about the really disturbed young people who need special treatment) would be able, under this particular clause of the Bill, to be transferred to the special psychiatric units to which we referred at Second Reading?
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving us the further information about the sort of regulations which the Secretary of State proposes to make under Clause 41(2)(c), but I am afraid I did not fully catch the import of what he said. I think he said that for short-term confinements, as it were, nobody could have his or her liberty restricted for more than seven days without some express permission.
LORD STONHAM: Without written authority.
EARL JELLICOE: Without written authority, and that for a longer period there would have to be some review with independent participation. Could the noble Lord let me know who would give that permission when it is a question of the short-term restriction, and what form of independent participation is envisaged?
LORD STONHAM: The local authority would have to give written permission for longer than seven days. As regards the independent participation in a review, this is written into the Bill and it is a three-months interval. There is no dubiety about that at all; this is in relation to secure conditions.
I confirm what the noble Earl said about admission to special establishments, but that admission is only with the agreement of the Secretary of State, so there is that very implicit control. So far as the extreme cases are concerned, we are dealing with very small numbers. I can think of only two girls, two children, in such accommodation at the moment. There are rather more boys, but we are, as I say, talking in terms of just a handful of children. The fact that there are only a handful is no reason why they should not have complete safeguards. But the noble Earl will agree that if psychiatrists and everybody else feel that these children should be in secure accommodation (this does not mean unpleasant accommodation, or anything like that) they should not be free to walk out at any time, though even in that accommodation they do go outside.

1137
In fact, the very case I am thinking about—a recent case—concerns a boy who had improved, and of whom everybody had high hopes. He had not left the place, but he was on an outing, and he just "pushed off". This is the kind of thing that happens. If I have given the idea of something like a grim fortress from which there was no egress, I must make it plain that this just is not the case. The treatment is always the same; it is all given in the hope that the children can be released as stable and useful members of society.
EARL JELLICOE: I am grateful to the noble Lord for the further explanations he has given, and in view of them and in view of what I have previously said, but reserving my right if I am not satisfied on reading our discussion, to come back to this on the Report stage, I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 24 agreed to.
Clause 25 agreed to.
6.58 p.m.
Clause 26 [Detention of child or young person in place of safely]:
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved Amendment No. 32:
Page 30, line 32, after ("warrant") insert ("otherwise than for homicide").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 32. With this Amendment I would ask your Lordships to consider Amendments Nos. 33, 34, 35 and 36. All these Amendments deal with children charged with homicide. A child under fourteen arrested for an offence is dealt with in Clause 26(4). If he is not released the police are required to arrange for his detention in a place of safety. Except in a case of homicide, any proceedings brought will be care proceedings, and when the child appears before a court, if the court does not release him, the court will make an interim order. Clause 27 deals with the arrest of young persons for an offence. Since proceedings will normally be criminal proceedings, the clause provides that if they are not released they are to be brought before a court, with a view to remand. The object of the Amendments is to exclude children under 14 arrested for homicide from Clause 26 (which is appropriate to
1138
care proceedings) and include them in Clause 27 (which is appropriate to criminal proceedings). This is a consequence of retaining the prosecution of children under 14 for homicide. As regards the places in which children can be detained, as opposed to the circumstances justifying and the authority for detention, there is no significant difference between the two clauses.
The first Amendment, No. 32, excludes children arrested for homicide from Clause 26(4). The second Amendment removes the reference to a belief that a child has committed homicide from the grounds on which the police may authorise detention in a place of safety in Clause 26(4)(b). The opportunity has also been taken to remove the reference to "a grave crime" and substitute a reference to the nature of the alleged offence. The third Amendment excludes a child arrested for homicide from Clause 26(5), which deals with the period of detention in a place of safety. The fourth and fifth Amendments apply Clause 27 to children arrested for homicide. I beg to move Amendment No. 32.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This seems to be a fairly clear straightening-up and transposition of these provisions from one clause to another, and there are only two points which I should like to make. The reference to "another grave crime" must, I think, be, among other things, a reference to the crimes for which long periods of detention can be imposed upon children under the 1933 Act. I think the noble Lord suggested on Monday that it was only homicide that was left in this category, but he is not right. Wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm still comes into this category, and this is a matter to which I think we shall have to revert at the Report stage. I am sure the noble Lord did not intend to do it purposely, but he suggested that it was only in cases of homicide that there were special powers to deal with children, and I do not believe that that is an altogether accurate description of the situation. So I should like to come back to that at another time.
My other point is simply one of drafting. If your Lordships will look at Clause 27(1), you will see that the Amendment will insert another paragraph (a) and paragraph (b), so that we shall have two

1139
sets of paragraphs (a) and (b). I do not think that is altogether felicitous. It is going to make references rather difficult, and it may be that this confusion can be dispensed with by some other method of drafting, or by changing the lettering in the Bill. I wonder whether the noble Lord would look at this point, because it seems to be slightly less evident than is usual in cases of this sort.
LORD STONHAM: I was thinking only this afternoon that it might save a lot of time if the noble Viscount could have a talk with the draftsmen before I table Amendments. This is in relation to a matter which he raised the other night, on which I quite agree with him. But on the first of his points, I do not think the position is quite as he stated it. In fact, my noble friend Lord St. Davids raised a similar point, about which I am writing to him, and I do not think the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, is quite correct. But as these legal points are rather difficult, I would rather not be committed now and would ask him to let me look at this.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 33.
Amendment moved—
Page 30, line 37, leave out from ("officer") to ("make") in line 40 and insert ("considers that he ought to be further detained in his own interests or, in the case of an arrested child, because of the nature of the alleged offence,").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 34.
Amendment moved—
Page 31, line 2, after ("warrant") insert ("otherwise than for homicide").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 26, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 27 [Release or further detention of arrested young person]:
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 35.
Amendment moved—
Page 31, line 18, leave out ("appearing to be a young person").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 36.
Amendment moved—
Page 31, line 20, after ("court") insert ("then if either—

(a) he appears to be a child and his arrest is for homicide; or

(b) he appears to be a young person and his arrest is for any offence,").—(Lord Stonham.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question. Whether Clause 27, as amended, shall be agreed to?
LORD STONHAM: Such is the speed and efficiency of the Department which I have the honour to represent that I can tell the noble Viscount now that the present paragraphs (a) and (b) in Clause 27(1) will become sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii), and that this can be done as a matter of reprinting. Another victory!
Clause 27, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 28 to 31 agreed to.
Clause 32 [Transitional modifications of Part 1 for persons of specified ages]:
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 36A, which is consequential.
Amendment moved
Page 36. line 4, leave out ("22(5) or")—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 36B.
Amendment moved—
Page 36, line 8, after ("that") insert ("section 22(5) of this Act shall have effect as if for the reference to the age of fourteen. or")—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 32, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 33 and 34 agreed to.
Clause 35 [Approval and variation of regional plans]:
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE moved Amendment No. 36C.
Page 40, line 35. at end insert—
("( ) Before agreeing to any modification pursuant to subsection (1) of this section to the effect that a community home should be provided by any of the relevant authorities or that a voluntary home provided by a voluntary organisation should be designated as a

1141
controlled or assisted community home, the committee shall obtain the consent of the authority or voluntary organisation by which the home is or is to be provided and, in the case of a home which is to he designated as a controlled or assisted community home, the consent of the local authority which it is proposed should be specified in the instrument of management for the home.")
The noble Baroness said: Un till now, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has been playing the part of the lady in the famous duet, who constantly replied, "Oh, no John, no John", and I am hoping that the moment is coming when, perhaps, we are going to get an affirmative rather than a "No", because this Amendment is really a machinery Amendment.
LORD STONHAM: I have said "Perhaps" once or twice.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: In respect of the community home system, it is the intention of the Government that no local authority or voluntary body will be required under a regional plan to undertake an obligation to provide a home unless that authority or voluntary body has previously agreed to accept the obligation. Clear provision is made in subsection (5) of Clause 34 that before any obligation is inserted in an original plan the authority concerned shall have agreed to accept the obligation.
Clause 35(1), as drafted at present, does not seem to make it clear that a regional committee, after submitting a plan, must again obtain the consent of authorities or voluntary bodies before agreeing with the Secretary of State upon a revised scheme which alters obligations. If he proposes any modifications which place a new positive obligation on individual authorities, it is essential that a regional planning committee should not agree until the local authority or voluntary body concerned has agreed. This Amendment is designed simply to ensure that regional planning committees obtain the consent of authorities and voluntary bodies to any modification which imposes obligations, in the same way as subsection (5) of Clause 34 places a duty on the regional planning committees to obtain the consent of authorities and voluntary bodies before submitting their original development plan. I beg to move.
LORD STONHAM: As the noble Baroness made clear, this Amendment concerns the effect of modifications to
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the plan made by the Secretary of State with the agreement of the planning committee, as envisaged in subsection (1) of Clause 35. I know that the Amendment has powerful backing, because it is desired by the Association of Municipal Corporations. But, despite that, I have to say that it is superfluous, because it is clear from the provisions of subsection (5) of Clause 34—the clause which we have just agreed to—that the duty of the committee to obtain the necessary consents from individual local authorities and voluntary organisations relates to any original plan. Consents in relation to further regional plans are governed by Clause 35(5)(c).
There could be no question of the Home Secretary making a modification to a plan which materially altered the liability of an individual local authority or voluntary organisation to provide or manage a home, without the committee having obtained their consent to this variation in their liability. But I can give your Lordships an assurance that, in view of the doubts expressed and in view of what the noble Baroness has said, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary will advise the committees on this point in a special circular. So I feel that, in any case, the point of the noble Baroness is fully met and that the Bill is adequate.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: I am most grateful for that assurance from the noble Lord. I am still hoping that the moment is going to come when I shall hear "Yes", rather than a suggestion that all is well, without being quite so firm as an affirmative. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 35 agreed to.
Clause 36 [Provision of community homes by local authorities]:
7.10 p.m.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE moved Amendment No. 36D.
Page 40, line 39, leave out from ("to") to end of line and insert ("take all reasonable steps to provide that home and to manage, equip and maintain it.")
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment, again, is a piece of machinery. As the clause is drafted at the moment, the

1143
duty of a local authority to provide a community home once a regional plan is in operation is an absolute one. Authorities are not likely to try to evade an obligation which they have freely undertaken, but an obligation expressed in absolute terms may raise legal conflicts. For example, an authority may agree with a regional committee to provide a home of a certain size in a certain place and then, through no fault of its own, may fail to acquire the land or fail to obtain consent to borrow the money. The application might have been accepted originally on the assumption that the necessary land could be acquired by agreement. If that assumption turns out to be false, the authority should not, because of what is said in Clause 36, be obliged to make a compulsory purchase order.
There is the added difficulty that where an authority is obliged to make a compulsory purchase order with the object of discharging the duties set out in Clause 36 the Home Secretary, as confirming authority for the compulsory purchase order, may be in a difficult position because he will be aware that the duty to provide is an absolute one, unless, of course, the original plan is amended. Clearly, original plans can always be amended, and no doubt will be whenever obligations cannot be carried out. But obligations which may depend for their success on being able to acquire land or raise money should not, I submit, be expressed in absolute terms in an Act of Parliament. I beg to move.
LORD STONHAM: I, too, wish I could have the pleasure of accepting an Amendment moved by the noble Baroness, but the time is not yet. The only thing I can suggest is that we might get together and draft one between us. That might stand a better chance—but I am afraid I cannot accept this one. I know that the Association of Municipal Corporations think that this clause is drawn too tightly because it imposes an absolute duty on a local authority to provide and manage a community home—and I would ask the noble Baroness to mark this—which it has previously consented to provide and manage under subsection (5) of Clause 34, and which has been included in an approved regional plan. We are talking about something that the local
1144
authority has already approved; and it is already in an approved regional plan. In a sense it is their home, although it does not perhaps yet exist.
I think that perhaps the anxiety which has been expressed so clearly by the noble Baroness is based on a misunderstanding as to the intended form and content of regional plans. Discussions have not started yet, but discussions will be held on this subject with the local authority associations, including of course the Association of Municipal Corporations, a little later this year. We do not expect any conflict to arise between the regional plan and the local authority's duty to provide a new home because of, for example, a failure to obtain planning permission or to obtain a compulsory purchase order or to obtain loan sanction—all of which, as the noble Baroness is aware, may be beyond the local authority's control. If they cannot get these things and they cannot provide the home—very well; they cannot provide it.
As regards the provision of new homes and facilities, the plan is expected to deal with the following matters: the nature and purpose of the new home: its probable location if no site is available, and its actual location if a site with planning permission has already been acquired; and the target dates for its construction and bringing into use. There is of course an inevitable time lapse, often of several years, between the time of deciding to provide additional facilities and the time when the facilities actually come into use. It could not be argued that a local authority was in breach of a statutory duty simply because something they had agreed to do was not provided immediately—or, it may be, cannot be provided at all—for reasons beyond the local authority's control.
Clause 36 is merely the local authority equivalent of Clauses 37 to 40 in their application to voluntary homes. In both cases it may turn out that something frustrates the execution of some provision in the original plan, and to this extent the plan may eventually have to be altered. Nevertheless, there are no grounds for qualifying the duty of local authorities to provide, manage, equip and maintain their own homes—because, after all, it is their own homes that they are worried about. But I think that if any anxieties linger, even after what I have

1145
said, they will most certainly be resolved as soon as we have our discussions with the local authority associations.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: I am very grateful to the noble Lord, and in view of his assurance that authorities will be expected to do only those things which are within their own control, I am content. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 36 agreed to.
Clauses 37 to 44 agreed to.
Clause 45 [Discontinuance by voluntary organisation of controlled or assisted community home]:
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 49, line 10, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
("(b) the Secretary of State may by order direct that for the purposes of any provision specified in the direction and made by or under any enactment relating to community homes (other than this section) the home shall, until the date or earlier date specified as mentioned in subsection (4)(b) of this section, he treated as an assisted community home or as a controlled community home. but except in so far as the Secretary of State so directs, the home shall until that date be treated for the purposes of any such enactment as a community home provided by the local authority;")
The noble Lord said: This new, alternative paragraph is a minor Amendment to the provisions which apply when a voluntary organisation whose premises are being used as a community home, controlled or assisted, give notice to withdraw the premises from the community home system and the managers declare that they wish no part in the management of the home during the period of notice. In this situation, subsection (4) enables the Secretary of State to require the local authority to manage the home during the period of two years' notice, or a shorter period if that would be appropriate, as a local authority home.
The Amendment inserts a new paragraph (b) in place of the present one. The effect is to make clear that a voluntary community home which is being temporarily managed as a local authority home (the voluntary organisation having given notice that it is quitting the com-
1146
munity home system) may continue to be treated as an assisted or controlled home in such respects as the Secretary of State may direct. This provision might be used, for example, to enable building work, which the voluntary organisation had undertaken under promise of a grant under Clause 62(1), to be completed. If the home were treated in all respects as a local authority home, a grant under that clause could not be made, so they would lose money. I beg to move.
EARL JELLICOE: I am grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation. I found the clause rather difficult to follow and I certainly found the Amendment rather difficult to follow, but in this case I have not found the noble Lord at all difficult to follow. I find his explanation entirely satisfactory.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 45, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 46 agreed to.
Clause 47 [Provision of accommodation and maintenance for children in care]:
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 38, to leave out "60 of this" and insert "61 of that". I could not resist reading that out. I immediately thought that this amounts to "six of one and half-a-dozen of the other." And that is precisely correct. This is a drafting Amendment. The reference should be to Clause 61 and not 60 of the Bill, and since Clause 47 contains a new Section 13 of the Children Act 1948 a reference therein to a provision in the Bill cannot be a reference to "this Act". I am only sorry that the noble Viscount did not see it first. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 52, line 10, leave out ("60 of this") and insert ("61 of that")—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 47, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 48 [Accommodation of persons over school age in convenient community home]:
On Question, Whether Clause 48 shall stand part of the Bill?
EARL JELLICOE: I am not quite certain of the effect of the new clause. There are a couple of points on it that I should like to ask the noble Lord about. He will recollect that we discussed the question of hostel accommodation for young people at Second Reading and the noble Baroness, Lady Scrota, replied to that point. I believe that this is a serious lack in some places; but I know there is a difference of opinion as to precisely how serious that lack is—although I am glad to say that the provision of hostel accommodation for young people by local authorities is increasing. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether this sort of hostel accommodation will be available to young persons who are not in care as well as to those who are in care, and whether provision for hostel accommodation—and I assume that this will be the case—will be included in the planning of the children's regional planning bodies.
LORD STONHAM: I am grateful to the noble Earl for raising this point. I will tell him at once that Clause 48 in this Bill replaces the present Section 19 of the Act of 1948 which is the section which empowers local authorities to provide hostels for certain purposes.
We require a clause of this kind because it is a principle of the Bill that a single statutory class of residential establishment community homes should supersede the various classes of establishment which at present have separate statutory existence. It is the case that under Section 1 of the 1963 Act persons not in care may use Section 48 accommodation (as it will be now) as well as people in care. I did not complete writing the noble Lord's last question when he sat down.
EARL JELLICOE: I understand that the children's regional planning committees will have a whole range of accommodation under the Bill——
LORD STONHAM: I remember the question. The existing Section 19 of the 1948 Act requires the Home Secretary's approval to the provision of hostels under that section and the new Section 19 does not have any analogous requirement since the relevant regional plan will have specified the nature and purpose of each community home and the proposals contained in the plan will have the approval of the Secretary of State. So these hostels for
1148
young people up to the age of 21, whether or not they have been in care, will be included in these plans. I think that will he extremely satisfactory for all of us.
Clause 48 agreed to.
Clauses 49 to 53 agreed to.
Clause 54 [Extension of disqualification for keeping foster children]:
7.26 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: This is a minor Amendment to rectify an omission. It prohibits a person who has been refused registration of any premises under Section 1(3) of the Nurseries and Child Minders Regulation Act 1948 from maintaining foster children unless he has disclosed this fact to the local authority and obtained their consent.
Section 6(e) of the Children Act 1958 already requires the disclosure of the cancellation of the registration of any premises under Section 1(4) of the Nurseries and Child Minders Regulation Act 1948 and it is desirable that the local authority should also know whether registration was refused in the first place. Such a refusal is not a complete bar to the keeping of foster children but necessitates the local authority's consent to the keeping of foster children. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 58, line 5, after ("offence";") insert—
("( ) in paragraph (e), after the word "subsection" there shall be inserted the words "(3) or") and for the words from "refusing" onwards there shall be substituted the words "refusing, or an order under section five of that Act cancelling, the registration of any premises occupied by him or his registration";").—(Lord Stonham.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This is just a drafting Amendment, as I appreciate. I think that Amendments Nos. 49 and 50 are consequential upon it in the Keeling Schedule. Is that not so? I wondered whether anybody had complimented the noble Lord on the Keeling Schedule. If not, I should like to do so now, as it happens to be a thing upon which I am particularly keen. I think that these Keeling Schedules, nuisance though they may be with consequential Amendments, are of great value. The Keeling Schedule is cross-referenced as being applied by Section 68(4). The reference now should be

1149
69(4). There is a small mistake in the Bill.
LORD STONHAM: I am grateful. In view of what the noble Viscount has said, I wonder whether I can include Amendments Nos. 49 and 50 in this discussion so that when we come to them there will be no further discussion. This reinforces what I said earlier, that the noble Viscount must really come at an earlier stage of these proceedings so that we can get these things right.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 54, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 55 to 57 agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: This new clause is designed to apply the Extradition Act 1870 and the Fugitive Offenders Act 1967 to certain offences concerning children. I have a speech to make here which is some seven pages long. Unless the Committee want me to do so, I do not propose to make it at all; but merely to beg to move Amendment No. 39A.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 57, insert the following new clause:
Extradition offences
".—(1) There shall be included—

(a) in the list of extradition crimes contained in Schedule 1 to the Extradition Act 1870; and

1870 c. 52.

(b) among the descriptions of offences set out in Schedule 1 to the Fugitive Offenders Act 1967,

1967 c. 68.

any offence of the kind described in section 1 of the Act of 1933 (which relates to cruelty to persons under sixteen) and any offence of the kind described in section 1 of the Indecency with Children Act 1960.

1960 c. 33.

(2) Nothing in this Act shall be construed as derogating from the provisions of section 17 of the said Act of 1870 or section 16(2) or 17 of the said Act of 1967 in their application to any provisions of those Acts respectively as amended by the preceding subsection."

—(Lord Stonham.)

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The last thing I want to do is to hold up the Committee stage. But may I ask the noble Lord to read the conclusions on the last page or something like that? It is a somewhat unusual thing, I believe, although it does happen from time to time, to introduce new offences into the Fugitive Offenders and Extradition Acts.
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I know it occurs from time to time, but I think it perhaps requires the briefest possible explanation.
7.30 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: I cannot read the last page because it says, "For use if raised". But this is a splendid Amendment and I would have explained it at greater length but for the last minute note from the Box to the effect that "Only the first paragraph matters—do not read the whole speech". I had decided before that that it was an excellent Amendment which we should both have enjoyed.
The first subsection of the new clause refers to offences relating to children and young persons. The first is an offence of the kind described in Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 and it applies to:
"any person who has attained the age of sixteen years and has the custody, charge, or care of any child or young person under that age, wilfully assaults, ill-treats, neglects, abandons, or exposes him, or causes or procures him to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, abandoned, or exposed, in a manner likely to cause him unnecessary suffering or injury to health".
It then goes into detail and provides:

"(a) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or alternatively or in addition thereto, to imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years;

(b) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds or alternatively or in addition thereto, to imprisonment for any term not exceeding six months;

(2) For the purposes of this section—
(a) a parent or other person legally liable to maintain a child or young person shall be deemed to have neglected him in a manner likely to cause injury to his health if he has failed to provide adequate food, clothing, medical aid or lodging for him, or if, having been unable otherwise to provide such food, clothing, medical aid or lodging, he has failed to take steps to procure it to be provided under the Acts relating to the relief of the poor;"
It is of course a very old Act. It continues:
"(b) where it is proved that the death of an infant under three years of age was caused by suffocation (not being suffocation caused by disease or the presence of arty foreign body in the throat or air passages of the infant) while the infant was in bed with some other person who has attained the age of sixteen years, that other person shall, if he was, when he went to bed, under the influence of drink, be deemed to have neglected the infant in a manner likely to cause injury to its health.

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(3) A person may be convicted of an offence under this section—

(a) notwithstanding that actual suffering or injury to health, or the likelihood of actual suffering or injury to health, was obviated by the action of another person;

(b) notwithstanding the death of the child or young person in question."

That is what I might call the 1933 Act part of it. The second offence is of the kind described in Section 1 of the Indecency with Children Act 1960. That provides that:
"any person who commits an act of gross indecency with or towards a child under the age of fourteen, or who incites a child under that age to such an act with him or another, shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a terra not exceeding two years, or on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or to both".
This offence is analogous to the offence of indecent assault which is already an offence under the Extradition Acts and the Fugitive Offenders Act 1967. Subsection (1) of this new clause refers to offences of the kind described in the relevant enactment and I think that the noble Viscount will be very interested in this particular point, as I was myself. The reason for using these words is that the offences need to be identifiable not only for the purposes of our law but for the purposes of other laws as well.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: That is the point.
LORD STONHAM: Both for the purposes of the Fugitive Offenders Act 1967 and the Extradition Acts it is necessary that the offences should be applicable to the laws of British Dependencies. Accordingly it would not be possible to refer in the Bill to the offences created by the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 and the Indecency with Children Act 1960, because British Dependencies will have similar, but not the same, legislation. The wording of the new clause overcomes this difficulty by referring in a generalised way to these offences.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Perhaps I may cut the noble Lord a little short here. I am entirely following him, and indeed on subsection (2) of the new clause I am perfectly content. I understand it very well. What I am interested in was the first offence under
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the 1933 Act and I want to know whether there are, as it were, reciprocal offences in a large number of other countries which cover the same sort of ground. I should have thought that here we had a rather particularised offence and I wondered whether there were parallel offences in the various other countries with which we have extradition treaties.
LORD STONHAM: Most certainly there are. They would not be in the same language—they are not in the same Acts of Parliament. The language is rather archaic in our 1933 Act. Obviously it stems from earlier Acts. But certainly there are comparable offences in other countries and I am sure that the noble Viscount will remember our discussions about the Fugitive Offenders Act which were led, for the Opposition, by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor. What it really means is that if people abuse, neglect or hurt children, or commit acts of indecency with them in the manner described, and then they go abroad, if we find them, wherever they are, we can "yank" them back and punish them accordingly.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 58 agreed to.
Clause 59 [Contributions in respect of children and young persons in care]:
EARL JELLICOE EARL JELLICOE moved Amendment No. 39B:
Page 61, line 40, leave out from second ("amount") to end of line 2 on page 62 and insert ("which will represent the average weekly cost to the local authority of maintaining all children and young persons who are in the care of that authority provided that the maximum contribution shall not exceed the actual cost of maintaining the particular child or young person if in respect of that child or young person the actual cost is less than the average cost.")
The noble Earl said: I must detain your Lordships for a minute or two on this Amendment, which the noble Lord may recognise as being of particular interest to the Association of Municipal Corporations. It refers to what parents should be asked to contribute, or should be expected to contribute, when a child is in care of a local authority. As I understand the present position, there is no maximum contribution laid down, although in practice the contribution orders are usually for pretty small amounts because most of the parents of

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children in care are people without very large means. The cost of keeping a child in residential care may be very high—it can be anything ranging from £10 to £20 a week—and the Bill would, as I read it, lay down that the parent would be expected to contribute only the same amount as if the child were boarded out. What foster-parents receive is a pretty small sum—for historical and understandable reasons which go back to the fears of society about baby farming. As a result, I think the average boarding out payment is in the range of £3 10s. 0d. to £5 a week. This would be the yardstick written into the Bill, and that is what worries some people including the Association.
When this matter was discussed in another place the Under-Secretary in charge of the Bill resisted an Amendment similar to this. The basis of his argument was that, because a parent of a child in care had no control over the decisions of the local authority, or of the expenditure incurred on behalf of his child, it would be quite wrong for him to be charged with the cost of treatment which he had no part in choosing. I would straightaway grant that there is some force in that argument. But I should like to point out that the Amendment does not suggest that parents should be charged unlimited sums, but only that they should be charged a maximum based on the average cost of children in care of a local authority; and with the proviso that, where that average cost is not exceeded in a particular case, the smaller sum should be paid.
It is possible that there are already children in care, and children who will be coming into care, from richer homes, with parents who could well afford to pay a great deal more than the standard which is in force. If that is the case, it seems wrong that wealthy or comparatively wealthy, parents should not be asked to make a contribution which has some real relation to the expenses incurred. That is the purpose of the Amendment. It would give the courts rather more discretion to have regard to the means of parents than the present wording of the Bill provides; but, as I have explained, the parent would never be asked to pay more than the average cost of maintaining a child and would be ordered to do this only
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when it was clear to the court that his or her means would justify going above the boarding-out expenditure. In the event of the actual cost being les; than the average, then the actual cost would be payable and not the average. This seems to me to be an eminently reasonable Amendment; and because the noble Lord is an eminently reasonable man I am sure that it will strike him as eminently reasonable. I beg to move.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, as the noble Earl has said, this is a very reasonable proposition, but whether its reasonableness is based on its merits or on the noble Lord's persuasive powers, I am not sure. But I should like to explain the Government's position. The average amount received in respect of each child in care, including children in respect of whom no contribution is paid at all, is less than 10s. a week. This is because in the great majority of cases the parents' means are such that the contribution order is for a very small sum, or no contribution is asked for at all. Clause 59 provides that the maximum amount of a parental contribution which may be ordered in respect of a child or young person in care should be a weekly amount which the authority normally pay to foster parents in respect of a child or young person of the game age. The noble Earl's Amendment would substitute the average cost of maintaining a child in care, or the actual cost of maintaining that particular child, whichever is the less.
The existing law fixes no maximum. The practice of local authorities varies. Some do not attempt to recover more than the cost of maintaining the child, so that the parent may be asked for a greater contribution if a child is in a children's home than if he is boarded out with foster parents. Other authorities take the view that this is inequitable, because the parent has no control over the decision where the child in care should live. Some have maximum charges for all children, whether boarded out or in children's homes. These maxima vary from about £3 10s. to £5 a week. In the case of children committed to approved schools, where the only responsibility of the local authority is a financial one, the maximum charges are often higher. Examination of the contribution orders made by all courts in

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two months in 1966 showed that the great majority of contribution orders of more than £5 for a single child were made in respect of children in approved schools.
The object of the clause is to secure greater uniformity of practice and equity of treatment, on the basis that the parent should be required, if his means permit, to pay for the child's board and lodging, so that he is no better off as a result of the child being in care—and that seems to me fair enough—but should not be required to pay for any additional treatment which his child requires, since he has no control over the local authority's decisions about the treatment of his child, and extra payments for special treatment would produce a thoroughly inequitable situation.
It may be argued that if the parent can afford it he should be asked to pay for expensive treatment, because that is what a good parent who could afford it would do. This assumes that the good parent would make private arrangements of his own accord for the child to be accommodated in some kind of establishment analogous to a community home. I do not think that this argument is realistic.
The Explanatory and Financial Memorandum states on page (ix) that the effect of Clause 58 may be to reduce the total recovered by way of contributions by about £50,000 a year. The total amount at present recovered, even though it is an average of less than 10s. per child, is some £11 million a year. The noble Earl's Amendment might reduce this reduction by about £20,000 a year. I think that the noble Earl will accept that while this amount is not to be sneezed at, it is minimal compared with the total amount paid in contributions; and in the Government's view we should not be justified in departing from what we regard as the right principle on which this matter should be decided: that the parent shall be liable for a board-and-lodging charge, so that he is no better off as a result of the child being in care, but shall not be liable for the additional cost of any particular form of treatment.
It may be argued that it is undesirable that foster parents should make profits out of maintaining children and that
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the amounts paid to them are therefore on the low side. It could be argued from that and I think the noble Earl did argue, that the amount normally paid to foster parents is not the right amount to fix. Our reply to this is that the amount a local authority pays to foster parents must surely be enough to cover the cost of maintaining the child and that it would be wrong for an authority to ask parents to pay, as a board-and-lodging charge, an amount greater than it pays to its own foster parents. There are some foster parents who, because they like children and because they can afford it, take in children at less than the ordinary fee. The Bill covers this by providing that the weekly amount shall be that which the authority would "normally" be prepared to pay, thus disregarding cases where foster parents are prepared to accept a smaller sum and also cases where a special supplement is payable in relation to a particular child.
I would sum up by saying that I thought the noble Earl's argument was reasonable, but, in view of the figures I have quoted, I do not think it is sufficiently reasonable or would be of sufficient advantage to justify altering the principle that we have so far found to be acceptable to the local authorities.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his reply but I am a little puzzled, because he said that the principle was acceptable to the local authorities. It is in fact the Association of Municipal Corporations, who perhaps represent the strongest body of local authorities in the country, who are concerned about this matter. Perhaps I might ask the noble Lord a question. He quoted figures which I find rather surprising: that the total recovered by way of contributions will be reduced by about £50,000 a year by the application of Clause 59 as it stands. I was wondering whether the noble Lord has the figure for what the board and lodging averages out at. It is my understanding that the average contribution which foster parents receive at the present time is in the range of £3 10s. 0d. to £5; and if the figure on which this estimate has been based is in that range it would seem to me that a wealthy parent, who spends a great deal more than £3 10s. 0d. to £5 on his son and daughter for board and lodging if

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she or he is not in care, would be receiving a subsidy, as it were, for having his child in care. It would be helpful if the noble Lord could let me know what the figure is on which this is based.
LORD STONHAM: I am sorry that did not give the noble Earl the figure when I first spoke. I have it here, but I did not want to go on for too long. The average cost of maintaining a child in care is £7 2s. 6d. a week. This will increase when children in approved schools are included among those in care. I did say to the noble Earl that the cost of keeping children in approved schools was higher. The noble Earl said that the cost was anything from £10 to £20 a week. I cannot confirm that. The average cost of maintaining a child in care is £7 6s. 2d. a week and, apart from any other factors, it will go up when approved schools are included.
EARL JELLICOE: Is the figure the noble Lord has given the actual global cost, and not just the cost relating to board and lodging? I assume that it includes treatment—if that is the right word to use.
LORD STONHAM: I understand that this is the total cost. I was giving it to the noble Earl as the total average cost of maintaining children in care. I think what the noble Earl may have in mind is that the higher cost includes not only schools, but other special forms of care. I am giving the average figure.
The noble Earl, quite rightly, referred to the powerful advocacy and importance of the Association of Municipal Corporations in this matter. However, I would point out the not less important fact that the County Councils Association are fully with the Government here, and therefore we have some might, as well as right, on our side.
EARL JELLICOE: I do not wish to get involved with the noble Lord in a town and country argument. I propose to withdraw my Amendment, but I must confess that I am net entirely happy about this matter. It seems to me that the rich parent may be getting away with a payment which it would be wrong for him to get away with. I reserve the right to come back to this point at Report stage.
LORD STONHAM: I will look at it again, too.
EARL JELLICOE: I thank the noble Lord.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.54 p.m.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE moved Amendment No. 39c:
Page 62, line 3 after ("shall") insert ("normally").
The noble Baroness said: It may be convenient to discuss this Amendment and Amendment No. 39D together. As a fairly practical person, I much enjoy trying to provide the noble Lord with the nuts and bolts to try to make the machinery work. So far he has resisted all my efforts to help, but I will make one last attempt. It is sound practice to attempt to reach a voluntary arrangement with the families as to the amount of a contribution order. But there are situations when it is quite clear, at the outset that the parents will not contribute to the upkeep of their child as, for instance, when a child has been wilfully neglected or when the child appears to have been rejected.
In such cases it would save much time and effort if local authorities were given a discretion to apply for an immediate contribution order without having to attempt to give notice to the contributors and then wait a month. Local authorities have this discretion at the present time, and I believe that many authorities use it, particularly in the large towns, where there are many families moving in and out who are known to have no intention to meet their responsibilities. These two Amendments would render the procedure easier, and I cannot see how they would do any harm to anyone. I beg to move.
LORD STONHAM: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for suggesting that she might take these two Amendments together, as they are on the same point. As the noble Baroness said, they will enable the court to make a contribution order at the same hearing as the court makes a care order. There are two main difficulties about this. The first is that the local authority would have no opportunity of proposing an amount to the contributor, and the court would have no information about the parents' means and

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liabilities on which it could base a decision as to the appropriate amount for any order, or whether indeed to make an order at all.
The second difficulty is that the court, having disposed of the case and made a care order, is not likely to want to start to inquire, on what must be adequate information at this first hearing, into the proper amount of the contribution. If the parent contested the matter at the time when the care order was made—as many would be likely to do—the court would have to adjourn. If the parent was not objecting to the making of a contribution, then it is probable that the court would not need to make a money order at all, because the parent would agree without any pressure. The normal course at the present time is for the local authority to ask the parent for a contribution, after getting from him a statement of his means, and, if the contribution is not forthcoming, to make application to the court. And, as the noble Baroness is no doubt aware, the court to which the application is made with regard to the order need not be a juvenile court. This, in our view, is a better system than for a very busy juvenile court to try to settle this money question in the middle of a list of cases.
I know it can be and is argued that some local authorities proceed in this way at present. If they do, I am bound to say that we do not regard it as a satisfactory way of proceeding, and from what I have said perhaps the noble Baroness may be inclined to agree. It can also be argued, with some superficial reasoning, that it is useful in the case of families always on the move. But is that really the case? The difficulty is likely to be in getting the money under the order (for example, by attachment of earnings) rather than in the making of the order. If the parent does not reply to the authority's letter within a month, the authority can go to the court. With people who are always on the move, as we well know, the prospect of getting anything out of them is very small, and will not be added to by the fact that a money order can be made at the time when the care order is made.
We have looked at this matter carefully. I am extremely sorry that even at the last throw the noble Baroness has
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not brought down a coconut, but it is not because I have not looked at her points and tried to be sympathetic with them. I am sure she is aware that sometimes we cannot agree, however much we should like to, and I have tried to give valid reasons for not agreeing every time.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: I am disappointed that at the last stage the noble Lord is unable to meet me more than half way, but I can see the validity of his argument. At the same time, it always distresses me when people who really ought to be making a contribution manage to get away with it time and time again. I was hoping that this might be a means whereby one could ensure that those who wished to throw up their responsibilities so far as their children were concerned would not be able to do so. As it appears that this is not going to be achieved under my Amendment, I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 59 agreed to.
Clause 60 [Returns of information and presentation of reports et cetera to Parliament]:
8.1 p.m.
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved Amendment No. 39E.
Page 62, line 44, at end insert—
("( ) The clerk of each juvenile court shall, at such times and in such form as the Secretary of State may direct, transmit to him such particulars as he may require with respect to the proceedings of the court")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 39E. This new subsection places on the clerk of a juvenile court a duty to provide the Secretary of State with such particulars of court proceedings as he may require. The purpose is to enable statistics of care proceedings to be compiled and published. At present statistics of care, protection or control proceedings are included, rather incongruously, in the Criminal Statistics. As with criminal proceedings, the information is obtained from returns made by the police. The Adams Committee on Civil Judicial Statistics, which reported in July last year, recommended that the publication of statistics of non-criminal proceedings in magistrates' courts in the

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Criminal Statistics be discontinued, and that the courts, rather than the police, should be responsible for supplying the information on which the statistics are based.
Clerks of juvenile courts are already required to maintain a separate juvenile court register, and the information which will be required under this subsection will already be in the register. We are in consultation with the Justices' Clerks Society about the best way this information can be provided, whether by a copy of the register or otherwise. This will give us fairly useful information without a great deal of additional labour being placed on anyone, and we shall also have the statistics in and from the right place and compiled by the right people. I beg to move.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: There is only one question I wanted to ask on this Amendment. When proceedings are brought under Clause 12E—that is to say, on the commission of what would normally be an offence if it was not a child—are they going to be split up in accordance with what the offence would have been if it had been an adult, or are we simply to have all cases under Clause 12E lumped together? It would be interesting, and it might be valuable, to know what offences the children and young persons are committing. Under this Bill as it stands they will not necessarily be specified as such. It may be better to classify them according to crimes of violence, or in whatever way the Home Office normally does this. I wonder whether the noble Lord has thought about that.
LORD STONHAM: I am not sure whether I have all the refinements, but certainly these figures will be split up. These figures of children who come before the courts and in respect of care orders will be analysed in a way such as the noble Viscount has suggested. I think he is asking whether they will be split up into A, B, C, D and E, according to the way they are dealt with by the court. The answer to that is "Yes". In addition, we shall continue to get figures of the number of alleged offenders cautioned by the police. They will not come before the court at all. We shall be given particulars as to whether they were dealt
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with by prosecution, care proceedings, caution, or by reference to the local authority children's department. When this Act begins to operate, or to be operated, we shall begin to have an increasing volume of sophisticated statistics which should tell us a very great deal.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I do not think the noble Lord has quite got my point. I know it will be A, B, C, D and E: but under E will it be split up into the sort of crime, or what would be a crime if anybody but a child or young person was involved in the incident? One does not want to know just how many offences, or alleged offences, have been committed and have been dealt with, either by caution or by care order or something else. One wants to know what sort of offences would be involved. I do not wish the noble Lord to pursue the matter now, but it is something which I think will be worth thinking about.
LORD STONHAM: I believe the answer to the noble Viscount is "Yes", but I will confirm it to him.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 60, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 61 to 70 agreed to.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Children's Regional Planning Committees]:
EARL JELLICOE EARL JELLICOE moved Amendment No. 41:
Page 72, line 32, leave out sub-paragraph (2).
The noble Earl said: This is a very simple Amendment, just to knock out a sub-paragraph of Schedule 2. There may be a simple explanation why it should stay in. At first blush, this particular sub-paragraph of the Schedule appears to be extraordinarily restrictive. All of us would favour co-option of outside members to these important children's regional planning committees. Clearly, those committees are going to have a big job to do and will wish to draw all possible expertise into their planning. In particular, I think the voluntary bodies and volunteers would have an important contribution to make. These committees will be planning the provision of a whole range of accommodation for the children in the regions concerned. I am quite

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sure that voluntary organisations will have a big part to play here, and therefore there will be many people whom the regional planning committees will wish to co-opt to the committees, and from whose help they will benefit.
My fear is that if we let this subparagraph stand we shall be putting off those people, and not encouraging them to play the part which they are fully able to play in these regional planning committees. They are being treated not as second-class citizens but as 10th-class citizens, because, subject to any direction by the relevant authorities, they will not be able to vote, if the nominated members think they should not vote after they are co-opted; they will not be allowed to speak, and they will not he allowed to attend. I am not quite certain what they will be allowed to do. I do not know what,
"subject to any directions given by relevant authorities"
means. I do not see how those words could possibly be more restrictive. All this is only in relation to such matters as specified by the nominated members. I cannot think the nominated members, whoever they may be, would wish to adopt this extraordinarily restrictive attitude towards volunteers and others, and experts, whom they wish to bring into their consultations.
I am prepared to be told that this extraordinarily restrictive procedure is the normal procedure. If I am told that, I shall be open to persuasion, but my belief is that normally in local authorities when people are co-opted to a committee they assume the full responsibilities as a member of that committee. There is no question of their not voting; there is no question of their not speaking; there is no question of their not attending. If you want them, there does not seem to be much point if they are not allowed to attend or to speak or to vote. I hope that I have made the purpose of my Amendment clear. It is exploratory, but if the exploration discloses the position as I think it is, then I think it is rather more than exploratory.
8.11 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: I hope from the noble Earl's concluding words that he is not going to start a revolution at this
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time of night. I admit that he has put up a remarkable case. The offending words are these:
"Where any persons are co-opted to serve as members of the committee for a planning area in relation only to such matters as are specified by the nominated members then, subject to any directions given by the relevant authorities, the extent to which those persons shall be entitled to attend, speak and vote at meetings of the committee shall be such as may be determined by the nominated members."
I would ask the noble Earl to note particularly the words:
"subject to any directions given by the relevant authorities".
The effect of the noble Earl's Amendment by removing this paragraph from the Schedule would be to remove any specific reference to the power of the nominated members on the planning committee—this concerns a planning committee—to limit the voting. speaking and attending rights of co-opted members who have been co-opted for limited and specific purposes.
The noble Earl asked, not without justification: What are these people going to do? What are they there for at all? Why have them? Of course, we have to have regard to the common sense of the nominated members in making this provision work. Notwithstanding the general power which paragraph 4 gives to ensure that local authority members—not necessarily nominated members—are in the majority at all times, it is considered necessary to give the nominated members a clear power to define the extent to which they require co-opted members to make their contribution. Co-opted members have no statutory responsibility for the consequences or the implementation of the committee's decisions. Everything rests ultimately on the individual local children's authorities in their responsibility for accommodating and treating children in their care and for meeting the cost of facilities for supervision. It seems only right that the provisions of the Schedule should recognise this responsibility, financial and otherwise.
I think the decisive point that I put to the noble Earl is this. If the Amendment were accepted, it would then mean that the planning committee would have to request the relevant authorities at regular intervals to make directions about

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co-opted members under paragraph 1(1) of the Schedule. It was to avoid this step that paragraph 3(2) gave the power to the nominated members of the committee. I read this paragraph to the noble Earl because it refers to, "such matters as are specified by the nominated members". In other words, it applies only to people co-opted for limited and specific purposes, and does not apply to all co-optees. I do not know whether there was a misapprehension on the noble Earl's part. If that was so, then I can assure him that that is not the case. If he will look carefully at these words he will see that they are:
"serve as members of the committee … in relation only to such matters as are specified by the nominated members".
The provision is very limited. In other words, someone is asked to come on the committee for a specific purpose, or for specific purposes, and really he is there to give advice and help for only those particular purposes. It is only to those people co-opted for a limited purpose that this restriction would apply.
VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY: I find it very difficult to avoid the conclusion that this provision is not straightforward nonsense. In view of my work for boys' clubs in Kent and some of the approved schools I suppose I could be co-opted to a committee for a specific subject. But if I went I should want to know that I should be allowed, first, to attend; secondly, to speak, and thirdly, to vote. The only occasion when a provision of this kind would apply would be if I were paid not to do so!
EARL JELLICOE: The noble Lord has helped a little in pointing out the qualification here, but I am still a little puzzled. May I take it that those members of these regional planning committees who are to be co-opted over the whole range of the regional planning activities will have no such restriction placed upon them, save that I think they will be in a minority? May I take it that that is the case?
LORD STONHAM: The co-optees?
EARL JELLICOE: The co-optees.
LORD STONHAM: Yes.
EARL JELLICOE: They will have full powers to attend, speak and vote? There-
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fore this restriction applies only to those who are co-opted for special and specific and limited purposes. If that is the case, then I should have thought it would be far better if those who were co-opted—I can see the distinction here—for specific, limited purposes had it made absolutely clear that they would have the right to attend, speak and vote at meetings at which those particular subjects were discussed and were, if necessary, to be voted upon. As I read this provision the way it is drafted, this would not be the case, because even within that specific area they may not be able to attend, speak or vote. I may have misinterpreted this, but perhaps the noble Lord will say.
LORD STONHAM: The noble Earl is quite right when he says that those who are full co-optees will be able to attend, speak and vote. But if one is appointed for a limited purpose—if, for example, one is co-opted solely to represent the Boy Scouts—one really cannot expect to decide upon, for instance, local authority expenditure on community homes. You are asked to advise about the Boy Scouts, and you might be asked about some other related youth matters. But these committes are going to decide matters which affect a whole region. There are very important matters of expenditure involved, and we surely just could not have numbers of co-optees who were asked to come on for a limited period given this right.
This limitation very often applies. There are a number of cases where people are nominated to come and help—people come in attendance perhaps to give expert advice. They might be co-opted for a particular subject and they might be co-opted for one or two meetings to settle particular points. But they must be treated differently from the nominated members and the co-optees who are there for other purposes at all times. I will read what the noble Earl has said and consider it again, but I think we have this one right and that it is in accord with normal practice.
EARL JELLICOE: It is very strange practice. I certainly cannot remember any such Schedule, but my memory for Schedules of Bills is not encyclopædic. Nevertheless, I would be much happier, if the noble Lord wishes to insist or this distinction between those co-opted for

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general matters and those co-opted for specific and more limited matters (and I appreciate that distinction), if it were made clear, which could easily be done by a minor drafting adjustment, that those who were co-opted for a limited range of matters at least had the right to attend, speak and vote on that limited range of matters. The noble Lord has nodded affirmatively, so I take it that he agrees.
LORD STONHAM: I will just nod verbally.
EARL JELLICOE: Having dotted that "i" I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Schedule 3 agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Transitional provisions and savings]:
8.21 p.m.
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 81, line 10, at end insert ("or from being dealt with under any of those Acts.")
The noble Lord said: This is a technical Amendment to make it clear that the prohibition in Clause 4 on proceedings for offences committed by children does not extend to proceedings under the Armed Forces Discipline Acts in respect of acts or omissions which took place overseas. Would the noble Viscount like me to continue?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Yes, please.
LORD STONHAM: The position is that certain provisions of the Service discipline codes apply to civilians, including children, who accompany Servicemen on overseas postings. Under these provisions a member of a Serviceman's family can be dealt with by the appropriate British Service authorities. Whether or not this is the most desirable way of dealing with a British child overseas who is in trouble, it may in practice be the only alternative to his being arraigned before a foreign court. It may, in certain circumstances, be much better "to look after our own" and, in these circumstances, the Service authorities' jurisdiction over the children
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and families of Servicemen overseas is in their own best interests. I hope your Lordships will agree. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: This is a technical Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 81, leave out line 12 and insert ("in respect of a person before the date on which the information was required by virtue of that section to contain a statement of his age.")—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved Amendment No. 44:
Page 81, line 18, leave out paragraph 5 and insert—

("5.—(1) The coming into force of section 7(1) or of an order under section 32(1)(d) of this Act shall not affect any sentence of borstal training passed before the date when the said section 7(1) or the order came into force or any committal for sentence before that date under section 28(1) of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952; but a sentence of borstal training shall not be passed on any person (including a person to whom such a committal relates) if on the date of the relevant conviction he had not attained the minimum age which is for the time being specified in section 20(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1948.

1952 c. 55.

(2) Nothing in section 7(2) of this Act affects a probation order made before the coming into force of the said section 7(2).")

The noble Lord said: Paragraph 5 of Schedule 4 is a transitional provision which preserves sentences of borstal training passed, or probation orders made, before the coming into force of Clause 7. It also preserves a committal for sentence under Section 28 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952, under which a magistrates' court may commit to quarter sessions with a view to a sentence of borstal. This may be interpreted as giving quarter sessions power to pass a sentence of borstal training even although borstal for young persons of that age has been abolished. The amended paragraph 5 makes it clear that, while the committal to quarter sessions is not affected by the coming into force of Clause 7, quarter sessions may not pass a sentence of borstal on a young person who, at the time of the conviction, had not attained

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the new minimum age for borstal. Quarter sessions will be able to deal with him by making a care order or any of the other orders available in the case of juveniles. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: This is a technical Amendment to paragraph 7 of Schedule 4 which provides for the "conversion" of approved school orders into care orders. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 82, line 14, at end insert—
("( ) A person who is the subject of a care order by virtue of sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph and who was unlawfully absent on the specified day from an approved school in which he was then required to be shall. until the local authority to whose care he is committed by the order direct otherwise, be deemed for the purposes of section 30 of this Act to be duly required by the authority to live after that day in the premises which on that day constituted the school.")—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 5 [Minor and consequential amendments of enactments]:
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved Amendmendment No. 46:
Page 87, line 17. at end insert—

(". In section 43(1) of the said Act of 1948 for the words from "Parts IV and V" onwards there shall be substituted the words "the Children and Young Persons Acts 1933 to 1969, the Adoption Act 1958 and the Adoption Act 1968".")

1958 c. 5 (7 & 8 Eliz. 2. 1968 c. 53.

The noble Lord said: Section 43 of the Children Act 1948 enables the Secretary of State to appoint an Advisory Council on Child Care for the purpose of advising him on matters connected with the discharge of his functions in England and Wales under the 1948 Act and a number of other enactments dealing with children and young persons. The effect of the Amendment is that the purpose of the Advisory Council is to advise the Secretary of State on matters connected with the discharge of his functions under all the enactments dealing with children and young persons and with adoption. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: This Amendment is consequential on the prohibition on prosecutions of children under the age of 14. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 92, line 1, at end insert—

(". In sections 2 and 9 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967, after subsection (3) of each section there shall be inserted the following subsection:—

1967 c. 80

(3A) In the case of a statement which indicates in pursuance of subsection (3)(a) of this section that the person making it has not attained the age of fourteen, subsection (2)(b) of this section shall have effect as if for the words from 'made' onwards there were substituted the words 'understands the importance of telling the truth in it.'")—Lord Stonham.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
8.28 p.m.
LORD WILSON OF LANGSIDE LORD WILSON OF LANGSIDE moved Amendment No. 47:
Page 92, line 7, leave out paragraph 49 and insert—
". After section 44(1) of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, there shall be inserted the following subsection—
"(1A) A supervision requirement imposing a condition as to the place where a child is to reside in England or Wales shall be a like authority as in Scotland for the person in charge of the place to restrict the child's liberty to such an extent as that person may consider appropriate having regard to the terms of the supervision requirement".
. In section 97(1) of the said Act of 1968—
(1) after the words "that is to to say—" there shall be inserted the words "section 44(1) (except head (b)) and (1A)",
(2) after the words "Part V" there shall be inserted the words "section 98(3)".
. In section 98 of the said Act of 1968, after subsection (2) there shall be inserted the following subsection—
(3) An order under this section may make such transitional provisions as appear to the Secretary of State to be necessary or expedient in connection with the provisions thereby brought into force, including such adaptations of those provisions or of any provision of this Act

1171
then in force as appear to the Secretary of State necessary or expedient for the purposes or in consequence of the operation of any provision of this Act before the coming into force of any other provision of this Act or of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969.
. In Schedule 2 to the said Act of 1968, in paragraph 19, after the word "children" there shall be inserted the words ", for the word "offenders" there shall be substituted the word "children", and for the word "offender" in the three places where that word occurs there shall be substituted the word "child"".
. In Schedule 7 to the said Act of 1968, in paragraph 1(1)(a), for the words "section 63" there shall be substituted the word "section 62".
. In Schedule 8 to the said Act of 1968, in paragraph 7—
(a) for sub-paragraph (1) of that paragraph there shall be substituted the following sub-paragraph—
(1) In section 87, for subsection (1), there shall be substituted the following subsection—

(1) Any person detained in a training school under the the law in force in Northern Ireland may, with the consent of the Secretary of State, be transferred by order of the competent authority in Northern Ireland to such place in Scotland as the Secretary of State may direct for the purposes of under-going residential training, and shall be subject to the provisions of this Act and of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1963 as if the order sending him to the school in Northern Ireland were an order for committal for residential training made under section 58A of this Act made upon the same date, and as if the order were an authority for his detention for a period not exceeding the period for which he might he detained under the training school order made in respect of him.;

1963 c. 39.

(b) in sub-paragraph (2) of that paragraph at the end there shall be inserted the words "; and in section 87(2) and (4) the words "England or", wherever they occur, shall be omitted";

(c) in sub-paragraph (3) of that paragraph the words "to such" shall he omitted;

(d) after sub-paragraph (3) of that paragraph there shall be inserted the following sub-paragraphs—
(4) In section 87(5) the words "in relation to England, the Secretary of State, and," shall be omitted.
(5) In section 87 subsection
(6) shall be omitted.
. In Schedule 8 to the said Act of 1968, in paragraph 9(2), for the word "for" there shall be substituted the word "of".
. In Schedule 8 to the said Act of 1968, in paragraph 10, at the end there shall be inserted the following words—
"after the definition of "Street" there shall be inserted the following definition—

'Training school order' has the same meaning as in the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968'".

1968 c. 49.

. In Schedule 8 to the said Act of 1968, in paragraph 17(1), for the words "in Scotland" there shall be substituted the words ", within the meaning of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968".

1968 c. 49.

. In Schedule 8 to the said Act of 1968, in paragraph 38, for the words "In section 15(4)" there shall be substituted the words—
"(1) In section 15(3), for the words "the last mentioned order" there shall be substituted the words "or to the care of a local authority by a care order (other than an interim order) in force under the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, the fit person order or care order as the case may be".
(2) In subsection (4)".
. In Schedule 8 to the said Act of 1968, in sub-paragraph (1) of paragraph 51, for the words from "include" where it secondly occurs to the end of the sub-paragraph there shall be substituted the words '"include"'; and paragraph (e) shall be omitted."
. In Schedule 8 to the said Act of 1968, after paragraph 59, there shall be inserted the following paragraph:—
Criminal Justice Act 1961 (c. 39)
59A. In section 32(2), after paragraph (g), there shall be inserted the following paragraph—

(h) section 58A of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937.

1937 c. 37.

. In Schedule 8 to the said Act of 1968, for paragraph 74(1), there

1173
shall he substituted the following sub-paragraph—
74.—(1) For section 11(1)(a) there shall be substituted the following paragraph—

"(a) during which his or her residence in a residential establishment is required by a supervision requirement made under section 44 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, and the child is not absent from the residential establishment under supervision;".

1968 c. 49

in paragraph (b), for the words "the said Act of 1937", there shall be substituted the words "the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937", after paragraph (b) there shall be inserted the following paragraph—

1937 c. 37

"(bb) during which the child is liable to undergo residential training under committal by virtue of section 58A of the said Act of 1937, and is not released under that section;",

and for paragraph (c) there shall be substituted the following paragraph—

"(c) during which the child is accommodated by virtue of rules made by the Secretary of State under section 45 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968".".

1968 c. 49.

. In Part I of Schedule 9 to the said Act of 1968, in the entry relating to the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937, in the third column, after the words "Sections 68 to 86" there shall be inserted the following words—

1937 c. 37.

"In section 87(2) and (4) the words "England or" wherever they occur, in subsection (5) the words "in relation to England, the Secretary of State, and" and subsection (6)."

. In Part I of Schedule 9 to the said Act of 1968, in the entry relating to the Children Act 1958, in the third column, for the words "Section 2(6) and (7)" there shall be substituted the words—

1958 c. 65.

"In section 2, in subsection (4) the words from "or by virtue of" to "of an approved school", and subsections (6) and (7)."

. In Part I of Schedule 9 to the said Act of 1968, in the entry relating to section 15(3) of the Adoption Act 1958, in the third for the words "or the Children' to "1937"" there shall be substituted the following words "fit person by' to 'care of a' and the words 'fit person order or' and 'as the case may be'".

1958 c. 5 (7 & 8 Eliz. 2).

In Part II of Schedule 9 to the said Act 1968, in the entry relating to the Children Act 1958, in the third column, the entry relating to section 17 shall be omitted.

1958 c. 65.

. In Part II of Schedule 9 to the said Act of 1968, in the entry relating to the Family Allowances Act 1965, in the third column, for the words from "11," to "(2)," there shall be substituted the word "11(2)"."

1965 c. 53.

The noble and learned Lord said: This Amendment adds to Schedule 5 a number of paragraphs—I believe 18 in all—making Amendments to the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. These are either directly consequential on the provisions of the Bill which is before your Lordships or are verbal and minor drafting adjustments designed to clarify the provisions of the 1968 Act.
No significant policy changes a:-e involved if this Amendment is given effect to by your Lordships, and I have assumed (I hope correctly) that your Lordships would not wish me to go through in detail all 18 of the additional paragraphs sought to be added to the Bill. If your Lordships have any questions to raise upon any of them I shall do my best to answer, but as will be appreciated some of them involve less problems of law and interpretation than problems rather of the nature of a kind of drafting jigsaw puzzle. I beg to move.
EARL JELLICOE: There is one point I should like to ask the noble Lord about and it is to be found on page 7 of the Schedule. It is the last paragraph on page 7, and it relates to the transfer of persons detained in training schools under the law in force in Northern Ireland to Scotland. I did not know about this transfer from Northern Ireland to Scotland, and I wonder whether the noble Lord could enlighten us on what it is all about.
LORD WILSON OF LANGSIDE: I shall try to do so. The position, as I understand it, is that paragraph 7 of Schedule 8 of the Act of 1968 made certain changes which were consequential upon the abolition of approved schools in Scotland, which was effected, as your Lordships know, by our 1968 Act. The changes which were made were in Section 87 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937. That dealt with the

1175
transfer to Scotland of children in approved schools in England and Wales, and in the equivalent, as I understand it, training schools in Northern Ireland; and the changes proposed in what will become, if your Lordships approve it, paragraph 54 of Schedule 5 are consequential upon the abolition of approved schools in England and Wales.
EARL JELLICOE: I do not wish to pursue this particular matter, but it is one with which I am not familiar. On the face of it, it seems strange that there is this authority to transfer children from Northern Ireland to Scotland. I do not necessarily expect an answer now, but I was wondering whether there are effective safeguards here. It seems quite a drastic step, and I was wondering whether the parents or guardian of the child concerned, or the local authority, or the child itself, has a right of appeal if such a transfer is to be made.
LORD WILSON OF LANGSIDE: Without at all intending to be facetious, I am a little surprised that the noble Earl should see anything strange in the transfer from Northern Ireland to Scotland but not from Scotland to England. There have always been cross-Border provisions governing children on probation or in care as between Scotland and England, and so far as I am aware we have always had them in Scotland so far as Northern Ireland is concerned. But I will look into the matter further, in view of the noble Earl's concern about it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 5, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 6 (Repeals):
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved Amendment No. 48:
Page 92, line 14, at end insert—

("1894 c. 60.

The Merchant Shipping Act 1894.

In section 183(3), the proviso.")

The noble Lord said: This is a minor Amendment providing for the repeal of a provision under which the Secretary of State could have received sums deducted from a seaman's wages in respect of parental contributions due to a local authority in whose care the seaman's child was. The repeal confirms the right
1176
of the local authority to retain sums of this kind. The provision has been redundant and anomalous since the reorganisation of grants payable to local authorities in 1958. The repeal is a delayed consequence of that reorganisation. I beg to move.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Surely no Children and Young Persons Bill would he complete if its repeal schedule did not refer to the Merchant Shipping Act 1894.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 6, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 7 (Section 1 to 6 and 14 of the Children Act 1958 as amended.)
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 49.
Amendment moved—
Page 104, line 6, after ("subsection") insert ("(3) or")—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved Amendment No. 50:
Page 104, line 8, leave out from ("refusing") to end of line 11 and insert ("or an order under section five of that Act cancelling, the registration of any premises occupied by him or his registration;").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 50, and as this is the last Amendment I should like to express my grateful thanks to the noble Earl and his noble friends for their great help and co-operation, which has enabled us to deal with so many Amendments quite satisfactorily and expeditiously. I should like to say a particular word of thanks to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, not only for the immense care with which he studies these Amendments, which I find very helpful, but also for the fact that on this occasion, although he mentioned that we brought in the Merchant Shipping Act, we did not bring in Henry VIII. I beg to move.
EARL JELLICOE: I should very much like to reciprocate and thank the noble Lord for his courtesy and also to congratulate him on his stamina through this Committee stage. He said that it had been not only speedy but also helpful. I am afraid we have not gained all the points we should like from the noble

1177
Lord opposite, but of course we will have a chance of doing that at Report.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 7, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

LEVER PARK BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with an Amendment: the said Amendment considered, and agreed to.
PORTSMOUTH CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: the said Amendments considered, and agreed to.