Lords Sitting of 10 June 1969

Preamble
Reassembling after the Whitsun Recess, the House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Norwich.

PEERS AND DECLARATIONS OF INTERESTS
LORD BALOGH: 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 the Leader of the House what rules are laid down for Peers to disclose property, business and professional involvement when participating in debates.]
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, there are no Standing Orders governing this matter. It is a long-standing custom of this House that noble Lords speak always on their personal honour. It follows from this that if a Peer decides that it is proper for him to take part in a debate on a subject in which he has a direct pecuniary interest, he should declare it. The House will recall that when on March 26 last I repeated a Statement by the Prime Minister about declaration of interest in another place, I undertook to have talks through the usual channels about the subject, so far as this House was concerned. I have consulted certain of your Lordships, and following these discussions I should like to recommend that the question of clarifying the issues arising out of declaration of interest should be referred to the Procedure Committee at an appropriate moment, taking into account the progress of the consideration of this subject in another place.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Can he say whether the same rules apply to Starred and Unstarred Questions?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, they apply, of course, at all times. The noble Lord's Question refers particularly
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to debates. As a matter of common sense, I think it might be difficult if noble Lords were to declare an interest every time they asked a supplementary question. The interests of some noble Lords are so well known that they do not always need declaring. But the principle, I think, remains the same.

EMPLOYMENT OF SCIENCE GRADUATES
2.38 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: 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 are satisfied that science graduates are being employed to the best advantage.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): No, my Lords. For instance, there is some evidence that in industry too many qualified scientists and engineers are in research and development and not enough in management, design, production and marketing. The Government are doing what they can to improve matters.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am grateful for that Answer. Is the noble Lord aware that Mr. Brian Ford carried out some investigations into this matter, the result of which was published in the New Scientist on May 1? His evidence rather suggested that there are a great many qualified graduates who are either wholly unemployed or in unskilled jobs. Would the noble Lord be prepared to look at this question?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, the article in question is well known to my right honourable friend, and it may be that a certain amount of journalistic licence has been permitted to creep into the assessment of the sample there referred to.

NUCLEAR FALL-OUT SAFEGUARDS
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: 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 measures they contemplate for protection against nuclear fall-out in the event of a war in which we ourselves are not involved.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, the measures necessary for protection against nuclear fall-out in a war involving this country could also be applied, if necessary, during a war in which we were not involved. The most important element in such protection is a system for detecting the existence and forecasting the movement of radioactive fall-out and for giving warning to the public. This service is provided by the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for that Answer, but what I am asking has to do particularly with protection rather than with warning. May I ask whether there are any measures in contemplation for the actual protection of the public in the event of nuclear fall-out travelling around the world?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation, including of course the 24,000 warning points, has been preserved at operational readiness. We have the posts manned by the Royal Observer Corps, and collectively, including help from our NATO Allies, they monitor and forecast the movement and intensity of radioactive fall-out and give warning to the public. When those warnings are given, so far as protection is concerned the best protection is to get under cover and to remain under cover until the fall-out is no longer intense: and information will be conveyed to the public by the B.B.C. and other sources.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he would not agree that the only way to prevent damage from nuclear warfare is to abolish nuclear warfare? Would he also not agree with me, therefore, that the step that we might take is to prevent the Government spokesman from proclaiming to the world that Britain is prepared to engage in nuclear warfare?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I would say that my noble friend's first proposition was sound. With regard to the second part of her question, this country and Government have always taken the lead, and continue to take the initiative, towards the step we all desire.
BARONESS SUMMER SKILL: My Lords, in a supplementary question, may I ask whether my noble friend has not observed in the newspapers that our Government representative said only last week that if such and such a thing did happen we should have to engage in nuclear warfare? Am I not correct?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am not able to say whether my noble friend is correct or not. I am quite sure that what she has asked does not arise out of this Question.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, to refer to my noble friend's original Question, may I ask the Government whether they are sure that their destruction of the Civil Defence Service in this country has not destroyed an essential link between the monitoring organisation and the general public?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, no, I am quite certain that that is not so. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has great knowledge of these matters, and I am answering a question which poses the hypothesis of a distant attack in which we are not involved. Whether it is a distant attack, or an attack on this country, the organisation to which I have referred is operational and remains operational, and the warnings I have mentioned and the assistance I referred to could and would be given.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, the noble Lord has said that the warning system is in full force. My noble friend's original Question asked what steps the Government are taking for protection, which is not at all the same thing.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I also answered the question about protection in reply to the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, but again I must inform the noble Lord that I am answering a Question about an attack in which this country is not involved, not an attack on this country. As he will recall, if there were likelihood

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of nuclear attack on this country, we expect that there would be some warning of it, and the Government of the day would take whatever steps, additional steps, were necessary to protect the people of this country.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, do the Government really think there would be the time?
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether there has been a change of thinking about this matter? When the Civil Defence was in full operation, it was always represented to us as protection against nuclear fall-out, whether we were engaged in the war or not. It was a very serious problem and one against which protection was extremely difficult. Now from the noble Lord's reply one gathers that all one has to do is to stay indoors and listen to one's radio.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, no; as so often occurs when the noble Lord puts a supplementary question, he endeavours to introduce a note of levity which does not come off. I must remind him that I am referring to and answering a Question about nuclear fall-out arising from a nuclear explosion in a war in which this country is not involved. The question the noble Lord puts refers to one where this country is involved in a nuclear war.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, he poses the question of a nuclear attack. If we are talking in reply to the noble Earl's Question, I say we have in existence something which could be activated, whatever protection is necessary, to protect the people of this country from radioactive fall-out occurring from a distant explosion.

GIFTED CHILDREN: WOMEN AND TEACHING INQUIRY
2.46 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: 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 the number of women members ap-
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pointed to the Working Party set up by the National Schools Council to consider the teaching of gifted children in primary schools.]
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government understand from the Schools Council for the Curriculum and Examinations, which is an independent body, that there are at present no women members of the Working Party. The Working Party is, however, considering co-opting additional members, and some of these may be women.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply. May I ask whether consideration may be given to adding some women members to this Working Party? And will my noble friend ask her right honourable friend the Secretary of State to use his influence to ensure that when any other Working Party is set up it shall include representatives of the women in the service of education who have given such outstanding service—particularly, if I may say so, in the field of primary education.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that supplementary question. Were I permitted to do so by Standing Orders (I am not quite clear whether I am permitted to do so) I would have thanked him for the original Question. I heartily endorse all he has said about the contribution of women teachers at all levels, and women generally in the cause of education. I will certainly convey his views to my right honourable friend. But the Working Party is of course an independent body, so the views of the Minister must be conveyed to it, and the Working Party, of course, has to come to the ultimate decision.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, could my noble friend answer this simple question? In view of the fact that 75 or 80 per cent. of the teachers in this country are women, how is it that when recommendations are called for, the Civil Service forgets there are two sexes in this country?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I naturally sympathise very much with the point put by my noble friend although I hasten to say that it is not entirely the responsibility of the Civil Service. This

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is in fact a Working Party set up by the Schools Council, but the Working Party would have called for a membership interested in the teaching of gifted children. The personnel of the Working Party are good, and I suppose they would try to view this matter objectively. They want the right people—I will not say "broken down" by sex—but not necessarily by sex.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend another question? Would she think that perhaps it is due to the fact that they think women can teach only stupid children?
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, how does a Working Party differ from a Committee?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I find myself at a loss to answer either of the last two questions. This Working Party is in fact a committee. If the noble Lord wishes me to get a definition of the various classifications I will try to do that for him: I feel that it would be for my own education as well.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend to accept that one appreciates that the persons appointed constitute a very distinguished list of men experienced in the service of education, but undoubtedly it would have been a good thing if they could have been advised by one or two women in their presence?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I entirely agree. I cannot think of any Working Party, committee, council or other organisation which would not benefit by having women as part of its personnel.

NATIONAL INSURANCE BENEFITS AND CONTRIBUTIONS
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble friend Lady Serota will be making a Statement on the proposed National Insurance Bill.
YORK CORPORATION BILL
Read 2a, and committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
BEDFORD CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

TRANSPORT (LONDON) BILL
2.52 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE, R.A.F. (LORD WINTERBOTTOM): My Lords, I beg to move that the Transport (London) Bill be read a second time. I should mention at the outset that this is a hybrid Bill and still open to Petitions; any that may be received will be handled in the normal way. The Bill is an extremely important measure designed to tackle the very real transport problems of our large conurbation in a manner more comprehensive than anything else tried to date anywhere else in the world.
The basic problems are several. There are first of all the large numbers of people who come into the capital to work every day, many travelling long distances in the process. In an average working day this amounts to about seven million journeys in both directions, of which about two and a half million are to or from the central area. Despite measures which have been and will be taken to encourage firms to move their offices out of London, this problem is likely to remain with us for the foreseeable future and may indeed be accentuated by the forecast drift of population out of central London. On top of this, there will be an increase in the number of social and recreational journeys inside Greater London springing in the main from the growth in car ownership. These journeys could well double over the next 15 years. Finally, there is the balance to be struck between the convenience of the motor car to its users, and the effect to which this use when multiplied up has on pedestrians, local residents and the urban environment in general.
As noble Lords will appreciate, each of these problems has implications for different transport systems which are in turn interrelated. To take an example, although most commuters travel by rail or bus (providing a marked contrast with

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the private car dominated social and recreational journeys), an increasing minority use their cars. Buses and cars are competing for the same, often very limited, road space. Should the former be given priority, and, if so, in what circumstances? My task this afternoon is not to try to answer these questions or to work out solutions to the problems themselves, but to outline the way in which the organisational changes proposed in the Transport (London) Bill establish a framework which will best enable this to be done.
The essence of the Bill is to co-ordinate all the interrelated transport elements in London—public transport, highways and traffic—to facilitate the production of the necessary comprehensive policies for planning, operations and finance. Overall powers of strategic control will be placed in the hands of the elected representatives of the people of Greater London—the Greater London Council. The Government consider that this approach, which looks at urban transport as an essentially local rather than national question, is the right one. The policy is consistent with that for the Passenger Transport Authorities which are being established under the Transport Act 1968, as I am certain many noble Lords will remember. The Bill before your Lordships to-day is the product of detailed discussion between my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport and the right honourable Lady who preceded him and the G.L.C. Its basic aims are not controversial, although certain of its particular provisions, which I shall come on to later, have aroused strong feelings in another place. The basis for this legislation was of course set out in the White Paper, Transport in London, published in July last year.
Clause 1 of the Bill requires the G.L.C.:
"To develop policies, and to encourage, organise and, where appropriate, carry out measures which will promote the provision of integrated, efficient and economic transport facilities and services for Greater London."
The remaining provisions, which fall into three main categories, are designed to enable the Council effectively to carry out this general duty. The first concerns the Council's strategic transport planning role. They will take the
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lead in drawing up co-ordinated plans for transport in London in conjunction with the Minister, the new London Transport Executive, which I shall come on to shortly, the British Railways Board, local authorities and as appropriate other interested bodies like the National Bus Company and the trade unions. Subjects covered by these plans will probably include operations and investment in the highway and public transport fields, proposals for interchanges between different transport systems and parking policy viewed in the context of overall transport and traffic management. The important thing about these plans is that the bodies who will be responsible for implementing them will be the very people who had previously drawn them up, and the G.L.C. as the "co-ordinating architect" will under the provisions in the rest of the Bill have adequate powers to ensure that the proposals are carried through.
In all this, public transport, of course, plays a key role. Those of your Lordships who regularly travel by bus or Tube in London will not need to be reminded of that fact. Indeed, there is probably a great deal of expertise in this House on the operations of the London Transport Board and the sort of problems they have to face—more so certainly than at the time, many years ago, when the late Lord Curzon was, for the first and last time, persuaded to ride on a bus. The experience upset him very much indeed. "I gave the fellow a penny", he said, "and asked him to take me to Parliament Square—and he refused." I think there is now a general recognition, not only of the basic nature of bus travel, but of the vital importance of a strong and efficient system of public transport. And one of the most important sections of the Bill deals with the reorganisation of the London Transport undertaking, so as to import into this field the local control and responsibility that I mentioned earlier.
The Bill provides for the winding up of the present London Transport Board, with its central (red) buses and railway being taken over by a new London Transport Executive (L.T.E.) which will be responsible to the G.L.C. in roughly the same way as the present Board are

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to the Minister. The Council will have overall policy control of the Executive, will appoint its members and approve its investment proposals and general level of fares, while the Executive will be responsible for day-to-day management. The London Transport Board's country bus and Green Line coaches, mainly operating outside Greater London, will be transferred to a subsidiary of the National Bus Company.
The G.L.C. have made it clear that their take-over of this public transport undertaking is dependent on its being financially viable at the time of transfer. "Viability" is defined as an ability on the part of the L.T.E. to pay its way, with sufficient margin to create a general reserve of £2 million in its first year of operation. This will be achieved by a 90 per cent. write-off of the present Board's capital debt to the Government, which will result in a relief on interest payments of the order of £11 million a year; coupled with the fares increases for the central buses and Tubes approved by the N.B.P.I. last month which should come into operation in the autumn of this year. Given that the G.L.C. were unwilling to enter into any commitment to use their powers under the Bill to subsidise fares from the rates, the Government accepted that in order to achieve the transfer this fares increase was unfortunately inevitable.
I should now like to deal with the operating powers proposed for the Executive. In placing no mileage or geographical limit on the Executive's operations, this Bill differs quite deliberately from the legislation concerned with the present London Transport Board and the arrangements for the P.T.E.s laid down in the Transport Act of last year. The reason for this is our belief that the geographical nature and extent of London and its position as the capital city mean that geographical limits, if laid down, could quickly be made unrealistic by future transport developments—for instance the Third London Airport. There is, however, no intention on the part of my right honourable friend, the G.L.C. or the L.T.B. that these necessarily wide powers should be used to operate services not essentially related to the needs of Greater
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London—inter-city rail services or long distance coaches are obvious examples of services not intended to be included.
There has been a great deal of discussion about the bus operating powers of the L.T.E. These are basically intended to give the Executive the power to plan and shape the pattern of bus operations in Greater London within the framework of the overall plans which I have already mentioned. Unless this is to be a largely meaningless provision it must be associated with the control of the activities of other operators running services in Greater London, who would otherwise be able to adopt policies inconsistent with those adopted by the L.T.E. To be precise, the Bill provides that within Greater London "stage" and "express" bus services may be operated only by the L.T.E., its subsidiaries or by another operator under an agreement with the Executive. The position of independent operators at present running services in the area is protected in that the consents under which existing services are run will be continued, with a right of appeal against any refusal of the L.T.E. to renew them.
Fears have been expressed in another place that the L.T.E. could, with the advantage of its scale of operations and possible subsidy from the rates, deliberately set out to drive out private bus operators in areas outside Greater London. So far as stage and express services are concerned, these will outside Greater London be subject to the control of the independent traffic commissioners, who will have the job of judging the merits of any case put by the L.T.E. for extending its services. They would take account, among other things, of the way in which a particular route was already being served by other operators. Although this protection will not extend to contract carriages, the possibility of independent operators in this field facing severe competition from the L.T.E. seems remote. The Executive's main job will be to run London bus services and it is doubtful whether for some time, if at all, it will have the capacity to do much contract carriage work or, indeed, that it will see its role as involving widespread activity in this field of operation.
In view of the interest which they have aroused, I should now like to say something about the provisions in Clause 6

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of the Bill which cover the L.T.E.'s manufacturing powers. The Executive will, subject to the directions of the G.L.C., be empowered to manufacture for itself, its subsidiaries, the G.L.C. or any of the nationalised transport authorities. These powers are considerably wider than those given to the somewhat analogous P.T.E.s, but more restrictive than those laid down in the Transport Act 1968 for the nationalised transport authorities, which placed no restrictions on whom the authorities could manufacture for. The provisions must be seen in perspective. There is no intention whatsoever that the L.T.E. should set itself up as a vast manufacturing concern engaging in cut-throat competition in the field of manufacture: its basic function is that laid down in Clause 5(1):
"to provide … such public passenger transport services as best meet the needs … of Greater London".
What is proposed here is simply to give the Executive powers which will enable it fully to utilise its manufacturing capacity and manpower skills while at the same time reflecting its unique position as what could be termed a "municipalised transport authority". The Executive will also be able to repair motor vehicles and sell petrol or spare parts and accessories for them in its car parks.
Before leaving the new arrangements for London Transport, I should like to mention the financial duties which will be placed upon the Executive and the new procedures for controlling fares on its services. The major difficulty to date has been to reconcile the two statutory duties of the L.T.B.—on the one hand, that of paying its way and, on the other hand, of providing an "adequate" system of passenger transport. In this Bill it is made clear that the Executive's overriding duty is the financial one, to break even and meet financial objectives set for periods fixed by the G.L.C. and that its duty
"to provide or secure the provision of such public passenger transport services as best meet the needs … of Greater London"
will have to be formulated within the framework of its financial duties. The practical effect of this will be that Londoners, through their elected representatives on the G.L.C., will decide the pricing policies and levels of service for their public transport and will take financial responsibility for their decisions.
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This would seem to be an eminently reasonable approach.
So far as fares are concerned, the Transport Tribunal's present control of London fares is something of an anomaly, in that nothing similar exists elsewhere in the country, and these special provisions will be inappropriate in the light of the G.L.C.'s direct role on fares questions. It is thus proposed under the Bill to abolish the Transport Tribunal's London fares functions, control of fares in the interim between that date and the establishment of the L.T.E. resting in the hands of my right honourable friend. Clearly, British Rail fares in the London area cannot be considered separately from those for the buses and Tubes, and the Bill proposes that these should be fixed with regard to financial objectives drawn up by the Minister after consulting the G.L.C.
Finally, I should like to move on to the highway and traffic provisions contained in Part V of the Bill. The intention is to strengthen the highway and traffic powers of the G.L.C. to enable them more effectively to carry out their responsibilities as the strategic transport authority for London. Their highway authority responsibilities will be extended by some 320 miles, so that all principal roads in Greater London become metropolitan ones, but, at the same time, the system of development control along metropolitan roads is to be altered so as to allow the London boroughs a greater role in future. The G.L.C. will also be given a greater say on borough roads about traffic signs and signals, pedestrian crossings and obstructions caused by road works.
But the new, most important and, in the Government's view, vital, provision in this Part of the Bill is concerned with the controls proposed for public off-street car parks, First, the background. It has become clear over the last few years that proper control of parking is essential to the management of the total transport situation in large towns and conurbations. If I may, I would quote from the 1963 Buchanan Report, Traffic in Towns.
"It appears absolutely essential that the public authority should retain complete control of:—

(i) the amount of parking space that is provided;

(ii) its location and

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(iii) the charges that are levied,

and it should be prepared to use its control methodically as part of the implementation of the transportation plan".
In 1967, a further study recognised the need for better control in big towns over the location, amount and use of parking space—both off and on street. This was particularly needed to deal with long-term parking by commuters. The need for action was abvious and in the White Paper, Transport in London, it was made clear that measures to control the use of publicly available off-street car parks were to be introduced. These are now set out in Clause 36 and Schedule 5 to the Bill. Under them, the G.L.C. and London boroughs will jointly operate a licensing system. The G.L.C. will have the strategic role of defining the area to be controlled and the general conditions to apply to it. Within a controlled area, all car parks available to the general public for payment, whether publicly or privately owned, will be subject to these conditions. The boroughs will apply the system locally and issue the individual licences. Through this system, the local authorities will be able to influence by regulation or price—or a combination of the two—the volume and composition of traffic in the interests of more efficient movement over a wide area of Greater London.
There are several objectives of a licensing scheme. One example is controlling the volume of traffic on radial routes into Central London during peak hours so as to reduce congestion and consequent economic losses and so as to enable these routes to be used more efficiently by public transport; and another is encouraging the provision of car parking space which can be used by residents, thereby reducing the need for street parking. I might add at this juncture that I understand that the G.L.C. have it in mind initially to control an area of central London of about 10 square miles.
Next, the important checks and safeguards for protecting the legitimate interests of the private operators. The provisions are pretty comprehensive—hence the length of the Schedule. A lot of safeguards have been built in as a result of discussions with interested parties and the provisions before the House today give as fair a system as possible, although
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admittedly only at the cost of some complexity. The basic safeguards are these: first, an operator who objects to any of the provisions in the G.L.C.'s regulations can make representations which have to come to the Minister who, if he thinks fit, will call in the Regulations, in whole or in part, and make any modifications which he considers appropriate. He can hold a local inquiry if he wishes. Secondly, when an operator conies to apply for a licence and objects to any of the conditions put in it by a borough or indeed by a refusal to grant a licence at all, the applicant will have a right of appeal to the Minister, who will again be able to insist on remedial action and has power to call for a hearing or local inquiry. If at the end of the day it is concluded that the wider interests of the general public must override those of the particular operator, then it will be open to the operator to put in a claim for compensation. Your Lordships will agree that these represent a very fair system of safeguards.
In conclusion, I should, with the indulgence of your Lordships, like to touch on something which I said at the beginning of this speech. The new organisation proposed in the Transport (London) Bill will not of itself solve the many varied and complex problems which we face in this City to-day. But what it should do is to provide a framework which will best enable those concerned to come to grips with them. It is on this note that I would commend this important Bill to the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Winterbottom.)
3.14 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for moving the Second Reading of this Bill and for describing the contents of the Bill to us. May I say that for my part I welcome the broad intention of the Bill and believe that the general structure of it will fulfil the hopes of the Government. The main purpose, which he has described, of transferring the London Transport Board to the Greater London Council, together with the other powers that are being added of traffic and highway construction, gives the Greater London Council the full equipment needed to manage the life of a great

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city. The fact is that to-day public transport, traffic management, highway construction and planning are all interrelated, and each one of them has a decisive influence on the life of the city. The fact is that in most cities of the world to-day these powers are fragmented, to the detriment, of course, of the dwellers in those cities. But by putting all these powers into the hands of the G.L.C. we shall be putting London in the lead and giving the G.L.C. the best chance of planning and managing the life of London decently in the age of the universal motor car.
It is the universal motor car, which brings so many blessings to our lives, that causes such terrible complexities in the life of cities. This lesson we can see being learned, not very well, in other cities in the world, and particularly, perhaps, in the United States of America. The United States has had about a generation longer to learn this lesson than we have had. They have had the universal motor car problem with them for, I should say, at least the last thirty years. One can see, when one looks there, that the problem of securing a decent life in their cities is very far from solved; they are still plagued by appalling traffic congestion and seriously decaying urban centres in their cities. It is a good deal worse than in this country. I think we can learn something from their experience.
The American policy which was being followed certainly thirty or forty years ago was to concentrate resources on building great urban highways right into the heart of their cities in order to give access to work by private car, and broadly to withhold investment from public transport systems. But experience has taught them over the years that even with their magnificent highways this policy is unworkable, and for the past ten or fifteen years city authorities in the United States have been working desperately to salvage the public transport systems which have, broadly speaking, declined into bankruptcy and dereliction. As noble Lords who visit America will know, most of these public transport systems are still in an astonishingly low condition and quality and very unattractive to use. As a matter of interest we can see the Americans, with their marvellous technological thoroughness, carrying the argument to
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its logical conclusion in Los Angeles, because there they have built a system of urban motorways which must be without equal anywhere in the world, and is unlikely ever to be equalled. There is a complete growth of motorways over the whole city and what has happened is that the centre of the city has disappeared altogether. The life goes on now in the suburbs outside; but still at the peak hour times the traffic is slowed down to the pace of a buggy, and they are back in square one again, the same as everybody else.
The lesson there has been learned very expensively, that there just is not room in the streets of any city for all commuters and shoppers to come by private car. It may seem a simple lesson, but the Americans have spent many thousands of millions of pounds learning it. There may be some social justice in the fact that whereas in the 19th century we pioneered the railway system in this country and the rest of the world learnt by our mistakes, now in the 20th century the Americans have pioneered city life for the universal motor car and we, in our turn, can learn from their mistakes and perhaps benefit by them to some extent.
I think we have. For one thing, looking at London, we have not dismantled our public transport system. Neither have we torn the heart out of the city of London, which nobody wants to see done. Of course it is common form to criticise London Transport and the commuter services of British Rail, and indeed there is plenty to criticise in them; but it would be true to say—and all of us who travel round the world know this—that London's system of surface rail, underground rail and bus, is structurally and technically very good: one of the best, if not the best, in the world. The personnel management is not of the same standard and I shall have a word to say about that later.
London Transport and British Rail still carry to-day about 90 per cent. of all commuters to work, and it is interesting to note that despite the rising numbers who use motor cars for going to work, four-fifths of those who own motor cars and commute use public transport. But as car ownership continues to rise the pressure on the roads of the 10 per cent. of commuters who at present go to work by private car to rise will

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be serious, and if it rose it would undoubtedly choke up the traffic routes to the detriment of everybody. That is the picture that the Government and the G.L.C. will soon be grappling with. The G.L.C. have to develop policies for London Transport, for the management of London traffic, which will make public transport attractive enough for the travelling public, and, secondly, restrain the use of the private car within the traffic capacity of London streets.
I should like to turn for a moment to discuss how the G.L.C. will achieve this under the Bill, and particularly that part of Clause 1 to which the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, referred, to
"… promote the provision of integrated, efficient and economic transport facilities and services for Greater London."
The noble Lord explained to us the financial basis of the transfer, which is to get London Transport out of deficit and, secondly, to make it financially viable plus creating a reserve of £2 million per annum. The noble Lord, I thought, had a hint of criticism in his reference to the fact that the G.L.C. were unwilling to contemplate an immediate rate burden in order to keep fares at their present level, but I do not think that that criticism is justified. I think the G.L.C. are perfectly right to protect the interests of London's ratepayers. Whatever problems they may have in the future, they should start on a financially viable basis.
But there is a point here which does deserve, I think, a little more comment than the noble Lord gave it, and that is the implication that this Bill writes off nine-tenths of London Transport's capital. The noble Lord presented it in its most innocuous form as £11 million per annum, but in fact it is a capital sum of £244 million which is being written off, and although this is of benefit to London's ratepayers it is a very heavy burden for the taxpayers of this country to have to face. This, added to all the capital that has been written off other nationalised industries, pushes up the total amount written off to over £2,000 million, a very substantial sum of money. The point I wish to make is that with this sombre record of loss-making by nationalised industries before us, it is astonishing to find the Government putting into Clause 6 of
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this Bill wide manufacturing and trading powers which will enable the London Transport Executive directly or indirectly to manufacture or trade in anything they like. And the noble Lord's eloquent pleading that this was "a very little one" did not persuade me that it was other than really gross folly.
Look at the facts. The record shows the damaging series of losses in nationalised industries, mainly due to weakness in management. Secondly, the Prices and Incomes Board Report underlines that London Transport management is very weak. Thirdly, the management of the public transport services alone is beset with great extrinsic difficulties which the London Transport Executive will be fully stretched to cope with, without taking on any additional trading powers. And, fourthly, the G.L.C. have strongly urged the Minister of Transport that they do not want these powers. Despite all these cogent contrary indications, the Government are still determined to extend the scope of State trading. Really, I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, that this is not a brain reaction, it is a blood reaction—and if I were not polite I should make it into an adjective.
The future financial policy for London Transport will be strongly influenced by the fact that the deficit will fall on the ratepayers who elect the Greater London Council. This, I think, is a thoroughly sound constitution, and I commend both the Government and the G.L.C. in agreeing to it. But I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, that this is entirely consistent with the 1968 Transport Act which set up the Passenger Transport Authorities, because they, of course, are appointed bodies, their membership is appointed by the Minister. They are not elected by the local government bodies, and although they have power to precept on the ratepayers, the ratepayers have no say in who makes up the membership of those bodies. Noble Lords may remember that we urged the Government last year to amend the 1968 Act in this respect so as to make these bodies democratic and representative. The Government, unfortunately, did not take our good advice, but I am glad to see that the light has now dawned upon them and in this Bill at any rate they have got the constitution right. I hope further amending legislation will follow.

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It is not going to be easy for the G.L.C. to keep London Transport solvent. The past trend of rising costs and falling traffic gives a warning of the sort of problem that they are going to have to face. It is true that stronger management and new techniques will help to check rising costs, but they may not be enough, and my advice to the G.L.C. is to shun like the plague a subsidy on current account. They have made a very good start in this respect. I believe that nothing is more demoralising and weakening to management than a subsidy on current account, and if the G.L.C. find that some financial help is needed they will be much wiser to limit it to subsidy on capital account where some major new capital development is made. The G.L.C. then have to pay for 25 per cent. and the Government give a grant of another 75 per cent. While it is perfectly true that increased fares, which of course increase the incentive for travellers to switch from public transport to private cars, are obviously to be avoided if possible, my judgment is that if and when the issue arises increased fares are preferable to a subsidy on current account.
The second major aspect of this picture is the Greater London Council's policy for traffic management and highway building, because the better the traffic flows, the better the buses keep their schedules, the more attractive the services to the travelling public, the more passengers there are and therefore the more solvent London Transport is. In this context I welcome Part V of the Bill. This gives the G.L.C. responsibility for construction of highways and traffic management on all main traffic arteries in Greater London. First, this will enable them to promote major highway improvements on all these roads, and secondly, it will enable the G.L.C. to link traffic management right through all these traffic arteries, particularly with regard to traffic lights. The best systems to-day link to a central control the traffic lights right through the whole of the traffic arteries out to the periphery, so that the whole system is phased to give the best traffic flow. I am delighted to hear that the G.L.C.'s highly qualified traffic department are already preparing schemes for a traffic control centre which will do just this.
Clause 36 of the Bill, to which the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, referred,
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gives the Greater London Council control over parking—off-street as well as on-street—in Greater London, and I know that this has aroused some anxiety, which the noble Lord mentioned. But he also referred to the safeguards for both private and public interests, and I feel that these were substantial. I know that the British Airports Authority still has anxieties, and we may hear more about these.
To take this subject in two parts, in the case of on-street parking—that is, parking controlled by meters—experience in central London over the last ten years I think has persuaded most people that this is a beneficial system. It has improved traffic flow and it has given us, as short-term parkers, an improved chance of finding a place at the kerb. It is now being extended to the outer ring (which has earned the unpleasant name of the "gluepot ring"), where traffic has been so badly congested in recent years, and especially the public transport buses, which often lose half an hour to an hour on their schedules. So it will be of great benefit when the system is extended throughout. It is interesting to recall that ten or twelve years ago, when I myself had something to do with this subject, there was tremendous opposition to the meter system for on-street parking; but believe that to-day most people accept that this is a sensible measure. I would, however, make one point to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom. I am most alarmed to hear of the great volume of evasions of prosecutions (I believe that it amounts to something like 20 per cent.), and I suggest to the Government that the time has come to look at the law in this respect, and possibly to bring it up to date on the same lines as the new Vehicle and Driving Licences Bill, under which the offence will be applied to the vehicle rather than to the driver.
Let me now turn to off-street parking control, which is new as a traffic control measure. I realise that this idea has caused anxiety, much as the on-street parking measures did ten or twelve years ago. But I would suggest that there are two justifications for it. First, it is essential to ensure that off-street parking is in the right place, both for entrances and exits, and that it does not cause congestion in the traffic flow. Secondly—and here is the major point to which the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom,

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referred—it is essential in order to control the total number of vehicles on London streets at any time. This is done, as the noble Lord told us, both by controlling the number of places available and by the charge which is made for them in the different areas. This brings the argument right into the centre of the traffic authority's responsibility; namely, that they must see that traffic flows smoothly and safely, and is not swamped by an excessive number of vehicles. This is the direct responsibility of the traffic authority. Only they can do it, and they must do it in the interests of everybody.
There are certainly objectionable features about this kind of control, but we must accept the facts of living in a great city with the universal motor car; and parking control is the best known method of getting the total volume of traffic within workable limits. The alternatives which have been discussed, of road pricing—for example, the use of black boxes which record mileage in urban areas, to be charged for at higher mileage rates; or special higher cost road licences for entering Inner London—are at present known to us only in theory. I do not think they would be very popular in practice. Thus, my support is for the noble Lord and his Bill, for the traffic authority to have overall control over all parking places. There are certain points that I should like to discuss in Committee in regard to the safeguards, but in regard to the principle I feel that this is the best measure in the interests of Londoners.
Finally, I turn to the problem of London Transport management. The weakness of London Transport management has of course been well known to all of us; but when the one-man buses, the Red Arrow buses, which are now running so well, arrived they stood for nearly a year in the bus garages because the unions opposed them. This indicates just how weak the management is. We have two expert independent Reports to guide us in this matter. First of all, there is the Prices and Incomes Board Report of 1968. and then there is the Report of 1969. Both Reports comment in great detail on the management problems in the London Passenger Transport Board. The 1968 Report confirmed that the management problems were serious. The Report said that
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"substantial annual savings in costs are feasible", and the general tone was strongly critical.
It has been interesting to me to see that the 1969 Report, which continues this discussion, takes a less critical tone; it seems that the critical tone of the 1968 Report has been somewhat tempered. I should like the noble Lord when he replies to the debate, to tell us whether it is the fact that in the interval the London Passenger. Transport Board has moved somewhat and thus has earned some relief from the pressure put upon it by the Prices and Incomes Board, because it has made some of the improvements suggested in the 1968 Report. It would be interesting to hear if that is so. Certainly the 1968 Report tells us that the unions have always refused to allow work measurement practices to be applied in the bus workshops—with absurd results, of course. But the 1969 Report tells us that consultants have been busy in the workshops, assessing and applying productivity schemes, and that already they are achieving a useful service. If my deduction is correct, that the Board has taken action to clean up this situation, it is good news, and I am glad to hear it. I think it is of great credit to the new Chairman, Mr. Maurice Holmes, and also, I think, to the Ministry of Transport, who have been trying to urge on these things for some time.
Similarly, the 1968 Report criticised the London Passenger Transport Board for planning to take fifteen years to introduce one-man bus operation. That, of course, is by far the biggest potential cost-saver of the lot. The Prices and Incomes Board suggested that the change-over could be done in half the time. But the 1969 Report says that the Board plan to complete the change in ten or eleven years, and the Prices and Incomes Board makes no more comment than to say that further speed-up would be possible. But, in any event, this is a substantial improvement. The period has come down from fifteen years to ten or eleven years.
There is one point of anxiety here, I think. In the 1969 Report from the Prices and Incomes Board we hear that the introduction of one-man operation of buses has to date given no financial advantage to the London Transport Board because the gains made have been

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entirely spent in the higher bonuses paid and in retraining costs. This I regard as an alarming result. I should have thought it was basic to any industrial relations that when new labour-saving schemes are introduced the financial benefit should be shared by all three parties, the business and the consumers, as well as the workers. To allow the workers to swallow the lot is not fair, either to the public or to anybody else. I would urge on the G.L.C. and the London Transport Executive that in future they must ensure fair shares all round. But despite this unhappy record on the one-man buses, there seems now to be the beginnings of better personnel management. The Prices and Incomes Board have advised making a completely new productivity agreement covering all the points set out in the 1969 Report. I believe that this is good advice, and I hope that the G.L.C. will firmly back the new Transport Executive to negotiate this with the unions.
The 1969 Report also refers to one other point that I should like to mention; namely, the substantial losses due to fraud—in other words, ticket evasion. The best means of checking this is by the introduction of automatic fare collection. We have seen good examples of this on the one-man buses and on the new Victoria Line. Obviously, the right course to take is for the London Transport Executive of the future to introduce the system generally throughout both systems. I hope that the G.L.C. will require them to do this as fast as they can. There would be a big advantage there not only in reducing fraud, but also in substantial labour saving, which would overcome all staff shortages as well as make big financial gains.
Finally, the Prices and Incomes Board advise London Transport to set up a marketing department to study the consumer taste—the travelling public's wishes, and to try to fit the services better into what they require. This seems good advice. Something useful was done in getting later closing of the Oxford Street shops in order to relieve the peak travelling hours at the time when office workers were leaving for home. Such things as this can he done if you have experts on the job, a really positive effort can be made at marketing the services that Lon
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don Transport have to offer. Certainly it seems to me that there is great scope for stronger, more imaginative management to bring substantial benefits to the travelling public, both in lower costs and in better services, and this is obviously an important part for the future.
When this Bill is on the Statute Book the Greater London Council will have taken on a major responsibility, of great difficulty and complexity. But they will have been given the full range of powers over all the functions concerned: planning, construction, traffic management and public transport; and I am sure that with courage, imagination and good judgment, the G.L.C. will succeed in getting the right balance of the many conflicting factors, to the benefit of the life of the people of London. My Lords, I support the Second Reading of the Bill.
3.41 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, in his introduction of this Bill, made some passing reference to Clause 36, and what struck me as a distinctly lightweight case in favour of what is contained in that clause. I have just listened to my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford largely supporting the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, and apparently falling over himself, so far as I could see, to agree with Lord Winterbottom in what he had to say about Clause 36. Clearly, therefore, since neither of the noble Lords concerned seem to have apprised themselves of the true significance of the principle and the effect of this clause, it falls to my lot to explain to your Lordships what it is. Therefore, the remarks that I shall make on the Bill will be confined to that clause.
In my view, this is a clause which is both curious and spurious, and is so objectionable that if it formed the subject of a separate Bill I should do my best to persuade your Lordships not to give it a Second Reading at all. Because it forms part of a much wider Bill, much of which is not only not objectionable but indeed very desirable, I obviously cannot do that; but at least I can tell your Lordships what I think of it and assure you that I shall be returning at Committee stage with a fair packet of Amendments.
I am seeing Clause 36 from three points of view, and in the light of the Answer

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given by the noble Lord the Leader of the House, Lord Shackleton, to the first Question of the afternoon, I think I had better be careful in explaining to your Lordships what those three points of view are. First, I am seeing it from the point of view of the detrimental effect on the private motorist in my capacity as an executive Vice-Chairman of the Royal Automobile Club. Secondly, I am seeing it from the point of view of the very serious difficulties imposed on private off-street car park operators, not only on account of the effect of those difficulties for their own sake but also for the way in which they too affect the interest of the private motorist and the car-owning public. Here I think I can speak with some authority because of my connection with the largest firm of car park operators, particularly in London—that is to say, National Car Parks—though I should also state that my connection is of a consultant nature and I hold no financial interest in that company. Thirdly, and because I think it is important, I see it from the point of view of the British Airports Authority, with whom I have no conection beyond whatever any other member of the public may claim to have with a statutory undertaking.
The British Airports Authority are Petitioners against the Bill in your Lordships' House, and I certainly give them full marks for trying, because the rest of us became rather discouraged during the proceedings in another place. It was, as the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom said, a hybrid Bill submitted to a Select Committee, and therefore there was an opportunity for private interests objecting to these and certain other provisions to petition against them. In fact, there were 17 Petitions containing objections to the clause, including those which came from motoring organisations, car parking interests, petrol companies, organisations with funds invested in car parking projects, property-owning bodies, the British Airports Authority, and many of the subsidiary local authorities in the Greater London area.
The promoters of the Bill challenged the locus standi of many of the Petitioners. As a result, following negotiations with the Ministry of Transport and the G.L.C., a number of the Petitioners—among them the motoring organizations
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—anticipating that such objections would be upheld, decided to withdraw the Petitions and to continue to resist the proposals in other ways, one of which I am now taking. Six Petitions were considered by the Select Committee, but all of them were rejected without consideration of the actual objections to the proposals on the grounds that the Petitioners had no locus standi. As I say, even if this may have been strictly and technically within procedure, it was extremely discouraging to most of us because under the threat of such substantial damage to such a wide variety of private interests it scarcely seemed democratically credible that this should be the case. Indeed, probably the most powerfully objectionable aspect of Clause 36 is that it seems to cut deeply into the whole principle of democracy, and to demonstrate clearly that local authority is determined to take power to itself to tell the public what is good for it.
First, it is necessary to examine what lies behind the provisions of the Bill. In July, 1968, the Minister of Transport presented to Parliament a White Paper which dealt generally with the London Transport Board, British Rail, the Transport Holding Company, the London boroughs, and various other matters. In that White Paper a short reference was made to car parking, the intention being to give the Greater London Council more powers to initiate and introduce on-street parking schemes in conjunction with the London boroughs. In the White Paper there was a further mention that
"…arrangements will be made for more effective measures to rationalise the prevision and operation of off-street parking space: this may mean licensing publicly available off-street parking facilities (whether publicly or privately owned) so as more effectively to control their capacity and charging arrangements, and thus ensure proper balance between short—and long—term parking supply".
It takes only a summary reading of Clause 36 and Schedule 5 to sec that the Bill goes much further than that. In fact, it gives full proof of the current trend towards using this means as a control measure to restrain private car traffic by what seems to me to be a very unfair procedure. This could be seen quite clearly in the Provisional Order which was presented to Parliament by the Glasgow Corporation in 1967, which sought similar powers, but which was

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withdrawn on meeting very strong opposition, principally from the motoring organisations. Subsequently, Westminster City Council has also stated that it wishes to control the charges and conditions of entry to off-street parking accommodation in order to prevent or deter long-term non-essential parkers from using the facilities, whether in private car parks or those available for public use.
I do not think it is easy to imagine a more objectionable traffic dictator than the unfortunate official who has thrust upon him the duty to decide who are non-essential parkers. However, the right honourable gentleman, the Minister of Transport, during the passage of this Bill through another place. said on May 6 this year—and I have been most careful not to quote him out of context:
"There is no question of using this measure to try to force the motorist off the road."
It seems a pity, therefore, that the right honourable gentleman had apparently not seen the report of the Greater London Council's Strategic Planning Committee, issued on March 7, which said, in exactly the same context:
"This will give the authorities a management tool to restrain the use of motorcars in favour of public transport."
Somebody is fooling somebody here, and, if I have listened correctly to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, and my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, they have done a surprising amount to confirm before your Lordships this afternoon exactly what were the thoughts of the G.L.C.'s Committee on this subject.
It has for a long time been the view of the R.A.C. that substantial improvement is needed in public transport, and that it has a very important part to play in our urban traffic problems. But we have also frequently pointed out that imposing unreasonable and negative restrictions on private cars is not the way to secure that. What would be far more effective is the provision of more and better road improvements and off-street car parking, planned properly as part of those road improvements, particularly in proximity to public transport access points and railway stations on the fringes of the central area, to encourage the policy of "park and ride". I therefore hope to hear a good deal more from the noble Lord,
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Lord Winterbottom, when he replies, about the plans of the Minister and the G.L.C. to improve facilities of this kind. I should like to hear from him something positive about progress with the motorway box and many other necessary London road improvements, and about urgent plans to provide off-street parking facilities. I would even remind him that the Transport Act 1968 enables financial assistance to be given to car parks at public transport stations.
If the noble Lord is not able to give the positive news that I seek, I shall be forced back on the view that the real object of the restrictive powers sought by this Bill is to cover up the failures to adopt and implement a proper parking policy, and even that the G.L.C. may also have been tempted to take a convenient opportunity to grind their financial axe at the same time by coercing people on to the public transport for which the Council are about to assume responsibility.
Apart from that, it seems a very great pity that the moment when repeated additions to fares are a disincentive to the use of public transport should also be chosen as the moment to raise the charges at car parks at British Rail stations used by commuters. I do not know whether British Rail consulted with anybody about this—certainly, they did not consult the R.A.C. But as local authorities are also proposing to raise their charges, to prevent the commuters from transferring to local authority car parks from British Rail car parks, I would suggest that the Ministry of Transport and the Greater London Council themselves have some fairly rapid consultation on this very obvious instance of working against the very use of public transport that they desire to encourage. It is small wonder that so many of the public prefer to make use of the flexible, reliable, convenient and even, at times, cheaper means of transport that is provided by their cars.
If local authorities are to be empowered to control the whole of the parking arrangements in the private sector, including charges. permitted hours of parking, permitted hours of opening. permitted categories of motorists who are allowed to park at all, amounts of space available for particular purposes—and, indeed, any other terms and conditions that they may think fit—I have said

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enough, I think, to indicate that the car-owning public in London are going to consider themselves a harassed and hounded community. And that quite apart from the effect on the business user.
The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, prayed in aid what was said in the Buchanan Report. I would refer him to the preface to that Report, written by the Steering Group which was behind the whole Report, which made the categorical observation that a car-owning electorate will not stand for severe restriction as the remedy for the problems of urban traffic congestion. And no more they should. Yet that, my Lords, is just what they are being faced with in this Bill. What is more, they are faced with it without any previous consultations with the motoring organisations, speaking on their behalf, and without any provision in the Bill for such consultations. This is not unusual, because there is ample precedent for this in regard to traffic regulation Orders; but it is certainly something that will have to receive attention in Committee.
Something else to which we must also return is the proposed procedure to enable users of individual car parks to have notice of the intention to apply the new powers to a particular area. The information which they get will probably not indicate exactly how the powers will be exercised or specify the conditions to be observed in operating individual car parks. I think that private motorists, especially those who use certain car parks frequently or regularly, will undoubtedly resent the imposition of restrictive conditions adversely affecting their interests when they have had no opportunity to express their views to the authorities. Therefore it is desirable for a procedure to be written in which will enable the users of the car parks to be made aware, before decisions are made, of the effect of specific proposals affecting their interests. In the case of car parks operated by local authorities, there are already procedures for the public to object to alterations of conditions for their use, and I think it is reasonable that the same kind of arrangements should apply to private-enterprise car parks, if the local authorities are to be empowered to control the manner in which they are operated.
Another point that we shall have to watch is that the use of the proposed
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powers does not nullify or frustrate existing contracts entered into for the use of car parks. Apart from direct business use, commitments may have been undertaken, such as the purchase or lease of property, on the understanding, which may be contractual or otherwise, that parking will be available in private enterprise car parks nearby without the restriction which may now arise from the new powers. Real hardship and loss could be caused in this way, and although the legal position may not now be entirely free from doubt, and may need some clarification, it seems reasonable to provide that the powers should not be exercised in a way that would interfere with contractual rights. Failing that, there should certainly be provision for compensation to those injuriously affected by such interference.
Much the same kind of consideration also affects the private car park operator, although from a larger variety of angles than the private motorist. In the case I have just mentioned, not only is the operator at the opposite end of a frustrated contract with an individual parker, he may also find himself out of order with the contractual arrangements under which he operates a given car park, and which have been made with a local authority or other form of what we may call head landlord. Operating leases are many and varied, both as to their conditions and as to their duration, which may be either short-term or long-term. Indeed, in this business it is not unusual to find even 99-year leases, and if such were to be made inoperable and/or unviable by the use of the powers under this Bill the operator would be in a very serious position indeed. There is no provision in the Bill for such a situation; and this is something else which I think must soon engage your Lordships' serious attention.
Furthermore, not only is it possible for an operator to be put in breach of his lease: it is equally possible, and for similar reasons, for him to be put in breach of his town and country planning consent, because some consents specify the conditions of operation of existing car parks. Here, therefore, is a second shot at the same target, and for this, again, no provision is made in the Bill.
Since there was no consultation prior to the drafting of Clause 36 with the car parking industry, any more than there was with the motoring organisations, it

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is not possible to say whether any regard has been paid to the requirements of the tourist industry and to the effect on overseas tourist advertising promotion—in which, your Lordships may not fully realise, the availability of car parks plays a definite part. Nor is it known what the likely effect will be on temporary operation of a car park, such as at Christmas time or in connection with public ceremonies or events. Under the Bill, these would now become illegal without a licence, which would have to be negotiated, of course, complete with terms and conditions, quite possibly resulting in the provision of no car park at all. If that were so, it would result from the impact of something which is probably the biggest factor of all and the weight of which is exceedingly important. In relation to future car parks, unless an operator is able to know in advance the amount that he is able to charge, the hours of opening, what section of the public, if any, will be restricted from using it, and a lot of factors like that, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for him to assess the financial viability of any such project. If an operator cannot assess the financial viability of his projects, he will not—in fact, he cannot—take them on, and certainly he cannot interest any of the sources from which financial backing for private enterprise car parks comes. They, in turn, will no longer be prepared to put up the financial backing.
The result of this Bill would be that the utter uncertainty of the operations would bring the creation of private car parking in London to a standstill. In case your Lordships should think I am indulging in a bit of scaremongering, I may tell the House that the withdrawal of proposed financial support is actually happening now, in prospect of this Bill. In fact, I am not exaggerating when I say that this Bill, as put to your Lordships, will sound the death-knell of private enterprise car parking in London; and if your Lordships care to pause to consider the major contribution made and to be made by private enterprise car parking in London alone, you will see just how important that factor is.
Apart from that, the practical operation of a car park will be made virtually impossible in the kind of instance where
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there is differentiation between long-term and short-term parkers and thus the necessity to refuse admission to someone who wanted to park for a longer period than is allowed under the terms of a licence. That would cause delays at car park entrances, possibly building up—and this is not unusual—into traffic congestion in the street. Thus, if the operator cannot function, the motorist cannot park, and the present difficult traffic problems become very considerably increased, instead of, as is the general idea, being decreased. Thus, again, we find ourselves with nothing but bad emanating from this Part of the Bill for the motorist, for the operator and for the local authority alike. Therefore, my Lords, it is no wonder that all three of these categories petitioned, however uselessly it may have been, against the Bill.
It will no doubt be argued—in fact, it has been argued—that all these powers are essential in the interests of the community and that car parking must be so rigorously controlled. If that is a fact, I should like to ask why car parks operated by local authorities themselves are excluded from the Bill and exempted from the conditions that it imposes. If such detailed control of "who parks where, for how long and for how much" is really arguable, surely municipal car parks must be equally capable of sin in breaching the success of that control, and it is only logical that they, too, should come within its limitations. The present exclusion could in fact be operated, in more extreme cases, to the active detriment of the private operator, who, in any case, despite the protestations of the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, has only a very limited availability of appeal against the powerful sanctions that may be applied against him. The noble Lord described those powers of appeal almost with pride, or so it seemed to me, but in fact it is the most tenuous means of appeal, existing only in the right of the Minister to call in cases if he so decides. My Lords, I am bound to say that if this state of affairs, together with the total lack of compensation provided by the Bill, amounts to any recognisable form of British justice in the way that I am sure most of your Lordships understand the words, then our joint education on the subject has been sadly lacking.

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If your Lordships would like a further example of the ludicrous possibilities, please consider the case of the British Airports Authority and London Airport. Some two-thirds of it is in the G.L.C. area, and the powers in the Bill can apply equally to the British Airports Authority's car parks within the confines of the Airport. They would appear to conflict head-on with the Airports Authority Act 1965, which specifically charges the British Airports Authority with being master in its own house. This Bill provides other powers, and so we have the ridiculous situation—one, surely, with very little precedent in the British Parliamentary system—whereby there are two Acts with conflicting meanings, with the Minister of Transport (God help him!) appointed as arbiter between them. I suggest that the very simple expedient of preserving intact the British Airports Authority's responsibility to Parliament lies in excluding their airport car parks from the scope of the Bill.
Your Lordships may ask what I am standing here making so much fuss about. The fuss, my Lords, is about this. The provision of adequate off-street parking facilities is something which in the light of modern requirements has been grossly and woefully neglected, instead of its being properly planned as part of the organised development of community areas. Central Government have played no part here, except by controlling the strings of loan sanction to local authorities, to whom has been hived off the responsibility but who have largely been denied the means. Private enterprise has responded to a considerable and important degree and is now apparently to be heavily penalised for having done so; and this will be to the detriment of all and to the benefit of none. Make no mistake, my Lords: if Clause 36 of the Bill goes through for London, it will soon become the pattern for the whole country, so your Lordships should take care to examine it well. I still think that I was thoroughly justified in calling Clause 36 curious and spurious as well as objectionable. I very much look forward to your Lordships' detailed examination of it at later stages in the passage of the Bill.

NATIONAL INSURANCE BENEFITS AND CONTRIBUTIONS
4.10 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (BARONESS SEROTA): My Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like now to repeat a Statement which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services about improvements in national insurance and industrial injuries benefits, supplementary benefits and war pensions and about increases in the contributions of the insurance schemes. The Statement is as follows:
"I have presented to-day a Bill to increase benefits and contributions under the national insurance and industrial injuries schemes. A Financial Memorandum is attached to the Bill. An explanatory White Paper and a Report by the Government Actuary will be available later this afternoon.
"The House already knows that the Government proposes to increase, the main standard benefit rates of the national insurance scheme by 10s. a week for a single person and 16s. for a married couple. This will restore to the flat-rate benefits the value lost because of the rise in prices in the two years since the last increase, in October, 1967. The cost of the total increase (including industrial injuries) will be about £247 million in the first full year. It is proposed that the new rates of benefit should come into effect at the beginning of November.
"The levels of supplementary benefits will be increased at the same time. For the two main categories—the single householder and the married couple—increases of 5s. and 8s. are proposed. Taking into account the first instalment they have been receiving since October, 1968, they will then have had increases of 10s. and 16s. respectively since October, 1967—the same increases as are now proposed in the standard rates of national insurance benefits, which have remained unchanged since that date.

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"Supplementary benefit levels of other categories, including children, will also be increased. Draft regulations to provide for all these changes will be laid for approval by the House in due course.
"There will also be increases in war pensions—as usual, by Royal Warrant.
"I will, with permission, circulate a list of the principal proposals for supplementary benefits and changes in war pensions in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
"I now turn to contributions which need to be increased, not only because of higher benefits but owing to two other factors—the greatly increased number of pensioners and the higher cost of short-term benefits. As the House already knows, the total required in a full year is about £430 million. With the Exchequer contribution remaining at 18 per cent, i.e. £70 million, this leaves about £360 million to be found from increased contributions. The traditional way of raising this sum would have been to put the whole burden on the flat-rate contribution. This would have meant an increase of 3s. 4d. each for employer and employee. The Government rejected this as an intolerable imposition on the lower-paid worker. Instead, we thought it right to move towards the new scheme of national superannuation by raising most of the additional contribution on an earnings-related basis. The flat-rate increase therefore for an employed man (including industrial injuries), has been held down to 1s. a week and for an employed woman to 11d., whereas the present ½per cent. graduated contribution on earnings between £18 and £30 will be raised by 2¾ per cent. The biggest increase—for a man earning £30 or more a week—will be 7s. 7d., made up of 1s. flat-rate contribution, and 6s. 7d. graduated contribution. On the other hand, some 6 million employees who earn less than £18 a week will have only the 1s. flat-rate increase to pay.
"I now turn to the benefits which employees will receive in return for these increased contributions. Let me emphasise that the additional
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graduated contributions, which will apply across the board, both to those in the State scheme and to those contracted out, will earn additional pension rights. But the greatest weakness of the graduated scheme introduced by our predecessors in 1961 was that it included no device for making these graduated pensions inflation proof. Indeed, ever since 1961 their value has been shrinking year by year. The Government has, therefore, decided that from 1972, when the new scheme comes into operation, the biennial review will guarantee the value not only of new-scheme earnings-related pensions and the present flat-rate pensions, as indicated in the White Paper, but also of the small graduated element in the present scheme which is earned by all of those who pay graduated contributions. This will apply not only to pension entitlement in the three years between now and 1972 but also to the pension earned in the last eight years.
"I should warn the House that this decision may cause problems to some employers and contracted-out workers. I should make it clear, however, that contracted-out employers will not be required to revalue the equivalent pension benefits for employees who have left or may leave their employment before retiring age. But it will be for the employer to decide whether any improvement should be made in the light of all the circumstances; and since the decision will not take effect until after 1972 this will leave ample time for further consultations on this complex issue.
"On the other hand, the decision to revalue the graduated element of the present pension scheme will, I am sure, be welcomed by all those whose pension rights were frozen by the previous Government's legislation. Now they will be able, for the first time, to look forward in their retirement to graduated pensions that will be revalued in the light of changes in the value of money and the level of earnings.".
Following is the list of principal proposals for supplementary benefits and changes in war pensions referred to in the Statement:

PROPOSED SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFIT RATES

Present Weekly Rate

Proposed Weekly Rate

£

s.

d.

£

s.

d.

Ordinary Scale

(a) Husband and wife

7

9

0

7

17

0

(b) Single householder

4

11

0

4

16

0

(c) Any other person aged:—

(i) not less than 21 years

3

14

0

3

17

0

(ii) less than 21 but not less than 18 years

3

1

0

3

4

0

(iii) less than 18 but not less than 16 years

2

13

0

2

16

0

(iv) less than 16 but not less than 13 years

2

1

0

2

4

0

(v) less than 13 but not less than 11 years

1

19

0

2

1

0

(vi) less than 11 but not less than 5 years

1

12

0

1

13

0

(vii) less than 5 years

1

7

0

1

8

0

Blind Scale

(a) Husband and wife:—

(i) if one blind

8

13

6

9

2

0

(ii) if both blind

9

9

6

9

18

0

(b) Any other blind person aged:—

(i) not less than 21 years

5

15

6

6

1

0

(ii) less than 21 but not less than 18 years

4

1

0

4

4

0

(iii) less than 18 but not less than 16 years

3

9

0

3

12

0

(iv) less than 16 but not less than 13 years

2

1

0

2

4

0

(v) less than 13 but not less than 11 years

1

19

0

2

1

0

(vi) less than 11 but not less than 5 years

1

12

0

1

13

0

(vii) less than 5 years

1

7

0

1

8

0

Notes:

(i) An allowance for rent is added to the above rates.

(ii) Both the existing and the proposed rates given above exclude the 10s. long-term addition which is added to the requirements of persons over pensionable age and to those of persons under pensionable age (other than the unemployed) who have received supplementary benefit for a period of two years.

PRINCIPAL CHANGES IN WAR PENSIONS

Present weekly rate

Proposed weekly rate

£

s.

d.

£

s.

d.

Disablement pension:—

100 per cent. rate

7

12

0

8

8

0

with proportionate increases for lesser disablement, e.g. 20 per cent. rate

1

10

6

1

14

0

Special allowances paid with disablement pensions:—

Constant attendance allowance

Normal maximum rate

3

0

0

3

6

0

Exceptional maximum rate

6

0

0

6

12

0

Allowance for lowered standard of occupation

up to

3

1

0

3

7

0

Treatment Allowances (in lieu of current pension)

7

12

0

8

8

0

Unemployability supplement:—

Allowances (sometimes payable with treatment allowance also)

4

17

6

5

9

0

Wife or adult dependant

2

16

0

3

2

0

First child

1

8

0

1

11

0

Second child

10

0

13

0

Other children

8

0

11

0

Way Widows:—

Standard pension

5

17

0

6

10

0

Allowance for first child

2

9

6

2

13

0

Other children who receive family allowances

1

19

6

2

3

0

Other children who do not receive family allowances

2

6

6

2

10

0

Rent allowance up to

2

5

0

2

10

0

Orphans:—

Under 15

First child and any other child who does not receive a family allowance

2

9

6

2

13

0

Other children receiving family allowances

1

19

6

2

3

0

15 years and over

First child and any other child who does not receive family allowances

3

12

6

3

18

0

Other children receiving family allowances

3

2

6

3

8

0

Adult

4

10

0

5

0

0

4.18 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I should like on behalf of the whole House to thank the noble Baroness for repeating this Statement. May I start by asking her whether it is intended to publish also in the House of Lords OFFICIAL REPORT the detailed proposals for supplementary benefits and changes in war pensions to which she has referred. She did not mention what would be the increase in the full 100 per cent. war disablement pension. Perhaps she would be good enough to let us know this. I believe that the last increase was 17s.
The salient and outstanding point in this Statement is the need to raise £430 million, of which apparently the Treasury are to find £70 million, and the remainder is to be found by increased contributions. Anyone who has had anything to do with the Ministry of Pensions (as it used to be) will know of the problem always created by trying to keep down the contribution for the lowest-paid worker and also of the complications that arise from contracting out. In this case the Government have availed themselves of the graduated pensions contributions. Noble Lords will remember that Labour spokesmen are accustomed to refer to this as a swindle. It is interesting to note that the Government have now decided that they must avail themselves of this "swindle". And not only that: the contributions to the "swindle" are to be increased 6½-fold—I repeat, 6½-fold—presumably on the argument that the bigger the swindle, the more respectable it becomes.
I should like to ask the noble Baroness how much of the higher revenue that is to be raised will come from flat-rate contributions and how much from graduated contributions. I would also ask her whether she can tell us what the total contribution by a person earning £30 a week is now and what the total contribution will be under the new arrangements. Finally, I would ask the noble Baroness to confirm that there is to be no Exchequer contribution matching the increased graduated contributions and that the 25 per cent. Exchequer contribution will be related purely to the flat-rate contributions. If this is so, does it not mean that the proportion of Exchequer contribution will tend to decline in relation to the total contributions? My Lords,
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if this is so—I am not saying that it is right or wrong that the Exchequer contribution should be reduced—I would point out once again that it is very much at variance with what Labour spokesmen have for long argued, that the Exchequer contribution should be increased.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement. I have not a great deal to say about it because it is rather complicated and needs a good deal of thinking about. The sums involved are certainly rather large and one wonders whether the increased contributions which are to be called for from the better paid workers will not at once lead to a call for an increase in wages, so adding further to the general inflationary spiral which is going on.
There is one question that I should like to ask the noble Baroness. Can she tell me whether those unfortunate people who do not receive pensions at the present time, the older ones who missed out, will be included in this new scheme? I take it that they will not, or we should have heard something about it, but I should just like to inquire. Finally, I should like to say that although we all echo what the noble Baroness said in the last sentence of the Statement, one seems to have heard that kind of thing before, and one wonders whether the effect will be as great and good and lasting and beneficial as the Statement makes out that it will be.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I thank both noble Lords who have spoken for the way they have received this very complex and difficult Statement. In replying, I am sure that the House would not want to be detained too long to-day. The White Paper will be available and I am sure that all noble Lords will read it with the greatest care. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, that the figures relating to war pensions and supplementary benefit increases will be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT of this House just as they will be in the OFFICIAL REPORT Of another place. I have the figures before me if the noble Lord wants them immediately, but I think that all noble Lords will want to read them and the Statement at leisure.

565
I have been asked a number of questions of detail about the particular proposals but I would prefer, if the House would allow me, not to answer them off the cuff. This is a very complex situation and I should like to answer the questions accurately, preferably in writing. In due course, my Lords, when the Bill which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is presenting to-day has passed through its various stages in another place, your Lordships will have full and ample opportunity, I am sure, to debate in detail the proposals which I have outlined to-day. I suggest that we wait until everyone has before them all the factual information which my right honourable friend is presenting.

TRANSPORT (LONDON) BILL
4.25 p.m.
Second Reading debate resumed.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, while I in no way oppose the basic idea of this Bill, that London Transport should be placed under the regional authority for London, the G.L.C., there are aspects of the Bill which are most disturbing to me, having been in the industry. I see the advantage of London Transport getting rid of its country bus services which are most unremunerative, and passing what I believe the Minister described as "this demented polo mint" to the National Bus Company. No doubt the transfer would strengthen London Transport financially. It would also have the great advantage of reducing to a more manageable size this monopolistic transport undertaking, which in itself is probably the greatest advantage of the Bill.
My Lords, if the Minister is allowed to coin a phrase about "polo mints" I should like to coin one also. I would say that the whole Bill is like the pill cascara sagrada; it has a very nice, sugary outside but a rather bitter and nasty inside. I will go on to describe that. It is surprising, therefore, that the Bill should sabotage its own commonsense proposals by allowing London Transport to extend its field of operations to include express services, excusions and tours to any part of Britain and, indeed, elsewhere; and more particularly to embrace
566
contract carriage operations, a field in which the Traffic Commissioners exercise no control, and in which it seems impossible for the Executive to compete without detriment to their essential function of providing Londoners with adequate bus services.
If London Transport were already fulfilling its obligations to the travelling public in London, this might be easier to understand, but anyone who uses London buses cannot fail to realise that the first need is to provide an efficient service of stage carriages. This is to look at the matter from the point of view of London Transport and the travelling public, but I should also like to point out the gross injustice which would be perpetrated upon those companies already providing express services, excursions, tours and private hire facilities in, to and from London. It cannot seriously be argued that there is not already adequate provision in these respects. Therefore, if London Transport is entering into competition, it can succeed only at the expense of existing operators and, almost inevitably, at the expense of London ratepayers. It is not true, as was claimed in the Joint Review of London Transport annexed to the Blue Paper Transport in London, that
"the public will benefit from the wider range of services which will be available".
That quotation appears on page 101 of the Joint Review.
I should like to remind your Lordships that since 1933, when the London Passenger Transport Board was first formed, it has held the monopoly of stage bus services within this special area. It has never been the intention of Parliament that London Transport should have complete freedom to operate outside London and its suburban areas, though it must be accepted that for one brief period this power was obtained by delegation from the British Transport Commission. However, when Parliament itself has considered the responsibilities of the London Transport undertaking it has always, until now, recognised that the duty to provide a service for London would be undermined by extraneous operations outside the special area.
It has been in these conditions that other concerns in the road passenger transport industry have developed, for over 35 years now, the network of express

567
services and private hire facilities which adequately serve the needs of the community. These operators have been denied the right to run buses in London. Here I would interpose that that is a great pity, because London would have a better service if there had been some element of competition over the years. It may be rather naughty of me to say so, but perhaps we might not be having the further increase that we are having very soon.
While denied the right—as they will still be under the Bill—to carry bus passengers, the coach operators have cultivated and developed a market on which London Transport now sees fit to cast a covetous and plundering eye. I submit to your Lordships that to allow it to succeed in this lustful ambition would be to countenance a gross injustice. There is at present some equilibrium in London's transport services, but this Bill would destroy—I would add unfairly destroy—the balance.
Because of its monopoly background of bus services carrying the overheads of this transport colossus, it is likely that the new London Transport Executive would be able to compete for private hire at basically unfair rates. This does not apply so much to the various types of express services because they would be licensed and controlled by the Traffic Commissioners, but in the case of private hire there would be no such control as the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, has stated. The danger is clearly recognised in Clause 12 of the Bill, which makes provision for a financial statement on the basis of which the Minister is empowered to direct the Executive to modify or discontinue any relevant operation. I hope to explain more fully in Committee the weaknesses of the protection given. For the moment I merely wish to point out that Clause 12 rightly recognises the danger of a total failure to provide the protection that is required.
Before I sit down, there are two other things that I would mention. One is that when it comes to the dissection of the two bus companies—London Transport and London Transport Country Services—I believe that the dissection will be as complex and dangerous as with Siamese twins: there will be hemorrhages springing up in all directions. So I hope that the greatest care will be taken with Indus-
568
trial relations here. The two undertakings have been working closely and happily, side by side, for some 36 years. They have become knitted together, and their parting is likely to be difficult, to say the least. Let us hope that it will be as painless as possible. Secondly, I do not intend to compete with the great exposition which my noble friend Lord Chesham gave of Clause 36. We are both rather surprised that so few noble Lords are speaking this afternoon on a subject of such importance because, as the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, said, many noble Lords have a great deal of expertise in transport matters. The only comment I would make on Clause 36 is that, whatever other arguments there may be, it seems intolerable that the British Airports Authority should have to submit to outside interference.
I hope that I have said enough to convince your Lordships that this Bill, despite its merits, has certain major deficiencies and that your Lordships should give careful consideration to the effects of these proposals before allowing legislation which can do no credit to Parliament to reach the Statute Book.
4.32 p.m.
LORD GEDDES OF EPSOM: My Lords, I have great sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, with regard to the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Winterbottom and Lord Nugent of Guildford. I gathered that they were jointly waving a magic wand which was going to transform the Cinderella of the London Transport Board into the Golden Princess, the London Transport Executive; that once this Bill had been passed, there would be no difficulty in future about public transport services in London; everything was going to be beautiful and perfect. The fact of the matter is that the only magic wand is the financial clause in this Bill, and I submit to your Lordships that if the same financial wand had been waved for the London Transport Board as is being waved for the London Transport Executive the Board would have continued to be viable and therefore, in the minds of noble Lords opposite, would have been an excellent institution.
One wonders why this has not been done. Of course one knows the reason. One of the basic principles behind this

569
Bill is to transfer any possible subvention required for public transport. In my view, unless fares are continually to rise, to such an extent that the result will be that suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, that fewer and fewer people will use public transport and more and more cars will congest the streets, there will continue to be the need for a subvention for public transport. But I wonder whether the idea that this subvention should come from local rates is quite so right for London as it is for the rest of the country. After all, large numbers of tourists use London Transport, and I wonder whether it is quite right that the London ratepayer should be called upon to subsidise public transport which is so largely used by people who do not pay the rates. I am not suggesting that this is a very important point but, as I say, I wonder whether the principle of a local rates subvention, as against a national Exchequer subvention, is quite so sound in London as it is in the rest of the country. I hope that the London public will realise, among the other things happening under this Bill, what is happening with regard to fares.
The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, referred to the Transport Tribunal as an anomaly. It may be an anomaly, but at least it is a public safeguard. As one who sat for some time on London Transport Board, I have sometimes been, like the rest of the Board, exasperated and frustrated by the decisions of the Tribunal. But at least we knew that there was an independent body considering increases in fares that there was a public inquiry, and that members of the public had an opportunity, through proper channels, by properly authorised people, to put their point of view. Under the new system, the London public will have practically no safeguard against increases in fares. The only safeguard will be that a decision by the G.L.C. to increase fares will be subject to review and authorisation by the Minister. It is true that it will still be possible to make objections to the Minister, but I submit that the public in London are losing a very important safeguard, because politically it is much more difficult to increase rates in order to meet the subvention, and therefore the desire of the G.L.C. will be not to have a sub-
570
vention but to raise the fares, and therefore public transport in London is going to cost the public more and more.
I challenge the assumption behind the introduction of the Bill that its very passage is going to change everything, that we shall have a completely regular service and that we shall no longer have difficulties about getting staff. I wonder if it is realised for how many years it has been impossible to staff London Transport as it should have been under the necessary establishment. I wonder how often it is realised that in West London garages were 25 per cent. short of staff and that the average shortage has been about 12½ per cent. We could no: get the people. Why not? Simply because people are unwilling to work a seven-day week. I do not mean that they were expected to work on all seven days of the week, but they were required to work any time from early morning until late at night, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In these days, it is not possible to get people to do that.
It is all very well to criticise the management of London Transport. On previous occasions the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, has made general criticisms, hitter criticisms, of the management. But to-day, for the first time, he has made a particular one. He referred to the fact that they have taken a long time to introduce one-man buses and said that this is an example of the weakness of the management of London Transport. I do not think I am entitled to ask the noble Lord what he would have done in the circumstances, but I will deal with the circumstances.
The management had two possibilities before them. They could have negotiated before they built the buses the terms on which one-man buses should be operated, or they could have built the buses and then negotiated the terms on which they should be run. What they decided was to do both. They gave an order fox the buses and started negotiations. These negotiations were very protracted. They were on the basis on which the noble Lord said they should have been—of a fair division, between the staff, the Board and the public, of the saving achieved. And the final agreement is on that basis.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, before the noble Lord finishes with that point, would he please deal with paragraphs 33 and 34 of the Prices and Incomes Board Report for 1969.
LORD GEDDES OF EPSOM: No, I will not. I state that in fact the negotiations were started on the basis that the noble Lord claimed were the right lines: that the saving should be divided fairly between the Board, the staff and the consumer. This was the basis of the negotiations. Of course there are so many people who can negotiate in absentia. People who do not have to do the negotiations, who are not part of them, can always tell the negotiators what they should have done.
Let us examine for a moment what they should have done. Should they have entered into an agreement? And if they had entered into an agreement, did they have to accept the best possible terms they could get? Or should they have declined to enter into an agreement? Who was to staff the buses? Would any noble Lord suggest that external forces should be used to staff the buses? If the busmen say that they are not going to use one-man buses except under certain conditions, what then? Do you turn round and tell the busmen that they have got to staff the buses? This is nonsense. You could, of course, say that you could not reach an agreement. You could, of course, have tried to introduce the buses under, as it were, non-agreement, and have the whole of London Transport stopped, including the Tubes.
The noble Lord talks about weak management. No management, neither weak management nor strong management, can get the best terms possible in a situation in which staff are in short supply, and a man cannot be sacked, because he cannot be replaced. It is all very well to talk about discipline. Discipline on London Transport is not good, and everybody knows that it is not good. It is not good because if a man is dismissed for a minor offence, it is impossible to replace him, and so a bus is off the road. The fact of the matter is that the people who criticise the management of London Transport have not the least idea of the problems with which they have been faced. The London Transport Board have been faced with three external
572
influences: the Minister, the Tribunal and the traffic authorities. You cannot run any public transport service if you are not completely free to do just as you want; and you cannot be in that position, because no public transport system can be an entity on its own: to a certain extent it has to be controlled by other influences.
My Lords, I am sorry if in my intervention I have been a little heated, but I have heard time and time again this unwarranted criticism of the London Transport Board by people who fail to appreciate the difficulties, and assume that all that is necessary is to introduce a Bill. This Bill will not alter the fact that it can still take 20 minutes to get from one end of Baker Street to the other. This is not because of parking" for parking is prohibited in Baker Street, on both sides. It is a one-way street and has the best possible traffic conditions. Yet, as I say, it can take 20 minutes to get from one end to the other; and a bus service has to be scheduled to try to secure regularity.
My final word is this. I completely disagree with the suggestion that the difficulties facing the London Transport Board are, or ever have been, due to management. If you like to look back you will find that the Board have been one of the most far-seeing public authorities. The London Transport Board are one of the first public authorities to introduce a fully automated Underground system. This is not done in a year. It was not done last year, or the year before. It is done as a result of ten years' planning; of ten years' going round and finding out what is the best possible system. Anybody would think that all that has to be done with the London buses is suddenly to say: "We will now have a five minute service throughout the whole of London", and "that's that". What you have to do after that is to get the buses, to get the roads clear and get the staff; and then you have the service you want. The London Transport Board have never had that opportunity, and the London Transport Executive will not get it either.
4.44 p.m.
LORD ROBERTSON OF OAKRIDGE: My Lords, I have been taunted to stand up for a moment or two by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, who said it was surprising

573
to him that there were so many noble Lords in the House who knew much about this subject but who did not venture to speak on it. I have listened to this debate with great interest. It is a debate which has taken place in this House often before; it has taken place in this city often before, and in other cities in this land and in other lands, and no doubt the matter will go on being debated for many generations to come.
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, gave a very good introduction to the Bill, and I was glad to hear the noble Lord. Lord Nugent of Guildford, to whose speeches it is always such a delight to listen, commend the Bill to his colleagues. There is a basic principle in the Bill which I think should commend itself to all of us. It surely must be wrong that the Minister of Transport of a great country like this should be responsible for the transport of one city—London. It must surely be wrong that the people of Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool and so on should have to pay for the deficits run by London Transport, and it is right to put the responsibility in the right place.
The speech that caused me considerable anxiety was the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham. He told us that he spoke (I hope the noble Lord will excuse me if I do not quote his exact words) as the representative of the private motorist, or the defender of the rights of the private motorist. Well, we are all private motorists and we should none of us agree that our rights should be restricted by what the noble Lord called unreasonable and unfair restrictions. But it was the general tone of the noble Lord's remarks that caused me anxiety. He told us that he very much disagreed with the attitude of the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, which was an attitude with which I personally agreed, and he went on to speak in a way that reminded me of a remark made in a debate on this self-same subject many years ago in London, which ended up in the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board. The proprietor of "The Chocolate" omnibus company stood up and said: "This morning I drove into the City of London, and I saw up there on the Royal Exchange a text which said, 'The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof', but I did not
574
know until I came here this afternoon and heard the noble Lord's speech that that meant the noble Lord, Lord Ashley". It was rather in a similar way that I listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham. I hope that when he comes (as he said he will) to the Committee meetings on this Bill he will be—if I may say so with great respect to a man for whom I have respect—rather more careful about this matter, because this afternoon he gave me the impression, and he might have given it to other Members of the House, that what he wants to see is another Los Angeles.
4.49 p.m.
LORD DELACOURT-SMITH: My Lords, I do not feel equipped to embark upon some of the wider issues that have been raised in this debate, except perhaps to offer your Lordships the observation, for what it may be worth, that I am one of those who for the last eighteen months has almost completely given up attempting to drive a private car in London, and have felt myself, in consequence, a happier and much less harassed man. I want to address myself to one aspect of the subject which has already been touched upon by one or two noble Lords who have spoken, and to develop for a moment or two the problem of the control of off-street parking as it affects Heathrow Airport. The car-park operating agency there is the British Airports Authority, and I should make reference to the fact that I have had the privilege of being a part-time member of that Authority since its inauguration.
This is not the time, or the stage of the proceedings on this Bill, to develop in detail the problem which could arise for the Authority under the operation of Clause 36 as it is drafted at present, but it is appropriate to Second Reading to give some indication of the size and seriousness of that problem. It is clear that car parks in a large international airport must be provided on an extensive scale for the use of the travelling public and for those who come to the airport in connection with travellers, to see them off or to welcome them, as the case may be. I am sure a few moments' reflection will show how regulations applied by local authorities could affect the task which the Airports Authority has in providing services—and it is Parliament which has the task laid upon it by Statute—the duty

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of providing for the convenience of those who use the airport for the purposes of air travel.
A large international airport is inevittably a very complex organism. It represents the junction of travel by air with travel on the surface of the earth, much of which in present circumstances is likely to be travel by private car. In relation to its very limited total area, a vast amount of traffic and a vast number of vehicles pass through Heathrow. This, I am sure, is the reason why the Authority is the highway authority as well as at present the parking authority within the perimeter of the airport. Since it seems to be the general principle of Clause 36 to combine responsibility for the highways—and the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, made a reference to this—with responsibility for on-street and off-street parking, it would seem a logical thing to exempt from the operation of Clause 36 an Authority, which is itself, although substantially within the G.L.C. area, at present already both a highway authority and the parking authority. Indeed, in the circumstances of an airport, it is virtually impossible to separate from the general operation of that airport the car-parking functions and the car-parking provisions.
The smooth running of an airport depends to a substantial degree upon constant attention to car-parking needs. The number of spaces available must expand as the need for those car-parking spaces rises. The charges which are applied must be related to the need to ensure the fullest utilisation of the car parking spaces available. This, again, under the terms of this clause as at present drawn, constitutes a serious problem for an Authority upon which Parliament has placed a statutory duty to operate the airports to provide such services and facilities as, in its discretion, it believes the efficient operation of those airports—and service to those who wish to use them—requires.
References to compensation in the clause suggest that it can hardly have been drawn up with such a situation as that of Heathrow in mind, for there is provision in certain circumstances for compensation. That compensation, however, relates to the depreciation in
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the value of car-parking space, and that is completely irrelevant to a public authority which has to provide car-parking space as a part of its general public responsibility. I hope my noble friend will look into this problem and give it his personal attention.
I am emboldened to make a further point by what my noble friend Lord Geddes of Epsom said a few moments ago. He referred to the fact that London Transport, in doing its work, had had to contend with a number of external influences. I would respectfully suggest to my noble friend, Lord Winter-bottom, that in examining this matter he should consider how important it is that Parliament should resist the temptation to set up by Statute public authorities charged with a particular range of duties, expected to perform those duties in a manner which conforms broadly to commercial standards, and then to subject those public authorities to all kinds of external decisions and overriding influences which make the discharge of the duty which Parliament has specified an exceedingly difficult one. I hope my noble friend will look into this problem to which other noble Lords and I have drawn attention.
4.57 p.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, and to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, for having given this Bill a general welcome. I am strengthened in my own conviction that it is a good Bill by the fact that both noble Lords are deeply experienced in the fields of road and rail transport, and I believe I am correct in saying that the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, was the founding father of the first institute of traffic engineering in this country. So I am strengthened by their support.
The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, drew attention to one or two flies in the ointment, but the ointment as a whole has a pleasant savour. I want to acknowledge at this point the various warnings about areas of criticism which noble Lords have given to me at this stage of the Bill. In the boxing fraternity there is a phrase "shadowing your punches", and I am grateful to noble Lords who have indicated, by shadowing their punches, that an attack will come on Clauses 6, 12 and

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36, and I will prepare myself for all-round defence at those particular points.
May I make one or two general comments upon the speeches made to-day? I must say I thoroughly enjoyed Lord Geddes of Epsom's spirited defence of the London Transport Board, of which he was himself once a distinguished member. I do not think that either the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, or I are so unsophisticated as to think that as soon as this Pill is passed the whole problem of transport in the Greater London Area will be automatically solved. I must say that one of the points he made, indicating the frustrations of trying to run the transport system in London commercially, was that these frustrations were due to the fact that so many people were meddling in its affairs. The hard fact is that there will now be one responsible authority and a lot of meddling will be cut out. The important discipline of a single objective—a profitable system of transport—is now placed before the Greater London Council and the electors of the city. I hope Lord Nugent of Guildford will allow me to disagree with him when I say that there was no hint in my speech of any criticism of the Greater London Council during the "horse trading" leading up to this Bill, for getting the best terms that they could for the system which they were being asked to operate. That was surely very sensible.
But I would disagree with the noble Lord when he seemed to imply that writing off £244 million was a gross waste of taxpayers' money. Part of the trouble in life is that not all schemes go right. They sometimes go wrong in public enterprise. They certainly sometimes go wrong in private enterprise. The written-off losses in public enterprise have to be publicised with the maximum of light, and are subject to political criticism. But when private industry has to write off a failure it does it against capital reserves and the fact is noted in very small print at the bottom of the annual statement. It is not only in public enterprise that capital is written off because it is water under the bridge.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My. Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he would agree that in the case of private enterprise the money involved
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is that of the shareholders who have made the choice of putting their money in that particular enterprise, and they alone bear the loss, whereas in a public enterprise everybody has to bear the loss because the money has been taken from us in taxes?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: Yes, my Lords, there is a difference. Nevertheless, I do not think the difference is as wide as the noble Lord makes out because this is basically a commercial undertaking. The fact that it is now to be a strictly commercial undertaking will help all those who are striving for commercial efficiency and competent management. There is to be no split directive; there is to be a single directive that profits must be made. I would agree with the noble Lord completely that a very important element of discipline can be that there should be no subsidy on current account. This must strengthen the hands of management when they enter into difficult negotiations, as indicated by my noble friend Lord Geddes of Epsom, which I think will continue to be difficult right into the future; but, on the other hand, I think they can be conducted because of the framework which has been provided within which they will take place.
I can confirm a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, that the London Transport Board, as a result of the 1968 Report of the National Board for Prices and Incomes, have pressed ahead hard with measures to increase productivity, and quite clearly—I have not been watching it but the noble Lord has—this increased effort is in fact starting to bear fruit.
May I now turn for a moment to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham. I think our main clash of arms must take place on Committee stage. The noble Lord has made a detailed and determined attack on these particular proposals within the present legislation, and since this discussion is running longer than was foreseen, and other noble Lords have Bills which they want to present, perhaps he will permit me to answer in detail the various pints he has made when we get to them later in the Session. But may I answer just one point that the noble Lord made. He tried to imply that there was a conflict between what my right honourable friend

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the Minister of Transport said—namely, that he was not intending to drive the motorist off the road—with what was indicated as the intention of the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, and myself. I think the difference is between not driving the motorist off the road, of which there was no intention, and persuading him to alter his habits. This is really what the Bill is about, and there is a difference.
I would support what other noble Lords have said on one point. I have found that since the general introduction of the control of traffic through parking meters and the rest, life is becoming far more tolerable when one has to move about London with a car as a private motorist to make a series of calls. I have more recently always been able to find somewhere to put my car during the limited period permitted for parking. I think we are winning along this front.
I think that no fewer than three speakers have mentioned the problems of the British Airports Authority: the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, I think the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, and the noble Lord. Lord Delacourt-Smith—and may I thank him for being so courteous as to give me a private indication of the problems of the British Airports Authority. We all agree that there is a problem here, but this is not the point at which we should discuss it. As has been said, the British Airports Authority is in fact petitioning—it is one of the Petitioners—against this Bill. Its Petition will be considered, and until such time as the grounds for the Petition have been heard and the findings have been published we cannot go on to the Committee stage of the Bill. That is one of the reasons why this Bill in fact may not reach its Committee stage until early in July. But I understand that each House is master of its own business. The fact that the British Airports Authority was not given a locus standi in another place does not automatically imply that this would happen here. So we must wait until a Select Committee of this House adjudicates upon the locus of the Petitioner. But, again, I would be prepared to try to give the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, and noble Lords who have supported him, the maximum satisfaction on this particular point when we are able to discuss it.
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Finally, regarding the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, I should like to go back to the subject of compensation. I think he indicated in his speech that in fact no compensation would be paid if private car parking authorities were forced by decisions of the Greater London Council or the boroughs to go out of business or to change their business. I think I said quite clearly that it would be open to the operator to put in a claim for compensation. Compensation in these circumstances is possible. Although he seemed to think that the fact that the Minister of the day could call in an appeal and consider it personally was a small safeguard, I would suggest that this is not the case. I myself cannot conceive of a stronger safeguard than the fact that a Minister is empowered to call in an appeal and study it personally; and that the final court of appeal is not the Greater London Council but the Minister of the day.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord, but on this particular point I cannot let him get away with the idea that he cannot conceive of a stronger form of appeal. A stronger form of appeal is that one has a right of appeal. This is at the Minister's discretion.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I shall try to answer that point at a later stage of the Bill. I think that at this stage there is very little more that I can say to illuminate or set the framework for our following discussions. I am glad that the general feeling of the House is that this Bill will have an important role to play in preventing London from becoming some Los Angeles in the future; that it will enable us to retain intact the centre of this City, which is one of the great centres of the cities of the world; and that at the end of the day, although I am reasonably certain we shall never achieve perfection, nevertheless we shall be able to keep ahead of the problems brought about by general ownership of the motor car.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.

CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read la, and to be printed.

CONSERVATION OF SEALS BILL [H.L.]
5.10 p.m.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: My Lords, your Lordships may remember that about a year ago you considered a Bill with a similar title, with similar objectives, but rather longer, and that at the end of the debate on the Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, suggested that I might consult further with interested parties to see whether I could bring up a differently drafted Bill. Those consultations have taken place, and I am grateful to those who have advised me—naturalists, scientists, fishermen, conservation societies and, last but not least, Government Departments. The Bill before your Lordships to-day is the result.
Perhaps I should remind your Lordships of the reasons which led me, and a number of other people, to feel that our existing legislation, the Grey Seals Protection Act 1932 is insufficient. First, there are two species of seals in British waters: the grey seal and the common seal. The two species are about equally numerous; they are both engaging animals, which attract the affection of naturalists and others who watch them, and both are interesting animals whose habits and ecology have been much studied by naturalists, amateur and professional, over the past thirty years or so. As a result, we can now contemplate legislation of a type and to an extent that would have been quite impossible when the 1932 Act was passed, because we did not at that time have the knowledge at our finger tips.
Both the grey seal and the common seal are fish eaters, and as such come into competition with commercial fishermen, not so much because of the number of fish they destroy as because of the damage they do to nets, both fixed nets for salmon and driftnets for herring and the like, and to the fish in those nets, rendering them, in many cases, unmarketable. There are a number of noble Lords from Scotland who have put down their names to speak this evening and who know much more about the salmon fisheries, but in my own part of the world the damage to the inshore fisheries can be considerable. In those fisheries, as you haul in the net with the fish
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caught in it by the gills you bring it inboard, give it a good shake and the fish fall on to the deck. A seal seizing a fish in the net under water, pulling and tugging, can shake it in exactly the same way, shaking out everything, so that the unfortunate fisherman hauls in an empty net. If that happens occasionally it is a normal occupational hazard and supportable. But if seals become too numerous it becomes quite insupportable, and the unfortunate fishermen have the greatest difficulty in earning their livelihood.
It is also the case that both species of seal have always been exploited as one of our natural resources for their oil, their meat and, latterly, more especially for their skins. In Scotland at all times seals have been hunted by people living on the coast, formerly for subsistence but latterly more for the commercial results. For many years seal hunters concentrated on the grey seals which breed in colonies, and the young of which cannot swim until they are three weeks or a month old. They are therefore very much more vulnerable than the common seals, the females of which pup on a rock or sand-bank in low water, and the two drift off together at high tide.
This concentration by professional seal hunters on grey seals resulted in their becoming relatively uncommon by the turn of this century, and the Grey Seals Protection Acts were introduced to protect them during their breeding season when they were most vulnerable, although power was given to the Minister to issue licences to kill them at that time if he thought it necessary. As a result of that protection the numbers of grey seals have increased considerably. I suppose that the most famous colony is on the Fame Islands, where the numbers have increased from some 300, 400 or 500 seals, of all ages, in the early 1930s, when the Act was first passed, until to-day, when there are about 5,000 seals on the Islands. There has been a similar large increase in the other large colony of grey seals around our coast, on North Rhona and in Orkney the increase has been such, and the damage done to fisheries has been such, that for the past few years the Secretary of State has authorised an annual cull of some 800 seals. At the same time the unprotected common seal, the coat of which is valuable when a

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pup, has been subjected to intense killing by commercial sealers, to such an extent that the number of pups born in Shetland has decreased by about 75 per cent, and the take in the Wash has decreased by about 50 per cent. And one hears continual stories of bodies being washed ashore up and down the coast.
Therefore we are faced with two facts: that the grey seal, protected, has in some places become so common as to cause serious damage to fisheries, while the common seal, unprotected and over-exploited, is in some places in danger of becoming rare. Therefore there are a number of apparently conflicting interests which this Bill attempts to reconcile. There are, first, the interests of the naturalist, the scientist and the nature lover, all of whom want to see seals and watch them with as little disturbance as possible. Then there is the commercial sealer, who wants a large population of seals with a large annual surplus which he can cull for his own profit. There is the commercial fisherman who wants to see the population of seals reduced to such a level that the damage to his fish and his gear is minimal; and there are, lastly, a number in every category who feel that if seals have to be killed they should be killed as quickly and as humanely as possible.
If your Lordships will turn to the Bill you will see that Clause 1 deals with this last point. It forbids the use of poison. Strychnine is used to poison salmon which in Scotland (it is not done in England) are put into the nets as bait, and causes an agonising death to any creature which takes it. Scotland has recently abolished the gin-trap, one of the most inhumane engines man has ever devised, thus following England, and I hope that Scotland will also follow England in abolishing this inhumane method of killing animals. Secondly, Clause 1 lays down the minimum-sized firearm that may be used. The ballistics there, if I may be technical for a moment, are those of the 220 Hornet high-velocity rifle, which is more than adequate to kill an animal if it is shot in the head—and practically every seal killed is shot in the head.
Clause 2 lays down close seasons. For the grey seals, which pup in the autumn and early winter, there is the same close
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season as is in the existing Act, and for common seals, which pup at a different time, the appropriate season is prescribed. Clause 3 gives the Minister power to give complete protection to either or both species if he thinks it necessary and where he thinks it necessary. Clause 9 defines the reasons for which the Minister may grant licences, as he can to-day, to take or kill seals during the close season, and that clause in fact defines the modern concept of conservation, as opposed to the old-fashioned one of protection, which it is the object of this Bill to introduce.
I referred just now to the annual cull in Orkney which has been authorised by the Secretary of State for the past three years or so. That cull has remained more or less constant, and the population also seems to remain more or less constant, because the Secretary of State and his advisers seem to have found the maximum sustainable annual yield from the population of seals in Orkney which can be kept up year after year while keeping the population at the same level. If the population increases and more damage is done to fisheries, he can increase the cull; if he finds the population decreasing he can decrease the cull and bring it back to the maximum level possible. And here, of course, the Minister is following, on behalf of the nation, exactly the same policy as the grazier follows with animals on a farm, or the owner of a deer forest on his hill; that is to say, he is keeping the maximum breeding population that he can without doing damage to his neighbours, and culling and selling the annual surplus in order to keep the population at the same level.
Clauses 4, 5, 6 and 7 deal with penalties, and with the apprehension of offenders and the like. The clauses are, I think, common form for this sort of Bill and do not call for comment. Clause 8 is important as exempting from penalty the person who takes a seal in order to try to look after it and then release it, or who kills an animal so seriously injured that it has to be put out of its misery. More particularly, the clause authorises the killing by a fisherman of a seal found near his nets, a provision which is intended to cover the existing practice of those in charge of fixed nets of shooting seals or, rather more often,

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I understand, shooting at seals which attempt to take salmon from their nets—a purely defensive measure which can have little or no effect on the seal population, and which none of your Lordships, I think, would wish to discourage. A suitable weapon of course should be used, and that is taken care of by Clause 1.
The remaining two clauses deal with the relationships between the Minister and the Natural Environment Research Council, the one advising the other, and the other, in certain conditions, having overriding powers over his adviser. My Lords, we in this country have a special responsibility for seals, quite apart from the one of common humanity, because we have around our coasts about 75 per cent. of the whole world population of grey seals. And while we have, quite rightly, protected them for the past fifty years or so, we have been finding that protection alone, in the old-fashioned sense, is not enough and that we have now to go into management. In short, what one hopes this Bill will secure is that we have around our coasts for the enjoyment of all of us the highest possible population of seals that it is possible to have without causing damage to fisheries. This means that the seal population must remain stable since if it increases damage will be done. The surplus, therefore, must be culled as one of our natural resources. To achieve all that we should like would, I must confess, be possible only in the best of all possible worlds. That, I am afraid, is unattainable, but at least we can try, and I feel that we ought to try. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Cranbrook.)
5.27 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, just over a year ago we had a very full and valuable debate when the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, moved the Second Reading of his Protection of Seals Bill. To my considerable regret, I could not myself be present for that debate, but I have studied the OFFICIAL REPORT and I am well aware of the strong views held on this subject. The fact that nine noble Lords have signified their intention to speak in this debate is further indication of the
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interest that your Lordships' House has in this subject.
In the previous debate, my noble friend Lord Shackleton explained why the Government could not support that Bill in its existing form, but he promised that we would give the general issues farther thought and be willing to help the noble Earl, if we could, to produce another and more acceptable Bill. As he has said, the noble Earl took us up on that offer, and for our part we have much appreciated the open-minded and co-operative way in which he has considered such advice as the Government have to offer. Thanks to this, we have before us to-day a Bill which, from the Government's point of view at least, is a great improvement on the earlier one.
As your Lordships will recall, the earlier Bill was constructed on the principle that the common seal and the grey seal should be given comprehensive statutory protection and that no seal should be taken or killed except under licence. That would have inflated the administrative aspect; it would have made Ministers and their Departments largely responsible for the wise treatment of seals, and it would have greatly extended the range of activities enforceable at law. At first sight, of course, a central licensing system may seem a better and more flexible safeguard for seals than leaving the relationships, as it were, between men and seals in certain circumstances more arbitrarily defined, as they are in the Bill. But we have to remember that these relationships sometimes, indeed often, involve protecting interests other than the seals themselves. I had a vagrant thought in my mind when the noble Earl said a moment ago that we want the maximum population of seals, consistent with other things, for our enjoyment; I would submit also for the enjoyment of the seals themselves, and their interests are at least as great as ours in this matter.
There is no doubt that both species of seal are responsible for considerable damage to commercial fisheries, by the destruction of a considerable quantity (usually assessed at something like 100,000 tons of fish a year) and a wide variety of fish—white fish, herring and salmon; by the damaging of nets and gear; and by the spread of parasitic worms of which seals are the definitive host.

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The fishermen are not the only group who believe that there sometimes appear to be too many seals. Conservationists, too, have a concern in seeing that populations of seals do not become so large as to create a threat to their own continued existence or to the ecology of other species. Conservationists, of course, also have a strong interest in protecting species whose numbers are depressed, though in the case of seals there appears to be no danger to the continued survival in British waters of either specie.
The issues then, in the Government's view, amount to this. We want to be able to act in good time to preserve seals—our largest wild mammals—if ever their survival seems endangered. We want to protect seals against inhumanity either from cruel methods of destruction or from needless destruction during the close season. We want to avoid increasing the difficulties of fishermen through the unrestricted increase in the number of seals. We want to ensure that the conservationists have proper opportunity for selective culling of seal populations in the interests of rational management. I do not deny that these objectives could have been secured to some extent by the Bill which the noble Earl introduced last year. I believe, however, that that Bill did not strike the right balance between the various interests, and perhaps, just as importantly, did not manifestly appear to do so. Where the present Bill seems much superior, if I may say so, is in breaking up the comprehensive, but to some extent uncomprehensible, principle of protection into specific and selective safeguards: specified protection means, for example, protection during the close seasons, protection in scheduled areas. The new Bill says what it means, and it leaves—this is fortunate—less to be guessed at in the minds of Ministers. The noble Earl has made clear—and I do not doubt him—that the net effect of this change in the basic framework of the Bill will not involve any significant loss in day to day protection for our seal populations, and no loss whatever when circumstances require that protection should be absolute.
Apart from the fact that the Bill makes no provision for access to land—about
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which I shall have something to say in a moment—its provisions are generally in line with what the Government would think appropriate. The noble Earl has explained the provisions of the Bill so carefully that I need make only a few comments. Clause 1 defines prohibited methods of taking, injuring or killing seals, and the Secretary of State is empowered, by Order, to alter the descriptions of the weapons specified. This will stop the use of shot-guns and certain other firearms and ammunition that are more likely to maim than to kill. Some of your Lordships may feel that this clause does not go far enough in restricting other methods of killing seals; but the trouble is that there is no unanimity of view at present about what are the most, or least, desirable methods of humane killing or taking of either species.
Clause 8 provides general exceptions for mercy killing and taking, and for fishermen acting in protection of their nets and tackle, and I think perhaps we should consider at a later stage of the Bill providing a similar exception for action taken by fishermen to protect their catches. Under Clause 9(1) the Secretary of State is empowered to license the taking or killing of seals (in a close season, or in a protected area which has been scheduled under Clause 3, or by prohibited methods) for purposes of education, science or for a zoological collection; to prevent damage to fisheries, to reduce a population surplus of seals for management purposes; or for a population surplus to be used as a resource. Clause 9(3) provides that, except where the purpose is to prevent damage to fisheries, the Secretary of State must consult the Natural Environment Research Council before granting any licence; and the Council, of which the noble Lord, Lord Howick of Glendale, is a member, has power to veto the grant of a licence to kill seals in a nature reserve or a site of Special Scientific Interest.
Clause 10 requires the Natural Environment Research Council to provide scientific advice on matters related to the management of seal populations. At present there is little evidence to suggest that there are more than one or two areas in respect of which it might be necessary to make orders prohibiting the destruction of seals. I am speaking of areas and not general conditions. As regards licensing the destruction of seals

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in the close season, I think I ought to say that both the Department of Education and Science and the Fisheries Departments consider that effective culling, particularly of grey seals, is possible only during the close season and culling will therefore in the main have to be done under licence. It is likely, however, that when culling is necessary for management purposes there will also be a need to cull for fisheries protection and it should be possible to co-ordinate such culls.
I turn to the point, indeed the problem, of access to seals for such culls. Even with the present limited protection it has been difficult to arrange for necessary culling because of the reluctance of certain landowners to agree to culls of seals on their land when this would be fully justified on scientific grounds. This measure, which affords certain additional protection for seals and underlines the need for rational management of seal stocks, would seem to be incomplete without some provision to overcome difficulties of that kind and allow seals to be counted and observed for research purposes, or destroyed for management purposes or protection of fisheries.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: Hear, hear!
LORD STONHAM: I so often find myself in agreement with the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, and I am glad that he agrees with me again on this occasion. The noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, has indicated his awareness of the problem, and we, too, are considering how it might be resolved.
I must strike a cautionary note about enforcement. This is largely a Scottish problem, for of the 35,000 grey seals in the British Isles, some 30,000 are in Scottish waters; and the majority of the 18,000 common seals are there, too. Enforcement of the Grey Seals Protection Act has always been a problem, particularly in the more remote areas where grey seals are chiefly found. But this Bill will not make the matter any easier. Elsewhere, I need hardly stress that the police would have little time or facilities for the enforcement of criminal legislation with respect to seals.
I think that this is a distinct advance and a useful Bill, which I shall look forward to considering with your Lordships
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in Committee, when no doubt we shall have some more interesting discussions and perhaps, by consensus and by consent, make further improvements. Meanwhile, may I conclude by congratulating the noble Earl on producing a Bill which continues to steer a middle course between the conflicting interests of which we are all aware, and which I am sure will go a long way in helping to put the conservation, management and control of seals on a sound scientific basis.
5.40 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I, too, join with the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, upon bringing forward this amended Bill. Seals are attractive animals. To all of us, and myself in particular, since I read Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Tales and the story of the white seal, they have always had an attraction. As we all know, they are contented and happy animals, possessing, I believe, the five senses in greater proportion than most animals. Seals, especially the common seal, can be tamed if they are not molested too much, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries fishermen were even known to play flutes to draw them out because they were attracted by music. I was interested to hear the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, discussing the situation in the Orkneys, because I believe that in the early nineteenth century when the church bells on Hoy used to ring it was quite usual to see schools of seals appearing in the bay.
The question of the culling of seals for the protection of the fishing industry, as well as for the protection of seals themselves, leads to one or two interesting points. The main point is that, as I understand it, there is no scientific certainty that this is necessary because the scientific knowledge we have at the moment is very limited. I am thinking in particular now of the Universities' Federation for Animal Welfare Report on this matter. Just taking the question of the Orkneys, the mover of this Bill has informed us that in each of the last three years the Secretary of State has ordered that 800 seals should be culled because of the damage they do, and he informed us that this was considered to be about the right number

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for keeping the population level. However, UFAW (if I may use the abbreviation), appear to differ in this respect. In fact, they appear to think that there was no reason to fear any increase in numbers on conservation grounds, for in the Orkneys there is no salmon fishing industry to speak of. Admittedly, there is a white fish industry.
In the Orkneys there is also a lobster industry, and the information that UFAW have is that the fishermen in the Orkneys strongly assert that the seals eat the squid which in their turn live off lobsters. I am told that the best lobster catches are often made where many seals are present. So UFAW say in their pamphlet that the plea to cull seals in order to protect fishing interests in the Orkneys is rather bogus, and that neither scientifically nor economically has that plea been justified. They go on to say:
"Perhaps the most disappointing feature of the Orkney visit"—
which was made by themselves with the Government inspectors—
"was witnessing the failure of the official Government observers to get ashore to supervise the sealers' activities."
I merely mention this point to show that there is nothing cut and dried with certainty in these matters. There is a direct conflict of scientific evidence from this body with what the Secretary of State has been advised.
Having said that, as both noble Lords have said it is obviously fair to appreciate that seals do a lot of harm to the fishing industry, and therefore powers to cull obviously have to be in the hands of the Secretary of State. In many cases I would go further than the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. I think that if you were to get a surplus of seals in one place they could harm their own chances of survival, because obviously there would not be the same amount to eat and there would also be fouling of the grounds. I would say that although in the past we have had many salmon marked in the rivers in Scotland, this is now rather rarer because the river bailiffs have been successful in keeping down excessive numbers.
The noble Lord, Lord Balogh, is not here, but I suppose I had better say that I am the proprietor of a small stretch of river in Scotland where salmon come and where I have rights, but I am not
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trying to make out a case for salmon rather than for seals; I am fairly neutral. The various terms of damage done I find hard to understand. The Fisheries Marine Research Department Laboratory of the Scottish Home Department had a gentleman called Dr. Bennett who estimated the value of damage done to food at £100,000 and net damage at £50,000. The Scottish Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, we were told, estimated the annual damage at more like £67,000. Of course, no doubt there is a lot of other damage which is not known about. But this is not a very large amount considering the amount of salmon and other fish which exist in British waters, and considering the amount taken out of the Atlantic. One has to keep one's sense of proportion.
Now to some details of this Bill. Although I am not a ballistics expert, I wonder whether a bullet weighing not less than 45 grains is really heavy enough for the adult seal. I think it is problematical and debatable, and I would draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that since 1965 the Canadian Government have seen fit to have certain laws passed. I need not remind your Lordships that it is around Canada where the greatest seal population—admittedly of a different variety, the harp—exists. Nevertheless, they have a very much bigger population than we have, and they have found it necessary to insist on soft-nosed bullets which are capable of expansion in the seals and therefore more certain of causing death, and they have banned by Statute all steel-jacketed ammunition because they found that this was more likely to wound. As I understand it, there is nothing in this Bill to stop people using steel-jacketed ammunition provided that it is of this weight. But, as I say, the Canadian Government found it necessary specifically to insist that soft-nosed bullets should be used. I merely mention this as being worth looking into, because the experience of others is always useful.
Under Clause 9 the Secretary of State has power to specify how any culling or killing shall be done. And he might recommend that on some island where there was (shall we say?) danger of ricochets the culling of cubs should be done by club. I would point out that in Canada they have specified

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and laid down by law that the clubs used must be of a certain length and certain weight. It is worth mentioning here that Mr. Tom Hughes, who is general manager of the Ontario Humane Society, actually found that in certain cases this method was the most humane. But if this clubbing were ever to be found suitable (I quite agree it is repulsive to think of a man having to do the work because obviously it is not a pleasant job) and if it were to be thought that that was the right way to do it, because of the fear of ricochets, or as being the best way for cubs, it might be right to put down a minimum weight and length of club.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, if the noble Lord will excuse me for interrupting, I hope it will never fall to my lot to introduce a regulation providing for clubbing in this way. Actually, dealing with animals as a Minister is the most dangerous—literally dangerous—occupation you can possibly have; and the method suggested by the noble Lord is, I think, quite abhorrent.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I am glad to hear the noble Lord say that. I personally regard it as abhorrent, but it has been found in certain cases that from the point of view of the seals themselves this has not necessarily been the unkindest way especially with the young ones. However, I leave that point. I mention it merely as being a point to be considered.
Under the same Clause 9 I am still not quite clear whether the Secretary of State has been given power to override owners in ordering culling. We had the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, thirteen months ago as to whether for instance the National Trust could be forced, against their will, to have culling in the Fame Islands. Personally I accept that, if necessity is known and proved, this power should be in the hands of the Secretary of State, because we all know that public bodies are capable of being got at by members of the public who have emotional feelings, and who are able to influence, even though good grounds do not exist.
I have no more to say, my Lords. This is a useful and helpful Bill which must appeal to all lovers of Nature, and
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it also gives adequate safeguards to the fishing industry. I again congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, on bringing it forward, and would ask the Government to try to ensure that the information on which the Secretary of State acts is given on as many occasions as possible, in order to allay the doubts of the conflicting interests.
5.51 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: My Lords, I should perhaps first admit that such first-hand knowledge as I have of seals derives almost entirely from the Antarctic, apart from occasionally seeing seals at Blakeney Point and on holidays in Scotland. For two and a half years in the Antarctic, Weddell seals and, more particularly, crabeater seals provided the main ingredient of our fresh food supplies. Thanks to the Antarctic Treaty Act all the southern species of seals, South of Latitude 60 degrees South, now have a real prospect of sensible conservation.
It is useful to recall that the Antarctic crabeater seal population is of the order of 5 million to 10 million, of Weddell seals 500,000, and of leopard seals 150,000. In the Northern Hemisphere the heavily exploited population of harp seals is also still to be measured in millions. By contrast, this Bill is concerned with two seal species which exist in Great Britain in smaller numbers, but which become important because of their proximity to centres of human population and are thus particularly vulnerable.
In the Antarctic, out of, say, sever crabeater seals basking on an icefloe, six could be killed before the seventh slipped into the water, after deciding that discretion was the better part of laziness. Their very tameness and trust made one feel a cad, and that it was abhorrent to kill these seals, even when this was done for one's own and for the dogs' food supplies. British seals, on the other hand, are in general far more wary, except during the breeding seasons covered by the close seasons in this Bill, when they are even more vulnerable. The world population of grey seals has recently been estimated at 52,500, of which at least 65 per cent. (I think the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, suggested 75 per cent.) inhabit British coasts, whereas a necessarily less precise estimate of the world common seal population would be of the

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order of 250,000, of which probably less than 1 per cent. inhabit British waters.
I wish warmly to support this Bill. We owe much to the initiative and leadership of the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, for introducing this Bill and for the work and consultation which he has given to it. This debt is the greater since this Bill includes for the first time a measure of protection for the common seal as well as for the grey seal. In addition, due regard is paid to fishery industries, as well as to humane methods of killing and to conservation needs. The infliction of suffering on animals is a subject on which strong emotions can be aroused. I believe that much harm is done to the cause of those who have animal welfare at heart, and indeed to the truth of the situation, by ascribing to animals the same feelings and the same reactions to pain as those experienced by human beings; and even, sometimes, by presenting animal suffering in a more emotional light than the suffering of man. When the previous Bill on this subject was debated on May 24, 1968, the noble Lord, Lord Strange, in a speech which was delightful to read (unfortunately, I was not able to be present on that occasion) took the part of the seal. But, with due respect to the noble Lord, neither he nor any other of your Lordships live like seals, imagine like seals, nor even, I suggest, look like seals.
My Lords, we can never know precisely what the seal feels, but, granted that the suffering of wounded seals may be quite different in grade and intensity from the suffering which man would experience under the same conditions, this in no way exonerates us from taking every practicable step to reduce suffering in animals to the minimum. I say this for two reasons: first, out of consideration for the creatures as part of God's creation which are placed under our responsible care; and, secondly, because it is dehumanising, and indeed thuggish, for man to inflict unnecessary suffering on animals. People need to be re-related into a state of responsible compassion towards Nature, especially where, as in the case of seal pups, Nature is at its most vulnerable.
In regard both to humanitarian considerations and to those of wasteful kill-
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ing, it could be argued that insistence on the use only of powerful rifles is open to question, although I welcome the prohibition of the use of shot-guns and poisons. Nevertheless, there will be occasions when the use of a high-powered rifle will be inappropriate. When a seal is being shot in the water by a marksman on land it presents only its head as target, and as this is the only instantly lethal spot the marksman can only kill or miss. If he is experienced he can reduce the wastage by sinking—in other words, by retrieving the seal again—to a minimum. But when both the seal and the marksman are on land it is quite another matter. Grey seal pups simply lie there and can be shot at very close range indeed, or they can be clubbed. During the breeding season grey seal adults may, despite human disturbance, stray ashore, where they can be shot efficiently in the head. But outside the breeding season common seals and grey seals invariably make for the water as soon as human presence is detected, and this increases many times the chances of inflicting a wound other than in the head, if a rifle be used.
In these circumstances, it is interesting to note that the use of a club is prohibited, as indeed other methods of killing are prohibited, during the close season. But one would wish to know whether it is, in fact, the intention of this Bill—and the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, referred to this matter—that clubs may be used outside the respective close seasons in the circumstances in which, by Clauses 8 and 9, seals may be taken. This would seem to be required, for example, when in May a salmon bag net fisherman caught a young grey seal—that is, a moulter born during the previous autumn—and needed to deal with it in or near his boat. If he could not release it he would be obliged to club the animal, as the use of firearms would be a danger both to himself and to his boat. It is important to ensure that this sort of defence of a fishery is legitimate, and while I fully agree that, in concept, clubbing is abhorrent, nevertheless I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, said. If efficiently carried out, it is in fact a humane method of killing, for the very reason that it immediately desensitises the seal.
The practice of sealers in Shetland of taking young common seals may include

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the netting of pups. This is effective and successfully avoids undue disturbance and wastage and injury to adults, which is sound resource management. Nevertheless, it would again be impracticable to despatch a pup captured in this way by means of a high-powered rifle at such close range from a small boat. I have been given to understand that the use of a high-powered rifle to kill common seal pups is generally less appropriate on rocky coasts than it is among the sandbanks on the Wash.
Turning from the humanitarian to the penal aspects of the Bill, I would point out that at first sight a maximum fine of £50 might appear to be too small. In 1963, when seal skin prices rose to a specially high level, £50 would have represented the value of only three or four skins, although by 1968 it could have represented the value of nine or ten. But if you take, alongside that, the added risk of forfeiture of skins, firearms, et cetera, I suggest that this should be regarded as sufficient deterrent.
I now turn to Clause 8, where a general exception allows the killing of a seal in the "immediate vicinity" of fishing net or tackle. It is that word "immediate" which I suggest needs further definition. Take the examples of the estuaries of the Tweed and Tay, where marauding seals may be seen to the seaward of sweep nets or down-tide of fixed nets, and might even be seen to be eating salmon which are specially concentrated there by dint of the river approaches and breakwater. The seal could be half-a-mile from the net. Is it to be regarded as being in the "immediate vicinity"? This would seem to need clarification.
The last comment I would make upon the Bill relates to Clause 9, which seems to me particularly wisely drafted so as to allow adequate latitude to the Secretary of State in applying the criteria by which he may give licence for seals to be taken. The damage which seals cause to fisheries may be direct—that is to say, holes torn in nets, the taking of catch and the transmission of nematode parasites—or indirect: that is to say, their effect on fish stocks. There is no doubt that every opportunity must be given to a fisherman to defend his catch and his gear, and this Bill provides admirably for this. But care must al
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ways be exercised before decisions are taken to reduce seal numbers on account of the alleged effect on fish stocks.
It has been argued—and this was mentioned, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham—that in Scottish waters seals consume 100,000 tons of fish per year. When there is the implication that this amount of fish would otherwise be available to fishermen, it has effective propaganda value; but there are far too many qualifications to that statement for it to be upheld as an argument for reducing seal numbers at the breeding grounds. Certainly, seal stocks affect fish stocks, but the effect cannot be measured or described at present. For example, if grey seals eat a certain weight of cod and squid, what is the importance of this in relation to the weight of smaller gadoid species (such as haddock, whiting or saithe) eaten by large cod, the weight of codling eaten by squid, or the weight of squid eaten by cod? It must be remembered, nevertheless, that while seals represent the end of a food chain and will thus consume a significant proportion of fish, an important aspect of predation is the disturbance and redistribution of food species, and this may not be harmful to human interests.
There has in fact been a prolonged research effort to provide evidence of the effects of seals on fisheries. It was essential, for instance, to find an index which could be applied to the damage in order that comparisons could be made from region to region, as well as before and after any programme of seal reduction took place. A possible index was the proportion of nets in which holes were torn by seals, but the gradual replacement of natural by synthetic fibre since 1960 has virtually obliterated this factor. Another possible index might be the evaluation of questionnaires based on sightings of seals seen near nets, but this has proved to be greatly influenced by the variability of the subjective factors involved in such a procedure. Another index could be the proportion of salmon in the catch which bear unmistakable signs of mutilation caused by seals; for instance, scratches inflicted by claws. At present, however, this presents a difficulty in interpretation, as seals certainly capture their food in their mouths, while their flippers are used in swimming. It may therefore be unwise to rely upon an index

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while the way in which the evidence is caused remains unknown.
Therefore, it seems to me one should rely more on the effects on catch and gear. This is real, it is apparent, it is measurable—but in absolute, not in relative terms. As seal numbers go up, fisheries damage will increase, and the Secretary of State must therefore decide the level at which this becomes intolerable before approving the killing of seals at the breeding grounds. One of the reasons for which the Secretary of State may issue a licence for taking seals is:
"the reduction of a population surplus of seals for management purposes;…"
I take it that the phrase "management purposes" implies the thinning out of seals for their own or their habitat's good. The common seal cannot be said to damage its habitat as such, and certainly does not breed in colonies where the density of individuals induces mortality. Grey seals, however, can reduce a grassy and wild iris-covered island to a stinking, muddy swamp. This, in certain circumstances, may become undesirable; but it is in the nature of the species to select a breeding régime of this kind, so that it is not scientifically necessary to reduce grey seal numbers just because the colony seems disreputable.
Similarly, it cannot be argued, as one might in regard to a population of land herbivores, that it is desirable to reduce seal numbers because they are a potential threat to their own food supplies. Seals are catholic and opportunist feeders in the open sea. The exploitation of "population surplus" as a resource implies the selective killing of young males. In the case of the common seal, this is virtually impossible as the sexes are indistinguishable, but in the grey seal it is sensible and practical. It must be emphasised that an incompatibility exists between the fishermen's and the sealers' interests, for in the interest of fisheries it would be appropriate to kill adult females, as this has the greatest effect on the population, whereas in the interest of sealers it is necessary to kill young males, as doing this has the least effect on the population while producing a reasonable, commercial return.
Ultimately, the discretionary powers allowed to the Secretary of State must de-
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pend on a balanced objective view of the varied interests, and this discretion will be strengthened by the promotion of much-needed further research, for we are still a long way from a quantitative assessment of the appropriate levels of populations of the grey and common seals, in relation either to man's varied interests or to conservation. The latitude given within this clause and the terms under which the Secretary of State is enjoined to exercise his judgment, and in particular the consultation required with the Natural Environment Research Council, which will be in as good a position as any other body, or better, to assess the criteria by which a population surplus may be judged, is not only a strength to the Bill but an incentive to further research. My Lords, I hope that this Bill secures an early and successful passage through its successive stages in this House and in another place.
6.9 p.m.
LORD HOWICK OF GLENDALE: My Lords, I must declare an interest—in fact, really two interests. First, I have been, for I think about eight years, the chairman of the Nature Conservancy, which is now a committee of the Natural Environment Research Council, about which the right reverend Prelate has just been speaking; and I am also a member of that Council. Secondly, I have also to say that I live in the North of Northumberland, on the coast, very near the Farnes, and in the past the Farnes have proved to be the habitat of the most controversial of the grey seal colonies. I do not think anybody has yet mentioned the difference in the habits of the common and the grey seal as to calving. Common seals calve all over the place, wherever they can find the sandbanks—for example, in the Wash.
As to the grey seal, I hope I do not look like a grey seal—I know, as the right reverend Prelate said, I do not feel like one—but I have one resemblance to them. The grey seal is always described as "a colonial animal". For most of my life I have been a "colonial animal". The main seal colonies are in the Farnes, the Orkneys and certain Hebridean islands. The Farnes is not the biggest colony; but it is very accessible and it is visited each year by an increasing number of people. The cull on the Farnes a few years ago

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caused a great deal of public controversy. I live near the Farnes and was President of the Northumberland and Durham County Trust which is concerned in these matters.
My Lords, I am going to be very brief; but before saying anything else I should point out that the Bill in its present form has not been formally considered by either the Natural Environment Research Council or the Nature Conservancy. I did not realise until last week-end that this Bill was going to come up to-day; so I am afraid that these are ill-prepared and purely personal words—perhaps not purely personal, because I have consulted with Professor Wynne-Edwards, Chairman of the Environment Research Council; and, as the Director of the Conservancy, I consulted also with Professor Hewer and Professor Poore. I think that both Professors (certainly Professor Hewer) were members of the committee which some seven or eight years ago went into the question of culling on the Farnes. They are leading zoologists and leading authorities on seals, and what I wish briefly to say has their agreement.
I should like first to say that I think that the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, who has been for several years a helpful and admirable member of the Nature Conservancy, has performed a public service in introducing this extremely useful Bill on which I know he has worked very hard. My view is one of agreement in general principles with the Bill. I am bound to make one exception, however, and to this I will return later. Before expressing this view, I would briefly (because it very much affects conservancy) outline what seems in our eyes—that is, the eyes of the Nature Conservancy and the N.E.R.C.—to have been the history of the rather controversial cull on the Fame Islands, because it gives a line on what might be the history of other culls either there or in other places.
Originally, when the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, was Chairman of the Nature Conservancy, he very rightly decided to co-operate with the Government of the day in the establishment of a committee and in the work of that committee to go into the question. The then-Deputy Director of Nature Conservancy, Dr. Worthington, who was a zoologist who had done a great deal of work on fish, was chairman of the committee. That
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Committee advised the Government to arrange over a five-year period a cull of one-fifth of the weaned female cubs each year; which, they thought, was a way of reducing the population in the most humane way possible. They said nothing about the common seals because in those days the common seals did not come under the Conservancy. I make a point, in parenthesis, of saying that one of the great advantages of the establishment of N.E.R.C. is that it brings together the work of all the various bodies that deal with the natural sciences: the geologists, hydrologists, oceanographers and terrestrecologists (which we are in Conservancy) and now one can deal with both kinds of seals together. That is a great advantage.
In those days this Committee was dealing with grey seals in one area only. The Conservancy advice to the Government (they were bound to offer them advice on wild creatures) was accepted. There was a great outcry about this. We all, I think—the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Nature Conservancy and I myself—under-estimated the outcry that would occur, because this type of cull had been going on in the Orkneys for a very long time, without the same amount of public protest. But we in the Conservancy stuck to our guns and we still maintain that the advice on that cull was right. The Farnes, as noble Lords know, belong to the National Trust, and the National Trust originally (for a reason that I cannot remember) accepted that recommendation for three and not five years. They later felt unable to agree to the cull going on beyond three years.
I should like to go back and say why the Director of Nature Conservancy, Mr. Max Nicholson, who had done an enormous work of conservation all over the country for over 15 years, and I myself (who know much less) accepted that cull. We accepted it because we felt that here was a problem that all conservationists face, a problem of reconciliation. There was no good in producing a one-sided solution, either entirely in favour of the seals or entirely in favour of the fishermen. One must be practical and produce something which reconciles the maintenance of a proper fishing industry with the conservation of the greatest number of seals possible consonant with

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that—and conservation of the seals, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said, basically for their own sake. I think that was very well put by the noble Earl, Lord Chapbook. It was a problem, we felt, of balance; and because it was a problem of balance we had two ideas in mind.
The first idea is that when any body or institution is trying to conserve animals which can do damage over a long period of time it must attempt to take control of numbers. In practice that control is usually a rather imperfect one; but something must be done on those lines. I felt that was so because throughout my life I have tried to conserve animals, mainly, I admit, in Africa, but the principles are the same. I remember when touring for the Nature Conservancy in North Devonshire seeing the slopes covered with thyme, the habitat of the large blue butterfly. I met the man who was charged with looking after the butterflies and I said to him, "What are you doing here?"—because he was, in fact, a former chief game warden in Uganda. He replied: "They said to me, You're the very man to look after butterflies because you are so good at the conservation of elephants'." It sounds ridiculous but it is true; the conservation principles are the same.
If no attempt is made to take control of numbers, then in the end you are faced with demands—and demands you cannot answer—for a massacre. That is what happened in certain African countries where in the past there was a regular cull of certain animals slightly below their natural increase. That stopped; and now those animals have become so numerous that it will be necessary to have an enormous massacre which will shock a great many conservationists and cause a great amount of damage. Mr. Nicholson and I both felt that if nothing was done about the seals on the Farne Islands there would, in the end, have to be a massacre which would demoralise the colony. Although our first idea was to take control of numbers, our second idea was that that control should not be so great or carried out in such a way as to demoralise the colony and drive the seals away. In fact, the cull of one-fifth of the weaned female cubs did not do this. It was a problem
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of steering between Scylla and Charybdis, between opposing evils. That is the principle to which we must stick; and that is the principle of this Bill: to steer between excessive damage to fisheries and so violent a cull (or a cull carried out in such a way) as to drive away the seals.
With that in mind I felt, before reading this Bill, that powers should be taken to enforce a grey seal cull if necessary and to enforce it with access or entry to land. Secondly, I felt that the cull should not be so great or carried out in such a way as to scatter the seals. Therefore some damage to the fishery industry must be accepted. if one reads the literature on this subject one finds that it is difficult to prove exactly how great that damage is, damage to salmon, to nets or to white fish; and Lord Stonham mentioned the fact that the seal is the definitive host of the cod worm that breeds inside it. But, all the same, the damage undoubtedly is there and, as has been said before, I think that at the moment the grey seals are perhaps (in the Fames anyway) overprotected and the common seals are certainly under-protected.
With these ideas in mind, personally I welcome most of the proposals in this Bill: for example, the management and degree of protection given to the common seal population and the prohibition of the use of poisons and other less humane ways of killing seals. I would go further than that and agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has mentioned: that the Government may have to take power of access, power to go on to an owner's land if the owner will not agree to permit them to do so, and to cull the seals there.
I know that there are many conservationists in the country who would not share my feelings on this, and I respect their views. I think they are sincere; but I do not think that they are right: because if this Government, or indeed any Government, are to carry out a long-term policy in which they stick to their guns, they are bound to hold the balance even. If the balance is to be held even, the Government would in certain circumstances have to be able to go and cull the seal population. I myself visit the Fame Islands quite often. They are in two parts. There are the Inner Fames—St. Cuthbert and St. Aidan, and two small islands next

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to them—then a large stretch of water and the Outer Fames. In the past, seals have been entirely on the Outer Fames, but in the last few years, actually since the cull was stopped, they have started to breed on the Inner Fames. Therefore I have no doubt, from that evidence which is under one's eyes, quite apart from the count, which may be wrong, that the seal population is going up much too fast and that a cull must be done if a future massacre is to be avoided.
I also think that, if this is so, if the Government are to enforce the cull and take right of access they should take full advice before doing so. "Full advice" would mean advice from the scientists at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and also from scientists at the Natural Environment Research Council. My one problem regarding this Bill is that Clause 9(3) makes it possible for the Secretary of State to carry out a cull anywhere, even in a nature reserve, without prior consultation. I think that a duty should be laid on the Secretary of State to consult the Natural Environment Research Council about any cull of seals, whether it is for the protection of fisheries or not. What is more, if the cull for the protection of fisheries is to take place in a national nature reserve he should obtain the consent of the N.E.R.C. or the Nature Conservancy.
For this, my Lords, I have a reason. The difficult point about the Farnes, at any rate, is not the law but the actual carrying out of the operation. If the balance is held even, and demonstrably so, there will always be some critics of any cull of the Fames; but they will be rather unreasonable critics, and the Government could oppose them. I think the balance was held even a few years ago when a cull was started which went on for three years; and I think that that was the right thing to do. That sort of cull, increased in numbers if necessary, would be the right thing to do now, but what I do not think would be reasonable would be if the Government carried out a cull of that sort and entered on National Trust property without the consent of the National Trust, without having first obtained the views of the Natural Environment Research Council. So I very much hope that this important alteration will be made in the Bill. If, in the last resort, it were not made, I
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should feel bound to vote against the Bill; but I think that probably it will be made. With that qualification, I should like, before sitting down, again to thank the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, very much for what he has done and to welcome this Bill.
6.24 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, as one who gave careful consideration.o the Bill which came before your Lordships' House a year ago and who has also studied the present Bill, I find myself very much in agreement with what has been said about the improvements which the noble Earl has succeeded in making in the Bill to which he is asking; your Lordships to give a Second Reading this afternoon. I do not pretend to be an expert on seals. I listened with very great interest (and there was a considerable increase in my sparse knowledge on the subject) to the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, and then to the most interesting speech of the noble Lord, Lord Howick of Glendale, who dealt largely with the main topic of my own remarks this afternoon. Obviously both spoke with considerable scientific knowledge as well as with a very humane appreciation of the problem involved in this question of culling.
In warning us against a pathetic fallacy, the right reverend Prelate said that Members of your Lordships' House do not feel like seals, or even look like seals. I am not quite sure whether that was intended as a compliment, although it occurred to me that I know one Member of your Lordships' House who cart. dive into the water with much the same skill and ability as a seal. I think that to the ordinary person the most interesting point about the seal is the beautiful and poetic motion with which it enters the water.
My Lords, I intervened in the debate which took place a year ago because, as one of the Deputy Chairmen of the National Trust, I wanted to obtain an assurance from the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, that he did not intend his Bill to provide for him, or the Secretary of State, or for anybody else, a right to trespass on the land of the National Trust for the purpose of culling seals. That matter has been dealt with particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Howick of Glendale. So far as I can see, this

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Bill is on exactly the same lines as the Bill which was presented last year. Many members of the National Trust are worried because in Clause 9(1)(c) of the Bill there is a reference to a licence being issued by the Secretary of State to kill or take seals
"within any area specified in the licence…"
Many of our members felt that if this became the law of the land it would enable the Minister to issue a licence for people to go on to the Fame Islands against the prohibition of the National Trust and to cull the seals there. As a lawyer, it did not seem to me that that was a correct interpretation, and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said that as a layman he thought that what I said was right. In his reply to the debate the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, did not deal with the point.
I do not know whether the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack would be prepared to advise us, but I should have thought that the Bill does not override the position of the National Trust as the owners of the Islands and the seal colony. I should have been content to stop at that point had not the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and the noble Lord, Lord Howick of Glendale, both, in effect, suggested that the Bill should be amended; and there have been rumours floating around that Amendments are to be put down at the next stage in the progress of this Bill which would enable the Minister to issue an Order for people to carry out a cull, and be entitled to trespass on the Fame Islands to carry it out, whether or not the governing authority of the National Trust is prepared to permit them to do so. That would be a very serious inroad into the rights of the National Trust and into the ordinary rights of ownership in this country.
My Lords, when we were first. approached, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food wanted a period of five years, as the noble Lord has said. We agreed to an experimental period of less than the five years which was asked for, and at the end of that time we were asked again to extend the period. But in the interval a very great deal of scientific information has come in, and it is significant that the speakers this afternoon who know most about these things have continuously referred to the need for more
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research into the questionable statistics on which so much of this has been based. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Soper, who spoke on the last occasion, pointing out some extraordinary divergences in the statistics which had been produced by different speakers in the debate and asking how, without agreed facts, we could come to the right conclusion.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I have the greatest admiration for the National Trust—I am a member of it—but I have never understood them to be in any sense responsible for the wild life in their areas. They are preservers of land and buildings but certainly not of wild life. I should have thought, in view of the provisions of this Bill, that the National Trust should give way and allow this Bill to apply to their land as well as to anywhere else.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord owns the game on his land, but is he suggesting that landowners are not concerned with the game on their land'? Of course they are. The reason why the National Trust did not renew the licence to cull, which it gave after the experimental period, was that the evidence was so evenly divided. The noble Lord who has just sat down pointed out that many eminent conservationists do not accept that this cull is correct. On the National Trust Committee, I had to consider the whole of this evidence. I started with a prepossession in favour of culling and, indeed, voted for it, and only the fact that the evidence was so divided made us decide not to renew the licence.
After all, if we are going to agree that hundreds and thousands of these wretched pup seals are to be killed, there must he a very strong case. The Chairman of the National Trust, my noble friend Lord Antrim, made several visits to the Islands to examine the position on the spot in consultation with experts. When we had considered the whole of the evidence, we said that we were not satisfied and that it was up to those who were asking permission to go on to our land and cull these seals to prove that it was necessary in the interests of the seals and in the interests of the fishery. Every time the Minister has come back and asked for a licence we have asked for the evidence for which we have been waiting—but he has never produced any.

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As I said a moment ago, it is clear from speeches of noble Lords to-day that research is still necessary. We of the National Trust are not emotionalists, anxious to defend the seals at any price. We are people concerned with the trust given to us by Parliament to manage our properties properly and effectively and in the general interests of the wild life that live upon them, and it would be altogether wrong that we should withdraw from that principle without having a case made to us effectively and properly.
With this Bill as it stands I am content, but I should like to say that if at the next stage an Amendment is put down which would enable the Minister to issue licences to people to go on to the Fame Islands and kill the seals, then we of the National Trust hope that many Members of your Lordships' House will rally round and see that such an Amendment is defeated.
6.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I was not able to be present last year when the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, introduced a Bill which was in many respects similar to the one we have before us to-day, but last night I read the whole of that debate and found it both informative and entertaining. Having listened to all noble Lords who have spoken to-day, I am surprised that so many new and valuable points have been brought forward.
I am not sure that I have to declare an interest, but I am speaking to-day on behalf of the Crown Estate Commissioners. As your Lordships will know, the Crown Estate own virtually all the foreshore in this country and virtually all the seabed. So we are naturally extremely concerned about this question of seals. Over many years we have wondered whether we could not, in some way or another, issue licences to control the killing of seals. I have been particularly anxious about this in areas such as the Wash where, as we have heard to-day, the common seal is, if anything, on the decline. But in spite of the ingenuity of our legal advisers, we found that we were not able to do what we wanted. The reason, very simply, is this. The public have the right of navigation over the foreshore and seabed, and if, in exercising that right, a navigator
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may have a rifle in his boat and goes along and kills a seal or two—or more, for that matter—there is nothing we can do about it. So the Commissoners strongly support the general principles behind this Bill: because if it is passed and becomes law, it will achieve what we have been unable to do ourselves.
As a man, I recognise the rights of the commercial net fisherman, the interests of the riparian owners of salmon rivers and many other interests. As a seal (and here I risk the intervention of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, by following the footsteps of my noble kinsman, Lord Strange, who spoke as a seal in the last debate), I would say that if you humans have decided, for one reason or another, that you have got to control us, then I would ask two things: first, that you control in such a way that our numbers and our race are not threatened with extinction; and, secondly, that any culling of us you do in as humane and as kind a way as possible. I believe that in general this Bill achieves both these objectives. I recognise that there are one or two controversial points which will come up on Committee stage, but in general I hope, with all noble Lords who have spoken to-day, that this Bill will have a Second Reading and in due time will find its way on to the Statute Book.
6.39 p.m.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords. while I wholeheartedly welcome this Bill, I fear that I must start off by crossing rifles with the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, because I fully share—and more than share—the apprehensions expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, and the right reverend Prelate as to the inadequacy of the 45-grain bullet for the purpose of killing seals. The weapon to he used, Lord Cranbrook informs us, is the Hornet Magnum ·22 rifle which, within its limitations, is a wholly admirable weapon. Its limitations are that it lakes a very light bullet, which is little more in weight than the ordinary rifle ·22 bullet with which all your Lord: hips are probably familiar.
The noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, made the remarkable statement that practically all seals were shot in the head.

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That statement I cannot agree with at all. It may well be that on occasion many grey seals are shot bobbing about in the water—though it is by no means easy to hit that bobbing head—but, as already mentioned by several speakers, as happens in my own area at the mouth of the Tay when seals are out on sandbanks, and are disturbed, they make for the water with quite remarkable agility, considering their form which, although so magnificent in the water, is so clumsy on land. If they are to he fired at with a rifle, the chance of hitting them in the head, no matter how accurate the rifle may be, is minimal. I should like to see the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and their advisers, get together and prohibit the use of a rifle with a bullet weighing less than, say, 100 grains.
It has to be remembered also that the 600 foot-pounds mentioned in the Bill as being the muzzle energy of the Hornet is a very low muzzle energy; and, furthermore, the lighter the bullet, the more quickly the muzzle energy falls off. The result is that with this rifle, which is very accurate at a range up to 200 yards, once a bullet at that point strikes anywhere other than an eye or ear, since the seal has a thick skull the bullet may well glance off and inflict, at best, a slight wound, and, at worst, a fatal wound, from which the animal will not recover, but which will prevent its being recovered. All in all, I do not think the use of such light bullets is in any way merciful.
I speak to-day, my Lords, not only in a private capacity, but also as the President of the Scottish Association of District Salmon Fishery Boards, who have asked me to stress the point that has already been made, first by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, of access to seal haunts when the owners of them are not prepared to permit it. I must say that it strikes me as being gloriously humorous when we have the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, on the Back Benches of a Socialist Government, vigorously upholding the rights of the private landowner against Government access. But he is, of course, to use the modern vernacular, completely "off beam", because if a landowner allows vast masses of rabbits
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to pollute his land and invade his neighbour's territory, the local agricultural committee, after warnings which have not been heeded, has full power to send a rabbit killer on to that landowner's land, kill the rabbits, and charge the landowner with the expense, less anything that has been earned by the sale of the rabbits. This is true, also, if an owner has on his land thistles which he permits to pollute neighbouring ground; he also can be prosecuted.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, surely the noble Earl would agree that somebody had to prove that the land was over-infested with rabbits. The whole point here is that nobody has proved that the Farnes are over-infested with seals. Some people say that they are, and some say that they are not.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: That, I am afraid, is a very skilful evasion of the point, because, so far as I understood the noble Lord, he was not merely objecting to the fact that damage had not, according to him, been proved, but was also objecting to the fact that the Government might take powers to go on to somebody's land whether or not such damage had been proven. The question of whether or not damage has occurred is obviously one that should be determined by the Nature Conservancy acting under the aegis of the Advisory Council. Only on that advice should the Government issue permits. They might well issue them—and I hope they would—for a limited number of seals to be killed.
I am certain that such a power is required, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Howick, has said, if something of this kind is not done, eventually there will be a massacre, public feeling will be outraged, of a great deal of unnecessary ill-feeling will be raised, and it will all be to the detriment of the seal which we are all so anxious to conserve. The seal is a magnificent animal, and it is unfortunate that without any doubt he does, on occasion, do a considerable amount of damage. The noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, spoke of the damage done to the nets when the nets are being pulled in, but he did not mention, what is much more serious in Scotland, what happens when the seal gets into the stake nets that we have along the coast there. Not only does he feed on salmon, but when he wants to leave he chews his way out

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through the net. The result is considerable expense in repairing the net, and possibly the loss of a whole tide's catch, which may be very serious from the point of view of the fishermen. I am delighted that poison is not to he used, and so are all the angling and netting interests. Nobody wanted that foul form of destruction to be maintained.
There is only one other point that I should like to make, because, although there were a good many other things that I wanted to say, they have already been said, and at this hour I do not want to detain your Lordships longer than necessary. I wish to express mild disagreement with the right reverend Prelate in only one aspect of his wholly admirable speech. While I think that a £50 fine may be adequate enough for a first offence, I should like to see it raised to at least £100 for a second or subsequent offence: because it does not always follow that when a malefactor is apprehended one manages to secure his rifle; and he may also have managed to get rid of a considerable amount of his catch. Therefore I think that for a second offence a higher penalty should be inflicted. With those mild disagreements, I, like other noble Lords, wholeheartedly welcome this Bill.
6.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: My Lords, I hope that at this late hour your Lordships will forgive me if I do not reply to every point that has been made. I should like to start by apologising to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, for not having answered the point he made during the last debate that we had. However, I thought that he then answered it out of his own mouth, as he did this afternoon, by saying that, as a lawyer, he disagreed with the people who said that a licence could authorise people to go on other people's land and shoot. I thought that he himself was fully satisfied, and I may say that I entirely agree with what he said.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Stonham, Lord Mowbray, Lord Howick, Lord Mansfield and Lord Chorley, raised the point of access. I think I shall find it quite impossible to resist an Amendment applying to seals the same conditions as are applied to deer, hares, rabbits and other
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animals of that nature by Sections 98 and 100 of the Agriculture Act 1947. I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, who is clearly worried about this point, that the National Trust are already s object to the conditions of those two sections of the Agriculture Act so far as other animals on their land are concerned, and I think that perhaps, on mature reflection, the noble Lord will agree with me that, when it is presented to us in that way, we are faced with an inescapable conclusion that all those animals must be looked at in the same way.
I do not want to go back to the last debate that we had, but I think one speaker mentioned the question of the immediate vicinity of the nets. I recollect that on that occasion I reminded your Lordships of a notorious case in which a man shot his wife's lover outside the bedroom door when it was held to be sufficiently in the immediate vicinity of the bedroom to be justification for having killed him; and he got off with manslaughter. I think the same would apply to a seal fisherman who shot a seal some distance away from his nets.
We then get down to the, I think, purely emotional problem of the weapon to be used. I will not join issue with the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, on the ballistics of the various rifles to be used, because that would involve me in a long dissertation on the internal mechanism of the seals, which may well come up at a later stage. But I may say that I was a little shocked at the noble Earl's saying that he shoots at galloping seals at such a range that he cannot kill them outright with his rifle. I hope that, on maturer thought—
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: I am thankful to say, my Lords, that I have never fired at a seal, galloping or otherwise.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: My Lords, perhaps he will in future prevent his friends from so doing in the immediate vicinity of his house.
But, as I was saying, we come down to this really emotional question of the club. This was started by the noble Lord, Lord Daresfort, when the Grey Seals Protection Act 1932 was before your Lordships' House, and he referred to seals' being clubbed to death. Clubbed to death,

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like being shot to death, has a sort of Sebastian implication about it, about clubbing on the outside first, gradually coming into a vulnerable part of the body. In point of fact, the animals which are killed by the club are seal pups; they are under a month old. The sutures of their skulls are not yet joined—and noble Baronesses will know what that means in a baby, and noble Lords will know the terror with which you held your child when you saw its pulse going in its forehead. These seal pups are killable at that stage in their lives, by a very minor blow, and a well-balanced club is infinitely the most humane weapon to use to kill a young seal.
The noble Lord, Lord Somers, referred to the responsibility which various people had for these societies, and the like. One thing I have found through the whole of the consultations which I have had about seals is that they are tremendously emotive creatures. There is a responsibility upon those of us who have the chance to influence the opinions of people in societies to which we belong, to try to get away from the emotional outlook on all these things. "Clubbing to death" sounds terrible. "Knocking on the head" does not sound quite so bad. When we bear in mind, as I have said, that the animal killed is practically new born, and is killed by the first blow—and, if not, it is killed by the second blow, which follows within seconds—this is infinitely more humane than trying to stand on a muddy sandbank or a slippery rock and shooting the animal with a rifle.
Quite apart from the fact that the provision of the rifle to which the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, objects is dealt with in the Bill, all the other weapons used for the commercial sealing—which is carried out, by and large, only during the close season, because it is the pup skins which the commercial sealer wants and by which he makes his money—I quite deliberately left it to the Minister to decide upon the weapon. When the pups are first born they are so tame that you can stand with one between your feet and shoot it down like that with a small ·22 rifle which would be hopelessly inadequate for a larger animal. It would be incredibly dangerous to use a high-velocity rifle when a number of
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People are engaged on an operation of that sort.
My Lords, the Minister will have to decide on this matter. I hope that we shall be able so to influence public opinion that the Minister will be able to give permission for clubs to be used because, as I have said, they are far the most humane weapons. It is those who are in responsible positions, like the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, in the National Trust, and those who belong to the conservation societies—as I do—who should try to make it clear to people that these things are not so terrible as they sound. I should like to say one last thing. I hope that I am not going to find myself in the embarrassing position, as a member of the Nature Conservancy, in arguing with my Chairman when it comes to the Committee stage. I feel sure we shall not do so.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and commited to a Committee of the Whole House.

PONIES BILL
6.55 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Silkin.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.

The BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLERY in the Chair.
Clause 1 [Restriction on export of ponies]:
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 17, leave out from beginning to first ("is") in line 18, and insert ("a veterinary inspector appointed by the Minister for conducting examinations under this section.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper. This is an exploratory Amendment, designed to find out how the value of the pony is to be determined and what the administrative procedure will be. One reason for putting it down

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was because there seems to be some difference of opinion between the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, who is responsible for the Bill in this House, and the noble Lord. Lord Hilton of Upton, speaking on behalf of the Government. There is always this difficulty with Private Members' Bills, as compared with Government Bills. When the Government introduce a Bill they know very well how they intend to administer it, whereas when a Private Member introduces a Bill he does not know how the Government will administer it. The purpose of this Amendment is to find out how it will be done.
The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, expressed the view that the Minister will make regulations which will provide for the inspector—take that to mean, the veterinary inspector—say what the value of the pony is. This is not what the noble Lord, Lord Hilton of Upton, indicated when he spoke on Second Reading. He said:
"We propose that professional valuers should, at exporters' expense, value every pony intended for export, so that there cannot be evasion by exporting in batches."—[OFFICIAT REPORT, 22/5/69; col. 516.]
At first sight it would be desirable, as my Amendment indicates, that once the professional valuer has provided the certificate it should be sufficient for that certificate to be shown to the veterinary in spector who is going to carry out the examination into the condition of the animal under paragraph (b) of the new subsection.
When one looks more closely at subsection (a) one finds that the Minister or, in Scotland, the Secretary of State, has to be satisfied that the pony is intended for breeding, riding or exhibition, and that the pony is of at least the minimum value stated in the clause. The point is that it is the Minister who appoints the veterinary inspectors throughout the United Kingdom. Moreover, the veterinary inspectors are responsible to the Minister—not to the Secretary of State, even in Scotland. Therefore this clause would appear to indicate a procedure under which an application would have to he made to the Departments concerned—that is, to the Ministry of Agriculture in England and the Department of Agriculture in Scotland for permission to export, and that application would have to be accom-
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panied by a certificate showing that the pony was of at least or of greater value than the minimum values indicated in the subsection. It is to resolve that difficulty I am moving this Amendment. As I have said, it is exploratory.
LORD SILKIN: I am sure the Corn-mince will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for the considerable amount of work he has put into this Bill during the Recess. I understand that these Amendments were put down on the 4th of this month, although I saw them only yesterday. I assume that the noble Lord was working during the rainy season; therefore it was not so great a hardship to be studying this Bill as it might otherwise have been. I appreciate the spirit in which he has put down these Amendments.
I quite realise that this particular clause may call for some explanation, especially in view of the different interpretations which my noble friend Lord Hilton of Upton and I put on it on Second Reading. I should like to point out that this Bill as it stands generally is in a special sense a compromise Bill. There has been a good deal of discussion in the other place and a good deal of difference of opinion and even division. As a result, a Bill has emerged which dissatisfied nobody but did not satisfy everybody, which is the ideal compromise. in fact, there was no Division on the Third Reading, and there was no Division here on the Second Reading. I would ask the Committee to accept the fact that this is a well balanced Bill, and that it would be wrong to interfere with it and to send it back to another place with any modifications which might once more give rise to controversy.
However, there is another reason. I must apologise for putting it forward, but I think it is important that the Committee should know what it is doing. The position is that if any Amendment is made to this Bill it has to go back to another place and there is very grave doubt as to whether time will be available, in view of the congested nature of the business in another place, to take this Bill at all. Therefore, there is a very great danger of this Bill's being lost. That is a fact which all of us must face.

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I think everybody in this House was anxious that the Bill should go through. The Promoters of this Bill have been engaged on it for years, trying to get something through. A number of efforts have been made in another place without success. And here we are, on the brink of success, and it would be such a pity if, as a result of Amendments which we make, we lost this Bill and we were thrown into the wilderness once more, having to start all over again.
I realise that—I hope the Committee will forgive my making this kind of statement on an Amendment but I think it is very important—if there were any difference of principle in any of the Amendments put down, this House would be entitled to decide upon that matter of principle, and we should have to abide by the results. But I will submit as we go along that no question of principle divides us. The Amendments which the noble Lord was good enough to put down are all Amendments designed to improve the language of the Bill and to clarify the machinery under which it will be carried out, if passed. These are perfectly legitimate purposes, but not sufficient to justify losing the Bill in the battle for clarification.
With that preliminary, I want to come to the Amendment. If these Amendments were of vital importance, or even if they proposed matters which greatly improved the Bill, we should be in a dilemma; but, with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, I hope to establish as we go along that they do nothing of the kind. These Amendments are debatable, arguable; the language may be an improvement or it may not, but in the majority of cases the Amendment will not make the slightest difference to the purpose of the Bill.
On this particular Amendment I am of the opinion that the words which the noble Lord wants to introduce are not only no improvement but dangerous. The fact is that quite definitely under the 1950 Act the inspector is the instrument of the Minister and is stated to be. In this case, the duties of the inspectors required under the Amendment would be so varied and so difficult, compared with those of the 1950 Act, that I think they would be open to the criticism that inspectors who
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are capable of carrying them out would not always be available. The inspectors would have to be satisfied as to the value of the pony and as to its age; that it was not below a certain age and not above a certain age. Of course they have to be satisfied as to its condition and in certain cases, in the case of the Shetland pony, they even have to be satisfied that it was born and bred in Scotland, in the Shetlands. This is putting a very considerable onus on the inspector and is depriving the Minister of the flexibility which he will need to enable him to decide how best to carry out the duties that this Bill will impose upon him.
For instance, the Minister may decide upon valuers. I think my noble friend suggested that. Well, that would be one way. Valuers might have to be employed to decide whether ponies conformed with the provisions of the minimum value. They may even have to be specialist people to decide upon the age of the pony in a doubtful case, and so on. I would submit that the Bill is all the better for giving this flexibility, and giving the Minister the opportunity of deciding for himself what arrangements he is going to make for the implementation of the Bill when it becomes law. The Bill as it was originally produced provided for the appointment of inspectors to carry out the duty, but it was modified in another place into the form in which it now is because of the pressure on the Minister for the reasons that I have given. I would hope that those reasons will be acceptable to the Committee and that the Committee will not press to go back to the original form of the Bill.
7.8 p.m.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for the very moderate language he used in moving this, as he rightly regarded it, exploratory Amendment. Those of us who read our Hansards reporting our last discussion on this Bill all know that my noble friend Lord Silkin and I did not quite agree on this matter. We all know, too, that generally speaking Lord Silkin is such an authority on these matters that he is usually absolutely accurate. But I must agree with the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, that on that occasion he was rather less than accurate; and, without boasting, I think I must say

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that in my opinion the version that I gave to the House on that occasion was the correct one.
I intend to be very brief. The Bill as originally drafted placed valuation and export intention responsibilities on the veterinary inspector which he could not effectively discharge. At the Government's suggestion the sponsors agreed to amend the Bill so that these responsibilities were placed on Ministers. This is the normal method adopted in modern measures of this kind, and it allows the necessary degree of flexibility without detracting from the objectives. We recognise that the Amendment is on similar lines to the provisions in Section 37(1) of the Diseases of Animals Act 1950, which repeated a provision in the Exportation of Horses Act 1937, but the earlier provision was intended to deal with a different situation. The present Bill, dealing as it does with the much more complicated trade in the export of ponies, will require new arrangements to implement it. The effectiveness of this would be hampered by an allocation of responsibilities to specific officers. I hope that with that brief explanation the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will not press this Amendment.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation and I quite understand that the job of a veterinary inspector is to be responsible for the condition and the health of the animal and not for other matters. I think we now have it quite plainly established that the procedure will be rather more complicated than perhaps was originally thought. If there is to be a certificate of valuation from a qualified valuer, that certificate will have to be forwarded to an officer to be designated and then one will get the permission for export. I am quite satisfied with that. I realise that if we are going to rely, as one of the barriers to export, on a minimum value, we have to be certain that that minimum value is observed.
For the rest, may I just say to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that most of my Amendments are exploratory and in order to save time I may sometimes address my questions direct to the noble Lord, Lord Hilton of Upton, when I am asking for a Government reply. That may save a little time. Incidentally, it was not in the rains of Britain but on the beaches
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of Malta that I devised these Amendments. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.12 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 19, after ("riding") insert ("traction, load carrying").
The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment which arises out of an intervention by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, who pointed out that to his knowledge requirements were sometimes met for horses from Britain to be shipped abroad for the purpose of being used between the shafts. In the same way the primary purpose of the Highland pony is normally load carrying, and it seemed to me that that would be a legitimate purpose. I feel certain that the noble Lord, Lord Hilton of Upton will be able to give me an assurance on this. I appreciate that the primary purpose of the sponsors of the Bill is to secure that ponies shall not be exported for slaughter. But, instead of that, they have put the matter positively, and the difficulty I find is that if by any chance an exporter was asked to provide a pony specifically for use between the shafts or for traction of any kind—it might be for a tram in Spain, or some-thing of that kind—then it would be a false declaration to say that it was for riding and that would be an offence under paragraph (5) of Section 78(2) of the principal Act and would expose the person to a fine under Section 79. In order to avoid that I have put down this Amendment. I beg to move.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: I have come to the conclusion that it was fortunate for this Committee that many more noble Lords did not spend their recent vacation in Malta and put do AT n as many Amendments as we have had from the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. I am glad that they are mostly probing Amendments, and I hope that what I am going to say will satisfy the noble Lord. By referring specifically to traction and load carrying this Amendment might create difficulties in the interpretation of the existing law relating to exported horses by implying that the latter excludes these purposes. In recent years there have been no applications to export ponies for these

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purposes, not because they are illegal but, presumably, because the purposes specified in the existing legislation—breeding riding, racing, exhibition, jumping and polo—have covered all the export requirements. In the absence of any evidence that the trade has been hampered by any restrictions we regard the Amendment as being unnecessary, and because of the conflict that it might create with existing laws we regard it also as undesirable. I hope that the noble Lord will be satisfied with that explanation.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am perfectly satisfied, and I am sure my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye will be, too. I bee, leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 26, at end insert—
("'pony of the Shetland breed means a pony of that breed born and bred in the Shetland Isles or a pony registered in the stud book of the relevant breed society.")
The noble Lord said: This Amendment arises out of the introduction, I think against the wishes of the sponsors of the Bill, of a special category for ponies of the Shetland breed. Unfortunately it does not say what the phrase "ponies of the Shetland breed" is intended to mean, and I wanted to be quite certain that the absence of a definition would not give rise to any difficulties. That is the purpose of this Amendment.
I imagine (although I am not certain) that many of the ponies of the Shetland breed bred in the Shetlands are not registered in any stud book, and as the main purpose of the inclusion of these words in another place was to safeguard the livelihood of the people in the Shetlands who breed this kind of pony, it would in my view be quite wrong if such ponies were not allowed to be exported because they were not registered in any stud book. If the phrase "of the Shetland breed" means that they have to be registered in a stud book I think that some such Amendment as this would have to be made, although I am not, of course, wedded to these words. Again, as the noble Lord has said that he is going to designate an officer who would have to be satisfied that the pony was of the Shetland breed, perhaps he will tell us
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how he intends that to be done. I beg to move.
LORD LEATHERLAND: Is not this Amendment a little too restrictive? May there not be ponies of the Shetland breed, and ponies of the pure blood of the Shetland breed, which may be bred in the Forest of Dean or the New Forest or somewhere else? Living near me is a woman who advertises that she breeds Pekingese dogs. She can produce the pedigrees on both sides, but they are not bred in Peking—thank goodness! in these days. Surely the strain of the animal, rather than the geographical location in which it happens to have been born, is the factor to be taken into consideration in these cases. I sincerely hope that my noble friend will be able to satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, to the extent that the latter will be prepared to withdraw his Amendment.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: Surely of all breeds of pony the Shetland is quite the easiest to distinguish.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: This raises a somewhat more difficult point, I agree, and I am interested in the points that have been made from both sides of your Lordships' House. Throughout the Government have been at pains to ensure that if this Bill becomes law it can be effectively implemented; and this is very important. But we do not see how we can satisfy ourselves that a Shetland pony presented at, say, Dover for export was born and bred in the Shetlands. Even if a document such as a bill of sale accompanied every pony born in the Shetlands and sold there, we could not be even reasonably satisfied in every case that it was the same animal that was being exported. We shall find it difficult enough to minimise opportunities of dodging the provisions in the Bill as it stands, and we are not anxious to add to these difficulties. I hope that, again with this brief explanation, the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will be satisfied and will not press this Amendment to a Division.
LORD DRUMALBYN: There is the possibility that there is a cross which would look like a Shetland which was not in fact a Shetland. When you have a barrier of this kind you really have to have some kind of proof, and I was

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anxious to secure that there would be some kind of proof. I suppose the only answer can be that the designated officer would have to be satisfied that it was of the Shetland breed. In most cases, I agree with my noble friend, this would be very easy; but not in all. However, we must let this go by, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Regulation of export of ponies]:
7.23 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 37, after ("the") insert ("places or")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, and I would suggest that we take with this Nos. 6 and 7, if this is for the convenience of the Committee. The purpose of these Amendments is to give rather more flexibility in the type of places to be designated as resting places for ponies. I am told that in some cases batches of anything between 50 and 100 ponies may come along, and the extent of lairage required to meet that will be very considerable. In default of such lairage, as the clause is drafted, it simply will not be possible to export the ponies; and it may well be that there are other places besides Aberdeen, where I understand there is no such lairage at all and from which export has gone on of Shetland ponies for some time past. Such places will not in future be able to be used for export unless suitable premises are provided.
With the hardier breeds of ponies, rarely accustomed to be indoors at all, certainly throughout the spring, summer and autumn, I should have thought that this sort of lairage was not necessary. Many ponies, of course, are sold off in the autumn. The idea I had in mind was that in such cases places, rather than premises, such as fields or paddocks, could be designated. This would give a great deal more flexibility. No doubt there would always be somewhere where ponies could be properly inspected and disinfected, and all the rest of it. It seems to me that there is going to be in the more immediate future quite a considerable interference with the channels
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of exportation if the Minister is proposing to make regulations in the near future as regards the premises which are to be prescribed and regulated.
Perhaps the noble Lord can give me a little more information about this. The purpose of the Amendment, as I said, is to give greater latitude by enabling places as well as premises to be designated. Places would mean, of course, fields which people could apply to have designated and specified under the regulations. If this were done, it would facilitate the export without, I should have thought, depriving the ponies of any places of rest to which they were normally accustomed or, indeed, making measurably greater difficulties for the veterinary inspectors. I beg to move.
LORD LEATHERLAND: Are we not perhaps going to make difficulties for ourselves in accepting this Amendment? In Clause 2 the major proposal is in subsection (1)(a), which does not say anything at all about premises. It says merely that the ponies must be rested immediately before being loaded. It does not say that they must be rested in the open air; it does not say that they must be rested in some bricks and mortar premises. Then it goes on, in subsection (1)(b), to give the Minister power
"for regulating and prescribing the premises…"
This assumes that any premises have been specifically mentioned in paragraph (a), and as premises have not been insisted upon in paragraph (a) it seems to me that the Minister, under paragraph (b), might be able to say "Well, the premises here shall be the quayside or a paddock adjoining the quayside", because under (a), which is the major proposal, there is nothing which specifically refers to any construction of bricks and mortar. I suggest that here the Minister in giving effect to this clause might say, "There are no premises at this particular port, and therefore I am not required under (b) to regulate or prescribe any premises ". I wonder what my noble friend has to say in reply to that.
LORD SILKIN: I find it a little difficult to agree with my noble friend who has just spoken that a field could be described as premises. I think the intention in the Bill is that premises should comprise a building with a roof over

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it, and facilities for providing clean bedding, water and food, and so on, where the ponies are rested before being shipped off on what is very often a long journey. The Minister in another place said that the Bill as it stood was workable and that he would do his best to make it work successfully. It will be for the Minister to see that the premises are made available. I do not deny that there may be exceptional cases—I hope they will be exceptional—where the existing accommodation will not be adequate. But there is nothing in the Bill to say that the premises must be close to the ship; they can be some distance away, so long as the pony gets its proper rest. It will be for the Minister to ensure that adequate premises are available to enable the terms of this Bill to be complied with.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: I have nothing to add.
LORD DRUMALBYN: The noble Lord does not appear to have any comments to make on this particular matter, but we have not yet had any explanation as to why we should not allow fields to be prescribed as well as buildings. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that "premises" means, and must mean, buildings; and this is exactly what I am concerned about. It seems to me that we should allow other forms of accommodation, if one can call it that, places where ponies can be accommodated for rest purposes; otherwise we shall interfere quite considerably with the channels of export. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hilton, will be able to say a word about this point, because the whole purpose of my Amendment is to make it possible to specify "places" where the ponies can rest, as well as "premises".
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: I had not intended to speak at all on this Amendment, but at the invitation of the noble Lord I will say a few words about it. One of the essential requirements of an approved lairage is that it is capable of being effectively cleaned and disinfected. Thus, whatever interpretation is given to the word "place" the requirement could still hold, and in practice we cannot approve fields and similar areas. The word "premises" is used in existing
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subordinate legislation applying to lair-ages for other species, and has not given rise to any difficulties either of interpretation or of implementation. The order we should make under Clause 2 would follow existing legislation, and therefore it would be impossible for a "place", if different from "premises", to comply with it. We do not regard this Amendment as adding anything to the safeguards in the Bill, and we therefore hope that once again the noble Lord will not press it.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I quite understand the point that even although we were to make it possible for the Minister to designate fields, he would not do so. That being so, there is not much point in making it possible for him to do so. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD DRUMALBYN: May I just ask a question? We are up against the difficulty that I have been mentioning, that unless time is allowed the channels of export will be changed, because at many places premises will have to be provided where they do not exist at the present time. On Second Reading I asked the noble Lord, Lord Hilton, whether Clause 2 conferred on the Government any powers which they do not already possess. The noble Lord has kindly written to me confirming that it does not confer on the Government any powers which they do not already possess. Therefore, the only effect of Clause 2 is that instead of merely enabling the Minister to make regulations it compels him, acting jointly with the Secretary of State, to do so. The only thing it does not say is when he is to do this. That is material in the circumstances that I have indicated, where premises are not available. I am sure that the sponsors of the Bill would like to know that the Minister intends to make these regulations as soon as possible. I would therefore ask the noble Lord, on the assumption that this Bill passes through this House in the near future, whether when the Minister proposes to make the regulations consultations will be necessary before he makes them and, if so, with whom.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: In regard to when, I may say that this will come into effect from January 1 next. I expect these provisions to be ready by that date. I cannot say whether they will be ready before then, but by that date.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am much obliged to the noble Lord.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Further amendment of Diseases of Animals Act 1950]:
7.35 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 3, line 9, after first ("certificate") insert ("in a form prescribed by the Minister").
The noble Lord said: I regard this as rather a strange clause, and perhaps I may indicate why. The clause makes it unlawful
"to ship, or attempt to ship, a registered pony in any vessel"—
but not, I may say, by aircraft—unless a certificate that the pony is so registered has been obtained from the society with which it is registered. The clause in itself cannot prevent the export of a registered pony without a certificate. Nobody can tell by looking at an animal whether it has been registered. You may be able to tell whether it is a pony of pure breed, but it does not necessarily follow from that that it has been registered; and unless it has been registered with the breed society it does not need a certificate. So the only means of sanction here is to expose the exporter to a fine if it is later discovered that an export certificate should have been obtained because the pony was registered.
As the clause is drafted, each breed society could have its own form of certificate. This is likely to be extremely confusing to the master of the ship to whom the certificate has to be delivered—and the word is "delivered"; it is not "shown". It has to be handed over to him. What he is going to do with it I do not know. The Bill says
"the export certificate…shall be delivered at the time of shipment to the master of the vessel on which the pony is shipped".
It then goes on to say that he will have to produce it on demand
"to any constable or any inspector or other officer of the Minister or the local authority and allow such constable, inspector or other
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officer to take a copy of or extract from the export certificate."
It seems to me that it would be much better if the certificates were all in the same form. Indeed, I think this is the only practicable way in which to satisfy the requirement. Even then, it is impossible to see—at least, I cannot see—how a master could possibly know whether he ought to have a certificate for a particular pony, because, as I say, he cannot possibly know whether or net the pony is registered. So I think that this provision would tend to be rather inoperative. It would be slightly better, I think, if the certificate was in a form prescribed by the Minister.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON:I am sure the noble Lord who has moved the Amendment realises that every pony has a certificate of registration, and a copy would not be too difficult to get.
LORD DRUMALBYN: The noble Marquess will forgive me for pointing out that I think he means every pony registered with the breed society.
THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON: Yes.
LORD DRUMALBYN: But that is the whole difficulty. Some ponies are registered with breed societies and some ponies are not. How on earth is the master of the vessel to know which has been registered and which has not?
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: I should like to make this comment on the Bill. I think most of us here to-day would agree that my noble friend Lord Silkin deserves to get this Bill, if only for his sheer persistence. We know that he has many supporters on both sides of this House, and many more in the country as a whole. I come to this Amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will know that the provisions of Clause 3 are not directly concerned with the welfare of ponies, and Ministers have made it clear that their Departments will not be involved in administering them. For that reason, they see no justification for requiring them to have a responsibility for prescribing the form of export certificate.
The noble Lord referred to travel by air. Of course the Bill covers export by aircraft. Clause 4(3) secures this.

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If, as we understand to be the case, this clause is essentially designed to protect the interests of the breed societies, the form of certificate required by the exporters should be left to the societies to decide on.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I take note that the Government have decided that they are not going to have any part in the administration of this clause. That being so, I take it also that it is unlikely that an officer or inspector of the Minister will demand the production of the export certificate from the master of the vessel. I think it is just as well that this should have been brought out and made clear, and in the circumstances the noble Lord has indicated it is quite reasonable that he should say that he does not want to prescribe the form of the certificate. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.42 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN LORD DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 3, line 10, at end insert ("and the Society shall not refuse to issue such a certificate without reasonable cause").
The noble Lord said: As the clause is drafted, there is no obligation on the part of a breed society to comply with a request for an export certificate. In putting down this Amendment I was influenced by the Bill in the form in which it passed through this House last year when, of course, the breed societies had to certify that the pony was in a proper condition for export. I am not at all certain—and I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for his understanding of this matter—whether the breed societies still intend to decide whether or not the pony should be exported before giving the certificate. My own view is that it would be wrong to give this power to breed societies, and if a duty is placed on the exporter to obtain an export certificate, a corresponding duty should be placed on the breed society to supply the certificate unless it has a very good reason indeed for refraining from doing so. I think this should be so. I can see that it is desirable that ponies should be accompanied by certificates where they are a breed, and it may be of advantage to the breed societies that this should be so. But
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what I do not think would be right would be that the breed society should exercise control over what an owner may do with his pony simply because it happens to be a pony registered with a breed society. I beg to move.
LORD SILKIN: It is certainly not the intention that the societies should do anything but give a certificate that a particular pony is in their books and is of that particular breed. I doubt whether they would have the machinery, but at any rate it is not intended that they should have any jurisdiction to pass any Judgment on the quality of the pony. Of course, they would know the birth, and therefore the age. If they were asked to state the age of the pony, or if they were asked to give a certificate in respect of a pony that was either under age or over age, they would naturally refuse. But subject to that all they would be asked is: "Is this pony registered in your books?".
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am perfectly satisfied with that explanation, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.