Lords Sitting of 11 March 1969

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Norwich):
The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

SCHOOLCHILDREN AND MALNUTRITION DANGERS
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 have read the article by Dr. G. W. Lynch in the Medical Officer of Friday, January 24, 1969, on "Food Intake and the Education of Children", and whether they will initiate a full-scale research project on the problem of malnutrition among schoolchildren.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (BARONESS SEROTA): My Lords, I have now seen the article by Dr. Lynch, but it is not considered that any change is required in the Government's current programme of research and investigation, which has been recommended by the Chief Medical Officer's Expert Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy. This programme includes a study of the nutrition of some 1,500 schoolchildren in Kent which began in May, 1968. A record of a week's diet will be analysed for nutrient content, and each child will be medically examined, if parental consent is given. It is hoped that a second study will commence in October of this year in another area in England yet to be determined. The Kent Study should be completed by September, 1970.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for that encouraging Answer. May I ask whether she agrees that this is a serious problem; that the research done by Dr. Lynch shows that a large number of young children, in the London area at
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any rate, are going to school without breakfast, having had a quite insignificant meal the night before? Further, does not the noble Baroness think, quite apart from the investigations being made, that the Government might push ahead with this matter and ask local education authorities to explore the situation further?
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, the Government, indeed successive Governments for the past sixty years, have been concerned about the relationship between poor nutrition and the education and learning ability of children. We are, however, of the view that the interpretation that Dr. Lynch has placed on the figures is not the correct one and we are in touch with him about it. It may interest your Lordships to know that in the Kent study it was found that, out of rather more than 100 children, 19 girls and 9 boys did not take breakfast. The boys were found to be slightly thinner than a comparable sample who took breakfast; the girls were, if anything, fatter than a comparable sample. There is no evidence here to suggest that the boys were less well grown or less well muscled.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, does not the Minister think that one might call in the good offices of the Central Council for Health and Education to publish propaganda in order to teach parents that they should try to give their children a breakfast before leaving for school?
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I will certainly take note of the noble Lord's suggestion.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the fact that the Health Group of another place met last week when they considered Dr. Lynch's Paper, and that they took such a serious view of it that they have asked the Government seriously to reconsider their policy on this subject? They have asked whether it is not a quite short-sighted economy to cut down on the milk and the food of these children.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I was not aware of the meeting to which the noble Baroness has referred. I have noted her point. It is somewhat outside the scope of this particular Question, but I will look into it.

I.M.F. SPECIAL DRAWING RIGHTS
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: 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 it is the case that in their conversations with President Nixon during his visit, the President agreed that he would endeavour to hasten the implementation of the I.M.F. Special Drawing Rights scheme by its signatories; and whether any further measures to facilitate international borrowing were discussed.]
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Earl will have seen the Prime Minister's Statement on this matter in another place on February 27. I can confirm that the Governments both of the United States and of the United Kingdom are agreed on the desirability of early ratification of the Special Drawing Rights scheme.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer, and I know how difficult it is to answer supplementary questions concisely on a subject of this kind. But as the noble Lord was kind enough to tell your Lordships the other day that these Special Drawing Rights should amount to an increase of 3 per cent. in the total volume of international liquidity each year, could I ask him whether the Treasury or our monetary advisers have compared this figure with the volume of international trade, and whether they have advised Her Majesty's Government that a 3 per cent. increase is anything like adequate?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I have armed myself with the figures, and it is true that the ratio of world reserves to world exports has decreased since 1948. I will not weary the House with all the figures, but world exports have gone up since 1948 to 1967 from 53·3 billion dollars to 190·5 billion dollars, and world reserves from 48 billion dollars to 73·5 billion dollars. There is scope for greater liquidity, but probably the noble Earl will bear in mind that international cooperation is now much better than it was in 1948 and, as with national currency, I think it is possibly time to say that
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velocity of circulation is also important, as well as volume.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. Would he bear in mind that the reserves in 1948 were hopelessly inadequate—indeed far worse than they are now?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, in answer partly to the noble Earl's original Question, I go so far as to say that whereas I have given him the figure of one to two billion dollars a year over the next five years as being the sort of figure which was originally thought of in the Special Drawing Rights Scheme, if we could get it above that figure Her Majesty's Government would be most pleased.

NIGERIA: BOMBING OF BIAFRAN CIVILIAN TARGETS
2.36 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what representations have been made to the Federal Government of Nigeria regarding the bombing of market places and hospitals in Biafra and the repudiations of periods of truce officially declared by General Gowon.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, has seen the Nigerian High Commissioner, and the British High Commissioner in Lagos has seen General Gowon. They have expressed our deep concern over reports of bombing by the Nigerian Air Force of civilian targets.
We are satisfied that the instructions to the Nigerian Air Force pilots are clear and precise, to the effect that they must not bomb any non-military targets and that any gathering of the civilian population must be avoided. We have accepted assurances that the reports of alleged infringements will be investigated as a matter of urgency.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while acknowledging that reply may I ask my noble friend this question? Is

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he not aware of the wide and deep impatience, and indeed anger, among our own population that this bombing of market places, hospitals and refugee camps should be proceeding? While one accepts (and I had personal experience) what General Gowon has said about this, is it not now clear that his own commanders are defying the instructions about the bombing of civilians and the breaking of the truces which he has declared? Is it not time that Her Majesty's Government did something more than make representations, and stopped the supply of arms to one side in this deplorable conflict?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I share with the noble Lord, as I am sure do all Members of the House who themselves have experienced the savagery of war, the view that this war should be brought to an end and, consequently, with it the bombing of civilians. Our prime purpose is, as it has always been, to help to end the war and not to prolong it. It is against the overriding need for the end of the fighting that the Government must judge whether or not to adopt a particular policy, or a variation of their policy, such as to suspend the supply of arms from this country. As the Prime Minister said in another place during the informal discussions on Nigeria at the time of the Commonwealth Conference:
"No arguments were put forward that if our arms policy was different there would be likelihood of shortening the fighting by a single day."
My Lords, I share that view.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, would not Her Majesty's Government urge upon the Federal Government of Nigeria that any foreign pilot found guilty of bombing civilian targets in Biafra ought to be dismissed? Would not this go a long way towards restoring confidence in the attitude of General Gowon and his colleagues in Lagos?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, pilots, whether they be Nigerian or expatriate, come, I understand, under the military laws of the Federal Government, and clearly if they break the orders of their superior officers they stand in fear, I suppose, of court-martial and other trial.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, will Sir Denis Greenhill be able to interrogate the Government of Nigeria on these matters?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I think that the visit of the Permanent Under-Secretary must be treated as confidential, and I certainly would not have thought that the word "interrogate", in the sense it is usually understood, is perhaps the right word to use in connection with a visit of a high official to a friendly country.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, is the Minister satisfied, while accepting the Federal Government's assurance, that local commanders do in fact permit deliberate bombing of civilian targets?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in war sometimes local commanders break their instructions; but I cannot help recalling, in view of the pressures that are now on, the allegations of genocide and of atrocities committed by soldiers on Biafran people, all of which were rejected by the international observers. I think I can only judge from my own personal experience, and I saw what was being done by local commanders to help refugees in their areas with food and medicine: they treated the refugees with great humanity. I find it inconceivable that these same military commanders would order deliberate attacks on civilian people in the area.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, would not my noble friend agree that the excuse that is being given, that if we stop giving arms to Nigeria some other Government will do so, is the excuse for any immoral action whatsoever?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I cannot accept that. I have explained the reasons for Her Majesty's Government's policy of support to the Federal Government in Nigeria, and I do not see anything at this stage—because we are still awaiting reports—from which one can really judge whether these attacks are deliberate or otherwise, although I have expressed a personal view to the contrary.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, following the noble Lord's reply to the noble

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Baroness's last supplementary, could he tell us why the international observers, the summary of whose report we read in today's papers, did not visit Biafra?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Earl will be aware that the international observers are in the Federal area because they were invited to go there by the Federal Government in view of the allegations of atrocities that had been made by the Biafran authorities. To the best of my knowledge they have never been invited, as such, to visit Biafra. If such an approach were made, I personally would welcome it.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he is aware that I saw the international observers in Lagos, and that last October I drew his attention to the fact that the international observers had been invited to Biafra? Is he further aware that the international observers, when I saw them in Lagos, said they would need a change in the terms of reference from their Governments if they were to visit Biafra? May they be allowed to go to Biafra and see at the receiving end—as I have seen it—the bombing of market places, hospitals and feeding centres? Will they be allowed to see that at the receiving end, instead of just going to the despatching end, where they will be unable to observe what is being done at all?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I know that my noble friend keeps himself well acquainted with what offers have been made by Colonel Ojukwu. All I can say is that the international observers are in Nigeria; they were invited there by the Nigerian Government; they are there as a body. But I understand that Colonel Ojukwu is seeking to be selective as to which of the international observers should go, and this clearly would be quite contrary to the idea of an international corps.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether or not it is true, as it appears from the Press, that the bombing is being done by Russian planes flown by Egyptians, and that stopping the supply of the type of arms we
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supply to Nigeria would not stop the bombing?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I think the point that my noble friend has made shows the weakness of the argument that if we ceased to supply small arms it would stop the bombing or bring the war to an end. In my view, it would be a direct encouragement to the Biafran authorities to fight on, and we all know what would be the consequences of that.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, in view of the comments of Mr. Churchill in The Times of February 21, and the leading article on the 28th, are the Government satisfied that they are being kept sufficiently well informed?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have information available provided by the High Commissioner—and here I would pay high tribute to Sir David Hunt and all his staff for their services during these long and difficult months. We also get information from other bodies such as the international observers, relief workers, missionaries, Members of Parliament, journalists, and many others. With all the propaganda and selective reporting—much of it accepted or presented as fact—it takes time to assess each and every report. In his article in The Times on February 21, Mr. Churchill said that a report of a Federal attack on a Biafran village on February 6 had been dismissed by the British High Commission in Lagos as Biafran propaganda. This charge was repeated in a leading article in The Times of February 28. Mr. Churchill has misrepresented what he was told by the High Commission. Neither the High Commissioner nor any member of his staff has said that this report of the bombing on civilians was simply Biafran propaganda. I understand that Mr. Churchill left Lagos on the morning of the day, that is to say, the 6th, the day on which this raid is said to have taken place, so it is difficult to see how he could have discussed it with the High Commission, or even knew about it, since the first report was on Radio Biafra on the 7th.

DUMPING OF LITTER AND RUBBISH
2.42 p.m.
LORD INGLEWOOD: 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 steps they are taking to deal with the ever-increasing volume of litter of all sorts deposited not only near beauty spots in the countryside but along road sides and railway lines and in and around urban areas in all parts of the country.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): My Lords, the Civic Amenities Act 1967 requires local authorities to provide places where residents may deposit refuse free of charge, lays down severe penalties for unauthorised dumping, and gives authorities wide powers to remove abandoned rubbish. These provisions are aimed primarily at the deliberate dumping of large items of rubbish including old motor vehicles. Against the casual dropper of litter the Litter Act 1958 also provides penal sanctions. Within this legislative framework measures to deal with litter must be primarily for local action. The Government keep in close touch with the Keep Britain Tidy Group, who are concerned with educating and influencing the public and with assisting local authorities in this field, and makes an annual grant to them.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him whether he thinks that, apart from having these powers, local authorities have both the resources and also the will in fact to implement them? Because all of us know that the amount of filth and rubbish of all kinds lying around in this country is increasing, in spite of this legislation.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I have no reason to assume a lack of willingness on the part of the local authorities to implement the powers. If the noble Lord has, perhaps he will let me know of it. As to finance, it is a fact that at the moment the Government have invited
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local authorities to cut back on the rate of increase in their spending, and it may be that when we are out of the present period of financial stringency the local authorities will be able to do more.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, so that the noble Lord can see that I am not exaggerating, may I ask him to call for a report from his Department of what can be seen from the main railway line between Preston and Crewe? It will astonish him.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, if the House will bear with us, may I ask the noble Lord to let me have a report direct?
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: My Lords, in view of the fact that the convictions under the Litter Act average approximately 2,700 per year, do the Government intend to introduce or to strengthen other positive schemes to reduce the indiscriminate dumping of refuse?
LORD KENNET: Not at the moment, my Lords, because the 1967 Act is still so new that we are not yet satisfied that we know enough about how it will work. For the moment the figure of 3,000 prosecutions and the relevant number of convictions seem to the Government to be quite a lot, and perhaps it is not appropriate to have more.
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: My Lords, do the Government regard this Act as being adequate or effective, and cannot some other positive schemes be considered for reducing the indiscriminate dumping of litter?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, of course such schemes can be considered, and if the right reverend Prelate has any up his sleeve I should be grateful if he would send them to me. We must wait and see how the 1967 Act affects the situation.
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: My Lords, may I ask whether the Government would considered increasing education on this matter in the schools and also other propaganda—for instance, by television and radio?
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government make some effort to arrange the sharing of the financial burden between the urban authorities, whose inhabitants leave most of the litter,

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and the country authorities who have the unenviable and expensive task of clearing it up?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I will put to my right honourable friend the suggestion of the right reverend Prelate about education. It is a financial question and these are difficult days. The noble Lord, Lord Hawke, made a most interesting suggestion about sharing the burden. I should hate to be responsible for working out the details of the allocation as between urban and rustic authorities. I will consider the matter further and will put it to my right honourable friend.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, would the noble Lord accept that one of the problems in this matter is that many members of the general public are unaware of the location of the litter disposal centres which, under the Civic Amenities Act, the local authorities are now under compulsion to provide? Would he consider drawing the attention of local authorities to the need for publicising the location of the centres, which was a point suggested, and sympathetically received by the noble Baroness, Lady Serota, quite recently on a short debate on this matter on an Unstarred Question in this House?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, their attention has been drawn to it. My right honourable friend has emphasised to the authorities that adequate and continued publicity as to their arrangements in this matter is essential.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, if the noble Lord's arithmetic is not equal to making the arrangements for sharing this burden, some of us on this side of the House would be only too willing to volunteer.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I should like to ask two questions about indiscriminate dumping of litter in our towns and cities. In view of the increasing powers being given to traffic wardens under the recent Transport Act, and in view of their increasing numbers, would the noble Lord consider empowering them to make on-the-spot penalties? Would the noble Lord cast his mind back to December 14, 1966, when he said that this form of penalty had been considered for some time, and could he
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say whether Her Majesty's Government have reached any conclusion in regard to on-the-spot penalties to deal with the problem?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, if I understood the noble Lord aright, he is envisaging that traffic wardens should take the opportunity of enforcing the Litter Act. That is an interesting suggestion, which I will bring to the attention of my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport.

DERBYSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL
Read 2ª, and committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
TEES AND HARTLEPOOL PORT AUTHORITY BILL
Read 2ª, and committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
CHELSEA COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON BILL [H.L.]
Read 3ª, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
SAINT MILDRED, BREAD STREET BILL [H.L.]
Read 3ª, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

NATIONAL THEATRE BILL
2.55 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The National Theatre Act of 1949 limited to £1 million the Government contribution towards the cost of building the National Theatre. The purpose of the present Bill is to increase the limit on the Government's contribution from £1 million to £3,750,000. This measure is of great significance in the history of the arts in Great Britain and marks a final stage in the realisation of a dream first voiced as long ago as 1848 by a London publisher named Effingham Wilson.
I was very touched when the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, mentioned in

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our recent debate on the Arts that he had first written about this subject when he was still at Eton in reply to a letter from his mother. He had asked her at the time how the project was getting on. I think he mentioned that it was just after the Crimean War! It seems appropriate, therefore, to spend a few minutes in sketching the history of the project up to the present time.
Plans for a National Theatre were first formulated in a book written by Harley Granville Barker and William Archer in 1903, and it is interesting to recall that in 1906 Winston Churchill made the following comment:
"Think with what excitement and interest this people witnesses the construction or launching of a Dreadnought! What a pity it is that some measure of that interest cannot be turned in the direction of the launching say, of a National Theatre!"
The Dreadnoughts continued to be constructed and launched. To-day we are present at the final launching of the National Theatre and now look forward to its construction. In 1908 the Shakespeare Memorial Committee, which had been set up a few years earlier to plan a memorial in time for the Shakespeare Tercentenary in 1916, combined with another Committee concerned with the Granville Barker-William Archer scheme for a National Theatre
"to be transferred to national ownership and placed by some form of endowment above the necessity of constant and immediate profit making".
This new body became known as the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre Committee.
In May, 1909, Sir Carl Meyer made a gift of £70,000 to the movement for the general purposes of the scheme and Lord Avebury and the right honourable Alfred Lyttleton, P.C. (father of the present Lord Chandos), were appointed trustees of this sum and of the sums of the movement generally. In 1914 a site was purchased in Gower Street, Bloomsbury, for the sum of £60,000. This purchase used up most of the available funds and before there had been any opportunity of collecting further money the war intervened. In 1922 the Gower Street site was sold for £52,000 because, owing to the effects of the 1914 war, the scheme had become impracticable. Up to 1925 some assistance was given to what is now the Royal Shakespeare Company,
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but on being registered as a charity the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre Trust was prevented from applying any part of its proceeds other than to objects which would lead directly to the achievement of the main objective, namely, the building of a National Theatre.
In 1937, further money having been collected, the Shakespeare Memorial Trust acquired for about £81,000 freehold some land on the South side of Cromwell Gardens, South Kensington, opposite the Victoria and Albert Museum, as a site for the National Theatre and plans were commissioned from Sir Edwin Lutyens. On Aptil 22, 1938, there was a ceremony, which I am sure your Lordships will recall, at which Lord Broughshane asked Sir Robert Vansittart to hand over to George Bernard Shaw, a Trustee of the National Theatre Executive Committee, the deeds of that site, together with turf and twigs as traditional symbols of the possession of land. As I pass the site each day, I wonder what has happened to the turf and twigs.
Any further work was halted by the 1939–45 war, but in 1946 an agreement was reached between the Shakespeare Memorial Trust and the London County Council, under which the Council agreed to grant a long lease of just under 1¼ acres of land on the South Bank, between the Festival Hall and Waterloo Bridge, in exchange for the South Kensington site. At the time when the exchange was agreed, the Joint Council representing the Old Vic and the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre was formed.
In 1949 the National Theatre Act was passed, under which the Government were empowered to contribute up to £1 million towards the building and equipment of the theatre, but the date of implementation was left to the discretion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Plans for a building had been commissioned by the Joint Council from an architect named Brian O'Rourke, and in 1949 it was expected that a building based on those plans could have been erected for £l million. The Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of the National Theatre Act of 1949 was Sir Stafford Cripps.
In 1951 a foundation stone was laid by Her Majesty the Queen (now Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen

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Mother) on the site adjacent to the Festival Hall. In 1952 it was agreed with the London County Council that the National Theatre should occupy a better site adjoining County Hall. The next step was taken in 1960, when the Royal Shakespeare Company was invited to join the Joint Council of the National Theatre and a proposal was made for the virtual amalgamation of the Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company into a National Theatre, consisting of an amphitheatre and proscenium theatre under one roof on the South Bank and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford. This proposal was not accepted. The Royal Shakespeare Theatre withdrew from the National Theatre project, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, said that he was ready to consider a scheme which would include the rehousing of Sadler's Wells in an Opera House under the same roof as the National Theatre, and in the autumn of 1961 Sadler's Wells joined the Joint Council.
In 1962 the National Theatre Board was appointed by the Chancellor and an agreement was reached with the Governors of the Old Vic, whereby the Old Vic Theatre became the temporary home of the National Theatre Company. In August, 1962, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Reginald Maudling, reached agreement with Sir Isaac Hayward, the Leader of the London County Council, on the formation of the South Bank Theatre and Opera House Board to plan and build the National Theatre and the new Opera House on two adjoining South Bank sites. From the terms of reference it will be seen that the capital sums available to the Board were not to exceed £2·3 million in all, made up of £1 million to be contributed by the Government under the terms of the 1949 Act, and up to £1·3 million from the London County Council who were also contributing the site under the arrangement made in 1946. The Board appointed, in November, 1963, Mr. Denys Lasdun as architect for both the Opera House and the National Theatre. A building committee was set up by the National Theatre Board and accepted by the South Bank Board as its theatre panel to advise on the draft specifications.
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In 1965 sketch plans were produced for an Opera House and a National Theatre at an estimated total cost of £16 million. In July, 1965, the Board and the Greater London Council were told that in view of the great increase in cost, the Government would not be prepared to contribute towards the cost of the Opera House, but would be prepared, subject to the approval of Parliament, to share the cost of the National Theatre with the Greater London Council up to a maximum contribution of £3,750,000. The Greater London Council decided in 1966 that they would not be prepared to undertake at their expense the building of the Opera House which was therefore abandoned, but agreed to provide a sum of £3,750,000 to match the contribution of the Government.
Work has since proceeded on the preparation of detailed plans for the Theatre, and the South Bank Theatre Board (the name was changed after the abandonment of the Opera House) hope to invite tenders in the spring of 1969 with a view to work starting as soon as possible. Until tenders are received and a contract is awarded, it is difficult to make a precise estimate of the date of completion but the hope is that the work will be complete by the end of 1973. The noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe—to whom I am sure your Lordships would like to pay great tribute for his work—the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, and Sir Laurence Olivier continue to be members, and the Arts Council were formally associated with the Board through the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and Sir Joseph Lockwood.
The overriding difference between 1949 and to-day is that we now have a National Theatre Company. Parliament was asked in 1949 to vote money for a building although no National Theatre Company was in existence: the Old Vic Company to whom all honour is due, had continued to work through the war and returned in 1950 to the renovated Old Vic Theatre. To-day we are asking Parliament to vote money for a building to house a company which, under the inspiring leadership of Sir Laurence Olivier, has in the five years of its existence built up a truly international reputation. Although the drama critics were not united in their assessment of the company's achievements at the end of its first five years, the quality of acting

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and production was not generally in question. Some criticisms have been made about the choice of plays. In fact, the National Theatre's aim has been to cover world drama by presenting plays equally in six categories—Shakespeare, English classics, foreign classics, contemporary English plays, contemporary foreign plays and recent plays of merit that deserve revival. One-sixth of their productions have been Shakespeare, but they have fallen short in the number of new works presented, both English and foreign, the reason being lack of suitable plays of quality.
This reputation has been achieved in such a short period, despite the very real difficulties under which the company have had to work in the existing Old Vic Theatre. This theatre was not designed for the presentation of full scale repertory at the high standard expected of a National Theatre Company. It is lacking in the necessary technical amenities. There is an inadequate lighting system and switchboard, insufficient wing space on stage, insufficient rehearsal rooms and storage space for only two or three productions. Dressing-room conditions are primitive and inadequate for the number of the company required to play in London, in the regions and abroad. From a number of the seats in the theatre, it is impossible to see the stage properly. The public cloakrooms, bars and foyer spaces are both cramped and uncomfortable. Finally, the number of seats, even allowing for those where the vision is inadequate, is not much more than 800. This low capacity, coupled with the high drawing power of the National Theatre Company, has led to many complaints on the part of the public that they are unable to obtain seats. Some of your Lordships mentioned this during the recent debate.
The new National Theatre building will have two auditoria, one of the proscenium type seating 900 people and one of the open stage type, seating 1,165 people. The total seating capacity of the theatre will therefore be over 2,000. The two auditoria are considered necessary by the National Theatre Company, in order to present plays of a wide variety which a National Theatre must include within its repertoire, within the type of auditorium most suited to those plays. In general terms, it can be said that the more intimate type of production will be
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staged in the proscenium auditorium and the more spectacular production within the open stage type auditorium. But the important point is that the existence of the two will give producers scope for producing plays in different ways.
The National Theatre is a joint project with the Greater London Council, The brief history that I have sketched of the National Theatre project indicates that the London County Council were involved from an early stage. They and their successor, the Greater London Council, have contributed £271,400 to the National Theatre Company since it was established in 1963. In the same period, Arts Council grants to the National Theatre Company have totalled £1,094,000, which includes the sum of £160,000 towards the reduction of accumulated deficits.
The Greater London Council will be contributing to the cost of the National Theatre exactly the same sum as the Government. They will also be providing free of charge the valuable site next to Waterloo Bridge. The South Bank Theatre Board will thus have available the total sum of £7½ million, together with the monies, amounting to £100,000, remaining from the Shakespeare Memorial Trust, of which they are now the sole Trustees. My Lords, I should like to pay a warm tribute to the Greater London Council, which under its present title, and prior to that as the London County Council, has been an enlightened and generous patron of the Arts. Special mention should be made of Sir Isaac Hayward, who perhaps more than anyone else has been responsible for the far-sighted concept of turning the South Bank into a glittering centre of the Arts. The noble Lord, Lord Fiske, throughout his period of office as leader of the majority Party on the Greater London Council, gave this project his full backing, and his successor, Mr. Desmond Plummer, has been equally wholehearted in his determination to see the National Theatre become a reality.
The Bill I commend to your Lordships is essentially a non-Party measure. This was so in 1949, when one of the speakers in the debate in another place was Lord Chandos, then a Member of that House and now a very distinguished Member of this House, whose family has been associated with the project for over

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half a century and who is, I am glad to say, still at the centre as Chairman of the National Theatre Board and as a member of the South Bank Theatre Board. This is equally true of the Greater London Council, which is represented on the South Bank Theatre Board not only by Mr. Plummer and Mr. Freeman, the Chairman of the General Purposes Committee, but also by the Labour leader, Sir Reginald Goodwin.
My Lords, the plans are nearing completion, and new hope has been given to the National Theatre Company, which has worked under such very difficult conditions. And perhaps I may again quote the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, who said previously in this House:
"It will be a great day for those who have worked for a National Theatre when the thunder of the bulldozers is heard on the site for the first time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26/2/69, col. 1118.]
I hope, my Lords, that we are to-day moving a stage nearer to this, and I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Baroness Phillips.)
3.13 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, for giving us such an interesting speech describing the history and all the details of this great project of the National Theatre? This was a far fuller history than I had ever heard before, and I must say that for myself I found it fascinating; I am sure your Lordships did as well. As the noble Baroness has told us, this Bill provides half the capital and the G.L.C. provide the other half, and I should like to offer my congratulations both to the Government and to the G.L.C. As the noble Baroness has said, this is a non-Party event. It is a national project which is going to be for the good of all. For my noble friend Lord Chandos it is, I feel, an occasion of great personal triumph which can be exceeded only when the building is completed and opens for its first show, I hope in 1973, as the noble Baroness has told us.
As my noble friend explained to your Lordships in the Arts debate a fortnight ago, he has been working for this end, man and boy, all his life; and I most
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warmly congratulate him on his inspiration and tenacity. I am bound to say that, like the noble Baroness, I was surprised at my noble friend's revelation about the connection with the Crimean War, and I am looking forward to having some further light thrown on this by Lord Raglan later on, as to "the reason why". When succeeding generations in later centuries ask the question, "What sort of people were they in the second half of the 20th century?", they will undoubtedly observe the London scene and record as a credit to this era that the National Theatre was built then; and my noble friend is indeed leaving his worthy mark on posterity.
London already has the finest range of theatres in the world, and I am certain that the establishment of a National Theatre here will install the central jewel in our theatrical diadem. I believe that this large expenditure of public funds is justified, both for the value of its enrichment of our national life and for the added attraction which it will make to foreign visitors to London. When the Theatre is opened I believe that the leadership of my noble friend Lord Chandos and the direction of Sir Laurence Olivier will ensure that the standard of performance comes up to our highest expectations. As the noble Baroness has told us, the finances of the Theatre are underpinned by substantial grants from the Arts Council—£340,000 this year—and, to a lesser extent, by the G.L.C. I understand that at present the subsidy runs at the rate of approximately £1 for £1 on the box office takings, and obviously top priority will be given in the future to providing the National Theatre with the grants it needs to keep going at the standard we should expect.
I would make just this point. Welcome as the National Theatre will be in its new home, the provision of this large sum of public money for its building cannot be considered without raising the question of its impact on the commercial theatre of London, which is also our concern. With 100 per cent. of the capital cost and 50 per cent. of the running costs found from public funds, we are bound to ask: is the National Theatre going to put on a programme which will undercut the commercial theatre and weaken its viability? I am sure that both the noble Baroness and my noble friend Lord Chandos would

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regret that as much as I should. Indeed, it would be defeating the broad aim of the whole policy of the Arts Council to strengthen the theatre in our national life.
I understand that the view is held in the National Theatre that, by adding to the range of theatrical attraction in London, the new National Theatre will strengthen the position of the commercial theatre rather than weaken it; and I recognise that the National Theatre's role will be to put on a repertoire of plays—indeed, the noble Baroness told us so—which would not necessarily, and could not necessarily, be put on by a commercial theatre. I hope that the National Theatre is right and that its establishment will strengthen the commercial theatre, but at this stage I think it would be fair to say that nobody can be sure, and it would certainly be fair to observe that the building of the National Theatre raises an anxiety in this field, if for no other reason than that it can sell its tickets at half the price of cost, whereas the commercial theatre must not only recover cost but must also pay taxes and earn something for its promoters as well.
On this matter I have a point to raise with the noble Baroness of which I have given her notice. Your Lordships may remember that in the Arts debate I inquired how the committee of inquiry on this particular topic of the commercial theatre in London and the Provinces was going, and it was not then possible for the noble Baroness or the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, to give me an answer. In those circumstances, I was surprised to read in this month's Socialist Commentary, published a few days after our debate, an article by Sir William Emrys Williams, the Chairman of the Arts Council committee of inquiry on the theatre, giving his solution of the financial difficulties of the commercial theatre in London and the Provinces. I may say, in passing, that I thought it was an interesting article and that its solution seemed to be both imaginative and practical. It also seemed not dissimilar to the scheme which I outlined to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in the Arts debate. I mention it now, first, to ask whether this article is an outline of what the Arts Council are going to propose for the commercial theatre; and, secondly, if that is so, to suggest that it would have been
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better to make its publication through the official channels of the Arts Council so that it could have been available to your Lordships for the debate that we had on the Report of the Arts Council. I mention this point merely in passing. I do not wish to make too much of it.
My Lords, this is an occasion for celebration and congratulation. I conclude by congratulating the Government on bringing this Bill before Parliament and by offering my noble friend Lord Chandos and his board my warmest good wishes for every good fortune, both in the building of the National Theatre and in its future operation.
3.22 p.m.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, your Lordships are to hear from the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos and the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, who have been closely connected with this venture for many years; so I do not wish to say anything very much, except to welcome this Bill, which is non-controversial, on behalf of noble Lords on these Benches. I think that in this matter the Government deserve a great deal of credit, both for what was done in 1949 (although £1 million did not turn out to be quite enough) and for what is being done now. I do not think that any other Government has done quite so much in this respect as the Government of 1949 and of to-day. I should also like to add my congratulations to all the people who have been congratulated and also to mention two who have not been mentioned so far. I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and to the right honourable Miss Jennie Lee, both of whom have soldiered valiantly in this connection.
It has been suggested that there is an analogy with the National Gallery: that if you want a National Gallery (and who in these days would not want to have one?) you must want a National Theatre, too; that if we do not go on and bring this scheme to fruition now we shall become a laughing stock. Indeed, I am not sure that to some extent we have not already become a laughing stock. Your Lordships have already heard the long, sad story of how the idea was first put forward more than a hundred years ago, and of how for the last seventy years we have been talking about this and never getting anything done. The noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, thought the

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account that the noble Baroness gave was a fascinating one. It was indeed a fascinating one; but it was also a very sad and unfortunate one. I think it points to one of the sicknesses of our society that we can thoughtlessly and recklessly put money forward for the most expensive projects, costing thousands of millions of pounds, which then have to be abandoned—projects which I think a little more imagination would have made it apparent from the beginning would have to be abandoned. Yet we are congratulating ourselves on at last being able to find £3¾ million from the Exchequer towards a National Theatre. And that sum is to be spread over the next four years, so that it is a tiny amount compared with what we are prepared to put forward for projects like the Concorde.
My Lords, I think that I have seen certainly 75 per cent., and probably rather more, of all the productions that have been presented at the Old Vic in the last five years. How splendid it is that we have this basis now to build on! In 1949, when the Government first put forward the £1 million contribution, there was not even that basis to the degree that we have it now. Nevertheless, I think it is right that the money should be spent on the building itself. The noble Baroness has told us how inadequate is the present building of the Old Vic, with its 875 seats—I think that is the number. The new building will have two auditorias and will hold 2,000 people: it will be able to form a national school, and a national "everything else". The company will also be able to embark on touring to a much greater extent than before. However, this Bill is not about touring, which is a different subject altogether. If we are able to tour, we must think of other means of finding the money for the theatres that the National Theatre Company is going to tour to. But this is another problem.
The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, asked what sort of impact this is going to have on the commercial theatre. He said that the information available to him from his friends in the theatre was that it would have nothing but a beneficial effect. I concur. This is the impression I get. Nevertheless, I think that the future of the theatre is in the hands of national and civic authorities and that
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the provincial private enterprise theatres are in many cases dead or dying. The City of London have made a handsome contribution towards the new Barbican Theatre. It is now up to the Government, the Exchequer and the Greater London Council to see that they do not fall down here and that we shall not be saying five years hence that we still have not got a National Theatre and that we need to double the amount of money required to build one. I congratulate the Government on what they have done and I hope that all goes through successfully.
3.28 p.m.
VISCOUNT CHANDOS: My Lords, I threw all the confetti that I had in my bag during the debate on the Arts Council grant, but I should like to take the opportunity of throwing a little more confetti in thanking the noble Baroness for her charming speech and for unfolding this extraordinary piece of history to your Lordships. I only hope that the impression will not be got abroad that it takes 45 years to get a new idea into the heads of the British people, as it has taken on this occasion. I have only two things to say. First, the only alteration I make in the speech of the noble Baroness or in that of my noble friend is to alter the word "non-Party" to "all-Party"; because I think particularly of Sir Isaac Hayward—and it really has been Mr. Glenville Hall, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd and Sir Isaac Hayward; it really has been an all-Party job. I hope it will come out well.
There is one thing about the question of the impact on the commercial theatre which is worth saying, and I hope it is correct. I think it would be impossible for a playwright intending to make his living by writing plays to have a cast with more than one set and more than two stars. This is an outrage on all the artistic stands. It is like going to Rembrandt, asking him to paint a portrait of your wife and adding, "You must not use cobalt blue at all because it is too expensive ". The reason for the decline in the commercial theatre is that to put on a play like Julius Caesar, for instance, would be beyond the capacity of any private impressario unless he had his eye on immediate bankruptcy and an eventual knighthood. That is the only way to do it. We have to fill this

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gap if the great classical dramas are to be allowed to continue. I will not detain your Lordships. You have heard me too much on this subject. I conclude by once again congratulating the Government and expressing my gratitude to them.
3.29 p.m.
LORD COTTESLOE: My Lords, this Bill, which we have to thank Miss Jennie Lee for introducing into another place and Lady Phillips for introducing so fully and clearly into your Lordships' House, is certainly an all-Party measure, and I hope and believe that it is entirely a non-controversial one. But perhaps I may be allowed, as the Chairman of the Board that has to build the theatre and to spend the money which this Bill enables the Government to provide towards its cost, to welcome it most warmly and gratefully. Perhaps also I may give your Lordships a little of the more recent background to it, although I cannot claim that my own concern with the National Theatre goes back like that of my noble friend, Lord Chandos, for forty years.
Despite all the talk, for over a century or more, about the National Theatre, it was not until 1962, as the noble Baroness has told us, that the Government of the day decided finally to take the plunge. In that year they set up two Boards; the National Theatre Board, with the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos as Chairman, for the purpose of forming and managing a National Theatre Company, and the South Bank Theatre and Opera House Board, to design and build a National Theatre and a new Opera House for Sadler's Wells—a Board of which I was appointed Chairman. Let me say at once that those two Boards have worked throughout in the closest cooperation and harmony. I need not enlarge to your Lordships on the superb success of the National Theatre Company, under the brilliant direction of that great actor, and I think even greater man, Sir Laurence Olivier. Lord Chandos and his Board have created a company which is certainly unsurpassed and which I believe to be unrivalled anywhere in the world; an organisation of which, as a nation, we may be immensely proud.
But this splendid company has to do its work in the Old Vic, a theatre with a great history; a theatre for which most of us have a very real affection but, as the
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noble Baroness has said, one that is entirely inadequate for the productions and purposes of the National Theatre Company. The task of the South Bank Theatre Board is to provide that company with a setting that will match its fine qualities.
The establishment of the South Bank Theatre Board (we may leave out the opera house which, alas! fell by the wayside) was typically English. In no other country in the world would a Board be set up by the Government to design and build a National Theatre with no funds at its disposal—not a penny; with a Board dependent on two paymasters, the Government and the London County Council, each of which required to approve everything at every stage. No wonder it has taken a little time to bring the designs to the point of going to tender! The miracle is that they have reached that point at all.
My Lords, the first thing the Board had to do was to choose an architect and to provide him with his brief. We were very fortunate in being able to persuade Sir Robert Matthew, at that time President of the R.I.B.A. and formerly Architect to the London County Council at the time when they built the Royal Festival Hall, a man familiar with all the problems of the South Bank Development, to act as chairman of a small selection committee. The members of the committee included the noble Lord, Lord Holford; Mr. Norman Marshall, a distinguished producer; Mr. John Piper, an artist who has done a great deal of work for the theatre, and Mr. Bennet, the Architect to the L.C.C. These five gentlemen, to whom the public owe a debt of gratitude for their very considerable labours, reduced a list of 120 mines of architects and architectural firms to a short list of 20. Those 20 were interviewed for three solid days by the selection committee, reinforced by theatrical experts, on the one hand, and by operatic experts, on the other—a party numbering altogether about 15.
It was an experience that was exhilarating, even if it was a little exhausting. We had before us all the best architectural talent in this country. We had the German solution to the problem of theatre design expounded to us by a distinguished German architect. We listened to an eminent American architect who had flown the Atlantic to spend half an

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hour with us. At the end of three days it transpired that this posse of 15 architectural and theatrical experts—none of whom, it is almost true to say, thought the same about anything under the sun—had all independently, without discussion and without exception, come to the same conclusion. They all agreed that Mr. Denys Lasdun was the best architect to choose for this assignment. About any second choice there would have been the most bitter dissension, but about this name there was complete and spontaneous unanimity, which was a miracle. I can explain it only by saying that it was a direct intervention of Providence.
The architect then had to hammer out a brief for the theatre itself with a large and heterogeneous committee of actors, producers and designers under the joint chairmanship of Sir Laurence Olivier and Mr. Norman Marshall. It was a time when ideas about auditoriums were in a state of flux—arenas, open stages, theatres in the round, and all the rest of it. Few of the experts really knew what sort of a theatre they wanted; and again it would be almost true to say that no two of them wanted the same thing. But the architect worked with this committee for some months, exploring their ideas and explaining to them the possibilities and the limitations. Then there occurred a second miracle. He produced a design for an auditorium which had not only the approval, but the unanimous approval, of Sir Laurence and his committee.
I think, my Lords, that it is the recollection of those two interventions of Providence that has sustained and fortified the South Bank Theatre Board in the belief that the National Theatre is destined to be built. It sustained them, and their architect, too, through all the maddening frustrations and delays that they have had to face. There was the refusal of the Government, for reasons very easily understood, to go forward with the first grand design for the theatre and opera house of which Mr. Lasdun's beautiful model was on view in this building three years ago. This design would have produced an architectural group in London second only to the glorious group at Greenwich. There was the change of site to the Princes Meadow opposite Somerset House, a change that, although it was a source of some delay, had the
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very substantial compensating advantage of providing a better and a rather easier site on which to place a free-standing single building. There was the frustration of the cheeseparing change made by our paymasters at a late stage, from a cost limit of £7½ million at tender stage to a cost limit of £7½ million at completion, which is a very different thing; a change that necessitated abandoning the important small experimental theatre that should be an intrinsic part of the scheme and the scaling down of the whole building.
However, notwithstanding these vexatious frustrations and delays, and others too, here we are at last with the design for an altogether worthy setting for the National Theatre Company to work in; a design incorporating, as the noble Baroness has said, an arena type theatre seating about 1,165, with an open stage, and a conventional type theatre to seat 900 with a proscenium arch. These two theatres will be housed in a splendid architectural concept on a superb riverside site and there is the expectation of going to tender next month. To finance this great work we have an undertaking from the G.L.C. to find up to a half of £7½ million and now, at long last, if this Bill has the approval of your Lordships, as I am perfectly certain it will the Government empowered to find the other half. It has been a long struggle and a hard one, and it is not yet over, because we have to see what the tenders look like, but we may hope to see bulldozers at work on the site opposite Somerset House this summer and the National Theatre Company playing in its new home at the beginning of 1973.
3.42 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should like to thank your Lordships for the warm and generous welcome which has been given to this Bill. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, included in his speech congratulations to my right honourable friend Miss Jennie Lee and to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, for his most interesting account, bringing the history of the National Theatre up to date. I liked his description of experts as a "posse"—I have always wondered how one could adequately describe them. I am happy that he feels that the Almighty is on his

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side. It certainly seems that at last we are moving forward.
I read the article to which the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, referred and I take his point. I gather that the question being considered is one of the type of commercial theatre and that already some of the ideas put forward have been the subjects of interim reports to the Arts Council. But I am bound to say that I feel with him that there might have been a more tactful way for us to learn first of this. Nevertheless, the Committee of Inquiry is still looking into the matter.
With all noble Lords who have spoken, particularly the last two, who have contributed their work and their thought to the National Theatre, I feel that this is an occasion of happy celebration. Dare I suggest that the opening of the theatre may perhaps be at an earlier date than forecast? Perhaps the Almighty will even assist the workers to move forward a little faster. I commend the Bill to your Lordships for Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2ª: Committee negatived.

FOREIGN COMPENSATION BILL
3.44 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD CHALFONT): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report he now received—(Lord Chalfont.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE VISCOUNT DILHORNE moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 4, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, it almost a month since we had the Committee stage of this Bill. I suspect that most of your Lordships have forgotten a great deal about it and if I may I should like to remind the House a little of the background to this measure. When the Baltic States—Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia—were deprived of their independence as the result of Soviet action, an Order was made freezing the property in this country of nationals of those territories, under the Defence (Finance) Regulations of that time. Then, when
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those territories were overrun by the Germans, those nationals became technically enemies of this country by virtue of the definitions in the Trading with the Enemy Act 1939, but it was not until 1951 that an Order was made under that Act vesting the Baltic gold in the Custodian of Enemy Property.
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor told us this on February 13. He explained that as these assets were frozen under Defence Regulations, there was no need to make a vesting Order, vesting them in the Custodian of Enemy Property, until those Regulations were about to be revoked, and that was in 1951. The noble and learned Lord spoke only about the vesting of the Baltic gold, but I assume that the other assets which the Custodian now holds were vested in him at the same time. If they were not so, of course, I will give way and hope to be corrected. On Second Reading and in Committee, I asked whether the effect of that vesting order was to deprive the owners of their rights to this property or merely to suspend those rights. That question has not as yet been answered and I think that I should press for an answer. I think that before this Bill is passed, we should be told to what extent it is confiscatory. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, told your Lordships on February 13 that the points of law I had mentioned—this was one of them—would be dealt with by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. When he same to speak the noble and learned Lord did not deal with that point, and I hope that he will do so to-day.
The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, also told us on February 13 that if the owners of the property now vested in the Custodian came forward to make a proper authenticated claim, they would get the property standing in their name in full, not a dividend. Those were his words and he pointed out that provision was made for this by Clause 1(3)(b) of the Bill. So far as that goes, I think that is satisfactory. But there is a curious differentiation between Clause 1(3)(a) and (b). Paragraph (a) makes provision for payment of money to the Foreign Compensation Board, together with income arising there from. There is no provision in paragraph (b) for a payment to a claimant—a person who claims that the money belongs

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to him—of any income that has arisen from his money. I hope that the noble Lord will look into this and say what the position is in relation to it.
Where the claim by a person is that he was the owner or successor entitled to the former owner's property, I gather that that will be dealt with under Clause 1(3)(c). I am afraid that this is going a little away from this Amendment, but it it part of the background, which I think it is important to remember, because as I understand it the main purpose of the Bill is to make provision for distributing among what I would call the creditors these assets now in the hands of the Custodian. But the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has made it quite clear that if any persons come forward and say to the Custodian or to the Treasury that this money or this property is theirs and they prove their title to it, they will get it back, whether it be money or property.
How that fits in with subsection (5) is another matter, because that subsection deals with a specific subject, but I think that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, agrees with me so far. If that is the main purpose of the Bill, surely it would be very odd indeed if at this stage, in 1969, the Government took power to get hold of other property not already vested in the Custodian of Enemy Property, to get it away from wherever it is now and put it into the hands of the Custodian, to let him distribute that also with these assets. I think that that is an entirely different subject, which requires the closest consideration. And it was because Clause 1(2) appeared to me to give the Board of Trade power now, so many years after the war, to make a further vesting order vesting other property in the Custodian, property which he has not now got, that I tabled an Amendment similar to that which I am now moving, to leave out that particular subsection.
The nationals of Baltic territories were only technically enemies during the German occupation. That has long since passed. But on its face, subsection (2) of Clause 1 appears to give the Board of Trade power now to treat the property of those nationals as if it were still enemy property and a state of war existed. When the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor spoke on the first Amendment that I moved, which was to
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leave out words in subsection (1) of this clause (and, as I said then, it was a probing Amendment), he made a long statement about the legal position, in the course of which he said in relation to Clause 1(2):
"… the main object of Clause 1(2) is to perfect the title in the Custodian of Enemy Property so that there can be no question of his power to deal with this matter."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 13/2/69; col. 608.]
Again, in column 609 he said:
"The object of Clause 1(2) … is to make quite sure of the Custodian's position."
He had indicated in his speech that there might be doubts as to the validity or legality of some of the Custodian's acts, and he made it clear that the object of this particular provision was not to enable more property to be vested in the Custodian, but just to validate the Custodian's position. That is what was said by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor before I had moved any Amendment in relation to subsection (2).
When I moved that Amendment (if I may quote my own words) I said:
"As I see it, under this subsection as it stands, it would give power to the Board of Trade to make a new order vesting in the Custodian property of someone who was formerly within the definition of an enemy, but who, of course, has ceased to be so as we are no longer in a state of war; to bring in, as one might say, fresh property into the hands of the Custodian." (col. 611.)
And I asked for an assurance that there was no intention of using this subsection for that purpose. That assurance was given to me by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor in the clearest terms, in these words:
"As I understand it, vesting orders may be made, but they will relate only to what the Custodian has physical possession of." col. 612.)
Those were the Lord Chancellor's words and they satisfied me, and consequently I asked leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Seven days later, the noble and learned Lord wrote to me this letter—and I do not think he will have any objection to my informing your Lordships of its contents. It is headed, "Foreign Compensation Bill", and says:
"During the Committee stage of this Bill on 13th February I informed you that, as I understood it, vesting orders made under the power in Clause 1(2) of the Bill would relate only to what the Custodian of Enemy

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Property already had in his physical possession. The relevant passage is at Column 612 of Hansard. It has since been brought to my notice that, whilst by far the greater part of the assets in question are now in the physical possession of the Custodian, there exist some other assets, estimated to be worth about £30,000 to £40,000, which have been reported to the Custodian as enemy property subject to control under Article 4 of the Trading with the Enemy (Custodian) Order 1939, but which have not yet been the subject of a vesting order and so remain in the physical possession of various banks, et cetera, in this country. It is proposed in due course to vest these other assets. Clause 1(3)(b) and (c) can, of course, be used to release money or property in particular cases where appropriate. I will explain this point to the House during a later stage of this Bill."
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for correcting this matter. I am sure that the assurance he gave in those clear terms was given in the utmost good faith. I do not wish to suggest that there was the slightest desire on his part to mislead the House; I would never suggest it. I am sure the noble and learned Lord would not have given such an assurance unless he had had information before him at the time which led him to suppose that it was entirely correct. But it was not. It was because of that assurance that I withdrew my Amendment.
My Lords, it is not, of course, the Lord Chancellor's Bill, but it seems to me that we are back at the position that we were in on the Committee stage, as to the extent of the power which the Board of Trade now wish to have under this Bill, or which the Government wish to give them. It is clear now, as it was not then, that, quite apart from the main object of this Bill, which is the distribution of assets already in the Custodian's possession, this power is sought to enable the Custodian to get his hands on other assets belonging to people who are not our enemies, who have ceased to be our enemies and who never were anything but our technical enemies, by notionally treating them as enemies at the present time and by notionally treating this country as still being in a state of war.
I must say that this seems to me to be going much too far. I assume that what happened was that the people who held in their possession the property of those who were technical enemies reported it, and that was the first step that was taken before a vesting order
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was made. I should like to know—and I hope we shall be told—when these assets worth between £30,000 and £40,000 were reported. Was it before the order was made in 1951? Presumably these assets were also frozen by the Defence (Finance) Regulations. If those assets were reported before that vesting order was made in 1951, why was it that the vesting order was not applied to them at that time? If they had been reported they must have been known about. I cannot believe that they were left out of that vesting order at that time per incuriam. I feel that there must have been a good reason for it then. If that be so, we really ought to be told why there is a change of view with regard to these particular assets. This seems to me to raise a pretty important question. But, however it may be as to when these assets were reported, I must say that I am by no means convinced that it would be right for Parliament now to say that the Board of Trade can take away from the banks at which they are deposited these assets, which are not enemy property and cannot be treated as such if this subsection is not passed.
What is the position at this moment? As I understand it, it is that the owners of these assets, or their heirs or successors in title, can claim the return of the assets from the banks at which they are now deposited; and if the banks refuse to hand them over then these claimants can have recourse to courts of law, where they may be able to establish their claims—one does not know. But if a vesting order is made they will as I understand it be deprived of all recourse to courts of law. They will get their property back only if the Treasury, in the exercise of its discretion, thinks (to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont) that they have a properly authenticated claim. That will be at the discretion of the Treasury without any right of appeal to any independent body from the Treasury's decision.
Later this afternoon we shall be considering an Amendment, which I am very glad to see on the Order Paper, in the name of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, giving a right of appeal in certain circumstances from a decision of the Foreign Compensation Commission, who will be charged with the responsibility of dealing with the claims by

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creditors on these assets, but will not be dealing with claims by people who say, "These assets belong to me." But there is no appeal from the Treasury's direction to the Custodian refusing to allow him to pay out to a claimant, who is told: "You cannot have back this property which is now under a vesting order but which was in the bank up until 1969." That seems to me entirely wrong.
One has here to bear in mind that the rights of individuals which existed heretofore under (I think it was) the Enemy Property Act 1953 are being cut down. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor dealt with that point last time in Committee. But I think it is now clear that, whereas before someone could come along and say, "This property which is in the hands of the Custodian never really was enemy property," and trace it right through into the hands of whoever held it, at the present time that power is being restricted to individuals. A company, a partnership, apparently, will not be able to avail themselves of that. That is of a very limited field, however, because that is only when, as I understand it, some property has been wrongly labelled as enemy property. But here the issue is quite different. Here is a question where someone says, "This is mine", or "It was my father's, and I deposited it in the bank". Why now, in 1969, should we give the Government power to vest that person's property in the Custodian of Enemy Property?
I do not think I need say more in moving this Amendment, but I should like to conclude by repeating the question which I have asked so often and which is really relevant to this Amendment, and it is this. Is the effect of a vesting order such as to deprive the owner of a property of his rights of ownership, or does it merely operate to suspend those rights? Whatever the answer to that question may be, I must say that at the present time it seems to me quite wrong that this Bill, whose main purpose is something quite different, should include this specific power to enable the Custodian to obtain possession of assets that are not as yet in his possession. My Lords, I beg to move.
4.4 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I rise to support the Amendment so ably moved by my noble and learned friend, Lord Dilhorne. This Foreign Compensation Bill is fraught with legal technicalities. Indeed, we have heard to-day that even the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack was in error on one question; and naturally he remedied this as soon as he could. This gives one an idea of the complexity of this Bill. I am afraid that possibly we may become lost in legal technicalities and forget some of the things which I, for one, and I know my noble and learned friend, Lord Dilhorne, and my noble friend Lord St. Oswald, find so particularly objectionable about this Bill.
My noble and learned friend, Lord Dilhorne, reminded us a little of the background of the whole of this matter, because it is some time since we discussed it all. At the risk of boring your Lordships, I am afraid that I also must run over some of the ground. The noble and learned Viscount, in his strong speech on the Second Reading, referred twice to the assets which we had under discussion as not being assets which belonged to this country. This has been my view all along, and still is. Unfortunately the Bill we are discussing to-day is one that is consequential on what I consider to have been a shameful Agreement made by Her Majesty's Government with the Government of the Soviet Union. This Agreement, as your Lordships will remember, became effective immediately upon signature. Parliament did not have the opportunity of giving its approval. On Second Reading the view was expressed that, had Parliament had an opportunity of being consulted and asked to give its approval, the Agreement would have run into very strong opposition indeed. Of this I am convinced. Unfortunately, the Agreement must stand. All that Parliament now has the chance of doing is to remove from the consequential Bill some of the particularly, as I think, mean and distasteful elements.
What we are being asked to do is to approve of the disposal of other people's property for the settlement of a claim against a third party. I do not think there can be any argument about this.

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My noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne has explained to us how all this happened. The Baltic States, as your Lordships will remember, were first of all coerced by the Soviets and then overrun by the Nazis, in 1941. I think it would be true to say that until June 13, 1940, the Governments of these three Baltic States were masters in their own house, but thereafter they were no longer masters. The interesting thing about the assets we are discussing to-day is that all of them were deposited in British banks before June 13, 1940. Therefore, by no possible stretch of the imagination could one say that any of these assets in British banks here were the assets of enemies.
The three Baltic States, let me remind your Lordships, all declared their neutrality; they were neutral States. They arranged to send certain of their assets to British banks for safe keeping. They even discussed (the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will remember that I referred to this point on the last occasion I spoke on this matter) whether it might have been advisable to send their money to another country—America, for instance—and they were assured by the authorities at the Bank of England that their money was perfectly safe here. So they did nothing about it. But I happen to know that some of the Baltic assets were sent to other countries: some were sent to America and some were sent to Switzerland. I believe—although I am perfectly prepared to accept it if anybody can give information to the contrary—that these assets are perfectly safe in the United States and are perfectly safe in Switzerland. There is no question of the Government of the United States making use of these assets to meet claims against third parties. Yet this is what Her Majesty's Government are proposing to do. This is what Her Majesty's Government have done. All I say is that somehow or other we should try to mitigate what I believe to be an absolute outrage; somehow or other we must show that we disapprove of this action. Surely there is still time, and surely there are still the means of doing so.
As I have said, the legal complexities of this Bill are terrible. I know that my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne, has spent hours working on it, and I, as a layman, obviously had to spend even longer because it is terribly difficult to
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understand. But what we have to consider this afternoon is that we are confronted with a Bill which will enable the Government to confiscate. My noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne was more cautious than I am because he asked whether this subsection is in fact confiscatory. With the greatest respect to the noble and learned Viscount and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, I do not see that it can be anything else. These monies do not belong to us. They would not be in the control of the Custodian of Enemy Property if these countries had not become technical enemies. We all know perfectly well that they are no more enemies than Denmark, France or Belgium, so how can we possibly justify this extraordinary behaviour?
Perhaps I may explain to your Lordships a little about the process of how money becomes controlled and comes under the Custodian of Enemy Property. There are three phases. The first phase is simply control. Suppose you leave some money in a British bank and you are technically an enemy. As my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne said, that money will be reported and will be automatically put under control. It is blocked; it is not necessarily vested. If it is vested then the Custodian has additional rights; he has the right to sell. That is why all these other sums that we have just managed to unearth the £30,000 to £40,000—have to be vested so that Her Majesty's Government can sell them and have the cash. I think that is the answer, but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, will tell me if I am wrong.
It seems to me that we are being asked to underwrite a piece of theft. The theft has already, alas!, been committed and the only thing left to us is to arrange for the rightful claimants to have the possibility of getting back their property. I include not only individuals but also institutions. I know that the question of institutions is far more difficult, but it seems to me that the money deposited by the Baltic banks is just as little our property as the money deposited by Baltic individuals.
I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to some information which I received from a source which I am afraid I cannot disclose, but which I think is reliable, about some of the

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assets that have been held by the Custodian and which have in fact been released. The letter which I have received says:
"It would seem that concessions for the release of such assets have on occasion been afforded on an ex gratia basis to United Kingdom personal representatives of deceased residents of the Baltic States or to persons having left these territories to reside elsewhere."
My correspondent goes on to say:
"After the signature of the recent Anglo-Soviet Financial Agreement such concessionary arrangements do not seem to be any more available."
It is not difficult to understand why. I must ask the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, if my information is correct and certain sums have in fact been released, how can it be that we are prepared to use the balance to meet claims of third parties. It does not seem to me to add up. I was not able to give the noble Lord notice of this question because this information came into my possession only this morning. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could look into this matter.
Perhaps it might be worth while for a moment to consider other Estonian assets—and this time it is only Estonian. Some of your Lordships may remember that there were Estonian shipping companies with ships plying all over the world. When Estonia was overrun it was somehow possible to get word to the masters of these ships to sail to British ports. This they did, and something like 20 Estonian cargo ships reached British ports. They did not go back to Estonia; they became part of the British Fleet.
Naturally claims were made and claims were met, both by institutions—the shipping lines—and by individual shareholders in those shipping lines. If I may refresh the noble Lord's memory, the principal among these was the Tallinn shipping company, and I think the principal case was the "Vapper" case. That was the name of one of the ships and I think it means "Courageous". Here, a perfectly equitable settlement was made of Estonian property which was in British hands and properly treated and respected, but in the case of the assets that came under the control of the Custodian of Enemy Property apparently
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we think it perfectly right and proper to confiscate these assets and then to "shell them out" to meet the claims of third parties.
It is apparent that even the greatest experts in the law do not find this Bill easy, but whether or not we are experts in the law it is not difficult to form an opinion where we are being asked to endorse behaviour which falls well below the high standard of British fair dealing. That is what I believe we are being asked to do, and for that reason I support the Amendment put forward in the names of my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne, myself, and my noble friend Lord St. Oswald. I believe that unless this subsection is removed we shall be underwriting a piece of shameful confiscation.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I am no lawyer and I find difficulty in trying to understand the proposals in this Bill. Therefore, I have tried to reduce the proposals, as I understand them, to one lay sentence and perhaps in his reply the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, will say whether my interpretation is correct. It is this: in support of an Agreement which I personally consider reprehensible, the Government are proposing to expropriate free property held here by individuals, by resuscitating war-time powers used in a war 23 years past. Is that or is that not so?
4.19 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, in speaking to this Amendment, moved with such force and lucidity by my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne, I would first of all make clear my view, as did my noble friend Lord Lansdowne, that it does no more than reduce, in one particular, the manifest injustice of a Bill which should never trespass on the British Statute Book.
There is another factor which affects my own approach to this Amendment. I have to appreciate from the experience of the Committee stage on Thursday, February 13, that in discussion with the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, across the Floor of the House, a certain delicacy, not to say daintiness, in debate is required. I hope he will not mind my saying that I have never before known a Minister who considered that quoting directly from his own speech of the previous week constituted a reflection on his personal

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character. At a time when a senior Cabinet Minister is slinging about in public such salubrious terms as "shifty and spineless" and subsequently "weasel" when referring to the Leader of the Opposition, Ministers of all ranks I should have thought might feel themselves a little vulnerable when they complain of what are the far kindlier references made in this House. I do not think my own language on that occasion was any stronger than that of my noble friend Lord Lansdowne, for instance; and certainly it was far more restrained than that employed at all stages of this Bill in another place. However, there is no practical point in getting under a Minister's epidermis if it is possible, instead, to apply massage to his better nature, which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, possesses.
All the same, it would ill befit me to disguise my opinion to the point of misleading either the noble Lord or the House. I will avoid this by putting a request to the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and his colleagues. I would ask them not to suppose that there is anything artificial or exaggerated in the way I express my indignation over the purpose of this Bill as a whole, and especially the iniquitous purpose of this particular subsection, as described by my noble and learned friend. This is an anger shared by certainly almost all of those taking part on this side of the House; it is not peculiar to me. My noble friend Lord Lansdowne on Second Reading said very plainly that the banks of the three Baltic countries who were "the customers of the Bank of England concerned" have had their gold stolen from the Bank of England, the theft having been perpetrated by Her Majesty's Government, and he repeated the same reflection to-day. Since that is how I see it also, it gives cause for the most genuine and unavoidable wrath.
Another noble Lord on the Government Benches said during the Committee stage that he found it difficult to understand how we on this side could lash ourselves, in his words, into a state of white-hot indignation. To speak for myself, I require no lashing apart from a reading of the facts. I should feel myself less than a man, less than an Englishman, if I did not react with a cold anger to what I see as theft from innocent and defenceless people by the Government
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of my country. This seems to me an unjust and injurious Bill, and the present subsection (2) perhaps the meanest part of it. I echo the words of my noble friend Lord Lansdowne at an earlier stage, "What price now the old adage, 'As safe as the Bank of England'?" With him, I believe we cannot—and more's the pity!—defeat this Bill, prevent it from reaching the Statute Book
My Lords, what we are debating now may seem a small point or a large point, according to how one looks at it. I think it is a large point, involving both principle and individual rights. I shall argue it, not at great length but with deliberation, and I hope that your Lordships will bear with me, in attempting to prevent an extra injustice. I do so now in the hope that it will not be necessary to intervene on Third Reading.
The assets, which have never morally belonged to any British Government, have been expropriated, and the "swag", unlike most "swag" admittedly, is to be distributed mainly to deserving people, to some who have suffered in other ways, in less extreme degrees than the nationals of the Baltic States themselves. I dare say that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, thinks of himself as some kind of modern Robin Hood: he rather took that attitude on the last occasion. But Robin Hood chose his victims a little more fastidiously, and he never proposed to give a luscious "sweetener" to the Sheriff of Nottingham. Having seized these assets in a manner which seems to many of us dishonourable, the Bill now seeks, as we have heard, through this subsection to fleece those who otherwise escape the main depredation.
There seems to me, as there seems to the Government, to be some doubt as to who these owners may be or whether they are still alive. It is a very different thing to say that because we cannot identify them to-day they are therefore extinct and have no possible successors. It is clear that the Government see these rightful owners in a rather different light from some of us. It was explained by implication at earlier stages of the Bill why the Government consider them beyond the normal laws of human behaviour. It was explained, faultlessly, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, that:
"In the summer of 1940 the Baltic States came under considerable Soviet pressure and

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to a large extent ceased to be free agents."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4/2/69, col. 11.]
Three ultimatums were followed by massive invasion of the three countries. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, did not mention to what even small extent after that they remained free agents. But he rightly pointed out that territories over-run by the enemy (in the case involved in the Bill the German enemy) are necessarily regarded as enemy territory so far as trading with the enemy provisions are concerned. And this entitled Her Majesty's Government to place the Baltic assets in the hands of the Custodian of Enemy Property. He later said, and here is another direct quote of impeccable accuracy:
"…the effect of vesting is to make the Custodian the legal owner of the property. Once the gold had been vested in the Custodian, he was legally entitled to sell it and realise the asset under exactly the same powers." (col. 66).
My Lords, all that was exquisitely and undoubtedly factual. I hope the noble Lord will not interpret it as an attempt at character assassination if I point out that it was only a tiny corner of the whole picture.
It is a matter of history that very nearly the whole of the mainland of Europe was overrun by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during the war. As a consequence, as this House was told by the noble Lord, Lord Brown, on February 13, £34 million from belligerent countries was vested in the Custodian of Enemy Property. The whole of this, understandably, was confiscated in one form or another, mainly for reparations. We were told at the same time by the noble Lord, Lord Brown, in answer to a Question of mine, that the total amount taken over from the "technical" as distinct from the "belligerent enemies was not known or could not then he given. It seemed likely that the figure must be astronomic, including, as we were told, the assets from France among other countries.
Since then, through the kindness of the noble Lord, Lord Brown, my noble friend Lord Lansdowne and I have been given figures which, without being claimed as absolutely precise, are extremely revealing and extremely telling. The total taken under control by the
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Custodian from "technical" enemies was £380 million. Of this vast sum, only £8·4 million remains in the Custodian's hands or under his control; of which £8·4 million, nearly £7 million is from the Baltic countries. So that already, even without this subsection, these unhappy countries have been treated differently from all others. They are being discriminated against, coldly and inhumanly, simply because they are helpless. There is an ironic note in the fact that Italy, which, after all, fought against us actively during the greater part of the war, has had £9,975,000 returned—infinitely more favourable and more civilised treatment than that which is being given now to the entirely innocent Baltic peoples.
The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, said repeatedly the other day that the onus is on the former owners to present and prove their claim now, if not earlier. But these people are not living in Bognor or Bishop's Stortford; they are behind the Soviet frontier. What he demands, in effect, is that they should risk their lives to escape, with little or no possibility to obtain or take out with them the necessary documents. So they are by circumstance, and by the provisions of this Bill, in a cruelly under-privileged category.
I would ask one final direct question of the Minister. Am I right in thinking that the statutory duty of the Custodian of Enemy Property is to preserve the assets taken under control, to preserve and eventually to return them to the original owners? He needs no further Parliamentary approval or consent for either of these two duties. I should like either the confirmation or the contradiction of this statement from the noble Lord. If I am right, it follows that a Bill through Parliament is necessary in effect to order the Custodian to do what is otherwise a breach of his statutory duty. If that is so, this is plainly a confiscatory Bill, and this subsection adds to the discriminatory act thought up between Mr. Harold Wilson and Mr. Alexei Kosygin a little over two years ago. This is a measure which makes the friends of Britain ashamed, as I think it should all of us. The Amendment moved by my noble and learned friend would relieve a little of that shame and reduce by a little the total injustice.
4.30 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD CHALFONT): My Lords, let me first express my gratitude to the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, for the lucid and reasonable way in which he introduced this Amendment and for taking us through a little of the history of this Bill, which relieves me of some of the duty of doing so. I must confess that, as always, I am somewhat less grateful to the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, who then proceeded, in his impeccable and predictable way, to confuse the whole matter irretrievably. I do not propose to follow him through the labyrinthine ways of his own mind—indeed I do not think it would be possible to do so. But since his literary allusion to me as a kind of failed Robin Hood seemed to give him a great deal of pleasure, perhaps I might delve into my own literary storehouse and say that I saw him as a kind of Anglo-Saxon d'Artagnan, with the unfortunate difference that he so frequently gets his sword in between his legs and falls flat on his face that really in the end one is left with a sort of slapstick version of what this extremely serious business is all about.
LORD ST. OSWALD.: My Lords, would the noble Lord care to give one example of that in the speech that I have just delivered?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, in the course of my speech I shall hope to point out, if only by implication, that there were numerous occasions on which the noble Lord was well wide of the point. I think perhaps the most obvious illustration (this is not one that is the monopoly of the noble Lord) is in what I believe to be the constantly theatrical expressions of outrage about the Agreement between this country and the Soviet Union and the Bill that follows it. The noble Lord said there was nothing theatrical or exaggerated about this outrage. If there is not, then I can only suggest that it is hopelessly misplaced.
I do not think there is any point in wearying your Lordships or in wasting your time with arguments about whether or not the Agreement with the Soviet Union was a shameful one. I do not
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believe it was. I believe that it was an honourable and a practical one. There is no profit, however, in arguing about that. The Agreement exists, and the Bill flows from it; and I suggest that we limit our attention to the Bill and, if the noble Lord will allow, to the Amendment that is at present before your Lordships' House.
The concern of the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, and indeed to some extent of the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, was to show a sense of outrage against this Agreement and against the Bill that springs from it. My concern, on the other hand, is to settle the claims of a great number of people who have now been waiting 30 years for the money which we believe is owing to them and which we intend to give to them.
There has been a great deal of play with the idea of this Bill as a confiscatory Bill. Most of the property in this case has been vested in the Custodian; and although vesting orders are said to have the same effect as an order of the High Court under the Trustee Act 1925 this does not mean that the Custodian holds property in trust. All the reference to that Act does is to do away with any need for a conveyance or a share transfer. The property to be taken is that which was the subject of a Soviet claim, a claim which the Soviet Government, in the Agreement made between our two Governments, have now undertaken not to pursue and which, at the end of the process of managing the Compensation Fund, has not been claimed by anybody.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? I am trying to follow what he is saying. I thought that the property vested in the Custodian was property vested under the Trading with the Enemy Act 1939. That was done in 1951, long before the Agreement made with the Soviet Union.
LORD CHALFONT: Yes. I hope that as I go on this will become clear to the noble and learned Viscount, if it is not now at this moment. As he rightly says the gold was vested in the Custodian in 1951. The great majority of the other assets of course, the subject of this Bill, were vested (and I think he asked me this question) before the date of the vesting of the gold; that is to

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say, before 1951. I entirely agree with him about this.
Before I deal with the specific questions put to me by the noble and learned Viscount, about income, and by the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, about the releases of property (I should like, if I may, to deal with these later) it may be as well at this stage to look at the various kinds of property with which we are dealing. I think there has been some misunderstanding and confusion about this. As I think the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, has said, the effect of the subsection with which we are now dealing, subsection (2) of Clause 1, is to enable orders to be made vesting in the Custodian the property with which the Bill is concerned. It will ensure that the Custodian has a good title to the property; and therefore it follows, of course, that he is able to give a good title to any transferee.
At the Committee stage, and I think he implied it again this afternoon, the noble and learned Viscount said he had no objection to the power given by this subsection in so far as its purpose was to perfect the title of the Custodian to property already vested in him. He did, however, express anxiety lest the power should be used to make a new order to bring into the hands of the Custodian property which he had not already got, and the noble Viscount asked for an assurance that there was no intention of using subsection (2) for that purpose.
The noble and learned Viscount has said that in Committee my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor said that, as he understood it, the subsection would relate only to what the Custodian already had in his physical possession. As we have heard from the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor was then unaware—through, as the noble and learned Viscount has been good enough to say, no fault of his own—that there existed unvested assets of between £30,000 and £40,000, and there has been correspondence between the two noble Lords to which the noble and learned Viscount referred this afternoon. I will come to this question of unvested assets in a moment, and I hope that when the noble and learned Viscount has heard what I have to say about them,
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and what I have to say about the assurance which he sought, he will feel able once more to withdraw his Amendment.
But before I do so I should like to deal in turn, as I say, with the different categories of assets, starting with the category of vested assets. The overwhelming majority of the assets with which this Bill is concerned have already been made (and I think this will clear up the point which the noble and learned Viscount put a moment ago) the subject of orders vesting them in the Custodian of Enemy Property. The effect of a valid vesting order is, as I have said, to transfer the legal title to the property concerned to the Custodian.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, when the noble Lord says that, does he mean that the rights of the former owners to that property are extinguished?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I shall come to that point in a moment, if the noble and learned Viscount will have patience with me. When I say that the effect of a valid vesting order is to transfer the legal title, that is of course true; but there is in some cases doubt whether or not the vesting orders were valid. However, for simplicity I shall refer to them as vested assets. As I have said, the main object of subsection (2) is to enable orders to be made which would perfect the Custodian's title to these vested assets. It is no part of the object of this Bill or of this subsection to bring in asset; which are outside the scope of the trading with the enemy legislation. The estimated value of these vested assets is around £6½ million—and I have said this before—though the exact figure can appear only when all the assets, not all of which are in the form of money, have been realised. These assets formerly belonged to persons—and in this term I include corporate persons, as well as individuals—resident or carrying on business in the various territories now forming part of the Soviet Union with which this Bill is concerned.
By far the greatest part of these assets belonged to companies which have been nationalised. Some of the assets were, however, the property of individuals nearly all of whom of course now live, if they are still alive, within the Soviet Union. In so far as the property of former companies is concerned, our

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understanding and belief is that those companies have gone out of existence. The Soviet Government have undertaken, by the Agreement of January 5, 1968—whatever certain noble Lords may think of that Agreement—not to pursue further their claims to such assets.
When this Bill has become law, it is our intention that the Custodian should realise those company assets which have not already been realised, and should pay the available proceeds over to the Foreign Compensation Commission for distribution. We shall do the same with the vested assets which formerly belonged to individuals who are nationals of the Soviet Union, in so far as the Soviet Government have undertaken not to pursue their claims. They made that undertaking under Article 2 of the Anglo-Soviet Agreement.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, may I ask for a little clarification? Does the noble Lord suggest that the ownership of these assets—and by "ownership" I mean ownership in its legal sense—is vested in the Custodian of Enemy Property?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, in the case of vested assets, as I understand it, the legal title has passed to the Custodian where there is a valid vesting order.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, would the noble Lord mind answering my question? I want to know who owns these assets. Is it the Custodian of Enemy Property?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I think I should be treading on dangerous ground if I started to make some kind of legal distinction between a title and what the noble Lord calls "ownership". I can only repeat my answer to his question. If he is not satisfied with that, then I shall have to seek advice from those who are more expert than I am. All I know, and all I can say, is that the effect of a valid vesting order is to transfer the legal title to the property to the Custodian. Whether that involves, in the legal sense—
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, perhaps I can help the noble Lord. I think I am right in saying that the Custodian of Enemy Property cannot release property unless there is a cessa-
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tion order or a treaty of peace. We quite understand why there was no treaty of peace or cessation order in respect of these particular assets, but what I want to know—and I should be grateful if the noble Lord would look into this point—is whether or not the Custodian of Enemy Property cart be considered as the owner of that property. I will quite understand if the noble Lord cannot answer that question now, but I should be grateful if he would find the answer for me.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, if there is a point here that has escaped me, l will look into it and I will let the noble Lord have the answer.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I raised this question on Second Reading; I raised it again on Committee and I raised it to-day, and it really does not suffice for the noble Lord to say that the Custodian has the legal title. The Custodian's powers are purely statutory: he is a statutory creature. What I want to know is whether—as would follow if the Custodian has become the owner of the assets—the former owners have had all their property rights extinguished. It really does not satisfy me, if I may say so, for the noble Lord to say that if he has not dealt with my noble friend's question he will look into it, because this point has been raised again and again since the commencement of our discussions on this Bill, and the noble Lord or the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor ought to give this House clear advice on the matter.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am clearly not in a position to give the House legal advice on this or any other matter. In my view, and according to my advice, I realise—
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is here perhaps he would be good enough to enlighten us.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, may I say first that if I could at least finish a sentence we might get a little nearer the end of these long and complicated proceedings. If the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack cares to intervene I am sure he will do so. In my view, and according to my advice, title and ownership mean the same thing. If the vesting

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order is valid, then the ownership of this property is passed to the Custodian. I am afraid that I can give the House no other advice than that.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I should like to remind the noble Lord what he has said: that the ownership of this property has passed to the Custodian. In other words, the noble Lord is telling me that the Custodian of Enemy Property is the owner. Well, I beg to differ.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, if the noble Lord begs to differ—
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The noble Lord has answered my question.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I have answered the question by saying that my advice is that ownership and title are the same thing, and that in the case of a valid vesting order the legal title has passed to the Custodian. That is what I have said.
I wonder whether at this stage I could pass on to the question of the unclaimed vested assets. I must explain here that there are some vested assets formerly belonging to individuals which were not covered by the Anglo-Soviet Agreement. If the original owners of these assets or their legal heirs, whether they are now inside or outside the borders of the Soviet Union, come forward to claim these assets and can prove their title, they are of course, as I said at an earlier stage of the Bill, entitled to have them back. It was for this purpose that paragraphs (b) and (c) of subsection (3) of this clause, and the saving for property belonging to an individual in subsection (5), were inserted in the Bill. They would ensure that any individual still in a position to put forward a valid claim could, and would, get back the property or its proceeds.
It seems to me that there have been fears about this of a very real kind. Some noble Lords have gone so far as to suggest that it is the business of Her Majesty's Government to go chasing around trying to find these people. I certainly could not accept that. I do, however, accept, as the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, said in rather colourful terms this afternoon, that it may be difficult for some people to put forward these claims.
LORD ST. OSWALD: I was very factual.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord wants me to give way.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My words were not colourful; they were extremely factual.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, there are such things as colourful facts, and the noble Lord is an expert at them. I hope that I can set some fears about this at rest if I give an assurance about this particular category of asset. I agree with the noble and learned Viscount. Lord Dilhorne, that the purpose of these provisions to which I have referred would be frustrated if the assets, or the proceeds of the vested assets which formerly belonged to these individuals, were immediately to be transferred to the Foreign Compensation Commission. Of course that is so. If we handed these assets over to the Foreign Compensation Commission for distribution straight away then the purposes of those saving clauses would be defeated.
In order to give any such persons a reasonable chance to come forward and claim their property—and noble Lords opposite, I think, can hardly argue that this matter has not now been given a great deal of publicity—I can, if the House wishes, give an assurance that nothing will be done under Clause 1, subsections (1), (2) or (3)(a), for a period of two years after the passage of this Bill in respect of the assets of individuals not covered by the Anglo-Soviet Agreement. It is only after this time, two years from the passage of the Bill, that any of these assets which still remain unclaimed will be transferred to the Foreign Compensation Commission for distribution.
No doubt, bearing in mind the history of the areas, there are cases in which the former owners of these properties have died without heirs, in which case no one will come forward. This arrangement would give a period of time within which a property owner who established a claim could get his property back. I am not suggesting that this is an original idea by Her Majesty's Government; that was an idea put forward in Committee by the

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noble Lord, Lord Hankey, and the suggestion has commended itself to the Government. I can go further and say that if even after that two-year period has passed such a person should come forward and prove his case, his property or the proceeds of his property will be returned to him under the provisions of this Bill, or, if that is no longer possible, then compensation will in a proper case be paid to him from public funds. I hope that noble Lords opposite who have been worried about the possibility of people coming forward and claiming unclaimed assets will agree that there are the most ample safeguards for the individuals concerned in this particular category.
There is one further category of assets, and it is this category which has been exercising noble Lords opposite, and certainly has been exercising the powerful mind of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne. It is the category of unvested assets—the £30,000 or £40,000 which remain unvested. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, asked what were the reasons that these assets had not been vested. There were variou3 reasons. It was not the practice of the Board of Trade to make vesting orders unless the necessity arose for the Custodian to have powers to deal with the property for the purpose of its preservation. For various reasons these assets of £30,000 to £40,000—of which £20,000 is held in foreign currency, mainly in dollars, and the remainder is in the form of securities, gold bars and coins—are in the unique status of being under the control of the Board of Trade.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, when were these assets reported to the Board of Trade?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I cannot give the noble and learned Viscount an answer immediately. I hope that by the end of the discussion I shall be able to do so.
The noble and learned Viscount seemed to draw some kind of distinction between these assets and other assets which have been vested, but my understanding is that the origin of this property is precisely the same as that of the property which has been vested. It is largely a matter of accident that it has not been vested like all the rest. The
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companies and individuals to whom the property belonged are, so far as I know, similar in all ways to the former owners of the vested assets. For that reason we propose to treat this property in broadly the same way as the vested property. Owners will be given an ample period in which to come forward and establish their claims.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I take it that the offer which the Minister is making refers only to assets of individuals. Does it include the assets of institutions?
LORD CHALFONT: No, my Lords; the assurance which I have just offered to the House deals with the property of individuals.
Before I ask the noble and learned Viscount, in the light of these assurances, to withdraw his Amendment, I should like to answer two specific questions which were put to me. The first question was about the income on certain property. I think that the answer is that Clause 1(3)(b) refers to money which is the
"former property of a Baltic State or ceded territory …"
By virtue of the definition of "former property" which occurs in Clause 3(1) of the Bill, this includes "any income arising from…such property". The same goes for Clause 1(3)(a) and (c). There is a reference in Clause 1(3)(a) to a different sort of income, namely, the income arising from the investment in Treasury Bills of the proceeds of the sale of assets. This sort of investment income does not arise where there has been no sale and no investment, as is the case with regard to subsection (3)(b) and 3(c). In regard to the question by the noble and learned Viscount as to when the property under control was reported, I understand that most of this was reported when these territories became enemy territories—that is to say, in 1941 or thereabouts.
The facts are that in this Bill we are trying to follow up the Agreement made with the Soviet Union, an Agreement which I believe to be practical, honourable, and humane, and one that will now allow us to meet the claims of people whose property has been expropriated and whose claims have been outstanding

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for many years. It is easy to become incensed with an Agreement, especially as it was an Agreement which, for what we think were good reasons, was not subject to the ratification of Parliament. Nevertheless, the Agreement was made, and we believe that it should have been made.
What we should like to do now, if we can fight our way through the thicket of legal technicalities (I do not diminish the importance of the legal arguments which are involved; they are extremely important, and the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, has advanced them lucidly, reasonably and cogently), is to arrive at a Bill which is sensible and humane. And in this case I have offered to give an assurance. It is that in the case of the unclaimed assets we will give a period of grace of two years after the passage of the Bill, which will enable anybody to come forward and claim his property. If such a claimant can establish any claim, he will get his property back, or the proceeds from it, in full. If, even after two years, people still come forward and can establish a good claim, even if all the property has been distributed, this will be a case to be considered for compensation out of public funds. I do not believe that we can go much further than that, and I hope that the noble and learned Viscount will withdraw the Amendment.
4.59 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I have listened with the greatest care to the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont. I am afraid that I interrupted him a good deal, but it was in order to get clear what he was saying. Discussion on this Amendment has covered a wide field and I do not think the House regrets it. It has led to the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, making a very important statement about matters which are not the subject matter of this Amendment, although I referred to them in passing in moving the Amendment. It concerned the position with regard to claims against this property by former owners, or the heirs of former owners. The noble Lord said that these individual properties were not covered by the Agreement. I do not see anything in the Agreement which draws a distinction between the property of individuals and the property of other juridical persons. But the noble Lord said—I took down
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his words—that nothing would be done for two years in relation to assets not covered by the Agreement. That is a fairly indefinite phrase.
I should like to ask whether it means this—I think from what he said later it does, but he rather changed his language. Does it mean that there will be a two-year period in which anyone can come forward and claim to be entitled (I leave out the word "owner" for the moment) to property in the hands of the Custodian, and that he will get it back? I am dealing first of all with the Custodian. Does it mean that within the next two years any individual who can show that he is entitled to property in the hands of the Custodian will get it back? The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, nods his head. So much for that one. Then one comes to the question of the claims against the property which is not vested as yet—what the noble Lord called the unvested assets. That presupposes that they are to be vested. If they are vested in the Custodian, then I for one welcome that assurance.
Let me now pass from that, because that is not really the subject matter of this Amendment. The noble Lord then went on—and, I thought, was quickly looking for a few lifebelts—to deal with the question of legal title. I endeavoured to draw the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor on this earlier. I think anyone who expressed a firm opinion as to the precise operation of the statutory powers of the Custodian in relation to ownership of the property would be hazarding quite a little. So I am not disappointed at not getting a very positive reply upon that point. But the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, went so far as to say that when the legal title went to the Custodian—that is to say, after a vesting order—the Custodian became the owner. That may be the view of the Government now, but it is quite inconsistent with the Explanatory Memorandum which was published on the Bill when it first appeared in this House, because that said:
"This Bill makes provision for the disposal of property"—
I leave out the irrelevant words—
"of persons formerly resident or carrying on business in one of the Baltic States".
If the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, is right, then that Explanatory Memorandum is

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quite wrong. It should have made provision for the disposal of what was formerly property of those persons and is now the property of the Custodian, but it very carefully did not do so. I leave that on one side. I hope that at some stage we shall have the benefit of the views of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor upon that matter. I now come back to the—
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, is not the noble and learned Viscount making a mistake against which we always warn our first-year students? I refer to the difference between physical objects—what is described as "property"—and the ownership of those objects? The introductory phrase to which he has just referred is obviously referring to the assets, and not to the ownership of them. I should have thought that was as plain as a pikestaff.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I do not think I have made a mistake. I recognise that if I had been one of the noble Lord's pupils the chances would be much greater of my having done so. But I will leave that. May I come back to the point of the £30,000 and £40,000 which is the subject matter of this Amendment? We were told that assets of that value were reported to the proper authorities as long ago as 1941. No vesting order was made at that time under the Trading with the Enemy Act. We have that from the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor. Those assets were then frozen under a Defence Regulation, and that Defence Regulation was revoked in 1951.
The point with which the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has not dealt is that powers to freeze those assets disappeared completely in 1951 because the Defence Regulation went and no action had been taken tinder the Trading with the Enemy Act. What is now proposed is that the Trading with the Enemy Act should be brought into operation as if these people were now technically enemies and there were now a state of war, for the purpose of enabling the Board of Trade to do in 1969 what they could have done in 1951, what they did not do in 1951 when they made the vesting order in relation to the other assets. But we are given no explanation of the omission except that there were various reasons for it which
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were incidental, accidental or something of that sort. That does not satisfy me.
We were also told that these assets are now under the control of the Board of Trade. I wonder how they come to be under the control of the Board of Trade. That has not been explained to us. The fact remains, as I see it from what the noble Lord has said in dealing with the £30,000 to £40,000 worth of assets, that they are assets which, unless we give this power in subsection (2) of Clause 1, cannot be vested in the Custodian of Enemy Property. So far as I can see, they are assets which should not now be vested in the Custodian of Enemy Property, and it is no justification for the noble Lord to say, "Oh!, we are going to vest, because they are covered by the agreement made with the Soviet Union." What fears does that arouse? If the Foreign Office had made an agreement with the Soviet Union that they would deal with property of other individuals in this country, I suppose that the justification for taking power to dispossess the owners of that property would be, "Oh!, we have made an agreement with the Soviet Union to do that." I cannot regard that as right. I cannot regard it as right to take this extra power. Therefore, if my noble friends agree I shall seek to divide the House.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, before the noble and learned Viscount sits down, may I say this? If he still insists that it would be wrong ever to vest this property which is at present unvested—or at any rate so much of it as formerly belonged to individuals and was not claimed by the Russians—I see no insuperable objection to assuring the House that the £30,000 to £40,000 will remain outside the purview of this Bill. But all this means is that it will probably remain for ever in some hank vaults.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, the noble Lord has spoken again and, with the leave of the House, I should like to reply. If these assets remain in the banks, people who claim ownership of them can establish their title in the courts. But if they are vested in the Custodian it is all at the discretion of the Treasury. I cannot see any justification now for taking them away from the banks where the owners had them and putting them in the hands of the

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Custodian. We cannot really carry on this discussion any further under the rules of a Report stage, but if the noble Lord has now said that he will be content to take this £30,000 to £40,000 out of the Bill and not let it come within its scope, the best and most effective way of doing that is by carrying this Amendment. But I should not object to a provision being inserted in the Bill—and, fortunately, there is time to do it—dealing with the Custodian's title to the assets now in his possession, which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said was the
main object of this provision. I am sure that that could be so worded. Cutting out this subsection does not stop that. I have spoken again with the leave of the House, and I have listened with the greatest care to the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, but I feel that I must ask the House to support me in excising these words.
5.10 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 84; Not-Contents, 71.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Fortescue, E.

Poltimore, L.

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Goschen, V.[Teller.]

Polwarth, L.

Airedale, L.

Gowrie, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Atholl, D.

Grenfell, L.

Rathcavan, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Gridley, L.

Rea, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Redesdale, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Hampden, V.

Rennell, L.

Bessborough, E.

Hawke, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Horsbrugh, Bs.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Howard of Glossop, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Carrington, L.

Howe, E.

St. Helens, L.

Clwyd, L.

Hylton-Foster, Bs.

St.Oswald, L.

Conesford, L.

Ilford, L.

Sandford, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Inglewood, L,

Sandys, L,

Craigavon, V.

Jessel, L.

Somers, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Lambert, V.

Stonehaven, V.

Cromartie, E.

Lansdowne, M.

Strang, L.

Daventry, V.

Lauderdale, E.

Strange of Knokin, Bs.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Mancroft, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Derwent, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Strathclyde, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Merrivale, L.

Swinton, E.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mersey, V.

Teynham, L.

Dudley, L.

Meston, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Dundonald, E.

Molson, L.

Vivian, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Wade, L.

Essex, E.

Moyne, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Falmouth, V.

Newton, L.

Wedgwood, L.

Ferrier, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Younger of Leckie, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Morrison, L.

Archibald, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Moyle, L.

Arwyn, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Noel-Buxton, L.

Balogh, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Beswick, L.

Hall,V.

Pargiter, L.

Blyton, L.

Helsby, L.

Phillips, Bs. [Teller.]

Bowles, L.

Heycock, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Boyd-Orr, L.

Hill of Wivenhoe, L.

Popplewell, L.

Brockway, L.

Hilton of Upton, L. [Teller,]

Raglan, L.

Burden, L.

Hughes, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Burton of Coventry, Bs.

Jacques, L.

St. Davids, V.

Carron, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Serota, Bs.

Chalfont, L.

Latham, L.

Shackleton, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Champion, L.

Leatherland, L.

Shepherd, L.

Chorley, L.

Lindgren, L.

Silkin, L.

Collison, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs.

Sorensen, L.

Crook, L.

McLeavy, L.

Stocks, Bs.

Denning, L.

MacLeod of Fuinary, L.

Stonham, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Maelor, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Mais, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Francis-Williams, L.

Mitchison, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Trevelyan, L.

Williamson, L.

Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L.

Walston, L.

Willis, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Wilberforce, L.

Wise, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
5.18 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE VISCOUNT DILHORNE moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 41, leave out from first ("property") to end of line 44.
The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, I can move this Amendment quite shortly. It is to leave out all the words after the word "property" where it first appears in line 41 on page 2 to the end of the subsection. This particular clause of the Bill, if I understand it correctly, purports to make amendments to the Enemy Property Act 1953, and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said in Committee that one of the reasons for the restriction of the scope of this particular section of the Act was to ensure that there would be no claims by corporations to be owners of any of the assets involved. That is why, while the right to claim by corporations was extinguished, the right of individuals to claim under the Enemy Property Act that their property really was not enemy property at all and ought to be returned to them was preserved. On that, there was a question about partnerships which was not answered last time, and perhaps in the course of dealing with this Amendment the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, if it is he who is going to deal with it, will say something about the position of partnerships and which side of the line they come, because the word "individual" will cover individuals, and "individuals", I should have thought, would have covered a partnership.
My Lords, this Amendment is to leave out the words:
"and any such property or proceeds (except as aforesaid) recovered by virtue of those subsections between that date and the passing of this Act shall be re-transferred or repaid, as the case may require".
That date was January 5, and, so far as I can see and understand, those last words of the subsection enact, or will enact if included in the Bill, that any property which has been recovered by someone on the ground that it was not enemy property, if it was recovered between January 5, 1968, and the date of
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the passing of this Act, has then to be re-transferred or repaid, as the case may require, back to the Custodian.
That struck me, when I read it, as extremely odd. In column 617 on the Committee stage on February 13 I asked a number of questions about it; and it was again referred to in column 639. I referred to these words and I read them out. After I had read them out, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said, in column 639:
"At the moment there is not any",
meaning, as I understand it, that at the moment, February 13, 1969, there had been no claims made in respect of these assets under the Enemy Property Act 1953 which had resulted in the recovery by the owners of their property; and therefore, there not having been any such claims, there would be no question of repayment under the concluding words of this subsection.
If that be so, what is the case for these words at all? I do not understand why they are wanted. It seems to me impossible, there having been no such claims under the Enemy Property Act 1953, that there will be such a claim established before this Bill is enacted as to make it necessary to insert in the Bill a provision that the proceeds of a successful claim before this Bill is enacted shall be retransferred. I cannot think it is necessary; and even if it were, I should be inclined to think that it was wrong; because under the provisions of the Enemy Property Act 1953 a successful claim under Sections 3, 4 and 5 of that Act will be on the basis that the property ought never to have been dealt with as enemy property at all. And if the person concerned can establish that, it does not seem to me that there can be much ground for providing in this Bill that after it is enacted, notwithstanding the fact that he has established that it ought not to have been treated as enemy property at all,, he has to repay it or hand it back to the Custodian. It seems very odd; and if the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, said that he wanted to look at it again I would not press this Amendment. At the moment I see no useful purpose

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served by these words and I hope that he will agree that it will improve the Bill to leave them out—bearing in mind, as the noble and learned Lord said, that there is no recovery of property under the Enemy Property Act 1953. I beg to move.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I add my plea that the noble Lord in replying will deal with the question whether the words "on behalf of an individual" cover partnerships, because I think I am right in saying that under the Interpretation Act "individual", singular, covers the plural. I cannot quite see why the words "on behalf of individuals" which is what they mean when you consider the Interpretation Act do not include partnerships. I understand from something that was said in an earlier debate that the Government were under the impression that they did not.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, before replying directly to the noble and learned Viscount and his strictures on the necessity or otherwise of these words in the Bill, perhaps I could deal now with the question which has been asked before during the passage and process of this Bill and twice to-day: that is, the question whether partnerships are individuals for the purpose of this Bill. Here again I am giving hostages to fortune by trespassing on what is clearly legal ground; but as I understand it the position is this. The majority of businesses claimed by the Soviet Union were companies but there were others which were more in the nature of what we would call partnerships. In the course of the negotiations that led to the Anglo-Soviet Agreement, the Soviet delegation told us across the table that as they understood it the local law on partnership in each of the regions concerned had the effect of making a partnership a juridical person. So, my Lords, the reply to both noble Lords, as I understand it, is therefore that in most cases it would appear that the partnership property was not the property of the individual partners. But if it was the property of the individual partners, the provisions of Clause 1(5) would not apply by reasons of the saving, of the exception, contained in that subsection.
My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot agree with the noble and learned Viscount
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that the words which are the subject of this Amendment are unnecessary in the Bill. There has not been very much discussion of these words in either House until now; and I think I ought to make it clear that the purpose of these words is to ensure that no part of the assets which we think ought properly to go into the Compensation Fund for distribution to claimants on our side is lost as a result of applications for the recovery of property before the Bill passes into law. I think that so far we are on common ground. It remains the case, as the noble and learned Viscount has said, that between January 5, 1968, and the present time—which now becomes to-day instead of the date which the noble and learned Viscount quoted—no property or proceeds of property have been recovered by virtue of Section 3(4) of the Enemy Property Act 1953 or, so far as we are aware, under subsection (5). Of course, an application could still be made to the Custodian; and it may be, as I have already explained to the House on an earlier Amendment, that in some cases the title of the Custodian to particular assets may not in some cases be perfect or may be defeasible by reason of the provisions of the 1953 Act to which I have referred. So, if an application were to be made in such a case between now and the passage of the Bill into law the Custodian would be placed in a very difficult position. He has to apply the law as it stands now—
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt. Would the noble Lord confirm—and this is very relevant to the argument—that subsections (3), (4) and (5) will provide only for the recovery of property which has wrongfully been treated as enemy property? That has a great deal of bearing on the issue here.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, the real point at issue here, if I may suggest it to the noble and learned Viscount, is this. If any claim of any kind is made between now and the passage of the Bill—and no claim has been made up till now—it is possible, as I have said, that the title of the Custodian may prove to be imperfect; the title may be defeasible. Therefore, whatever the reason for the claim, he might find himself in a very difficult position. What we are here concerned to do is, I think, in effect, to exclude the possibility of a Soviet State

385
trading enterprise, or some other Soviet interest, as well as a creditor of the dissolved Baltic company for example, recovering any part of the assets.
So far as the Soviet interests are concerned, the justification for this, as I have suggested before, lies in Articles 2 and 3 of the Agreement of January 5, 1968. That is why that date is contained in Clause 1 (5). By Article 2 of the Agreement the Soviet Government undertook, on its own behalf and on behalf of Soviet persons, physical and juridical, not to pursue further claims which it had advanced during the negotiations. Article 3 recognises the right of the Soviet Government to dispose of former British assets in the Baltic States, and of course in the ceded territories, in order to settle the claims of Soviet nationals which it had put forward. Clearly, then, the Agreement justifies, in our view, our excluding claims from Soviet interests. This seems to me entirely logical and defensible. As regards creditors of dissolved Baltic companies, British creditors of those companies will, of course, be entitled to claim in the distribution to be made by the Foreign Compensation Commission.
If we were to accept this Amendment and leave these words out of the Bill—I ask the noble and learned Viscount to accept this—there would be a risk that assets might be lost to the compensation fund which in the light of the Soviet Agreement, whatever noble Lords opposite may think about it, should be included for the benefit of claimants on our side. The fact that no applications for the recovery of property have been made to the Custodian since January 5, 1968, does not necessarily mean (I know that the noble and learned Viscount will appreciate this, especially in the light of the publicity that it is still, and increasingly, getting) that applications will not be made in the remaining weeks before, as I hope, the Bill becomes law. We think that this possibility, however remote, is one that it is prudent to guard against. My advice to the House, therefore, is that the risk will certainly be increased if the words which are the subject of the noble and learned Viscount's Amendment are deleted from the Bill. I hope, for these reasons, that the noble and learned Viscount will not press the Amendment.
5.33 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, no doubt the noble Lord has been fully briefed on this, but of course he was briefed before he had heard the argument advanced for the deletion of these words, and the brief which he has does not answer the point I sought to make. If I may—I do not want to prolong this discussion—I should like to deal quite shortly with what the noble Lord said. First of all, when you are construing an English Act of Parliament and the meaning to be attached to the word "individual" in Clause 1(5), you cannot do that according to the meaning given in Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia to the word "partnership". Therefore, while I am not seeking to quarrel with what the noble Lord is intending to achieve, I say to him that if he wants to make sure that partnerships are excluded, that ought to be clearly provided for in the Bill. It should not be left in doubt and to possible litigation. I seek to impress that on the noble Lord, because it does not suffice to say that the Russians—or whoever it may be—have said that a partnership in Lithuania has a corporate identity of its own.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, may I say that the explanation I gave was simply by way of background, and was not intended in any way to be any kind of explanation for this interpretation. Of course, in the light of what the noble and learned Viscount has said, we will have another look.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord. There is no need for there to be controversy about that: we simply want to get it clear.
With regard to the other point, what I think is essential (and if my memory serves me correctly it is the case) is that one must bear in mind that the Enemy Property Act 1953 validated, or purported to validate, all kinds of transactions of the Custodian between certain dates about the legality of which there was doubt. But Section 3(4) and (5) having validated the Custodian's actions, a right was given to the owner of property dealt with by the Custodian to recover it. My recollection is that that right was limited to the recovery of property held by the Custodian which never ought to have been regarded as enemy property

387
at all, and that the right did beyond that.
Now, my Lords, if that is so, it goes to the root of the argument in relation to this particular subsection of the Bill, because here is excluded from the operation of the Enemy Property Act Section 3(4) and (5) claims by corporations and corporate bodies. They can no longer say to the Custodian, "You have got my property. You must give it back because it never was enemy property". It will no longer be possible for them to say that if this subsection is carried into effect. But an individual will be able to say, "Yes, you have got my property. It was not enemy property at all and you must give it back". That I quite see is the effect of the first part of this subsection. Then we come to the extraordinary words, bearing in mind the position. It is not the case that any claim made to the Custodian before the passing of this Bill will operate. The words which my Amendment seeks to leave out are words which provide for the repayment, or re-transfer, of anything handed out by the Custodian to some claimant, on the basis that it was not ex hypothesi enemy property at all. And power is taken, to get that property, which was not enemy property at all, back into the hands of the Custodian.
What is the justification for that? The noble Lord says, "Oh, it is property which was within the scope of the Agreement with the Soviet Union". But, my Lords, surely that property was property which could properly be described technically, at one time at any rate, as enemy property. So it really will not do to try to relate this particular subsection to the terms of this Agreement with the Soviet Union. And the matter gets even more curious because it is not a question of barring all claims: this is providing for the recovery or repayment of that which has been paid out by the Custodian; and he has paid out nothing.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, may I ask whether the noble and learned Viscount has possibly overlooked one fact in his argument which I think may be crucial? It is that Section 3 of the Enemy Property Act applies not only where property was not enemy property, but also where, for any other reason, a
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vesting order was not valid. What I am saying is that there may be other reasons I why a title is not valid, and it is not only for reasons to do with whether or not property was enemy property that Section 3 of the Enemy Property Act applies. If the noble and learned Viscount agrees with that, I think it is relevant to this case and explains the need for those words in the Bill.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, regarding the first part, I have not a copy of the Act with me as I had last time, and now I am speaking from recollection. I will certainly look at that Act. No doubt the noble Lord has been reading the Act, or has advice as to the terms of its provisions. But it does not seem to me, even if that is so, that it justifies the last words, the subject of this Amendment, because it is not the case that you have to bother just about claims made against the Custodian—there have not been any.
Let us see what is going to happen. Let us assume that we take these words out of the Bill and that there is going to be a claim. There has not only got to be a claim, there has to be a payment by the Custodian, or the transfer of some property; and the Custodian has to do that before this Bill reaches the Statute Book. I do not think that the noble Lord is telling me that the Custodian would act with such speed that there is no need for this provision. I am sure that the Custodian does not act as quickly as that, but I think this is going far too far. This does not seem to have much practical content. We know that there are no claims and we know that no claims are likely to come and, if they did, that quite a long time would be taken to investigate them. I would be content if the noble Lord said that he would look at this again and I would not press this Amendment now. I would be quite willing to talk to him about it. But I think that these words are unnecessary and otiose, even in the light of the arguments he has advanced. If he is prepared to say that he will consider this Amendment again, I will ask leave to withdraw it, but if he is not prepared to do so I feel that I should have to press it, because at the moment I am not satisfied with the case he has put forward.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for that suggestion. Of course, I am always prepared to reconsider things so long as the Bill is in your Lordships' House. I cannot hold out very much hope to the noble and learned Viscount that we shall change our view about this. I have said that there have not been any claims but I believe, and I must advise your Lordships, that there is a risk that there might be and that as a result of these claims the Custodian, because a certain vesting order was not valid, might have to pay out some money. We think that that money should not be removed from the assets for distribution by the Compensation Commission. It is all very well for the noble and learned Viscount to say that the Custodian could impose an administrative delay until the Bill was enacted, but surely this is not what these words are about; they are designed to eliminate that risk. I do not believe that it would be right and proper to seek to eliminate that risk by the imposition of administrative delays by the Custodian. But in the circumstances, since the noble and learned Viscount has offered to discuss this matter, although I do not hold out much hope that we will change our view on it, I will undertake to look
at it again and to discuss it with him before the next stage of the Bill.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I have now been handed a copy of the Enemy Property Act. Subsection (4) begins,
"If at the time of the dealing the property was not enemy property …"
I do not see anything in subsection (5) of the Act which goes beyond that. I made that offer, but I am not entirely happy about what the noble Lord has said. He is willing to consider anything and everything—he has been very nice about that—but he is not holding out the slightest hope. In the circumstances, I think it would be better to take these words out and then the noble Lord can consider again whether some alternative form would not be more appropriate than a form which gives power to re-transfer or repay money to which someone might establish a title but to which no one has done so at the present moment. I think that the best thing to do is to take these words out.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 3) shall he agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 66; Not-Contents, 69.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Falmouth, V.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Ferrier, L.

Poltimore, L.

Atholl, D.

Fortescue, E.

Polwarth, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Rankeillour, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Gowrie, E.

Rathcavan, L.

Bessborough, E.

Grenfell, L.

Rennell, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Gridley, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Carrington, L.

Hawke, L.

St. Helens, L.

Clwyd, L.

Horsbrugh, Bs.

St. Oswald, L.

Conesford, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Sandford, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Hylton-Foster, Bs.

Sandys, L.

Craigavon, V.

Ilford, L.

Selkirk, E.

Craigmyle, L.

Inglewood, L.

Somers, L.

Cromartie, E.

Jessel, L.

Stonehaven, V.

Daventry, V.

Lambert, V.

Strange of Knokin, Bs.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Lansdowne, M.

Strathclyde, L.

Derwent, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Swinton, E.

Dilhorne, V.

Molson, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Dundonald, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Vivian, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Moyne, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Essex, E.

Newton, L.

Wedgwood, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Brockway, L.

Collison, L.

Archibald, L.

Burden, L.

Crook, L.

Arwyn, L.

Burton of Coventry, Bs.

Denning, L.

Balogh, L.

Carron, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Beswick, L.

Chalfont, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Bowles, L.

Champion, L.

Francis-Williams, L.

Boyd-Orr, L.

Chorley, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs.

Scrota, Bs.

Garnsworthy, L.

McLeavy, L.

Shackleton, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Gifford, L.

MacLeod of Fuinary, L.

Shepherd, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Maelor, L.

Sorensen, L.

Hall, V.

Mais, L.

Stocks, Bs.

Heycock, L.

Mitchison, L.

Stonham, L.

Hill of Wivenhoe, L.

Morrison, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Hilton of Upton, L. [Teller.]

Moyle, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Hughes, L.

Norwich, V.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Hunt, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Walston, L.

Huntingdon, E.

Peddie, L.

Williamson, L.

Jacques, L.

Phillips, Bs. [Teller.]

Willis, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Winterbottom, L.

Latham, L.

Popplewell, L.

Wise, L.

Leatherland, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L.

Lindgren, L.

St. Davids, V.

Wynne-Jones, L.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Clause 2 [Amendments of Foreign Compensation Act 1950]:
5.50 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 3A:
Page 3, line 24, leave out subsection (4).
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 3A, and in doing so must necessarily invite your Lordships to consider Amendments Nos. 5 and 6, the other Amendments standing in my name. The first Amendment, No. 3A, proposes to leave out subsection (4) of Clause 2 which was put in on Committee stage at the instance of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, and which gives a right of appeal by way of case stated to the Court of Appeal on any question of law relating to the jurisdiction of the Commission. This provision will be replaced by subsection (2) of the new clause. The second Amendment is consequential and is no more than drafting.
As to Amendment No. 6, subsection (1) of the new clause replaces subsection (4) of Clause 2 of the Bill as brought from the House of Commons, which would have enabled an Order in Council to confer power on the Commission to determine any question as to the construction or interpretation of any provision with respect to claims falling to be determined by the Commission included in any order made under Section 3 of the Foreign Compensation Act 1950 after the passing of the Bill. Subsection (1) differs from the former subsection (4) only in itself conferring power on the Commission to determine any such question of construction or interpretation instead of
392
leaving the power to be conferred by Order in Council. In the light of the new right of appeal conferred by the new clause there appears to be no useful purpose in leaving the new powers to be conferred on the Commission to be dependent on the making of an Order in Council.
Subsection (2) enables any person aggrieved (within the meaning of subsection (6)) by any determination of the Commission on a question of law relating to the jurisdiction of the Commission, or on any question as to the construction or interpretation of an Order in Council, to require the Commission to state a case for the decision of the Court of Appeal. Unlike the subsection which was added in Committee, the right of appeal conferred by subsection (2) covers not only questions relating to the jurisdiction of the Commission but also those relating to the construction or interpretation of an Order in Council following on the power conferred by subsection (1). This is necessary because the Commission may be concerned not only with questions of jurisdiction properly so called but also with questions of construction of the Orders in Council under which the Commission operate. The two categories will be mutually exclusive, in the sense that if the Commission have no power to decide a question of construction, the question will then be one of their jurisdiction—as, for example, whether the Commission had power to determine a claim which is alleged to have been made out of time.
Subsection (3) defines "determination" so as to include provisional determinations and anything purporting to be a determination. There is no reference in the Act of 1950 or the present Bill to a provisional determination,

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but Rule 38 of the Foreign Compensation Commission Rules 1956 (as amended in 1964) provides that all determinations of the Commission are to be provisional and subject to review, although there may not be more than one review of any determination. It is necessary to include in the definition of "determination" anything purporting to be a determination in order to avoid the possibility of any appeal to the courts in future (apart from the new right of appeal conferred by the clause itself) on the ground which succeeded in the Anisminic case; that is to say, that the Commission's decision was in no sense a determination, but, being made wholly without jurisdiction, was a nullity. It is not, however, intended to interfere with the power—which was recognised as existing before the decision in the Anisminic case—to impeach a decision of the Commission on the ground that it was given in breach of the rules of natural justice; and this position is preserved by subsection (10).
It will be open to a person aggrieved to require the Commission to state a case either on a provisional determination or on a final determination, but if he appeals against the decision on the provisional determination it ought not to be open to him to appeal again on the final determination of the same matter. This is dealt with by subsection (4) the effect of which is that where the Court of Appeal has decided a question on a provisional determination the Commission cannot be required to state a case on a final determination of the same question.
Subsection (5) enables a person aggrieved to ask the Commission for a written statement of the reasons for their determination, but the Commission are not obliged to state reasons except in a case in which the question at issue is one of jurisdiction or of the construction or interpretation of an Order in Council. Subsection (6) defines the persons who may request the Commission to give their reasons or to state a case for the Court of Appeal as being the claimant and any person appointed by the Commission to represent the interests of any fund out of which the claim would be met; that is to say, the Commission's legal officer appointed for that purpose. Although it
394
is no doubt unlikely that the legal officer would ever wish to appeal against a determination of the Commission, it seems difficult, if a right of appeal is to be conferred at all, to deny it to the person appointed to represent the interests of other claimants besides the one who may fall to be benefited by a decision of the Commission allowing his claim.
Subsection (7) prescribes the time limits within which a request to furnish reasons and a requirement to state a case must be made. The Commission will have power to disregard a request for reasons unless it is received within four weeks from the date on which the Commission send notice of the determination, or such other time as may be provided by the Commission's rules. A requirement to state a case may be disregarded unless received within eight weeks from the date on which the Commission give notice of their determination or within four weeks from the date on which the Commission state their reasons (if reasons are asked for), whichever expires last, or within such other period as may be provided by Rules of Court. Although the Commission will have power to entertain a request or requirement which is not made within the time specified, the intention is that the time limits should be strictly adhered to in order to avoid undesirable delays. Subsection (7) deals with the same matters as those to which Lord Dilhorne's Amendment to page 3, line 28, is directed.
Subsection (8) provides that no appeal to the House of Lords will lie from a decision of the Court of Appeal on a case stated. Subsection (9) makes it cleat that, apart from the right of appeal conferred by the new clause and from the right to take proceedings in respect of any breach of natural justice, no determination of the Commission is to be called in question in any court of law. This subsection corresponds with Section 4(4) of the Foreign Compensation Act 1950. The effect of subsections (11) and (12) is to confine the new right of appeal to determinations of which notice is given after the Bill comes into force, leaving other determinations to be dealt with by the law as it stands at present. I felt bound to address your Lordships on those three Amendments together because, as your Lordships will understand, they all hang together. My Lords, I beg to move.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I am sure that the House is grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for his clear exposition of the effect of this new clause, which contains no fewer than twelve subsections. I am not only grateful to him for that, but very grateful indeed to him for tabling this Amendment at all. I am sure it makes a great improvement to the Bill. In passing, may I say that the length of this new clause indicates what I feared was correct: that the Amendment drafted by me and my noble and learned friend Lord Wilberforce, which is now embodied in subsection (4) in a matter of three or four lines, would not satisfy Parliamentary Counsel at all. It has now grown to twelve subsections and the effect is, so far as I can see, to carry out what we hoped would be done and to make that effectual and work all right. I am glad that it has been possible for the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to reach this conclusion. I think it will be a considerable improve-to the Bill.
I hope the noble and learned Lord will not mind my saying that I am glad we managed to defeat the Government in Committee and to carry the Amendment which is now in subsection (4), for if we had not done that perhaps we should not have seen this Amendment on the Order Paper in the name of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I think that that is a useful function of this House, a proper function of this unreformed House, a function which may not be so easy to discharge in a reformed House. Here it is a question, not of getting into conflict with another place, but of giving the Government another opportunity of thinking the matter over, and on this occasion of thinking it over and reaching a conclusion which I am sure will meet with acclaim from all sides of the House. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor.
LORD DENNING: My Lords, I should like to say just one world of gratitude to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor because this Amendment shows that the Tribunal will not be a judge in its own cause. The case is to be stated on a point of law, but only to the Court of Appeal and no further. This
396
is a most useful precedent, not only for this Foreign Compensation Bill but I hope in other spheres of the law, too. It is a precedent which might well be followed elsewhere. I would make only one further small point. The Tribunal need not give its reasons in all cases, but only in a limited class. It rather reminds me of the case when Lord Mansfield gave some advice to a new Judge. He said, "Give your decision but never give your reasons, for your decision may well be right but your reasons are almost certain to be wrong". I wish the Tribunal was compelled to give its reasons in all cases, as is generally done under the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1958. But that is only a comparatively minor matter. I must say, on behalf, I think, of all the profession, how grateful we are that this Amendment has been put down by the Lord Chancellor.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, if I may have leave to speak again, the noble and learned Lord has stimulated me to say that this is a point on which some lawyers feel strongly. As I have explained throughout, it does not matter in the slightest to the Government which way the matter is decided. They do not stand to lose anything; they do not stand to gain anything. If anybody has lost it will be the claimants, who will have lost by the extent in time it will take to distribute the money among them if there are appeals. If anyone has lost financially it will be the claimants, because the Fund will be diminished by the amount of the costs to which the Commission themselves may be put. But, as I have said, this is a point on which there are different views and on which the Government have pointed out throughout that the outcome does not matter in the slightest to them.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have already addressed your Lordships on Amendment No. 5, which I now beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 29, leave out ("said Act of") and insert ("Foreign Compensation Act").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have also addressed your Lordships on Amendment No. 6, which I now beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 2 insert the following new clause:
Determinations of the Foreign Compensation Commission and appeals against such determinations
".—(1) The Foreign Compensation Commission shall have power to determine any question as to the construction or interpretation of any provision of an Order in Council under section 3 of the Foreign Compensation Act 1950 with respect to claims falling to be determined by them.
(2) Subject to subsection (4) below, the Commission shall, if so required by a person mentioned in subsection (6) below who is aggrieved by any determination of the Commission on any question of law relating to the jurisdiction of the Commission or on any question mentioned in subsection (1) above, state and sign a case for the decision of the Court of Appeal.
(3) In this section "determination" includes a determination which under rules under section 4(2) of the Foreign Compensation Act 1950 (rules of procedure) is a provisional determination, and anything which purports to be a determination.
(4) Where the Court of Appeal decide a question on a case stated and signed by the Commission on a provisional determination in any proceedings, subsection (2) above shall not require the Commission to state and sign a case on a final determination by them of that question in those proceedings.
(5) Any person mentioned in subsection (6) below may, with a view to requiring the Commission to state and sign a case under this section, request the Commission to furnish a written statement of the reasons for any determination of theirs, but the Commission shall not be obliged to state the reasons for any determination unless it is given on a claim in which a question mentioned in subsection (2) above arises.
(6) The persons who may make a request under subsection (5) above or a requirement under subsection (2) above in relation to any claim are the claimant and any person appointed by the Commission to represent the interest of any fund out of which the claim would, if allowed, be met.
(7) Any such request or requirement must be in writing, and—

(a) any such request may be disregarded unless it is received by the Commission within the period of four weeks beginning with the date on which the Commission send notice of the determination in question or such other period as may be provided for by or under rules under section 4(2) of the Foreign Compensation Act 1950; and

398

(b) any such requirement may be disregarded unless it is received by the Commission within the period of eight weeks beginning with that date or the period of four weeks beginning with the date on which the Commission send a statement of reasons for the determination in question, whichever expires last, or within such other period as may be provided for by or under rules of court.

(8) Notwithstanding anything in section 3 of the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 (right of appeal to the House of Lords from decisions of the Court of Appeal), no appeal shall lie to the House of Lords from a decision of the Court of Appeal on an appeal under this section.
(9) Except as provided by subsection (2) above and subsection (10) below, no determination by the Commission on any claim made to them under the Foreign Compensation Act 1950 shall be called in question in any court of law.
(10) Subsection (9) above shall not affect any right of any person to bring proceedings questioning any determination of the Commission on the ground that it is contrary to natural justice.
(11) Subsections (2) to (10) above shall not apply to a determination of the Commission of which notice was sent by them before the passing of this Act.
(12) Section 4(4) of the Foreign Compensation Act 1950 (which makes provision corresponding to subsection (9) above) shall not apply to a determination of the Commission of which notice is sent by them after the passing of this Act."—(The Lord Chancellor.)

BETTING, GAMING AND LOTTERIES (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
6.8 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This is a simple amending Bill which amends two points of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963. These amendments are set out in the Explanatory Memorandum attached to the Bill. As noble Lords who have studied the Bill will have seen, it amends paragraph 14 of Schedule 3 to the Act, which provides that a licensing authority must fix the same betting days for the whole of its area. The Bill provides that a licensing authority shall fix betting days for each licensed track within its area, instead of for all the tracks in the area. The second point is that paragraph 3(a) of Schedule 5 to the Act fixes the amount which the

399
operator may deduct from the amount staked on the totalisator at not more than 6 per cent. The Bill confers power on the Secretary of State to alter this percentage.
To take the points in that order, the 1963 Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act consolidated the 1934 Act. It was the 1934 Act which determined that all the greyhound tracks in the same licensing area should race on the same days. The licensing area is a county council area or a county borough council area. The 1934 and the 1963 Acts provide for a maximum of 104 racing days in a licensing year and the licensing year runs from July 1 to June 30. The amendment proposed by this Bill would not change the 104 days but would enable the racecourse to choose its own days, subject of course to the present requirements that racing may not take place on Sundays, Good Friday or Christmas Day. This arrangement would ease the burden of direct competition of the racecourses against each other, particularly in the large county boroughs, such as Manchester, Birmingham, the conurbations of Liverpool, the West Riding of Yorkshire and the Greater London Area. Since Parliament, in its wisdom, has made provision for betting offices to be open on every day of the week except Sundays and for bingo and gaming to take place with very little restriction as to the days on which they operate, I submit that it is fair that greyhound racing should have some slight easement of the existing control.
Perhaps I may now turn to the second point. In 1934 Parliament was anxious to control the amount of profit that might be made from betting in any medium, and imposed a limit of 6 per cent. as the maximum which could be deducted from the turnover on the totalisator for operating expenses. Taking into account all the arguments that were advanced in 1934 for fixing the figure at 6 per cent., it must be realised that there has been a fall in the value of money since that time—and if that is an understatement, it is the understatement of the year. There is no provision in the 1963 Act (which of course consolidated the 1934 Act) whereby the figure of 6 per cent. can be altered, save only by another Act of Parliament. It is proposed that the 6 per cent. , should
400
be retained, but this Bill gives the Home Secretary power to alter this figure by statutory regulation from time to time if he is satisfied that such an alteration is justified.
At this late hour I do not wish to detain the House by giving too many details or a great number of figures. It will be sufficient to say that this is an enabling amendment, subject to the Home Secretary's being satisfied—and I wish to stress this—that such an alteration is justified. It may be that the amendment as worded is not completely to the satisfaction of the Parliamentary draftsmen. It is always difficult for anybody outside that very restricted field to put an amendment into language which satisfies any Parliamentary draftsman, and if that be so in this case I shall be only too happy to consider any other wording, or even to promote Amendments, when we come to the Committee stage. I ask that the Bill should be given a Second Reading, subject of course to your Lordships having the opportunity, when it conies to Committee stage, to consider any Amendments which it may then be thought necessary to put forward. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Lindgren.)
6.13 p.m.
THE MINISTER or STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, I hope that it will be helpful if I intervene at this early stage to indicate the attitude of the Government to this Bill. But first I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Lindgren for the clear and persuasive way in which he has introduced a subject which may be unfamiliar to some Members of your Lordships' House and, indeed, is of some complexity. What we are discussing this evening are two aspects of the control of greyhound racing which were first imposed by the Betting and Lotteries Act 1934, and the effect of these on the current financial affairs of the greyhound industry.
If my memory serves me aright, greyhound racing, in the form we know it to-day, first came to this country over forty years ago and in its early days it was, I believe, the runner-up to horse-racing. More recently it has become the poor relation. In 1948 total attendances were 25 million a year, and totalisator

401
receipts were over £94 million, but by 1967 they had dropped to under 10 million attendances and a turnover of £70 million. In real terms, this drop is of course much more than £25 million, because, as my noble friend Lord Lindgren said, of the decline in money values and the fact that in the same period expenses have greatly increased.
As my noble friend Lord Lindgren has indicated, the scope of this Bill has been limited, on the advice of his advisers, to just two proposals. The first is to ease restrictions on the freedom of tracks to choose days when betting shall take place, and the other is to allow the permitted deduction from the totalisator—which is now, and always has been, 6 per cent.—to be made variable by regulation. Both these matters are still governed by legislation passed over thirty years ago which, in turn, was based on the recommendations of a Royal Commission of 1933. I think your Lordships will agree that the legislation passed then related to different circumstances from those prevailing today. Much has changed since then, especially (and some of us regret this) the social attitudes to betting and in the open betting which the law now countenances. For instance, there are 15,730 betting shops. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that in the 1930s, when different conditions prevailed, a comparatively repressive view was taken of betting.
It is well known to your Lordships that I am not, and it is safe to say that I never shall be, a supporter of betting, but I hope that I shall always be an opponent of injustice. It is for this reason that I readily concede to-day that the two restrictions dealt with in this Bill are ripe for removal. Not only is the greyhound racing industry to-day the poor relation of horseracing but it is also struggling in competition with other forms of betting and gaming which are not hampered by similar restrictions or the same expenses. In saying this I have not forgotten what I said less than two weeks ago in this House about the effect of the extension of facilities for lotteries. But I venture to suggest that the present proposals, relating to a form of sport long recognised, which involves the breeding, training and racing of magnificent thoroughbred animals and which involves no small exercise of skill in selecting the winners, is readily distin-
402
guishable from a lottery which depends on no more than a chance dip in a hat.
Thus far, I hope that I have shown that the Government's attitude to this Bill is benevolent. But I am afraid that I must now sound a note of warning. The effect of relaxing the two restrictions as proposed in the Bill differs in each case. As my noble friend Lord Lindgren has already explained, the first would mean that the days when racing took place would be determined by reference to individual tracks, and not to all those in one local authority area. Although overall the number of meetings will not be increased, it will mean more days racing, on different tracks, in one area. I want to make it quite clear that I do not think in equity there anything that can be said against my noble friend's proposal to grant greater freedom in this respect to the greyhound tracks, but I must ask whether his proposal is the right way to remove this restriction.
I say nothing about the proposal to take power to vary the statutory limit of 6 per cent. by regulation, but in judging the effect of my noble friend's other proposal we are bound to stop and consider the possible consequences for those living in the vicinity of several tracks, and it is the case that there are local authorities with more than one track in their area. Are there any objections which might arise on the ground of general neighbourhood amenities? I think your Lordships will agree with m e that no matter how well conducted these tracks are—and tracks under the aegis of the Greyhound Racing Association are well conducted—meetings cannot pass unnoticed by people in the neighbourhood.
While, therefore, I have sympathy with the objects of the Bill, I should be less than candid if I did not warn your Lordships that the Bill does not adequately deal with all the necessary consequential amendments which must be made if we agree to remove the requirement that all tracks in an area must race on the same day. These may be said to be mainly practical difficulties, but in considering how to right them it will be necessary for the Government to look at wider policy issues as well. If these restrictions are to be removed, therefore, we need to look closely into how the proposed amendments will work in practice.

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With the present pressure on Parliamentary business I cannot, I am afraid, hold out any hope that the services of Parliamentary draftsmen could be made available to look at what has to be done, or that time could be made available by the Government in another place. I am not saying to my noble friend that his Bill as drafted is not viable. What I am saying is that in order to satisfy what I I think are legitimate and proper concerns some amendment would be necessary, and I cannot offer the services of Parliamentary draftsmen, or indeed offer that Government time could be made available in another place, So, to sum up, I must advise the House that while the Government are in general favourably disposed towards the principles of my noble friend's Bill, we do not regard it as satisfactory in its present form.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the 6 per cent. deduction on dog race tracks is the same deduction as for horse racecourses?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the deduction on the Tote for horse racing is higher.
6.23 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, from this side of the House we should like to start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, for his exposition of the purpose of the Bill, welcome Her Majesty's Government's benevolent attitude towards it and hasten to add our support. It is some thirty years, back in the 'thirties, when I last had any personal experience of greyhound racing. It was the Slough track which I was interested in, as I was at the time spending a little time at an educational establishment not far away. But I do not think it requires any experience of this sport to be convinced by the noble Lord's arguments that the two amendments proposed are basically sound. It is surely reasonable to allow this measure of flexibility for the local authority, the licensing authority, to choose on which day of the 104 days on which there can be racing, racing will in fact take place on each of the racecourses for which they are responsible. I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, carried me with him when he pointed out that there are people living in the
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vicinity of two greyhound racing tracks. I should like to know where there are two tracks close enough for racing on each of them to have an effect on the amenities.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, may I deal with that question now? There is, for example, the Greater London Council, and the Inner London Council, too.
LORD SANDFORD: I will not pursue this matter further at the moment, because it is really a case which has to be presented by the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, but I suspect he will be able to count on my support on this point. Furthermore, is it not true that although this flexibility has been introduced under the Bill, it will be up to the local authority to control the different days on which racing takes place, and the kind of amenities which the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is anxious about fall within their purview. So much for that point, With regard to the second point, about the increase of the percentage, I think both noble Lords have fully made the case that an increase is now justified, and it is my own personal feeling, which I think will be shared by other noble Lords throughout the House, that Parliament can now safely leave to the Home Secretary the adjustment of this percentage whenever it is necessary.
6.27 p.m.
VISCOUNT WARD OF WITLEY: My Lords, may I intervene for one moment. I must declare my interest in that I am the President of the Greyhound Racing Society. I did not mean to intervene because I felt that I was too close to the business. I do so now only to express to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, the hope that he will not allow the point he made about amenities to interfere too much with his blessing for the Bill. I am advised that the only tracks which are likely to be near enough to each other to give rise to the objection which he has mentioned are Clapton and Harringay. I think those are the only two. There is no other in the country which fits the bill of the objection which he has raised. I should like to take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, for his presentation of the Bill. It is quite a simple measure, but it will, I feel, go a long way to help an industry which is going through a very difficult time and is likely to face even greater

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difficulties in the future unless something is done to help it.
6.29 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, If I may have permission to speak again, I count myself as extremely fortunate in presenting this Bill, because I think there can be few occasions on which a Minister who says he knows nothing about it is prepared to support it, and when it is supported from the other side by a minister of the Church of England who admits at least that in the distant past he had some connection with a track in the Slough area.
Because of the late hour I did not expand what I would have said. Of course these tracks are lungs in an area, and most of them are, I agree, in densely populated areas. But because of the cost of running a track, and because there is so much profit to be made from property development, many of the tracks up and down the country (I think there have been about 30 or 40 in the last few years) have simply gone out of existence. These tracks are not only lungs in thickly populated areas but are in fact sporting arenas used for other sports. If I may take just two cases, one is the White City and all that arises in the White City. I am not going to be too dogmatic about it, but I read in the Press a little while ago that the White City was being sold for property development. Then there is that great sporting stadium at Wembley. Wembley could not exist on the basis of seven, eight or ten international football matches in a year. The revenue arising from such events could not by itself carry the costs, the rates and all the rest of the expense arising in the Wembley Stadium. That stadium is really carried by the dog race track.
I agree that if there is an area in which two tracks are close together some nuisance may arise, and Parliament has every right to protect the ordinary citizen who is not of the sporting type against interference with the amenities of the area in which he resides. The noble Viscount, Lord Ward of Witley, referred to two tracks which he considered were close together, Clapton and Harringay.
VISCOUNT WARD OF WITLEY: My Lords, I am sorry: I did say "Harringay" but I meant Hackney.
LORD LINDGREN: Clapton and Harringay would be a little closer together. But what I was going to say is that the average fellow who lives near Harringay Stadium would rarely get over to Clapton, or even to Hackney. I repeat what I said in my first speech, that I am quite prepared to consider Amendments to the Bill, and if it is possible to obtain some expert assistance of people to prepare the Amendments, then I will do it. I ask that your Lordships be good enough to give this Bill a Second Reading this evening in order that we may go forward to the Committee stage, to see what can then be done.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

EGGS (PROTECTION OF GUARANTEES) ORDER 1969
6.33 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I beg to move that the Eggs (Protection of Guarantees) Order 1969, a copy of which was laid before this House on February 20, 1969 be approved. The reason for making the 1969 Order is a technical matter: it is to clarify the provisions of Article 7 of the 1968 Order, and the new Order makes no other changes in the provisions of the 1968 Order except for small drafting amendments in Articles 4 and 5.
Article 7 of the 1968 Order enabled an authorised officer to require any person engaged in certain types of egg business to produce on demand books, accounts and records relating to the purchase and sale of eggs. It was pointed out by the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments of another place that Article 7 of the 1968 Order as drafted did not say explicitly that the books, accounts and records to be produced should be those which were in a person's possession and control. I am told that, in practice, the only records which authorised officers would ask for are those in the possession or control of the person to whom the demand was addressed. Nevertheless, it was felt that possible doubt should be removed. This Order does just that.
Articles 4 and 5 of the 1969 Order also show small drafting amendments. In Article 4 the opportunity has been taken to put in slightly more elegant words to

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meet a point made by, I understand, a Member of this House when the 1968 Order was before the Special Orders Committee. My Lords, I hope you will agree that we need not discuss the other provisions of the 1969 Order, since they are the same as those in the 1968 Order which we debated very recently in this House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Eggs (Protection of Guarantees) Order 1969 laid before the House on February 20 last be approved.—(Lord Beswick.)

THE CASE OF P.C. LUCKHURST
6.35 p.m.
LORD WILLIS LORD WILLIS rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will now reconsider their decision not to appoint an Independent Committee of Inquiry into the case of ex-P.C. Frederick Luckhurst. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name. I should like briefly to remind your Lordships of the background of this rather disturbing and worrying case. I ask your Lordships to cast your minds back to May 7, 1966, when it was reported to Iver police station that a bank overnight bag containing £139 had been lost. The following day, between 9.30 a.m. and 10.30 a.m., a Colonel Matters of Langley, in Buckinghamshire, found a night safe bag containing a sum of money. He promptly reported the matter by telephone to a local police station. A policeman then called at the house, it is said, collected the bag and returned the following evening in plain clothes (that is to say, with a sports jacket over his uniform trousers) to tell the Colonel that the wallet had been handed in and that it contained a sum of £40. We are discussing in this case a bag which was alleged to have been lost—it has never been proved—a bag that was found and was alleged to have contained £40, but was never produced at any moment at all in evidence.
Seven weeks later, Colonel Matters made inquiries about this money and the bag and learned that no bag had been handed in at any station. As a result of his complaint an official investigation was started. P.C. Luckhurst was
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one of the police officers who was questioned about the incident. He had been on duty at the time. But he denied all knowledge of the matter, and gave a detailed account of his movements. The next thing that happened was that he was required to take part with nine other local officers, all of whom were in uniform, and one of whom was a sergeant wearing stripes, in an identification parade.
Colonel Matters and his wife were asked to attend the parade, to see if they could identify the police officer who was supposed to have called at their house on two occasions, once to collect the wallet, and later to inform them that it had been handed in and that it contained £40. Colonel Matters walked down the line, said he was not sure, and then asked for the caps to be removed. He walked along the line a second time, and still was not sure. A third time, and still he was not certain. Then he stood back and pointed to P.C. Luckhurst. Mrs. Matters, who had the same opportunities of meeting the policemen as her husband, did not identify Luckhurst at the parade. It was only later, in the magistrates' court, that she did so. For that is the next scene in this story.
Immediately after the identification parade, within a few moments, P.C. Luckhurst was taken into the charge room and charged, solely on the basis of this identification, and sent for trial. On September 29, 1966, he was sentenced to prison for this offence. He was 38 years old at the time, with a wife and three children, and he had been a policeman for 10 years. Prior to this he had been a soldier in the Hussars for seven years. Neither as a soldier nor as a policeman had there been any stain whatsoever on his character. Luckhurst was advised that there was no ground for an appeal against conviction. Nevertheless, he filed an appeal and his brother and other relatives and friends provided limited funds. The appeal was rejected, although the Lord Chief Justice in his judgment referred to the "considerable difficulties or improbabilities" that arose in the prosecution's story.
My Lords, that is the background of this case. Simple it seems, perhaps, and straightforward. I do not think so, otherwise I should not be speaking on this matter now. In my view, in the view of

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the Police Federation, in the view of independent assessors and investigators there were many alarming and serious irregularities during the investigation of this case, and in its presentation at the trial, which seriously prejudiced the position of Luckhurst. Dr. Ronald Sampson, in a lucid summing up of the case, put the matter as follows:
"It is not necessary in English law for the accused to prove the certainty of his innocence. It is necessary for the prosecution to prove its case beyond ali reasonable doubt. In this case, the accused was denied the benefit of the doubt in instance after instance. In this case, the prosecution was given the benefit of the doubt in instance after instance."
My Lords, let me outline a few relevant facts, all of which were established at one time or another. The crucial features which supply evidence of guilt are as follows: first, that the accused should have access to knowledge which would enable him to commit the crime; secondly, that he should have the opportunity to commit the crime; thirdly, that he should have an adequate motive. Let us take the first point, access to knowledge which would enable the accused to commit the crime. Colonel Matters said he rang Langley police station to report his finding of the wallet. But as a matter of fact, right up until the trial Colonel Matters was quite uncertain as to which police station he had rung, because there were four police stations locally, each one of which he could have telephoned, and he decided that it must have been Langley only just prior to the trial. If he did ring Langley police station at the time he said he did, Luckhurst could not have taken the call reporting that the wallet had been found because he was at home taking his midmorning break. The man on duty who took the call, if such a call was made, was a P.C. Smith. But P.C. Smith has always denied taking such a call, and there is no official record of it at Langley police station.
However, the simple fact that Luckhurst was not there to take the telephone call, if it was made to Langley station, did not deter the prosecution at all. They came up with an explanation—and obviously it could be the only one possible—that P.C. Smith was somehow involved in this case. In fact, at the appeal hearing the Lord Chief Justice said:
It was always the prosecution's case that Smith was in it …"
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from the beginning. Yet, my Lords, Smith was never charged. He is still a serving police officer. He was the chief defence witness, who stuck stoutly to his colleague, yet his evidence was attacked by the prosecution, who plainly suggested that he was in collaboration with Luckhurst in this crime. He has, in effect, been accused but never charged, and has never been given an opportunity to clear his name. Why did the prosecution suggest that Smith was involved? Quite simply, the implication was that when Luckhurst returned to the station after his mid-morning break, Smith told him of the telephone call from the Colonel, and the two men then conspired together to steal the wallet.
The next question is this. Given that Luckhurst was told about the wallet by Smith, did he then have the opportunity to call on the Colonel and collect it and steal it? Not according to the investigation that was conducted later by a solicitor for Luckhurst in company with several police officers. The fact is that on that particular morning, when the information was laid by the Colonel that he had found the bag, when Luckhurst returned after his mid-morning break lie was immediately ordered by the sergeant on duty to take a Commer van—one of those large ones with a flashing light on top—and, with P.C. Smith, to drive to a local quarry and dispose of two unclaimed scooters. That conjures up all kinds of visions, which I will not go into at this stage.
However, they did this. The records, the route, everything, was checked by a solicitor with the aid of the police stop-watched and checked by an inspector of police. Those tests showed that the journey took 90 minutes and, therefore, that Luckhurst and Smith could not have deviated from their route, and could not have called on the Colonel and collected this wallet. These tests proved beyond doubt that the times and mileages as entered were correct, and certainly it is quite clear that it would have been impossible to forge the entries over those mileage meters, and so on. One would have thought that the police themselves in an inquiry of this nature would have taken the very simple step of making this test themselves with the Commer van to see whether Luckhurst's story held water, but they did not. It was only later

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that Luckhurst's solicitor got the collaboration of the police in carrying out these tests prior to the appeal, and that evidence was never allowed to be given at the hearing of the appeal.
My Lords, you might think, on the basis of all this alone, first that Luckhurst had no knowledge of the telephone call unless Smith told him; and, second, that if he did have knowledge in some way he certainly did not have the opportunity to steal the wallet. You might think that the prosecution case had about as much weight as a stick of candyfloss, and about as much significance. But there are many more disturbing facts on which I should like to touch briefly.
First, Colonel Matters was quite firm about the fact that the policeman who called upon him to collect the hag arrived in a car. But it was proved at the time, as I have indicated, that Luckhurst had access only to a Commer van, a large and conspicuous vehicle with a flashing light. Mrs. Matters, the Colonel's wife, in evidence at the trial referred specifically to Luckhurst's hair style. She said she had been almost sure about Luckhurst during the identification parade because he had a receding hair style which she remembered vividly. She was quite firm about this, and she said that Luckhurst was the only officer on the parade who had receding hair. Yet when Chief Inspector Hall, who was in charge of the identification parade, was questioned by the Deputy Chairman at the trial, he stated quite firmly and clearly that while Mrs. Matters was present at the parade the officers were wearing their headgear and did not uncover their heads while she was there. How could she tell that he had a receding hair style? Mr. Luckhurst is in the gallery to-day, and if any of your Lordships have an opportunity to see him you will be quite clear on one point: that if he was wearing a police hat or helmet at the time, as Chief Inspector Hall swore on oath, then Mrs. Matters must have possessed X-ray vision to see that he had receding hair.
Was Luckhurst given the benefit of this very substantial doubt about the accuracy of Mrs. Matters' testimony?—and here you have a clear-cut conflict between the Colonel's wife, on the one hand, and Chief Inspector Hall on the other. Oh no; not at all.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I think my noble friend said earlier—and I believe correctly—that Mrs. Matters did not identify Mr. Luckhurst at the identification parade. She did not identify him. What he has said since then would appear to conflict with that, as if she had attempted to identify him.
LORD WILLIS: My Lords, I think my noble friend has missed the point. She failed to identify him at the identification parade; then she said in the magistrates' court that she nearly identified him because of his receding hair style, but was not sure. I think that if my noble friend looks it up he will find that is the fact of the case; and it was the receding hair style by which she said she nearly recognised him, plus his high colour, at the identification parade. But they were wearing caps at the identification parade.
Was Luckhurst given the benefit of this very substantial conflict between Chief Inspector Hall and Mrs. Matters on this very important subject? Oh, no. The Deputy Chairman told the jury, when he summed up:
"You may think the Chief Inspector was faulty in his recollection when he said that she"—
that was Mrs. Matters,—
"only saw a parade …"
on which the men had their heads covered. In other words, he did not say "The weight of the evidence is equal on both sides, and you must give Luckhurst, the accused, the benefit of the doubt", as is the basic principle. On the contrary, he came down heavily for a point of view expressed by Mrs. Matters, and virtually dismissed Chief Inspector Hall's testimony. He gave the whole weight to Mrs. Matters; he gave the prosecution, and not the accused, the benefit of the doubt.
My Lords, I turn to two other very serious aspects of the case, both of which prejudiced or hurt Luckhurst. Both deal with the handling of the investigation by senior officers of police. It is specifically laid down in the Police Act of 1964 that if a complaint is made against the police which might disclose a possible criminal offence—and they are the important words—the matter must be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions. A Chief Officer is bound, unless

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he is satisfied that no criminal offence has been committed, to send a report of the investigation to the Director. It is for the Director, and not for the Chief Constable, to decide whether criminal proceedings shall be brought. This clearly defined procedure was ignored by the Chief Officer—at that moment the acting Chief Constable of the Buckinghamshire police. Luckhurst was arrested and charged without any reference to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
I find this extraordinary. The Home Office has drawn the attention of Chief Constables throughout the country to this important part of the Police Act. But it has not done Luckhurst very much good. He was denied the safeguard provided by an Act of Parliament, and now we are rather locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. The Chief Officers of the Buckinghamshire Police were clearly wrong in this matter, for whatever reason, and yet Luckhurst, who was the one to suffer because his superiors neglected to carry out their duty, is denied any redress.
The second aspect, which also concerns police procedure, arises out of the identity parade which was held. An identification parade is never really a successful way of establishing positive evidence at the best of times—it is often just perhaps the clincher. But this particular parade was conducted with such irregularity that it amounted to a travesty of justice. Specific rules are laid down for the guidance of the police, and they have recently been reinforced by a new instruction from the Home Office. One rule is that where there are two suspects there should either be two separate identity parades, or one identity parade consisting of twelve people at least, if not fourteen, and that they should be roughly of similar appearance, age and height in the parade. Since all the men who were involved in this particular parade were local section men, all of whom might have been under suspicion at some time or another and to some extent or another, it is clearly rather ridiculous to confront a colonel, who must have seen all these officers around at one point or another, with a parade of his local section men. But in the Luckhurst case the line-up consisted of nine men only, one of whom was a sergeant wearing stripes, which effectively eliminates him and reduces
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the number to eight. Two men were direct suspects, Luckhurst and Smith, so that reduces the effective number in the line-up to six—half of the requirement.
Even with this handful, Colonel Matters found it difficult to make a positive identification. What is even more disturbing is that Chief Superintendent Strong of the Buckinghamshire police made a statement to the effect that he paraded the men solely to establish whether or not a member of that section was involved. In other words, this was a clear admission that this was not a formal identification parade at all in the legal sense. And no amount of argument can change that, because that is what he did. Afterwards it became a formal and official identification parade. A parade may not be held in order to establish one thing and then be altered round to meet the convenience of the investigating officers when it suits them. Yet it was this tragi-comedy of an identification parade which was the main reason for the arrest and trial of Luckhurst. I think there is sufficient there to indicate that I was right when I said at the beginning that this is a strange and disturbing case.
May I briefly emphasise the major points once more. First, Luckhurst was denied the protection afforded by the Police Act of 1964 when his superiors failed in their clear duty to report their investigation to the Director of Public Prosecutions and await his instructions. The Director might have decided that there was a case for trial, but it is my view—and it is the view of many eminent people who have studied the case—that on the evidence available it is obvious that he might equally have decided that Luckhurst had no case to answer. Secondly, there was the irregular and almost non-existent identification parade which again prejudiced Luckhurst. Thirdly, there were the contradictions in the evidence against him, particularly in relationship to the Colonel's statement that the police officer who called on him came by car, whereas Luckhurst only had a big Commer van. Finally, there is the mysterious question of Mrs. Matter's evidence about recognising Luckhurst by his receding hairline at the parade, when there is equally strong, if not stronger, testimony that she could not possibly have seen Luckhurst's hair during the

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parade, and did not in fact pick him out at the time.
There was then the clear and, so far as I can see, undisputed evidence that Luckhurst was not on duty at the time the Colonel telephoned and consequently, if he did steal this bag, it must have been in collusion with somebody else and that other person has never been charged and brought to trial. At the time he was supposed to have called on the Colonel to steal the wallet, he was miles away on other police duty, as has been sworn in an affidavit. Finally, there is the amazing situation with regard to P.C. Smith. On three or four occasions the prosecution alleged or implied that he was involved in the crime with Luckhurst—yet he has never been charged and has never been given an opportunity to clear his name of these damaging allegations.
Your Lordships may well be thinking: if Luckhurst did not commit this crime, who did? The answer to that I do not know, and it is no part of my purpose here to-day to indulge in guesswork. But unseemly and panic haste to accuse someone, and to accuse Luckhurst in particular, seems to have been the answer of the police to this question. What I am concerned with to-day is that a man was arrested, charged and imprisoned, his career ruined, on the basis of evidence which is flimsy, circumstantial, contradictory, biased, and often downright false. I am concerned that a British citizen has been denied that full measure of justice which is his by law and right.
The Home Office have said that they cannot re-open the case because there is no new evidence to support such action. Who needs fresh evidence when the old evidence in favour of Luckhurst is so strong, and when the old evidence against him is so full of holes? This trial is over two years old now; it is cold, and it is impossible to get anything new. I take my stand on this question on the old evidence. In any case, one cannot be altogether sure that new evidence would bring about a change in attitude. We had only last week the example of the man who had been wrongly committed to Rampton Mental Hospital nearly four years ago. Last June the Home Office were given some vital new evidence in this case, and dismissed it. It was only
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after a further inquiry, which was largely engineered by the Member of Parliament who had fought the case, that the Home Office were forced to admit that the man was innocent. I mention this not to kick the Home Office, but merely to indicate that they are not infallible, that they can make mistakes, that it does not behove them to adopt an attitude of rigidity towards these questions of justice and liberty, and that in matters where the guilt or innocence of a human being is at stake nobody, least of all a Government Department, can afford to adopt an inflexible attitude.
What have the Home Office got to lose by an independent inquiry? If it confirms the findings of the court, then they are vindicated. If it does not and Luckhurst is found to be innocent, then they have served the cause of justice and earned all our thanks. There was an official police inquiry, the report of which has never been published. Luckhurst has never seen it; his counsel has never seen it, and we do not know what is in it; and we shall not be allowed to know, for these reports are private and privileged. Therefore, I want to see an open, independent inquiry, made up of people who have no connection with the police and who can assess the evidence objectively. Without it the doubt must linger on—and not only a doubt, a suspicion also, a suspicion which may or may not be well-founded, but which I have often heard expressed in relation to this case.
It is the inevitable suspicion that there is more behind this case than meets the eye; that Luckhurst has been made the scapegoat for other people's incompetence, or worse; that to reopen the matter might cause acute embarrassment to some people; that there is some sort of cover-up going on; that the crust of the Establishment has closed over this case and hardened like concrete. It may be shocking to hold or to voice such a suspicion, but we all know that this sort of thing has happened before and will probably happen again, human nature being what it is. Human beings can do strange things when they are forced into a corner. The Home Office can clear away any such thoughts, doubts or suspicions by agreeing to the appointment of an independent inquiry.
I have not touched on the question of motive and, in conclusion, I should like

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to do so briefly now. No motive was ever established against Luckhurst. He was not in any debt, his character and integrity was unquestioned, and he liked his job. There was absolutely no reason why he should jeopardise all this by stealing the wallet. There was no evidence that he had been spending extra money and none of the money was found on him or in his house—according to the evidence I have studied—while no trace of the bag was ever found. Moreover, he is not a stupid man. If he was the officer who called on Colonel Matters and collected the wallet and if he did decide to steal it, why on earth should he call back the following evening and give the Colonel one more look at him? He must have known that Colonel Matters would follow the matter up later. Why, therefore, would he expose himself to identification in this way? Why commit larceny so clumsily?
It would be easy, perhaps, for Mr. Luckhurst to try to put all this behind him, to move from the area, to make a new life, forgetting the past and its injustices. But he has not taken the easy way, because he is one of those strange, curious and stubborn men who sometimes spring up in this country, who happens to think that his good name and his reputation are important. From the first moment he was accused until the present day he has not ceased to proclaim his innocence. He has had the backing of all kinds of organisations, including 11 police constables in Slough who signed a statement professing his innocence, which was never admitted in court: an independent investigator, Chief Superintendent Brennan, has sifted through the evidence and come up with largely the same points as I have indicated to-day; and eminent lawyers have expressed their concern about the case.
Luckhurst has put himself into debt, pawned his future prospects, in order to fight his case and to establish his innocence. Guilty men do not do that; they take their punishment and creep away, secretly accepting the verdict of society. He has refused to take the easy way. He maintains, with extraordinary optimism, in view of his circumstances, an abiding faith in British justice, and is convinced that even if it takes twenty years it will eventually clear his name.
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Shakespeare, as always, had the words for it, words for this sort of situation, when he said:
"Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed."
This may appear to be a very small issue in comparison with great world issues like Vietnam, Nigeria and the balance of payments. But it is not. It is something that strikes at the roots of the British tradition of law and justice. I beg the Home Office, I beg the Government, to end this attitude of inflexibility, to give this man at least the chance of clearing his name before an independent commission of inquiry.
7.4 p.m.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, we have good reason to be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for putting down this Question, for by doing so he performs a public service. I say that because this case is concerned not solely with the fate of one man but with the administration of justice which, to be justice of truth, must be seen to be such. This case is so full of doubts that I think it is impossible for any impartial observer to be convinced that justice was done, and I say that without taking any stand on any belief in the guilt or otherwise of the man concerned. This is simply a question of how the matter was handled. The noble Lord confined his speech almost entirely to facts. All I can do, without being a nuisance to your Lordships, is to underline a few of the facts, and perhaps elaborate them slightly.
At the Court of Appeal, the Lord Chief Justice said that there were,
"considerable improbabilities in regard to this case if it were to be established that Mr. Luckhurst was guilty of the offence charged."
But having said that, he then said (I am quoting from the New Law Journal of February 22, 1968) that the converse view, that Mr. Luckhurst was innocent led to equal if not greater improbabilities.
"In effect, therefore, Mr. Luckhurst's conviction appears to have been upheld or a balance of improbabilities, and the balancing factor was undoubtedly the incompatibility of his innocence and his identification by Colonel Matters at the Langley police station parade."
What in fact was the evidence which convicted Mr. Luckhurst? It was the

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identification at that parade. The noble Lord, Lord Willis, has drawn attention to numerous irregularities in the way in which that parade was carried out. Those are technical matters with which I shall not concern myself. But I invite your Lordships' attention to the rest of Colonel Matters's evidence which brought Mr. Luckhurst to the point of trial. Colonel Matters was the man who found the bag. A bag had been lost, and we know that because somebody—an unidentified person—reported it as having been lost. It has never been seen and, so far as I know—although I may be wrong—the evidence that it was lost has not been corroborated.
I think it was the next day that Colonel Matters reported to a police station that he had found it, though I do not know that his finding it was ever corroborated either. He then handed it over in the evening of the same day to a policeman. The fact that he handed it over has been corroborated by nobody, certainly not by the police. The bag was never received at any police station. Colonel Matters said that he telephoned the police station in the morning between 10.15 and 10.45. But in the words of the Deputy Chairman of Quarter Sessions what he actually said was that he thought it was between 10.15 and 10.45. He was not certain. Later in the day he said that Police Constable Luckhurst came to his house in a car—
LORD KILBRACKEN: My Lords, he did not say that it was Police Constable Luckhurst who came. He said that a police constable came.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I accept the correction of the noble Lord: it was only later that Police Constable Luckhurst was identified. A policeman came to his house in a car. But it was established that when Police Constable Luckhurst became involved he was driving a large Commer van, with a blue light on top. As the noble Lord, Lord Willis, has pointed out, Colonel Matters was uncertain which police station he had rung up. He was not uncertain only when first asked: he was uncertain throughout the committal proceedings in the magistrates' court. It was only between that appearance and the trial itself at Quarter Sessions, that he became convinced that the police station concerned had been Langley.
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That sums up the evidence on which Luckhurst was brought to trial, and I think I am not stretching the matter too far when I say that I have seldom met a collection of evidence more widely open to doubt. There is not one single item that is corroborated, and there is much in it of which Colonel Matters himself was unsure. Yet on the strength of that evidence Police Constable Luckhurst was brought into an identification parade, and was picked out only with the greatest difficulty by Colonel Matters. On the strength of that identification, he was convicted. There may have been some slight corroboration (I will come to that in a moment), but basically that is all that convicted him—that identification, carried out with great difficulty and uncertainty, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, three months (I think the noble Lord said seven weeks, but I believe that in fact it was as much as twelve weeks) after he had seen a policeman, once in the morning and once in the evening—and, incidentally, once in plain clothes. Three months later he was able to go to an identity parade and pick out a man in uniform and say, "That was the man". My Lords, is it possible to do that? Would any of your Lordships undertake to say, "That was the man"? I know very well that I would not.
On the question of whether there was any corroboration, we come to the question of Mrs. Matters and this highly doubtful matter of Luckhurst's receding hair style, as she described it. That has been disposed of by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and it was disposed of by the Court of Appeal, where the Lord Chief Justice said that Mrs. Matters's evidence was to be ignored—and surely very properly. That is all very well; but was it ignored at the trial? This was part of the evidence on which Luckhurst was convicted; and, as the noble Lord has pointed out, the Deputy Chairman in charge of the trial was at no pains to make a balance in favour of the chief inspector, who said that Luckhurst had had his cap on, and against Mrs. Matters's evidence. So I think it is fairly certain that Mrs. Matters's evidence told against Luckhurst.
Now we come to the position of Police Constable Owen Smith, who, to the best of my knowledge and belief, is still a serving policeman. As has been made

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perfectly clear by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, this was the officer who was concerned with Luckhurst throughout the material time on the day concerned. His was the evidence that supported Luckhurst. It was absolutely cast-iron evidence and it was accepted as such by the Deputy Chairman at the Quarter Sessions, who said it was perfectly clear beyond doubt that Smith had been with Luckhurst throughout the material time. Was Luckhurst guilty, or was he not guilty? If he was guilty, then surely so was Smith. But Smith has never been brought to trial, so presumably Smith is not guilty. Then why was Luckhurst convicted? My Lords, you cannot have it both ways: you cannot convict Luckhurst and allow his "accomplice" (I use this word in inverted commas) to go free and to continue in service—
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I must interrupt the noble Earl at this point. I hope we shall not start talking about accomplices. We are privileged here, my Lords, and, whatever the facts of this case, we should not use our position to cast aspersions on other people who cannot possibly defend themselves here.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I think the noble Lord has done me an injustice. I made a point of saying that I put that word in inverted commas. Perhaps I may have the noble Lord's ear. I said on purpose, having used that word, that I put it in inverted commas. I did not mean the word to be used in its ordinarily accepted sense, and that is what I intended by that. I shall explain why I did it in a moment. The last thing I wish to do is anything which would justify the very proper strictures which the noble Lord has aimed at me—and I hope he will accept that from me.
Police Constable Smith was with Police Constable Luckhurst. He was alleged, therefore—I must be very careful; he was suspected, according to the prosecution, of having had some hand in this crime. The prosecution always took the view that you could not rule Smith out of it and this view of theirs was repeated. They were stated to have held this view by the Court of Appeal. Very well; but these two men have been separated, and I think this fact alone is enough to establish the fact that there
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must have been a miscarriage of justice. It may have been a miscarriage of justice against Luckhurst. It may, and I think it a [most certainly was, a miscarriage of justice against Smith, because Smith most certainly has been accused, by implication, if no more, of being involved in a crime, and has never been given the chance to defend himself in open court. That, surely, of itself is grounds for an inquiry into the whole case.
The noble Lord, Lord Willis, asks: If Luckhurst did not commit the crime, who did? The noble Lord does not answer that question. Who can answer it? Who wishes to answer it? I certainly do not. But, my Lords, what was the crime? What evidence has been produced that there ever was a crime in the first place? I began by running over, I hope reasonably accurately, the evidence which was produced, showing that a bag had been lost, that a bag had been found and that a bag had been handed to a policeman. But where was this bag? We do not know. There are all sorts of possibilities, none of which I propose to adumbrate in any way at all. I have nothing to add but to say that I have come to the same conclusion as that which the noble Lord, Lord Willis, came to and which is represented by his Question. That is, that there is so much doubt, so much uncertainty and, I believe, my Lords, so much unease in the public mind that I think a public inquiry should be held.
7.17 p.m.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, there are nine speakers on this Unstarred Question, and I therefore propose to confine my remarks to one or two aspects only. I am quite confident that all relevant aspects will be fully touched upon by the time we have reached the end of the list of speakers. When this matter went to the Court of Appeal, as has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, the Lord Chief Justice made reference to "considerable difficulties and improbabilities". My Lords, there is nothing to find fault with in those comments when you have read some of the details of this astonishing case. I repeat what the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, said, that we are all most grateful to my noble friend Lord Willis, because

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without his Unstarred Question the case might just have gone by the board and might perhaps have been forgotten as a small matter to be shrugged off. Speaking for myself, I must admit that but for this Question I would never have known anything about it, and I imagine that a good many of your Lordships are in the same position.
My Lords, this bag was a night safe bag. It would have been locked when found by Colonel Matters. It was alleged to have contained £139. Colonel Matters, of course, would not know this, because he did not have the key, and could not have looked inside. We have Colonel Matters's word for it (and there is no reason to doubt his word) that he reported the find by telephone to the police—that is, a bag with unspecified contents. Yet there is no record of any such telephone call being received at any of the police stations in the vicinity. However, Colonel Matters again says that the bag was collected the same day by a policeman in a car, and that the next day the policeman came back again to tell Colonel Matters that there was £40 in the bag.
My Lords, it seems to me that there are two points here. First of all, why did the policeman not sign for the bag when he collected it from Colonel Matters in the first place? Secondly, if he did not offer to sign for it, why did not Colonel Matters, who, as an experienced soldier, would know perfectly well that you never hand over anything without getting a proper discharge for it, ask for a signature, from which the policeman would have been identified? P.C. Luckhurst did not go out in the car that day. He was out in a large van accompanied by another officer, P.C. Smith; but the record of the journey and the speedometer reading of this van, which performed the duty for which it was ordered out, indicated that it could not have gone near Colonel Matters's house. Why, I wonder, was it necessary for the policeman, if he were guilty—and I think this point was made by the noble Lord opposite—to make a second call on the next day to tell Colonel Matters the contents of the bag? Why could he not have made a telephone call, which is cheaper, quicker and more appropriate? And, of course, if the receipt had been obtained in the first place even that
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would have been obviated. The upshot of all these points is that P.C. Luckhurst was put in the position of performing the impossible task of proving himself innocent—which is contrary to the established principles of British justice.
My Lords, I hope and trust that my noble friend Lord Stonham—and he is my noble friend; I have every confidence in his sympathy and kindness and toleration and he knows that I have such confidence—will give the answers to a few more questions when he comes to reply. First, why was not the case referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions before P.C. Luckhurst was charged; and what action has been taken in respect of the individual who failed in his duty so to refer the case? Second, was the case of P.C. Smith ever referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions; and if so, with what result? My Lords, I ask my noble friend these two questions specifically and I expect to receive an answer to both.
I do not propose to refer to the identification parade which has been already adequately dealt with except to say that it seems to have been carried on in an exceedingly unprofessional way, to say the least of it. The accused was identified by one of two people who had an equal chance to know what he looked like—and then only at the third or fourth attempt. I am not sure whether it was at the third or at the fourth attempt. One can assess that as a 50 per cent. success if one Is generous; and that, I think, is the most generous estimate. It simply cannot, in fairness, be free from at least sonic degree of doubt.
My Lords, there is one other question that I should like to put to the noble Lord who will be replying on behalf of the Government. Who advised P.C. Luckhurst that he had no grounds for an appeal, when the whole evidence seems to bristle with doubts, the benefit of which would have been given to him? Did not the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of Appeal expressly refer to "considerable difficulties and improbabilities"? My Lords, improbabilities, yes. It seems to me, judging from what I have read of this case, that it is improbable that P.C. Luckhurst was guilty and it seems certain to me that he was not proved guilty.
7.25 p.m.
LORD FOOT: My Lords, I have been trying to foresee what sort of reply we are going to get from the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, at the end of this short debate. If he is going to refuse to agree to this proposed independent inquiry I imagine that he will rest his case in this way: he will say that where there is a case of a man having been tried according to the ordinary process of law, having been convicted by a jury, appealing against that conviction and having his appeal dismissed by the Court of Criminal Appeal, it is not the business of the Executive to constitute itself as a sort of super Court of Appeal and to interfere with the decision of the Courts. At any rate, that is the general rule and, if I may say so, I accept that entirely as the general rule. Indeed, we should be embarking on a perilous course if we were ever not to accept that that is the general rule and that it is not the business of the Executive, in the ordinary way and in the absence of exceptional circumstances, to interfere in the decisions of the Courts—and especially where the decision of the court has been confirmed by the Court of Appeal.
But, my Lords, I ask myself this question. Are there cases, exceptional cases, where it would be permissible and proper, and, indeed, imperative, that the Executive should look at a case and should, where they are satisfied, interfere with the decision of the Courts? Clearly, there are exceptions. One of them is where new evidence comes to light after the matter has been dealt with in the court of first instance and in the Court of Appeal. That we all know. And if new evidence comes to light which seems to demonstrate that the individual was wrongly convicted, then there are various courses open to the Home Office. One of them is to send back the case to the Court of Appeal and invite them, in the light of the new evidence, to look again. Another course, if they are satisfied that the man was wrongfully convicted, is to grant him the rather anomalous remedy of the free pardon. There are various ways in which the matter can be dealt with. I ask myself this question and I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, this question: are there other circumstances in which the Executive might be entitled to interfere with the decision of the Court, to this extent:
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that it should set up an independent inquiry to try to find out the real facts of the case?
Although I listened with every attention to all the criticisms that have been made, and very rightly made, of the way in which the identification parade was held on this occasion, I do not myself think, whatever impropriety occurred, that that, by itself, would be a justification for setting up an independent inquiry. There are two features of this case to which I would draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and which, I suggest, are so exceptional as to justify interference by the Executive by way of an inquiry. The first is the failure to comply with the requirements of the Police Act 1964. May I remind your Lordships that the Police Act, Section 49, says:
"Where the chief officer of police … receives a complaint from a member of the public against a member of the police force for that area he shall"—
I am leaving out the unimportant words—
"… record the complaint and cause it to be investigated …"
It then goes on to describe the way in which he shall arrange for the investigation to take place. Then subsection (3) says:
"On receiving the report of an investigation under this section the chief officer of police, unless satisfied from the report the no criminal offence has been committed, shall send the report to the Director of Public Prosecutions."
Rather curiously, it stops there and does not go on to say, as some Statutes do, that no prosecution shall be instituted without the authority of the Director. That that was the purpose of this section is put beyond any sort of doubt because this matter is dealt with, and the purpose and the meaning of the section is dealt with, in the Home Office Circular No. 21 of 1967 in which it says that where a case arises under Section 49 it is for the Director of Public Prosecutions to determine whether or not criminal proceedings shall be taken.
My Lords, I do not think it is disputed that in this case no such report was sent to the Director. He never had the opportunity of considering the papers. What is the object of requiring the report to be sent to the Director? It can have no other object, I suggest, than to ensure that before any proceedings

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are instituted against a policeman the matter shall be considered by a wholly independent authority. That can be the only purpose of the section; and it is that defence and protection which was struck out of the hands of Mr. Luckhurst by the failure of the police authority to send the report to the Director. It might well have been that the Director would have decided, looking at the papers and the report, that it would be quite wrong to put a man at risk of prosecution and conviction upon evidence so tenuous and so slender as in this case.
The other feature of this case which I suggest justifies an inquiry is the curious situation of Police Constable Smith. Nothing that I say here is intended to constitute any reflection upon him. Indeed, if one takes the view as I do, and as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, does, that Mr. Luckhurst was wrongly convicted, clearly we share the view that Constable Smith was in no way implicated in this business at all. But it seems to me (I am not going to review the facts of the matter again) to follow quite incontrovertibly that if the verdict of the jury was right and Mr. Luckhurst was guilty of this offence, clearly Constable Smith connived at the offence and was himself guilty of the same criminal offence of converting this bag and this money to his use, either as a principal or as an accessory. I am afraid that that follows most certainly. Anybody who has read the papers must agree that that is the case.
If that is so, and if it follows from the verdict of the jury, if the jury's verdict was right, that Constable Smith has committed a criminal offence, why are no proceedings brought against him? I suggest—I think it is a reasonable assumption—that the reason why no proceedings are brought against him is that if proceedings were brought they would fail, and we should then have the absurd and anomalous situation that two juries had disagreed and come to contrary conclusions on the same evidence: one jury concluding that Mr. Luckhurst was guilty and the other jury concluding that Constable Smith is innocent; coming to opposite conclusions upon the basis of exactly the same evidence.
My Lords, is that what the Home Office is worried about: that they might find
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that if proceedings were brought here, the proceedings against Smith would almost certainly fail and we should find ourselves in that almost intolerable situation? I can see the difficulty. We should all be in a hopeless position if that should result. Is that not a good argument for trying to resolve this matter by way of an independent investigation? If we are in danger of running into this trouble of having two verdicts which contradict each other, one man having gone to prison—for 12 months, was it not?—and another man acquitted and maintaining his position in society and in the police force; if we are frightened of having that anomalous result, is it not fair and reasonable, and would it not get the Home Office out of a hole, to agree to an independent inquiry and an independent investigation?
If, at the end of this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, gives us a negative answer, that will not allay all these doubts. It will not be the end of this matter; all this uncertainty will continue. There have, of course, been cases before where the Home Office has turned down an application for an inquiry. We had the dreadful experience of the Evans case. Are we going to make that mistake again? It is not to be believed that if we are turned down to-night it is the end of the matter; that Mr. Luckhurst will go home and we shall hear no more about it. We are going to hear about this until the matter has been cleared up.
7.36 p.m.
LORD FRANCIS-WILLIAMS: My Lords, I have no desire at this stage to go in detail through all the matters which have arisen in this case and which have been so excellently and clearly stated by my noble friend and by other speakers. I simply want to confine myself to making an appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham (for whom everybody in this House has the very highest respect, knowing his long experience and his deep-seated tradition of justice and kindliness) not to answer in the negative. As has been said, my Lords, a negative answer to-night is not going to end this affair. It is one of those cases—and there are many in the history of this country—which will go on and on because public opinion knows in its heart that there is something wrong; because the evidence it is asked to accept simply does not add

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up; because this charge was based on such a mass of inconsistencies that it just is not viable to ordinary common sense.
My Lords, it is a case which bristles with so many difficulties that one could go on and on reiterating them, and they have been pointed out again and again by every speaker in this debate. Inconsistencies in evidence; the startling fact, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has said, that if there had been a case brought against both the police constables you would have been faced with two different verdicts. In fact, my Lords, that is what you are faced with now, because in one instance it was decided to bring a case against Luckhurst; in the other instance, although the evidence involving the other police constable was almost identical, no case was brought. You have two verdicts: one verdict that a man's career shall be ended and, but for his own courage and pertinacity, his life ruined; and another that a man's career in the police shall go on under a suspicion but unaffected. And this inconsistency, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and as I am sure that he would agree, is something that British public opinion will find it impossible to swallow. This case will go on as a festering sore unless it is settled, in the only way it can be settled, by an impartial, independent inquiry.
It is particularly essential that where the police are concerned justice shall be done and shall be seen to be done. It is particularly essential that the public shall feel that, if a member of the police force is guilty of a crime, his uniform shall not be allowed to cover up that crime and that he shall be brought to justice. But it is absolutely vital to public confidence that the public shall also be aware that justice is done to the police force itself, and that when a member of that force is suspected of a crime every precaution is taken to ensure that he gets true and proper consideration and adequate justice. Manifestly, there was a failure all along the line in this case.
One other thing is important—enormously important—to the proper conduct of justice and police administration in this country; that is, that members of the police force shall themselves feel that if they fall under the shadow of suspicion they will receive fair treatment and a fair
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examination of their case. There surely can be nothing more damaging to police morale, which it is so important to sustain, than for the message to go out that a police constable of fine record and of known good character can appear to be "railroaded", as in this case, on the flimsiest and most contrary of evidence. So I appeal to my noble friend to wave away all the temptations of bureaucracy which I have no doubt are assailing him, and have assailed him ever since this case came up, and to stand in your Lordships' House and, with that honesty for which we all honour him, agree that the case for an independent investigation has been made out.
7.44 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, like the other speakers I want to thank my noble friend Lord Willis for raising this matter tonight. In one sense I am sorry that there have been any other speakers than my noble friend himself, as it seemed to me that he made such a strong case that what he said should be much more in the mind of my noble friend the Minister when Ire comes to reply than any of the remarks which other speakers may have made.
I am concerned in this case because Frederick Luckhurst was a police constable at Langley, which was in my constituency. He lived just outside my constituency at Iver, and because I did not want to trespass on the political territory of another Member of another place I did not take up his case publicly. But I did take it up privately, and for this reason. Among the ordinary men and women who live in Langley, among those who come to my political surgery on a Saturday and among the members of the police force in Slough itself, I found an absolute conviction after the sentence was passed that ex-P.C. Luckhurst was not guilty. I think it quite extraordinary, in view of the fact that the Buckinghamshire Police should have brought this prosecution, that eleven colleagues of ex-P.C. Luckhurst in the Slough Police Force should have signed a document stating that in their view he was innocent of the charge which was brought against him.
Because I want to take my own advice and not divide too much what my noble friend Lord Willis said at the beginning from the reply which the Minister will

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make, I will only say that when I was led to consider this matter, as a result of the extraordinary public feeling in Langley and Slough, there were two questions which were most prominent in my mind and I hope that when he comes to reply the Minister will be able to make a statement on them. I was first influenced by the fact that the Buckinghamshire Police did not refer this complaint to the Director of Public Prosecutions, as required by Section 49(3) of the Police Act 1964, and because they did not do that, ex-P.C. Luckhurst was denied the opportunity of having his case considered by an independent authority before it was brought to court.
The second consideration which was in my mind, and which has been referred to by other speakers, was the unsatisfactory composition of the identification parade. I think it is always doubtful whether evidence by identification parade should be taken as so absolute as it is, and if one looks at the composition of this particular parade, one honestly could not have a feeling that it was any guarantee of the truth of the charge. And if one reads the transcript of the proceedings, one finds that almost the entire case for finding ex-P.C. Luckhurst guilty was identification at this parade.
I want to say just two more things. First—and I do not think that anyone has yet said this—I find it extraordinary that the Police Federation should have asked for a judicial inquiry. It is almost unprecedented on the part of the Police Federation to declare an opinion upon such a matter, because the charge against ex-P.C. Luckhurst was brought by the Buckinghamshire Police. That the Police Federation were so convinced of the justice of having some reconsideration of this case and should have declared themselves in this way, though members of the police force were concerned on both sides, seems to me good evidence of the strength of the case which noble Lords who have spoken tonight have tried to set out.
The last thing I want to say is this. I ask my noble friend the Minister to consider our request for an inquiry, not only for the sake of ex-Police Constable Luckhurst but for the sake of Police Constable Owen Smith. He complained that some-
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one was doing an injustice. I put it to the Minister that unless there is an inquiry it is the Home Office which will be doing Police Constable Owen Smith an injustice, and for this reason: that Police Constable Owen Smith in the court gave evidence which corroborated in every detail the defence of ex-Police Constable Luckhurst. I do not want to make a charge, because I think ex-Police Constable Luckhurst was innocent. I therefore think that no charge can be made against Police Constable Owen Smith. But I am saying that if ex-Police Constable Luckhurst was guilty, then a very serious charge in the matter of the procedure of evidence in court could be brought against Police Constable Owen Smith.
As I say, it is not only for the sake of ex-Police Constable Luckhurst that I am pleading. Police Constable Owen Smith is under a cloud. He remains in the police force, and has been removed from one division to another. That suspicion must rest on him, and it is for the Home Office, not only for the sake of ex-Police Constable Luckhurst but for the sake also of Police Constable Owen Smith, to ensure that there should at least be the opportunity for both of their names to be vindicated by the kind of inquiry for which we are asking. I join with others in making that appeal to the Minister. Indeed, I would make an appeal even above him to our Home Secretary, who has shown that he has the readiness to look at issues of this kind again and not to be bound by the kind of red-tape procedure which there has often been at the Home Office. I make my appeal both to the heart of the one and to the brain of the other, or the brain of the first and the heart of the other combined, and ask the Minister at least not to close the door this evening but to say that, having heard all that has been said in this House, he will refer it to the Home Secretary and put to him the very strong case which my noble friend Lord Willis made and which has been supported by all the speakers from all sides of the House.
7.53 p.m.
LORD KILBRACKEN: My Lords, when I observed that I was to be the last speaker on the list before the Minister came to reply, and when I saw that the six speakers who preceded me were all

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such eloquent and eminent noble Lords (in particular, I would mention my noble friend Lord Willis, to whom we are grateful for putting down this Question to-day), I felt rather afraid that by the time it was my turn to stand up I should have had to cross out just about everything that I had intended to say. But having listened with the greatest attention to all the speeches that have been made, I think I still have a number of important and relevant facts to draw to the attention of your Lordships which have not so far been raised.
We have heard a great deal about this highly controversial identification parade that was held at Slough. But one thing which has not been brought out is that this identification parade was regarded in an extremely different way by the police who were conducting it, and by Colonel Matters who was going to try to identify the culprit. So far as Colonel Matters is concerned, it is possible to quote from his cross-examination by defence counsel at quarter sessions. Mr. Laughland said to Colonel Matters:
"You knew when you went into the identification parade that the parade would contain a man or men who might be thought to have been on duty at Langley police station on the 8th May?"
Colonel Matters replied:
"Yes, I suppose so."
He was then asked:
"In other words, you thought it likely that the suspected culprit would be there on parade?"
And Colonel Matters replied:
"Yes."
The police themselves, however, were regarding it in an extremely and significantly different way, because I have here a report made by Chief Superintendent Strong in a letter to the Police Federation News Letter; and he was the senior officer at Slough Police Station on the day that the parade took place. He was replying to the charge that because there had been two suspects present at that parade there should have been two separate parades. He replied in the following terms:
"I understand from the Press that a question has been raised in the News Letter that at the time the identification parade was held there were two suspects. At that time there were none within this category."
By that he must have meant: "At that time we had no suspects." I repeat:
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"At that time there were none within this category. The officer who conducted the identification parade was in no way connected with the investigation. The precise function was solely that of establishing whether or riot a member of this police force, that is, the Buckinghamshire Police Force, was involved. For this purpose he paraded all the members of the force"—
as I shall show in a moment—
"who had been on duty at Langley and at Iver on the morning of the 8th May, 1966."
So far as the police position is concerned, on that day they were not saying, "We think we have got the man who did it here." They were merely parading all those police officers who had been on duty at Langley and at Iver that morning. And, to be quite precise, the identification parade consisted of four police officers from Langley and two from Iver who had been on dory on the morning of May 8; three police officers from Langley and Iver who had not been on duty that day; and one man from Slough making up the number. So that one can come to only one of two conclusions. On the one hand, as was said in this News Letter, there were no suspects present in this parade, in which case one has to ask: what was the point of holding a parade if the person who was supposed to have done it was not necessarily there? But if, on the other hand, anyone who was present at Langley or at Iver Police stations on that particular morning was considered a suspect, then there were six suspects out of ten people present. And whoever Colonel Matters chose, the odds were six to four on, I think, that he would choose someone who could be considered to have taken part in this crime, and then he would have been in exactly the same position as Luckhurst is in to-day, of having been identified by a responsible and respected officer and having to prove that he was not there and to prove an alibi.
The next point to consider is that Colonel Matters, believing that the culprit was definitely there, that the police had decided who they thought had done it and that he simply had to pick him out, proceeded, as he said in cross-examination, by a process of elimination. He did not try to find out, to decide, which man was Luckhurst, but decided to eliminate those who he was sure were not Luckhurst. Then he was again questioned by counsel for the defence

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and asked about his certainty as to which this man was. He replied:
"There is always room for doubt in these matters. I wanted to eliminate people who were obviously"—
and then he corrected himself—
"who I had obviously never seen before, and I eventually came down to the one person who I was absolutely certain was the man who visited my house".
Defence counsel said:
"So the process which you adopted was really, to use your own words, a process of elimination".
The reply was:
"To start with, certainly".
Then counsel asked:
"That was the process which you adopted at any rate throughout your three traverses of the line of men, was it not?"
The reply was:
"Yes".
He was then asked:
"Putting on one side this one you felt sure you had not seen before".
The reply was:
"Yes".
He was then asked:
"And then finally, at the end, having followed through that process, one was left with the accused; that is right, is it not?"
The reply was:
"Yes".
When we take into account the way in which the people, the police officers, were chosen who were taking part in this parade, which I have already adumbrated, it seems to me beyond belief that the evidence of Colonel Matters, on which the entire prosecution case virtually depended, should be considered of anything like enough value to justify conviction.
My Lords, I want to consider for a moment the evidence that was given by Colonel Matters. I do not want to cast any aspersions on that gallant officer, a retired officer of the Royal Marines. But there are some very extraordinary inconsistencies in the evidence that he gave at different times. What is noticeable about the differences is that he became progressively more definite about things that helped the prosecution, and he became progressively less definite about things that helped the defence. There are three examples. At committal the gallant Colonel was extremely doubtful whether he had 'phoned Langley.
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He knew it had been a police station with a Slough telephone number, but there were four police stations with a Slough telephone number, including Slough and Langley. But as the weeks and months went by he somehow or other became progressively more certain that it had been Langley that he had telephoned, and he said that one of the main reasons for deciding that was that it was the nearest police station to him. And it was not the nearest police station to him. The nearest police station to him was at Iver.
Then in a statement which Colonel Matters made to the police in July he definitely informed them that the officer who came in plain clothes to his house on May 9 was wearing a light coloured sports coat. But when he appeared at quarter sessions he had become extremely vague about this sports coat. He was asked:
"Can you give any description at all of the sports jacket which he was then wearing?"
Answer:
"No."
Then,
"Not even whether it was light or dark?"
Answer:
"No."
He was then asked:
"Did you at any stage give a description of the jacket to the police when they came?"
Answer:
"No."
Then,
"You did not do so?"
Answer:
"No. I said a sports jacket; I could not remember the colour or anything about it."
And yet senior police officers had taken down his statement and had testified that at the time the statement was made he informed them that this officer came in a light coloured sports coat.
Finally, there is the question of the vehicle, or vehicles, used in the two visits to Colonel Matters on May 8 and May 9. In his original statement to the police he said that the first visit was made in a police car, and the second visit in a dark coloured car. When he appeared at quarter sessions he gave extremely contradictory evidence. First of all in cross-examination he was asked, speaking about the visit on May 8:
"Do you know whether he came in a vehicle, or on foot?"

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He replied:
"I am sure he came in a vehicle."
He was asked:
"What makes you sure?"
He replied:
"I was conscious of the fact he did come in a vehicle although I never saw that vehicle."
Yet when he was being re-examined by his own counsel a few minutes later he said that he was certain it was a car on this occasion. He was asked:
"How are you certain of that?"
He replied:
"Well, through the hedge in front of my house I could see a car which had not been there before. It was there when he came to the front door."
On May 9, having said previously that a dark coloured car had brought the police constable to his front door, he was asked:
"Do you know whether he came in a vehicle on that occasion or not?"
He replied:
"I did not see the vehicle but I believe he did; I imagine he did."
I do not know what your Lordships will conclude about the imagination of Colonel Matters. Each of these three points is of particular significance because, first, of course if he did not 'phone Langley, if he 'phoned Slough or Iver or the other station or stations which have Slough telephone numbers, then no investigations were made, so far as anyone is aware, of the movements of anyone who might have taken this telephone call, or of colleagues who might have gone and picked up the bag and perhaps made away with it. No inquiries were made there at all. And so far as the sports jacket is concerned, which is a vital piece of evidence, he had first of all been quite certain that a light coloured sports jacket was being worn; and it has been proved on oath that Luckhurst did not possess a light coloured sports jacket.
Similarly, in the matter about the vehicle that was used, if the visit was, as Colonel Matters originally said, in a police car it could not have been Luckhurst, who had access that day to a Mini-van in which they drove to Slough, and then a Commer van in which they went from Slough to dispose of their scooters and a Mini-van that took them back to Langley. As to the dark coloured car, at that time he possessed a car but it happened to be coloured light blue.
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We have heard again quite a lot about Mr. Smith, and I was most interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Foot, said upon that matter. The point is not that if Luckhurst was guilty of larceny Smith must also have been guilty of larceny; it is a much simpler matter than that. It is a question of perjury, because we have Smith saying on oath in quarter sessions, categorically and without any doubt, that if the telephone at Langley police station had rung between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. on that day, May 8, it must have been he who would have answered it. Yet we have it completely accepted by the court that it was by a telephone message to Langley police station by Colonel Matters that the matter came to the attention of the police in Langley. This is absolutely undisputed, for the only way in which Luckhurst could have been involved was if a telephone call had been made to Langley; and Smith states that it must have been he who would have taken it, and he did not take any such call. If he had, he would have recorded it, and he did not record it. Therefore if Luckhurst is guilty there can surely he no doubt that even if Smith was not guilty of larceny he must be guilty of perjury and an action should be brought against him.
Similarly, Smith has said on oath in court that throughout the period from 11 o'clock to 12.45 p.m., when they got back to Langley, he was with—in the company of—Luckhurst. He has said this absolutely, beyond any doubt: "He was by my side the whole time". Perhaps it cannot be proved that he was guilty of larceny because of course he could not be identified. He did not go up to the Colonel's house (if he was there, which I do not believe he was). But if it is accepted that Luckhurst is guilty then Smith cannot have been with him all the time, and it must surely follow that Smith was guilty of perjury.
Two noble Lords have posed the question: if Luckhurst did not do it, who did? Both noble Lords declined to speculate in any way. I should like to go a little further and to say, first, that of course it could have been any off-duty policeman at any of these stations who got to know, somehow or other, that a wallet had been handed in, whether they were notified by someone at Langley or whether Colonel Matters made a mistake

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and notified somebody else. Or it could have been any officer who was on duty that morning at any police station other than Langley or Iver. However, I feel I must also say this, and I must be careful not to identify anybody. There is a police constable who was an extremely close friend of, I will say, one of the protagonists in this case, and these two had been associated in at least one extremely nefarious practice.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord, but I think he is going rather far in raising this particular matter. I think the case can stand where it is at the moment.
LORD KILBRACKEN: My Lords, I absolutely accept what the noble Lord has said. Indeed, I was in some doubt whether I should be in order in raising the matter. It is something which has appeared in the local Press and therefore is public knowledge; but if it is the feeling of the House that I should not raise it I simply will say nothing about it at all.
I have two small points to make in conclusion, and I apologise for keeping your Lordships so long. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, in particular, raised the question of why the D.P.P. was not informed when a complaint was made by a member of the public. It occurred to me that my noble friend Lord Stonham might reply by saying that no complaint was made. Therefore I should like to read out the question that was put to Detective Chief Inspector Henry Keenan in quarter sessions, when he was asked by counsel for the prosecution
"Did you say to him"—
that is, to Luckhurst—
"'A complaint has been made by a Mr. Matters …'"
and so on. Therefore, when Luckhurst was first questioned the Detective Chief Inspector made a point of saying that the action was as a result of a complaint from a member of the public.
Finally, my Lords, I want to say just this: as so many other noble Lords have said, I very much hope that my noble friend Lord Stonham will find that compassion in his heart that we all know is there and will agree to my noble friend's request. But if, by any chance, he does not do so, let Luckhurst never forget that
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tonight, in your Lordships' House, seven noble Lords stood up one after the other, and each without exception were for him and believed that a grave injustice had been done, and were prepared to stand up and say so.
8.17 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies perhaps I may be allowed to say a word or two. I do not envy the noble Lord the task of having to reply to this debate. There are many difficulties in it, but it has shown the great concern that noble Lords feel about this particular case. It is a case which is obviously a peculiar one: it has its irregularities, and there were oddities in it. But there is also the more general concern about identification which is raised—and indeed fomented—by this case. Moreover, the Police Federation has taken it up, and this is something that does not often happen.
I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will feel grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for having raised this matter, and I am grateful to him for having sent me the papers. I apologise to him for having missed the beginning of his speech. Obviously—and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will say this—we are not here to try the case all over again to-night, but he will have been impressed by the great amount of care that noble Lords have taken to collect the evidence and to bring it forward to-night. The difficulty in a case like this is that, in a way, the least said, the soonest mended. As one noble Lord has said, it would have been much easier if only one speech had been made. But then the Government could have said, "There is no real interest in this matter or pressure behind it; it is only one person batting on his own."
Here we are faced with a man of excellent character, not only in the police force but also in a famous regiment, and who is doing his best not to be robbed of that excellent character. The case has already been brought forward by seven noble Lords, only one of whom is a lawyer, and the noble Lord, Lord Foot, drew attention to the fact that in the normal way the Executive will re-open a case of this character only if fresh evidence is provided. I think the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will confirm that. If there is

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one thing that is quite clear in the House I think it is the feeling that there is some evidence missing in this case, and that is why an inquiry is needed. The whole thing does not hang together at all as it stands. There is also the fact that the prosecution was brought without reference to the Director of Public Prosecutions, and this is a matter, on which, as an immigrant from a country where all prosecutions are brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions, or at any rate by the Procurator-Fiscal in Scotland, one feels very strongly. And this is exactly why Section 49(3) is in the Police Act: to bring the situation so far as the police are concerned into line with what is required in a matter of this kind. Perhaps the noble Lord will be able to say something about that.
Then there is this question of the general concern about identification. There is no doubt that there has been a great deal of discussion in the Press about this aspect, and I would ask the noble Lord whether the way in which the Deputy Chairman of Quarter Sessions stated the law is correct. He is said to have said:
"The evidence"—
that is the evidence of identification—
"…is not evidence which has to be corroborated at all. If you accept that evidence of identification, that is evidence sufficient to support the case for the prosecution."
I should like to ask the noble Lord—and this is an important point: was there any corroborative evidence? This is important in the light of the general feeling of disquiet and concern in the country about identifications. And if there was corroborative evidence, what was it?
Because of this general feeling of concern I feel, and I would join with other noble Lords who have spoken tonight in their plea, that there is need for further inquiry, though I fully understand the great difficulty in saying what that further inquiry should be. This is one of the reasons why I hope that even if the noble Lord has been instructed to take a negative attitude on this to-night he will at least leave the matter open so that there will be an effort to see what kind of appropriate inquiry could be made into this case, to winkle out the missing pieces of this story—because there are missing pieces. If this is not done, there will be continuing investiga-
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tions of a private character. Perhaps we shall have an inquiry on T.V., as has happened on other occasions; and this would be very undesirable. It is unusual for Parliament to ask a Minister to look into a case that has been decided in the courts and has gone to appeal, but I hope that the noble Lord will feel that this is a special case and that he will be able to take special measures to deal with it.
8.25 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am fully in agreement with the noble Lord. Lord Drumalbyn, that I have a difficult task. I am in agreement with him, too, that it is an extremely difficult and very distressing case. And I agree with him in thanking my noble friend Lord Willis for bringing it to our notice again and for his speech, the sincerity and passion of it. I am sure that he will not mind if, later, I am a little critical of some of the things he said. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken but I must say at once that this debate has been unusual, in my experience unique, in that we have had a retrial. This is something in which I shall not participate. I am not here to say whether Mr. Luckhurst was guilty or not guilty; I am not trying him and I would not presume to do so. But we have had a trial with eight defending counsel, no evidence, no cross-examination, and of course the inevitable verdict. I shall deliver no verdict.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I do not think that is fair to any of those who have spoken. So far as I am concerned, I was very careful indeed not to express any opinion whatever.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: So was I.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I have listened to every single word of the debate, and virtually every speech was a rehearsal of the evidence. This is impossible to deny.
LORD WILLIS: My Lords, will my noble friend allow me to intervene? How is it possible for anybody to get up in your Lordships' House and make a case for an independent commission of inquiry into this case without drawing attention to what we consider to be defects in the

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evidence and therefore quoting that evidence? The noble Lord must not ask me to do the impossible.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I have uttered, I think, three sentences and have had two interruptions. I listened to my noble friend for half an hour or 35 minutes, and I think that it might he even for the benefit of Mr. Luckhurst if I were to be allowed to get on with what I have to say and with my view of the case.
I repeat, again, that I am not in the slightest degree trying or retrying this man, but it is my duty to state the Home Secretary's decision very clearly. And this prompts me at once, despite what my noble friend believes, to say that a great deal of what has been said to-night is irrelevant, for the reason that it was all, or virtually all, considered by the judge and jury, or by the Court of Appeal. My noble friend Lord Francis-Williams said that this man had been "railroaded". I cannot accept that a man who has been tried before a court of law and a jury, and has then gone before the Court of Appeal, which included the Lord Chief Justice, has been "railroaded". The use of such words does not, I think, help.
I know that my noble friend Lord Willis has long felt concern about this case, and I am equally aware that, apart from those noble Lords who have spoken to-night, my noble friend is not alone in feeling concern about it. This is not the first time I have seen these papers and considered them. Indeed, any disputed question which touches a man's honour and affects his whole future demands the deepest and most careful consideration, and especially in a case of a man with such a record in the service as Mr. Luckhurst. I assure my noble friend that I do not think this is a small case and I do not think it is unimportant—by no means. And it has been most carefully and closely considered—as indeed it should have been—by two Home Secretaries: Mr. Roy Jenkins and my right honourable friend the present Home Secretary, who has considered it again in the past few days. I can assure my noble friend Lord Francis-Williams that I am not in this accepting bureaucratic decisions, as he termed them. It was considered again in the light of my noble friend's Question.
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I am afraid that I must tell your Lordships that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary does not, on the information so far before him—that is, prior to this debate—consider that any further inquiry would be justified. But my noble friend and all your Lordships will. I hope, accept that this is not a conclusion which the Home Secretary reached lightly or without the fullest consideration. I would also add that this case has never been as fully debated before as it has been tonight. This case, the case for an independent inquiry, has not previously been put before us in the way that it has been put to-night; and the alleged relationship between Mr. Luckhurst and Police Constable Smith has not been put as it has to-night, except in correspondence. These are important matters which I shall most certainly bring to the attention of the Home Secretary.
I will deal first with one point, while I have it in mind, to get it out of the way. It is a point that was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. He referred to the statement by the Deputy Chairman: that in English law no corroboration is required to support evidence of identification by a single witness. The Criminal Law Revision Committee are at the moment considering the law of evidence, and of course may be expected to express views on this point when they come to report. But, meanwhile, that is the law. Before I explain the reasons for my right honourable friend's conclusion I would, at the risk of some repetition of what has been said, in some cases several times, outline briefly the main facts of the case and the results of the investigation which was made into it. I must also, again at the risk of saying some things with which your Lordships are already familiar, make clear the constitutional position of the Home Secretary—indeed, of any Home Secretary in cases of this kind. I must indicate the framework within which my right honourable friend must work, what he can do and what he cannot do.
First, as to the facts, Mr. Frederick Charles Luckhurst, then a serving member of the Buckinghamshire Constabulary, was at Buckinghamshire Quarter Sessions on September 29, 1966, convicted of stealing a bank wallet and was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment. The bank wallet was lost on the morning of May 6, 1966, at Iver. It was found the

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same morning by a Lieutenant Colonel Matters, who took it home and telephoned the police. Shortly afterwards, a uniformed police constable called on Colonel Matters and collected the wallet from him. The following day the same police constable called and informed the colonel that the wallet had been returned to the bank. Subsequent inquiries showed that the wallet had not in fact been returned but had been stolen.
At an identification parade comprising police officers at Langley police station Colonel Matters identified Police Constable Luckhurst as the officer who called upon him and took charge of the wallet. Mrs. Matters, who was also present at the parade, did not identify Mr. Luckhurst. That is why I interrupted my noble friend in the course of his speech, because at the committal proceedings Mrs. Matters did identify Mr. Luckhurst in the dock, for what that was worth; and in cross-examination she said:
"I failed to identify the man on parade because the man who came to our house had a much higher colour, and the man on parade was paler."
In cross-examination subsequently at the trial she said that she picked out Mr. Luckhurst because of his hair style, because when she saw the officers she saw them with their caps off. This, as my noble friend Lord Willis, said, is contrary to the Chief Inspector's evidence that the officers did not remove their hats.
I have quoted that only as an example, for the purpose of saying that this and virtually everything else that was said, was before the jury. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, was good enough to say, as I should have expected, that the one thing we, the Executive, cannot do is to interfere with the verdict of a court. There was evidence given that upon the morning in question Mr. Luckhurst was in the Langley-Slough area, having been sent out in a police vehicle with another officer to dispose of some motor scooters. In the view of my Department the essential issue before the jury was whether, during this journey, Mr. Luckhurst could have visited Colonel Matters and collected the wallet. I am not going to comment on that, because every word, every jot and tittle of that evidence, was before the jury or the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal against conviction, but on March
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14, 1967, they dismissed the appeal. The Court refused leave to call further evidence, apparently because they were not satisfied that there was a reasonable explanation for the failure to adduce the evidence at the trial. In giving judgment, the Lord Chief Justice commented, as my noble friend has said, that considerable difficulties or improbabilities arose on the prosecution story. But the Lord Chief Justice also said, as I do not recall my noble friend saying, that the converse produced equal if not greater, improbabilities, and he concluded that there was no ground whatever for interfering with the verdict.
Whatever one's impression of the evidence, this is a British court of law and a British appeal court. Like all noble Lords, I have often thought of a case that the evidence was thin, or possibly even, if I had had the misfortune to be on the jury, that a particular man would not have been convicted. I know that this experience comes to all of us. But what the Home Secretary has to do is to accept these matters as decided by the court, and as decided by the Court of Appeal. It was for the Court of Appeal to decide whether to hear fresh evidence on the appeal, and it is not for me to comment on their refusal to admit further evidence or on their decision to dismiss the appeal. The evidence that the Court of Appeal did not consider was among the matters subsequently investigated by Detective Chief Superintendent Brennan at the request of the Home Secretary.
My noble friend Lord Addison asked me two questions which at this stage I think I can deal with. He asked me whether Police Constable Smith's position was referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions, and, if so, with what result. It was not so referred; but it was referred to the county prosecuting solicitor. My noble friend asked who told Mr. Luckhurst that he had no grounds for appeal. I do not know; he was not told by us. Then he asked, possibly by implication: was any action taken with regard to the Acting Chief Constable? Detective Chief Superintendent Brennan thought that the Acting Chief Constable was under no obligation to treat the case as a complaint under Section 49 of the Police Act, and that while it might have been advisable to seek the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions there

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were no grounds for suggesting that the prosecution was not properly initiated. This was a point that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, put to me, and perhaps I might add here that these points were considered at the time by the Secretary of State. But he agreed with these conclusions, and on that basis there was no occasion for action against the Acting Chief Constable.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, is my noble friend saying that there was no duty upon the authorities to refer the case of Luckhurst to the Director of Public Prosecutions?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, that is what I am saying. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Foot, read out Section 49 of the Act, and if you read the words between the commas in that section you will note that if the chief officer was satisfied about this, and that the prosecution should be instituted, he was perfectly within his powers.
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, asked me whether Section 49 was complied with, and said that this of course was a question of evidence. The prosecuting solicitor advised that there was sufficient evidence to justify proceedings against Mr. Luckhurst but not against Mr. Smith, and that was the reason for the difference.
LORD FOOT: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord in order to ask this question? Is the noble Lord saying that the complaint that was made by Colonel Matters to the police was not a complaint made by a member of the public? Because those are the words used in the Police Act. If it was a complaint made by a member of the public, does not the case then fall exactly within the provisions of Section 49? If it does, then what does the noble Lord say about the circular which I quoted from the Home Office, which says that where a case arises under Section 49 it is for the Director of Public Prosecutions to determine whether or not criminal proceedings should be taken?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the point at issue here, and the question put to me and which I have answered, is whether there was an obligation in respect of this case, at that time, on the acting Chief Constable to refer the case to
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the Director of Public Prosecutions, and I am saying that there was not. The noble Lord has said that this was a complaint by a member of the public as if it was a complaint about the conduct of a police officer. But in fact the complaint was the report of a theft, and the report of a theft in which it was possible that a police officer might be concerned. That was the reason for the identification parade. I agree that it would have been better—certainly in the light of our present knowledge—if the officer taking the decision had in fact referred the case to the Director of Public Prosecutions, and obtained his advice as to whether or not a prosecution should be instituted. I of course cannot comment on what that advice might have been, but I simply say that it would have been better if that had been done.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, is this a matter of preference, may I ask the noble Lord? At the point when it was thought that the police officer was involved, was there not then an obligation to comply with the Act?
LORD STONHAM: No, my Lords; not in relation to this case. This was not just a case of, as it were, a complaint about police conduct; it was a case of an actual theft. It did not alter the fact that if it appeared—and the legal advice was given by the prosecuting solicitor—that the evidence against one individual was sufficient to justify a prosecution, the acting Chief Constable was not obliged to refer that case to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Noble Lords can dissent and shake their heads; I am telling them what I am advised, and this is what actually happened.
I wanted to go on to talk about the constitutional position of the Home Secretary, what he can and what he cannot do in a case of this kind where he receives representations on behalf of a convicted person alleging that he was wrongfully convicted. My Lords, I say that it is for the fury to decide, in accordance with the evidence before them, whether or not a charge is proved. They did so decide that it was proved, and we cannot do anything about that however much we might feel that the evidence was flimsy. Noble Lords have asked me all sorts of questions during this debate. Why did

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not the jury do this? Is it not astonishing they did not do that? But this is not a matter for me, and it is not a matter for the Home Secretary.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I am very reluctant indeed to interrupt, but is it not the case that a Home Secretary can look at a problem, and if he comes to the view that a wrong decision has been reached on matters which have been brought to his attention, he can refer the case to the judge of the court and get the view of that judge as to whether the matter should be reopened? I can assure my noble friend that I have taken up cases that have been dealt with in that way by the Home Secretary.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I really am astonished to hear my noble friend say this. I cannot accept it, and if he is not aware of the Home Secretary's constitutional position in this, what his powers are and what they are not, then perhaps he will listen while I tell the House.
The first thing is that if a case is sub judice there is no question of any kind of interference at all, by word or in any other way, until the case is tried and decided. If it goes to appeal, equally no word can be said. A Home Secretary can only take action after the appeal if there is fresh evidence, new evidence. I have not heard what I regard as a shred of new evidence in this debate to-night; nothing that was not available to the first court or to the Court of Appeal. So on those grounds the Home Secretary has no power to move. Of course, if some new evidence came up that was so strong, so convincing that there had been a mistake, that an innocent person had been convicted, the Home Secretary, without bothering about a trial, could ask Her Majesty for a pardon, as the noble Lord said. If the evidence was strong, but not convincing, he could refer it to the Court of Criminal Appeal. That power used to be under Section 19, but under the 1968 Act it is under Section 17. The Home Secretary has no power to order a retrial. He has power under the same Section 17 to refer a case to the Court of Appeal, or back to the Court of Appeal, for determination as if it were an appeal by a convicted person. If, on a reference of that kind, the court found reason to quash the conviction on grounds of fresh
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evidence, it would have power under Section 7 of the same Act to order a retrial.
These are the facts, and these are the limits of the Home Secretary's powers. Time and time again—not only since I was a Minister but many times before I was a Minister—I used to refer new evidence in cases, or what I thought was new evidence in cases, to the Home Secretary of the day for possible action tinder Section 19, and sometimes it was successful and the cases were so referred. But you trust start with something new. The Home Secretary is not a further Court of Appeal, and it is not for him to re-try a case and to consider whether, had he been the jury or had he been the Court of Appeal, he might have come to a different: decision. My Lords, this must be accepted. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Foot, at least will agree with me that this is a statement of the Home Secretary's position. I am glad to see that he nods his head.
LORD FOOT: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord again'? I entirely accept what he has said, except in one particular. Is he saying that there is only one circumstance in which the Home Secretary can intervene in the decision of the courts, and that is where there is new evidence? Is he saying that that is the only circumstance in which the Home Secretary can intervene? If that is the case, upon what does he base that statement? Supposing there has been, as in this case, a departure from the proper procedure of referring the matter to the D.P.P., would that not be a ground on which the Home Secretary might be entitled to intervene?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, in this case this matter has already been considered by the Home Secretary. It is not regarded as a point which would justify the intervention of the Home Secretary in that way. Of course this is one of the points which have been considered. If fresh evidence is brought to his notice which was not before the court of trial or the Court of Appeal then he considers whether it throws such new light on the case as would justify some special action on his part, and I have given your Lordships what that special action could be.

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My noble friend Lord Willis himself asked the question, "What new evidence? Who wants new evidence?" And I have unfortunately to reply to him: the Courts. If we are going to activate these processes, that is the answer. It is not the Home Secretary; it is not myself. It is something new that was not before the courts earlier—and could not have been available at the trial—which can be considered of sufficient importance that it might influence the Court of Appeal to take the actions open to them.
Having regard to the anxiety that has been expressed about this case the Home Secretary thought it right that there should be a full investigation, and at his request the acting Chief Constable of Buckinghamshire arranged for an inquiry to be undertaken by a senior officer from another force. This was a very senior officer, Detective Chief Superintendent Brennan, of the Birmingham City Police. This inquiry was a re-investigation of all the facts of the case and of all the points made by and on behalf of Mr. Luckhurst subsequent to his conviction. All the original witnesses were seen again and all other persons who it appeared might possibly assist with information were also interviewed. Detective Chief Superintendent Brennan furnished a detailed and comprehensive report to which were appended statements by all those whom he had interviewed. After most careful study of these documents my right honourable friend felt that he must conclude that there were no grounds on which he would be justified in recommending any interference with the verdict of the jury. He announced the decision in February of last year in another place.
I discussed this matter with my right honourable friend last week-end and he still felt that he could find no grounds for any different conclusion or for ordering any inquiry in addition to the very full investigation which has already been undertaken. In reaching this conclusion the Home Secretary has taken full account of the point put forward by my noble friend Lord Willis, that Detective Chief Superintendent Brennan's report drew attention to a number of procedural details in regard to the conduct of the identification parade attended by Mr. Luckhurst which could have been dealt with better: and, as my noble friend has also pointed out, the Home Secretary
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has now issued new advice on the procedure for dealing with identification parades, including specific advice about parades where police officers themselves are involved.
Detective Chief Superintendent Brennan's inquiry was very thorough. It is quite unfair to suggest, as indeed was attributed to my noble friend Lord Brockway in an article in the Guardian, that his inquiry was less than adequate. He had the assistance of a superintendent and of a detective inspector who were specially assigned to assist in the inquiry. Their investigation occupied five weeks, and Chief Superintendent Brennan's report included copies of all the statements, covering some 327 pages. He reinvestigated all the facts of the theft and made full inquiries into all the points raised by or on behalf of Mr. Luckhurst. These included the further evidence which the Court of Appeal declined to admit at the hearing of the appeal, the possibility of the offence having been committed by some other police officer, and the points of police procedure raised by the Police Federation.
In the course of the inquiry Chief Superintendent Brennan saw all the original witnesses, all the officers from all watches on the Langley Sub-Division, all officers on duty in the Slough Division who would have had occasion to use motor vehicles at the relevant time, as well as some other officers from different parts of the county. He also interviewed all persons who it was thought might be able to assist in any way, including Mrs. Luckhurst and the wives of other police officers and representatives of the prosecuting solicitors, the Police Federation Joint Central Committee, and the Buckinghamshire Constabulary Joint Branch Board of the Police Federation. Despite these comprehensive inquiries no significant new evidence was brought to light, and the known facts remain materially the same as they were at the time of the trial.
It is true that Detective Chief Superintendent Brennan criticised some of the procedural details in connection with the parade, but he also concluded that none of these had affected the fairness of the parade. The Home Secretary accepted that conclusion. In my right honourable friend's view it is in no way vitiated by the fact that new advice on identification parade procedure has now been issued. It

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is one thing to say that something could have been done better; it is another to say that it went so badly as to cause injustice. This, as I say, was not the conclusion reached in the case of Mr. Luckhurst. The jury were aware that Mrs. Matters did not identify him, and they must have weighed this strong point in his favour before reaching their verdict.
Another point which was put forward by my noble friend—and it was also put forward by the Joint Central Committee of the Police Federation—was that when it first came to notice that the wallet which Colonel Matters found had not been returned to the bank the Acting Chief Constable should have treated the matter as a complaint against the police. As I have said, it is true that with the knowledge of all the facts that became available as a result of Detective Chief Superintendent Brennan's investigation it would have been better had the advice of the Director been sought. But this does not mean that the prosecution against Mr. Luckhurst was not properly initiated or that he was not properly convicted. The question of his guilt or innocence was for the jury to decide. Consideration is being given, in the light of discussions which have taken place with the Director of Public Prosecutions, to the general question whether further guidance should be given to chief officers of police on the circumstances in which they should consult the Director in cases where commission of offences by police officers is alleged.
My Lords, if one takes the case from beginning to end, as my noble friend Lord Willis did, and adds up each step and each point which might have been done better and might have had an effect, the inescapable conclusion to which we have come is that, in the circumstances of the case, and failing the production of fresh evidence which was not and could not have been available at the time of the trial, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary cannot move outside the constitutional framework which must guide his actions and cannot therefore prompt action in the courts which might possibly have the effect which the noble Lord desires.
So we come back to the one point which was insistently made and which
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was in fact the burden of my noble friend's Question: that there should be an independent inquiry. I am bound to say that if there were such an inquiry it could only express an opinion, though I agree that such an opinion might be of very great value. But we are very impressed by the fact that Chief Superintendent Brennan's inquiry was very thorough, and I find it not merely difficult but quite impossible to believe that senior police officers making an inquiry as thoroughly as they did go out other than with the hope, at least, that they can honestly vindicate one of their number through their inquiries. This is the natural thing that one would expect. They certainly do not go out with the idea, as was suggested during the debate, of covering up something. Moreover, the fact that this report was not published is of no significance at all, since these reports are always confidential and are never published. They have to remain confidential.
Although it is difficult to believe that much more can be learned about this case, and although the holding of an independent inquiry is very exceptional, I appreciate the strong views of noble Lords in all parts of the House that this is a very exceptional case. I will certainly bring to the notice of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary the views that have been expressed in this debate, and leave him again to consider the position.
LORD WILLIS: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, may I ask whether he is aware how grateful I am for that last ray of hope that he has thrown out; and how grateful I am to my noble friends on both sides who have supported me on this important issue?

SALISBURY RAILWAY AND MARKET HOUSE BILL [H.L.]
Examiner's Certificate that the further Standing Orders applicable have been complied with: Ordered to lie on the Table, and Bill committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
BARNSLEY CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.