Lords Sitting of 1 May 1969

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

ANGUILLA POLICY CONSULTATIONS
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what Commonwealth Governments in the West Indies have expressed agreement with Her Majesty's Government's recent action in Anguilla; and whether there have been or will be any consultation with them in respect of British policy affecting those territories.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, the Governments of Barbados and Guyana have publicly expressed their agreement with our action in Anguilla. We are continuously in consultation with all the Governments of the Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean in respect of our policy in that area.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether any consultation has taken place with the Governments of Trinidad and Jamaica? Also, can he give some idea of the general position at the present time in Anguilla?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the Governments of Trinidad and Jamaica were informed, as were the Governments of Barbados and Guyana, as to our proposed action in Anguilla. We are, of course, in continual consultation through the High Commissioners in London as to events and development in the Caribbean.
With regard to the situation in Anguilla, I hesitate to answer the noble Lord
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directly because I should be widening the Question, which I am sure would not be in accordance with the rules of the House. However, I can assure my noble friend that considerable progress has been made towards law and order in that island.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, are Her Majesty's Government aware that their action in sending in an expeditionary force of purely white troops caused considerable resentment throughout the Caribbean? May I ask, also, whether they made any approach to the Governments of Jamaica and Trinidad to provide a portion of that expeditionary force; and if not, why not?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I would not accept that the action of Her Majesty's Government in sending soldiers to Anguilla caused widespread alarm and criticism in the Caribbean: in fact, to my knowledge and in my experience we had been encouraged for many months to do this very thing. Clearly, the British Army is now predominantly white, and since we had to send soldiers that were part of the stand-by at that time it was a misfortune that that force was white. But I have no reason to believe that this was a cause of difficulty between the British Army and the people of Anguilla.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, having just come back from the West Indies, I know quite well that his information is obviously entirely fallacious? And would he please answer the question as to why no attempt was made to associate the Governments of Jamaica and Trinidad in this action by asking them to give at least a token number of troops for the expedition?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I can assure the House that my experience of this problem is infinitely greater than that of the noble Earl, since I have been involved in it since 1967. Our action in Anguilla arose out of the West Indies Act. We informed the Caribbean countries of our intention to carry out this operation, which of course they themselves had asked us to do. I think it would have been quite improper for us to approach the Caribbean countries for them to provide forces to carry out an

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operation for which this country was directly responsible.
LORD CLITHEROE: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree with me that it might easily have caused more trouble to have had forces from some of the West Indian islands?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am not all that sure; but I take the point.

RECRUITMENT OF POLICE CADETS
3.11 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: 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 their policy is towards the recruiting of police cadets.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, it is in the first instance for the police authority and chief officer of police to decide, in each force, how many cadets should be appointed, but it is the firm policy of Her Majesty's Government to encourage the recruitment of cadets, subject only to the proviso that not more than about half the serving members of a force should be former cadets.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. I am sorry that it is not quite the same as the reply he gave to a supplementary question which I asked a fortnight ago, because this new Answer indicates that he is not following the satisfactory policy which we were led to suppose from his original Answer. Would not the noble Lord agree that if money is short for the training of policemen, it would be more sensible to spend it on those who are most likely to stay in the service?
LORD STONHAM: Yes, my Lords. But the figures of wastage do not bear out the noble Lord's hypothesis. The number of cadets who leave after attestation is 12½per cent., whereas the number who leave before attestation is 14 per cent.; that is, a total of 27 per cent. The percentage of wastage on direct entrants is only 23½ per cent. Financially, at least, there appears to be no difference in the matter.

MANAGEMENT CONSULTANCY SERVICES
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: 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 criteria have been established for use in the selection of companies who are to be provided with subsidised management consultancy services under the recent Board of Trade Regulations.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD BROWN): My Lords, in the Board of Trade's pilot consultancy grants scheme in Glasgow and Bristol, which ended on February 28, 1969, applications were invited from all businesses in the two areas which employed between 25 and 500 people. These limits have not however been strictly interpreted, and applications from some businesses outside these limits have been approved.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask whether he can indicate how many firms applied, and how many were successful? Also, can he say what the average grant was, what it amounted to?
LORD BROWN: My Lords, I am in a little difficulty in replying, because I am not sure that I have any figures to satisfy your Lordships. I can say that the actual number of applications was very large indeed—something of the order, subject to checking, of 1,100. But of that very large figure, a substantial number came from firms outside the area originally specified in the hope that they would be included. A large number of the other applications came from firms that were in fact larger than the 500 limit, and they had to be excluded on those grounds. With regard to the average size of the grant, I am afraid I do not have the figures here. I will write to the noble Lord. Perhaps ho could make some lightning calculations; in his head if I tell him that the actual number of firms that have been granted assistance is 250, with some others still pending. It may come up to 300. The total sum expended was nearly £500,000. I am sorry

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that I cannot take the noble Lord further at this moment.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, could the noble Lord advise us for how long the Government expect to evaluate the pilot scheme before coming to a decision on whether or not to implement the national scheme?
LORD BROWN: The major task is not one of evaluation. We are satisfied, on previous experience in this country and in Northern Ireland, that to get consultants of a sound kind into firms is good, and we do not need experience to prove that to be the case. We wanted administrative experience in administering a scheme of this type; so we are not waiting for a necessarily long period to evaluate the results of these consultancies, which might be three or four years. It is a question of working out a scheme and then finding legislative time for it.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, could the noble Lord say how soon he expects the pilot scheme to be introduced, in view of the administrative problem he has just mentioned?
LORD BROWN: My Lords, you will appreciate the difficulty in asking me to say when it will be possible to allot legislative time. I personally hope that it will be as soon as possible. I am extremely interested in the scheme, which I think is valuable. I cannot give you a date.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, are we to understand that it requires legislation? Can it not be done by administrative action, as hitherto?
LORD BROWN: My Lords, I think this is a marginal case. The decision has been taken in principle that this requires legislation.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, is the scheme marginally limited to firms of less than 500 employees, or was this purely for the pilot scheme?
LORD BROWN: My Lords, it is an arbitrary figure. We felt the larger firms had proved that they were able to look after themselves in this respect. They had learnt to value consultants in general. It was the smaller firms which had not appreciated the value of having part of
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their operations analysed in this way and which needed this stimulus. That figure was a quite arbitrary selection but in the light of experience of this pilot scheme, we believe that we have chosen the correct figure, although this is still subject to discussion.
LORD IRONSIDE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what type of management (consultant has been involved in this pilot scheme—for example, technical or administrative, or production, or manufacturing? Is it for that type of thing?
LORD BROWN: My Lords, the biggest proportion of the consultancies, we find, has been in the field of management, production control, and so on. There has been a big periphery of consultants' schemes involved with many other types of consultancy—too many to enumerate, particularly in the field of marketing, and more erudite studies concerned with the introduction of some of the latest techniques.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: My Lords, how soon is it expected that information will be available on the increase of productivity which will, it is hoped, arise from the institution of these management consultancy arrangements?
LORD BROWN: My Lords, we do not set ourselves up to try to measure quantitatively the results of the employment of these consultants. This would involve a very serious body of extremely experienced staff, which we do not possess, to check the results in this way. We are satisfied, in the large and broad, that the use of sound consultants for a business almost inevitably increases the efficiency and the prosperity of that business, and we are accepting that.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: My Lords, surely there must be some information available in individual firms of what their productivity was before the management consultants were appointed. And surely, in one, two or three years, the results arising from the consultancies in the increased productivity which we all hope will be obtained, must show in the company returns. Is it not possible to get some information of that sort?
LORD BROWN: My Lords, we are getting a report from each firm at a subsequent date but, with great respect, this

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subject often comes up. To attempt to correlate the total results in quantity of production with the single factor of introducing consultants is a barren game. It is impossible to do this, because there are many variables operating in the situation during which the consultancy took place. It is impossible to establish a correlation that many people, and in particular the noble Lord, would like to see.

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS AND LABOUR DISPUTE
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, I should like to inform your Lordships about the rather unfortunate position we are in with regard to Parliamentary Papers. Your Lordships will have noticed that they have not been available to-day, but I gather that printing is being resumed this evening. At the same time, I understand there is a further complication on the packaging and distributing side of the Stationery Office. I hope that your Lordships will not press me to discuss the nature of the cause of this particular trouble, which is under negotiation at the moment, but it will affect the distribution of Hansard, the Minutes of Proceedings, Bills, Amendments, and so on; and it is likely that the normal distribution of Parliamentary Papers will cease.
The House authorities, who have already shown great resource in this matter, will try to ensure that a limited number of copies of these Papers continue to be available to Peers, both in the Printed Paper Office and in the Library. But in fairness to the staff of the House, I would, with great diffidence may I say, appeal to your Lordships to exercise restraint in the demands which we make on the Printed Paper Office. Also I should utter a warning that it may be impossible for Parliamentary Papers to be delivered by post during the continuation of the present difficulties.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am sure that all your Lordships will do what you can to help the staff and the officials of the House in this situation. But I think one must say that, in so far as the absence of Papers to-day is concerned, we all rather deplore a stoppage of this kind for political reasons. It seems to me a very great pity. May I ask the noble Lord the Leader of the
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House this question? He says that there is a further complication on the packaging and distributing side. That, I take it, is a euphemism for a strike. May I ask the noble Lord whether this is official or unofficial, and what is being done to stop it?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, it is precisely because I would rather not comment on a dispute without being very carefully briefed on it that the choice before me to-day was either to say nothing, knowing that I was in no position to say a great deal, or to make the Statement I have made. I appreciate that the noble Lord is fully entitled to ask this question, and if I had information I would give it. But I think all noble Lords who are experienced in these matters know that "off the cuff" remarks on a particular dispute—euphemistic or otherwise as the term may be—could be unfortunate; and I should not wish to add to the difficulties. Clearly, if the House at some time would wish to know more about this particular matter and how it is going, the Government would be prepared to make a Statement. But I would rather leave it, and seek the indulgence of the House to-day, by not saying any more on the particular nature of the dispute, on which, in any case, I am not very fully informed.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, presumably if the dispute goes on for any length of time the noble Lord himself will keep the House informed. I should like to thank him for keeping us informed at this stage.
LORD SHACKLETON: I am much obliged, my Lords.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble friend Lord Stonham will be making a Statement on the Immigration Appeals Bill. This will be followed by a Statement which I shall make on the Report of the Northumberland Committee on Foot-and-Mouth Disease.
PORTSMOUTH CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
BETTING, GAMING AND LOTTERIES (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

DECIMAL CURRENCY BILL
3.24 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Beswick, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Phillips.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Legal Tender]:
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 21, after ("Act, ") insert ("with the exception of 6d. pieces").
The noble Lord said: May I say at the outset that the first two Amendments on the Marshalled List hang together, inasmuch as the second is entirely dependent on the first and indeed is a necessary corollary to it if it is passed. Therefore, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to relate my remarks at this stage solely to the first Amendment. The objective is of course to secure the retention of the 6d. piece or its equivalent beyond the transitional period. Industry, as represented by the Confederation of British Industry; the Consumer Council; the distributive trades, represented by the Multiple Shops Federation; and both manufacturing and distributive trades, represented by the Co-operative Movement—all these have indicated that they feel strongly that the 6d. should be retained or at least given extended life. To judge from Press reports and correspondence over recent weeks, there would appear to be considerable public support for its retention.
Against this are the Retail Distributors' Association, who feel particularly that its retention presents difficulties in change-giving, and for that reason, in the main, they are opposed to it. And
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there is of course the view of the Government and the Halsbury Committee that it is a mistake to retain the 6d. The banks, I understand, are completely neutral. As the noble Lord, Lord Clitheroe, explained on Second Reading, they had made it quite clear that there is no practical difficulty for them in handling the 6d. piece either in addition to the two new penny (shown in the Schedule as 2p) piece or, for the time being, if that be the decision, in place of it.
The Halsbury Committee and the Government may say that the ordinary man does not understand all the implications of the new decimal system; that if we are "going decimal" we ought to be purely decimal; and though there will be a half new penny—0·5 of 1p—that is only a temporary excrescence on the smooth pattern of the new system, since inflation will soon see to it that the half new penny ceases to have appreciable value. I would regard that as a counsel of despair rather than a recognition of a fact of life. They may also say that a 6d. piece is undesirable because it is too close in value to the new 2p—a coin which is, of course, 4·8 pence in our present currency. That may well be, but I would prefer to put it that since the 2p is so close in value to the 6d., and since the 6d. has such great convenience, it would be preferable to keep the one and a quarter million pounds' worth of 2p pieces that we understand have already been minted in reserve, with a view to bringing them into circulation if and when the 6d. piece has been found to have outlived its convenience and its usefulness. But the Amendment before your Lordships does not seek to prejudge this issue. It leaves it entirely open. If it is accepted, the Decimal Board would decide whether or not to put the 2p into circulation initially as well as the present 6d. piece, which of course eventually becomes the new 2½p piece.
That is a brief statement of the effect of this proposal. The matter was argued extensively in Commitee and in Report stage in another place. It was argued there to some extent on Party lines. In your Lordships' House this Amendment is supported by some Members of all Parties and by some, at least, of those who sit on the Cross-Benches. It is not, nor as I see it should it be, in any sense

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a Party issue. I have studied the debate in Committee and at Report stage in another place, and certainly all the relevant points for and against seem to have been adequately covered. Therefore, I will not presume to argue them in detail this afternoon; others who support this Amendment will do that much better than I could.
If I may summarise the position as I see it in favour of the Amendment, I would say this. First, what the Amendment proposes is practicable as well as convenient. Secondly, the 6d. is undeniably the most popular coin. There are some 2,000 million in circulation and it is widely used in many types of business machines and other coin-operated machines. Thirdly, the extension of the life of the 6d. gives more time for the conversion of such machines and thereby can reduce costs. I have reason to believe that London Transport, for example, whose report was presented to Parliament on April 22, would from that point of view particularly welcome this Amendment. Fourthly, the 6d. is, of value from the point of view of associability, in at least the earlier years of the new system. Fifthly, from the point of view of industry a single coin is important for many packings. Without the 6d. or its equivalent we should have the is., of course, but no single coin to represent half a shilling, and there are often practical advantages in being able to break the 1s. into half units. Lastly, the speedy abandonment of the 6d. gives additional impetus to inflation because in many cases without the 6d. the rounding up may well be to the next single coin of value above the 6d., namely, the 1s. That may not apply to telephone charges if the proposals of the Postmaster General are adopted, but it is likely to apply in other cases, for example parking meters. The motoring organisations are strongly in favour of the retention of the 6d. which, in their words, "enables people to make brief stops at low cost without breaking the law".
Against this proposal the main arguments seem to be that experience elsewhere has shown that a coin such as this will not retain its popularity in the new conditions. There are some exceptions to that—for example, the 2½ escudos in Portugal—but I will not try to argue this point in detail now. It is wiser, it is said,
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to avoid uncertainty in the minds of industry and trade by adhering firmly to the proposal to demonetise the 6d. piece after the transitional period. The second argument against this proposal is that the continued existence of the 6d. would be out of line with the planned progression in terms of values of the new coinage. Thirdly, it would complicate the giving of change. Indeed, I believe it has been suggested in some quarters that the coin would in fact prove a positive inconvenience to the public.
The issue here is not, as I see it, a question of principle but rather a matter of judgment. As the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, said in the debate on Second Reading it is an issue of practical convenience, not an issue of policy. I think there are those among your Lordships who support this Amendment who would find themselves in one or other of three categories. First, those who believe that there will always be a place for the 6d.piece or its equivalent in our coinage; secondly, those who believe that it would be a really valuable addition to the range of coins so long as the new ½p exists; and thirdly, those who would not go further at this stage than to say that it would be a mistake to decide now to demonetise the 6d. coin after the transitional period. These categories are not mutually exclusive—and I confess that I would place myself in the middle category —yet they all require the Amendment. I believe I understand and appreciate the arguments which have been advanced both in Second Reading in this House and in another place against what the Amendment proposes, but the weight of practical and informed opinion which I believe exists is such that I hope very much that the Government will recognise the strength of the case and accept this Amendment. If they do, it will ensure that after the transitional period the 6d. piece, in its existing shape but under a new designation of 2½p—though it may well continue to be familiarly and affectionately known as the "tanner"—if it is given a chance will prove its worth and its continued usefulness which so many believe it will have. I beg to move.
LORD CROWTHER: I rise to support the Amendment so persuasively and moderately moved by my noble friend. I have been interested in this question

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of decimal coinage from being an advocate of decimalising our currency on the basis of the pound sterling for as long as I can remember. I was certainly writing articles in that sense 25 years ago, and it may be longer than that. I gave evidence to the Committee presided over by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, in that sense—in fact I believe I was the only private person to do so. Therefore I heartily welcomed the Report the Committee made and, in principle, the action that the Government have taken upon it.
I mention these facts in order to establish that if I now support the retention of the 6d. it is from the point of view of a convinced believer in principle of the great reform that is now being put through, and not, as appeared to be the case with some of those who took the same view when it was debated in the other place—not, so to speak, as a "ten-bobber"—hoping for a last ditch concession before the Bill goes through. I have always thought that in a decimal coinage based on the pound sterling a coin representing 2½p—as they are now to be called—formed an essential part.
Since time is short I will confine myself to what seemed to me to be the two main grounds for this Amendment, both of which were mentioned briefly by the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve. The first is a matter of pricing, and I ask noble Lords to remember that this refers not only to articles that are priced at 6d., but at 1s. 6d., 2s. 6d., 3s. 6d., 4s. 6d., 7s. 6d.—and every other multiple of the present 6d. coin. The new ha'penny table—or perhaps I should say the new half penny—which is printed in the White Paper accompanying the Bill and which is supposed to act as the guide to a conversion of prices says, quite correctly, that the old 6d. equals the new 2½p.That is of course an absolutely exact conversion, but if after the transitional period there is not going to be a 2½p coin, how do we manage to buy some thing that is priced at 2½p? It will be possible if they are goods which one normally buys in dozens, but not for those which are bought singly. There will not be a coin to pay for them.
Inevitably, therefore, those who are trying to fix the prices of their goods will turn to the whole new 1p table which
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is printed as a Schedule to the Bill now before the Committee. I know that that Schedule, formally speaking, is not a price conversion table; it is a guide to the conversion of specific sums of debt as referred to in earlier clauses of the Bill. But inevitably, when faced with the situation of what to do with a price for which there is no coin, this whole new 1p table will be taken as a guide to conversion; and that table says that 6d. equals 3p, which is the equivalent of 7·2d. and therefore would incorporate a 20 per cent. inflation.
Moreover, even this is not the end of the matter, because those who can see the change coming and who are now selling articles priced at 5d. will take very good care that before "D-Day"—or at any rate before the end of the transitional period—they move their prices up to 6d. so that by the end of the transitional period they can have authority to convert them into 3p.
Loan BESWICK: I am very anxious to follow the noble Lord's argument. I cannot follow him at all on this point. Will he explain a little more carefully why it is impossible to buy something priced 6d.? With the new currency one hands over two new 1p coins and a ½p coin, which is precisely what is required.
LORD CROWTHER: I am speaking of the end of the transitional period, when it is said the ½p coin will disappear. Then there will be no difficulty. May I continue the argument and come back to that, because it is relevant to the change-making argument? The particular argument in which I was engaged was relating to articles now priced at 5d., and it is not a minor matter. There happen to be quite a large number of important articles, sold in ones, priced at 5d. Many newspapers are in that category. There is also the first-class post which is priced at 5d. I hope that no noble Lords think this is an unduly cynical argument, and that before the time comes we shall find these articles have moved into a higher range. Mark my words and see what happens!
The second argument, and perhaps the more important one, relates to the difficulties of transition. As I say, I am a most convinced believer in the principle of this reform, but it undoubtedly has one disadvantage. To decimalise on the

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pound sterling makes the transition more difficult. It is the one clear argument for decimalising en the 10s. base. Then, for example, a price of Is. 6d. would automatically become 15 cent, or whatever it is called; whereas under this system you have to perform mental arithmetic and first of all put it into decimals and then divide by two. This is a disadvantage and the public will find it difficult. Why, therefore, should this transition be made more difficult by failing to provide a direct, exact and permanent equivalent for the most frequently used coin of all? It is not only a psychological difficulty we have to consider but a physical one. There are tens of thousands of vending machines up and down the country designed to take the 6d. Perhaps I should, in passing, declare an interest, since I am chairman of a company which owns a number of these vending machines; but that is not the reason I am supporting the Amendment. The very heavy cost of adjustment falls entirely on the proprietors of these machines. All the Id. ones are inevitably going to have to be converted. Why must the extra unnecessary cost of converting the 6d. ones also be forced upon them?
If one seeks reasons for the failure, in spite of continued argument, to do what seems to me an extremely sensible and easy thing to do, to retain this useful coin, one is met with two principal arguments. One is that it is hoped the ½p will disappear. Possibly this may happen. In my opinion, even with the progress of inflation, it will be a very long time before the new ½p as a unit of calculation disappears. When that time comes, let due notice be given, in the fullness of time, that the 2½p coin would then be withdrawn. But let us not commit ourselves to it in advance.
The second argument, also touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, is the difficulty of making change. If it is urged that one of the reasons against this Amendment is that there is to be for a long time a ½p coin, then the difficulty of making change disappears and there is nothing in it. However, it is said that the time will come when that will disappear. When that time comes, how many transactions will there be which are likely to be for exactly
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2½p? And if it be true that in the course of giving change somebody or otter is going to find himself ½p short, does that matter very much? Will not nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand say, "Forget it", and should we not also forget this change-making difficulty? The minor inconvenience it will cause seems to me infinitely less than the major inconvenience of not having a permanent and exact equivalent of 6d. Many years ago Ernest Bevin founded his reputation on the stirring defence f the "decker's tanner". May we this afternoon strike a blow for the "Peer's tanner".
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: This Amendment is one of the most mild and innocuous which has ever been put before your Lordships. It does not pursue the future of the 6d. in any way whatever. It simply says that nobody living can tell what is going to happen, so do not let us close the options. The Government view that the 6d. will die a natural death is quite sensible and may even be right, but it is essential not to prejudge the issue. For that reason I, for one, will not support the second Amendment, because there is a sense in which it does prejudge the issue, in making preparation for the continuation of the 6d. I want to be certain that we do not on insufficient evidence make a rash decision.
Support for the 6d. is impressive, and I will not go through it again. The noble Lord, Lord Sinclair, listed the bodies in favour of retaining it, including two "Little Neddies", which is quite a lot of "Little Neddies". He left out one group, the Retail Alliance, which consists of the Drapers' Chamber of Trade, the Menswear Association of Britain, the National Association of Retail Furnishers, the National Federation of Ironmongers, the the National Grocers' Federation, the National Pharmaceutical Union, the Radio and Television Retailers Association, the Scottish Retail Drapers' Asocia-tion—quite an impressive list. I should like to add one further comment in its favour. My right honourable friend, Mr. George Darling, who is probably better versed in these matters than anybody else on either side of the House, in an earlier debate in another place said tie t he thoroughly agreed that the 6d. should be be which are likely to be for exactly retained for longer than the transitional

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period until the question of inflation arising through changed currency was completely out of the way. This is all worth saying.
The evidence on the other side is strong, as the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair, openly acknowledged. But it is not the first time experts have differed. It is not a very dreadful thing when they do, particularly when, if you leave it a little time, sufficient evidence will appear on which a sensible decision can be made. Sometimes that is not the case. In the case of deciding between the pound and ten shillings the Government had to make a decision, and though some of us think it was wrong, that is nothing to do with this question. In this case, however, the evidence will reveal itself within 18 months of transition and it is absurd to prejudge the issue.
In last month's debate in another place the Minister of State said a new 2½p piece will not be a convenient niece to use and will not be used—a firm statement. He reasoned from this that to encourage the hope that the 6d. will remain will be to make planning more difficult and may lead to frustration of the public. I am not quite sure what that phrase means; I think it is elliptical. However, one can certainly accent his conclusions if one can accept his premises; but the argument is based on a series of assumptions which may or may not be true. Under the £.s.d. system the 6d. is a convenient coin. so the detailers demand a large number from the banks, give them as change to their customers, who nut them in their Dockets and thence into slot machines. and then these coins go back to the banks.
I do not wish to question this analysis of the cash flow, it is probably perfectly correct. Under the decimal system, he said, a 2½P piece will not he a convenient coin, so the retailers will not demand them from the banks and the customers will not have them in their pockets to put into slot machines. So any slot machines that still have 6d. slots will stand empty. That is absolutely "all right with me". It may be true, but I see nothing to worry about. Surely then is the moment for the machine owners to begin changing machines and for the Government to think about demonetising the 6d. The experts are divided on this.
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If the Minister is wrong, and I think we can categorise his view as a minority one, then the forced changeover of machines, which he admitted will be expensive, will be made unjustifiably more so by this inconsidered haste. The machines I have mentioned, in good working order, will have to be scrapped before the end of their natural life.
The noble Lord, Lord Crowther, has pointed out the danger of rounding up. My noble friend Lady Phillips, in answer to my suggestion on this point on Second Reading, said that one must not necessarily assume that prices will always rise. I agree that one should make as few assumptions as possible, but one of the assumptions the Government seem to be making is that the ½p will in due course disappear. This suggests that prices will in fact be more likely to rise than to fall, which we all knew anyway. It is no pleasure to me to oppose the Government on this or any other issue: it is a matter of some embarrassment. But the Government's action is so arbitrary and so contrary to much of the best opinion that it would be irresponsible of me, in my position as Chairman of the Consumer Council, to allow what seems to me clearly to be a mistake to go forward without protest.
I feel that my noble friend may have some difficulty in raising enough "captive balloons" to defeat this mild and sensible Amendment. It is ironical that while honourable Members in another place were rolling in the aisles with laughter at the witty and inelegant reference to your Lordships as "captive balloons" and "worms in ermine", they missed the point that some balloons are more captive than others; and I think it is likely that my noble friend may have to rely on balloons elsewhere rather than here.
In conclusion, I wish to say something personal and embarrassing. It has been suggested to me that, as I am Chairman of a Council which takes a view in this matter, receiving a humble emolument from it, it would be improper for me to vote on this issue. I shall, therefore, abstain, with the greatest reluctance. I should like to feel that this matter, a sort of extension of the Addison Rules, were cleared up in this House. I do not want to vote if anybody might feel inclined to say at any time that I ought

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not to have voted. I sit down with great discomfort, forced to abstain on this, I think, important matter.
3.53 p.m.
LORD SAINSBURY: Apparently I rise as a "captive balloon". Much has been said about the attitude of the retail trade in this current controversy concerning the 6d., and perhaps noble Lords will allow me, as a partially retired retailer, to put, quite briefly, my views. I am opposed to this Amendment. It is obvious from what has already been stated that there is no unanimity on this question in the retail trade; indeed, there are varying views even within my own firm. As noble Lords have heard, the Multiple Shops' Federation is strongly in favour of retaining the 6d. after the change over period. I would emphasise that there are other equally important trade associations who take the opposite view. The Retail Distributors' Association, which months ago set up a special committee to study this problem and which represents Britain's departmental stores, is against the retention of this coin. The Grocers' Institute, which has been looking at this question from the most important point of view of staff training, is of the same opinion. I understand that Marks and Spencer have also accepted that the 6d. will disappear after the change over period and are planning on this basis.
I accept that there are some arguments in favour of the Amendment. Undoubtedly it would be convenient for the confectionery, cigarette and vending-machine manufacturers to continue with the 6d. But in my view this is not a strong enough reason for saddling ourselves with a coin that, to my mind, has no logical place in our new decimal system. We hear a tremendous amount about the plight or difficulties of the vending-machine manufacturers, but I think we must keep this in proportion in relation to all the transactions that are going on all the time in retail shops. Judging by the last distribution census figures available, those for 1966, sales through vending machines accounted for slightly more than 0.1 per cent. of the total retail sales. I also appreciate that there are fears that the eventual abolition of the 6d. could lead to inflation, but I feel, in view of the Government's stated intention to see. that there is no profiteer-
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ing, and the strong competition that exists in most sectors of the retail trade, that such fears are grossly exaggerated.
There are many reasons for not retaining the 6d. after the changeover period, but I should like to concentrate on only one. This is the fact that, so far as most retailers and their customers are concerned, the continued existence of the 6d. would not be an advantage; on the contrary, it would be a serious disadvantage. And I am not talking of this from the basis of theory; I am talking of this after extensive experiment with the proposed new coinage. My firm's experiments indicate that the use pf this coin as part of our new decimal system would make change-giving and the associated mental arithmetic more difficult, since, it would require thinking and working in terms of a fraction to an even greater extent than would otherwise be the case.
The Retail Distributors' Association, to which I have already referred, as has Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, started off as being not in favour of the disappearance of the 6d. But after they had conducted tests in connection with the preparation of their training manual they fully. and firmly confirmed the conclusions reached in the experiments conducted by my own firm.
It has been suggested that the Government are unwise to commit themselves so far in advance to the abolition of the 6d., because they could always abolish it later if there was evidence that it was not needed. This is a plausible argument, but we should not ignore the fact that this course of action would create considerable uncertainty. In order to ensure that business is ready for a smooth changeover on D-Day it must prepare well in advance, and the less uncertainty there is, the better. Many stores and retail organisations have already begun their preparations, the preparation of training manuals, on the assumption that after the changeover period the 6d. will go, and to leave the question at this late stage unsettled would greatly increase their difficulties. It is for these reasons that, without hesitation, I shall vote against this Amendment if the House is divided.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: Before my noble friend sits down, would he repeat to the Committee the figure he gave for

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the proportion of the retail trade which goes through vending machines. I think he said 0·1 per cent.; did he not actually mean ·01 per cent.?
LORD SAINSBURY: 0·1 per cent.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: One-tenth of 1 per cent.
LORD SAINSBURY: Yes. I can quote the figures. The total retail trade was just under £11,000 million in 1966, and the sales from vending machines, according to the 1966 census, were slightly over £11 million.
LORD CROWTHER: Would the noble Lord agree that vending machines are used for many other uses as well as in the retail trade?
LORD BESWICK: For the purpose of hearing the Statement I move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

IMMIGRATION APPEALS BILL
4.2 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to repeat a Statement which my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has made in another place about the Immigration Appeals Bill. I will use my right honourable friend's own words.
"The Government have been concerned with the situation that arises from the prolonged examination at London Airport and other places of arrival of the dependants of Commonwealth citizens whose credentials for settlement in this country need detailed investigation, sometimes spread over several days.
"We have decided that it would be more humane and lead to improved efficiency if those with claims to settle here have their cases scrutinised and decided before they set out on their journey. The effect will be that Commonwealth dependants who satisfy the requirements will be issued before they leave their own country with an entry certificate by the British representative overseas. They will be admitted here
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only if they have such a certificate. The requirement will apply to wives and children up to 16 who have statutory rights of entry, but by instructions to immigration officers the entry certificates will also be necessary for dependants, chiefly older children and parents, who have no statutory right of entry.
"The Government proposes to make similar changes in the admission of alien dependants for settlement so far as the arrangements about visa abolition permit this to be done.
"Possession of an entry certificate will not be a requirement for those Commonwealth citizens coming for a temporary period, nor will it be a requirement for people other than dependants, such as visitors, including business visitors.
"The Government accordingly propose a new clause for inclusion in the Immigration Appeals Bill, which is due for the Committee stage in another place"—
he was of course referring to your Lordships' House—
"on Tuesday. The new provision, if approved by Parliament, will take effect when the Bill is given Royal Assent.
"It is important that there should be a right of appeal in cases of refusals to grant an entry certificate for settlement as a dependant, and so from the same date appeal arrangements will be made. These will enable Commonwealth dependants to appeal if they are refused an entry certificate for settlement, or if having been granted a certificate they are refused entry. I propose to introduce this at once, notwithstanding that the appeal system provided for in the Immigration Appeals Bill cannot be brought into effect until later. This change does not of itself reduce the number of Commonwealth immigrants, nor are any rights of entry taken away. The change is in substance an administrative one."
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for repeating this Statement, and I should like to say straight away that I, for one, find this proposed change not only eminently sensible but long overdue. I have only one question to put to the noble Lord,

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and that is to ask him whether he could let me know what type of appeals machinery the Government propose to establish to deal with these cases.
LORD WADE: My Lords, may I join in thanking the noble Lord for repeating this Statement? I welcome the desire of Her Majesty's Government to make the procedure more humane, and to reduce the prolonged examination at the airports and other places of entry, but I should like to pursue a little further this question of the procedure for appeals. As I understand it, the granting or refusal of an entry certificate will be at the country of origin. In those circumstances, where will the appeal be heard? I think it was made clear in the Second Reading debate that the tribunals would, in effect, be exercising some degree of discretion. if discretion is to be exercised, how can the appeal be held in this country if there is no opportunity for seeing the person wishing to leave the country of origin? I am not objecting to the proposed reform, but I think this information would be helpful.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, for his welcome to the Bill, and to the noble Lord, Lord Wade. They both, in substance, asked the same question about the type of appeals machinery and how appeals would be made. When the statutory appeals system is in force, a Commonwealth citizen who is refused an entry certificate will be able to appeal to an adjudicator in this country, and, if given leave, to appeal to the Tribunal. One who arrives with an entry certificate but is refused admission will be able to appeal to an adjudicator, and to appeal as of right to the Tribunal. We cannot bring that provision into operation immediately the Bill receives the Royal Assent—that is, Part I of the Bill. Therefore, we propose making extra-statutory arrangements so that there can be appeals immediately in these cases, and the appeal will be decided by one of a number of independent lawyers to be nominated by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, and my right honourable friend the Home Secretary undertakes to abide by the decision.
Appeals against refusal to grant an entry certificate will be dealt with in
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this country in accordance with what will eventually be the permanent procedure, and in accordance with the procedure recommended by the Wilson Committee. They conform to extra-statutory arrangements which are already made for dealing with appeals of this kind from United Kingdom passport holders in East Africa, and that is how it will be done.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question? These are obviously very important Amendments and, so far as the appeal procedure is concerned, they may be pretty technical. I am not entirely happy at the moment with what the noble Lord has said, but we are not debating it now. The exercise of discretion under the Bill has no guidelines at all, so far as I can recollect. Can the noble Lord say when these Amendments will be tabled and when copies of them will be available for your Lordships? I know of the printing difficulties, but if we are to debate this matter next Tuesday the Government's Amendments should be available for their Lordships to consider between now and then.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am in complete agreement with the noble and learned Viscount. These are highly technical points and I look forward to discussing them on Tuesday. Despite the emergency difficulties with which we are confronted, printing will resume, as I understand it, at six o'clock this evening. Arrangements will be made for first priority to be given to this particular matter, and the printed copies of all the Amendments which I shall be tabling this afternoon will be available not later than nine o'clock in the morning.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there are those of us who will find these proposals somewhat disturbing, although, of course, we shall have to look at them very closely. Is it not a fact that the Government, having introduced a wholly admirable Bill to provide a fair appeal procedure, are now at this very late stage introducing a radical Amendment which will render the Bill almost useless? What is the reason for the Government's not adhering to their original intention of passing the Bill as introduced?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am sorry that my noble friend has that view. I think he will be almost alone.
A NOBLE LORD: Hear, hear!
LORD STONHAM: Certainly on this issue he would find himself disagreeing with his and my noble friend Lord Brockway, who, unfortunately, cannot be here. Noble Lords will have observed that my noble friend Lord Brockway had an Unstarred Question down which would have been debated to-day, but he took it off the Order Paper. That Unstarred Question indicated, of course, that he was wholly in favour of this change. We are taking this opportunity to make the change because legislation is necessary. This will be the last opportunity for some time, and it is desirable to make the change before the statutory appeal system is introduced.
The situation has changed very greatly in the last two years since the Wilson Committee reported. I would emphasise again that if my noble friend went to London Airport he would see the evidence for himself, as I did yesterday, that this has become imperatively necessary, because of the long delays and long detention periods which are occurring. I saw a 10 years old boy at London Airport yesterday and he had been there for 15 days. I also saw a mother with five children who have been there for five days. This is increasingly happening and, in our view, this is a way of preventing it.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: My Lords, I wonder whether I may ask the noble Lord a question, in order, I hope, to obtain a reassurance. While recognising the difficulties which his announcement seeks to ameliorate, there are, of course, many immigrants from countries other than those with which we are principally concerned. For example, if an American company sends over an American manager to run a company in England for a year or two, will his wife who follows him later, and perhaps his 12 year old son, be subject to the same procedure? Will they have to obtain an entry permit from some consular office in the United States? Will these procedures also apply in the case of a French
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or German manager or scientist coming over to this country? If so, can it be established—and I hope it will be—that they will be able to obtain their entry certificates promptly and securely and without delay?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I do not want to debate the subject now, because we shall have an opportunity on Tuesday, but I would advise the noble Lord that entitled Commonwealth citizens come in as of right to this country. No alien comes in as of right. Therefore, in the instance he cited, the American businessman could come in only with our agreement, according to the nature of his visit and its purpose, and if his wife and dependants came in they would come in under the same ægis.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether the position of bona fide students will be altered by this arrangement, or will it remain substantially as at present?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, there will be absolutely no change whatsoever in relation to students and visitors. That was made clear in my Statement, but it can be made much more clear in the debate on Tuesday.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I do not want to detain your Lordships, because I know that you want to get on with the question of the 6d., and all the rest of it. But there was one point in his reply to my original question on which I am not quite certain I heard the noble Lord correctly. I thought I heard him say that if those Commonwealth citizens who received an entry certificate were refused admission, they would then have the right of appeal. Can he clear that point up? How can you receive an entry certificate and then be refused admission?
LORD STONHAM: Very simply, my Lords. Precisely the same thing happens now. It is because you have given false information and made lying statements which have enabled the certificate to be granted. We know that they are lies and therefore we refuse admission. We do this now to the extent of some 3,000 cases.

FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE: NORTHUMBERLAND COMMITTEE REPORT
4.15 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I wonder whether it will be convenient for me now to repeat a Statement made in another place on the Report of the Northumberland Committee on Foot-and-Mouth Disease? The Statement is as follows:
"The first part of the Report deals with policy to prevent and control future outbreaks of this disease.
"I would like to thank the Committee for its careful analysis of this complex problem and for the clear way in which it has set out its findings and recommendations. Its main recommendation is that the slaughter policy by itself should be continued as the best means of eradicating the disease provided that we maintain a meat import policy which reduces substantially the risk of primary outbreaks. The Committee proposes that the existing ban on imports of mutton, lamb and pigmeat (including unprocessed sheep and pig offals) from countries where foot-and-mouth disease is endemic should be extended to all unprocessed beef imports, unless wider considerations should make this unacceptable, in which case imports from these countries should be limited to boneless beef and processed offal. The Committee's view was that if bones, unprocessed offals and lymph glands were excluded from beef imported from such countries, the reduction of risk would be almost equivalent to that which would be achieved by a complete ban on imports.
"The Government have taken account of this assessment of the animal disease risks of the alternative courses, along with their economic implications for our meat supplies and our trade with a number of traditional supplying countries with whom we value our close relations. The Government have decided that the animal health and other interests can best be served by accepting the Committee's recommendations to continue the existing ban on imports of mutton, lamb and pigmeat and unprocessed offals from such countries where foot-and-mouth disease is endemic, and by limiting imports of beef from such
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countries to boneless beef and processed offals. There is already some trade in boneless beef, and to give reasonable time for the necessary changes in trading to be made, it is our intention to delay the introduction of the new arrangements until 1st October next. We propose to reduce the relatively high tariff of 20 per cent. on boneless beef so that a reasonable level of trade may flow, and will have the, necessary consultations to this end.
"The Committee considered that it would be necessary to impress upon the Governments of those countries which will be permitted to supply beef only in boneless form the importance of attaining a high standard of compliance with animal health requirements, and of hygiene and public health inspection. The Government attach great importance to this matter and will follow it up urgently with the Governments of the countries concerned, who will be reminded of the necessity for Her Majesty's Government to withdraw immediately authorisation for supplies to come from plants which do not meet the required hygiene standards.
"With the adoption of the Committee's recommendation on meat imports, we propose to continue to rely on slaughter by itself to eradicate foot-and-mouth disease. But we accept the Committee's recommendation to prepare contingency plans for ring vaccination.
"We propose entering without delay on discussions with the Governments of countries and domestic interests affected by these decisions about their implementation.
"I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT and making available now in the Library our decisions on other recommendations of the Northumberland Committee.
"The Committee is now studying the other aspects of its remit and I understand that it hopes to be able to present the second part of its Report towards the end of the year."
Following is the supplementary statement by the Minister of Agriculture:
"I have dealt with the main recommendations of the Committee in my Statement this afternoon. The Committee also recognised that, within countries where the disease is endemic,

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there may be well-defined areas completely free of foot-and-mouth disease. We shall explore the possibility of supplies from such areas. We should have to be fully satisfied that conditions existed for keeping such areas free of disease.
"There are three recommendations, numbers V to VII in the Report, which the Secretary of State for Scotland and I accent in principle. Revocable conditional licences are already used to a considerable extent to regulate the imports of meat and we are considering the extension of their use, as the Committee recommends. We agree with the Committee that the cleansing and disinfection at the point of entry into Great Britain of vehicles engaged in the transport of livestock is desirable. There are difficulties to overcome in introducing the control, and we shall be considering these problems with the authorities concerned. The Agricultural Research Council will take account in its planning of the recommendation on the expansion of research at the Animal Virus Research Institute at Pirbright; and arrangements are being made to put epidemiological teams into the field in support of the epidemiological studies that are usually conducted during an attack of the disease."
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for repeating that Statement, and join with him in thanking my noble friend the Duke of Northumberland and his very expert Committee for preparing for us this admirable Report, which is of great interest and authority? I see from the advance copy of the Report, for which I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, that the Committee considered one of the two policies which are viable—that is, comprehensive vaccination—and rejected it as too expensive at present, which I think is right. The Committee therefore turned, as the noble Lord told us, to the alternative viable policy of maintaining the slaughter policy with a ban on imports. I congratulate the noble Lord on the large degree to which he has gone towards a complete ban, while meeting the obvious needs of the consumer by continuing to allow the import of beef in boned condition and with offals processed. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord on doing this. I believe it is the best measure which could be taken at present.
The noble Lord has told us that in order to meet the continuing danger when primary outbreaks occur the Committee have recommended that preparations for ring vaccination should be made, and that the Government have accepted this recommendation. There is one question
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I should like to ask the noble Lord. The Report is not entirely clear to me as regards the arrangements for putting ring vaccination into action. The Minority Report is quite specific: ring vaccination should be put into action immediately a primary outbreak occurs. The question I want to ask the noble Lord is: will he ask his right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture to give careful consideration to this advice, because in my belief it is almost impossible to decide, once an outbreak has started and the epidemic is under way, when to vaccinate, whether it be for foot-and-mouth disease, influenza or anything else. Therefore, if a ring vaccination policy is to be effective on what I hope will be the very few primary outbreaks we get in future, it should be implemented as soon as the outbreak occurs. Would the noble Lord be good enough to have careful study given to that point?
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, may I warmly welcome the conclusions of the Report as repeated in the Statement, and may I also congratulate the Government upon their acceptance of it, very nearly in full?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am much obliged to the two noble Lords who have given a welcome to this Statement. We are dealing with a very vexed, complex and, indeed, tragic problem. Those of us who remember the wretched business of last year look back with a feeling of relief now that the decisions have been taken. I was asked about vaccination. First, I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, that although the Committee decided against a policy of complete vaccination, that was not on the grounds of expense alone. There are other considerations, of course. So far as ring vaccination is concerned, the noble Lord is quite right when lie says that the arrangements are not stated very clearly, and the fact of the matter is that there must be further discussions with the farming and veterinary interests. I can assure the noble Lord that the views which have been put forward in the Minority Report have been carefully considered, both as a result of that Report and as a result of other representations which have been made to the Department, of which the noble Lord will know. I can assure him that close attention will be given to those views, although at the

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same time it seems clear to me that the advantages of vaccination in all cases, in all parts of the United Kingdom, are not altogether decisive.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, I wonder whether I may ask my noble friend two questions. First, apart from the change in import levies, what steps will the Government be taking to ensure that there will be no large rise in the price of meat to the consumer as a result of this decision? Secondly, in view of the fact that on the Northumberland Committee the National Farmers' Union have had a representative, may I ask him whether he will now see to it that in their further deliberations there shall be a representative from the distributive side of the industry?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, so far as the price of meat is concerned, clearly there must be some impact upon the market. The considered view of the Department is that that will not be considerable, and especially over the longer term—over a period of possibly about a year, when the market has been able to settle down and supplies of boneless beef come more readily to this country. After all, the amount of meat which will be affected is a comparatively small proportion—
LORD ROYLE: One-third.
LORD BESWICK: No, my Lords; the amount of meat which will be affected, the cheap cuts of the imported beef from these particular countries, is much less than one-third. But, in any case, the noble Lord is on a point: the price to the consumer is a matter which has to be watched. It is not expected, however, that there will be a significant rise as a result of these essential steps. The noble Lord has commented again about the composition of the Northumberland Committee. I remember very clearly what he said before, in the debate which we had. I beg of him, although it is a fairly voluminous Report, to read this Report. I am sure that after reading it he will feel that this well-balanced, well-argued, carefully analytical Report is not at all biased in the way he thinks, and I hope that on reflection he will feel that his present suspicion is unfounded.
LORD ROYLE: What about the representatives?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords., the noble Lord asked me about representatives. It is not a question of representation now for any further consideration; but, of course, discussions will have to take place with the interests concerned on the further steps that have to be taken for the implementation of this Statement.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, may I ask one question about the importation of bone manure? Is there any control over bone manure from countries where we are refusing to take meat unless it is cut off the bone?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I think I am right in saying that although there are difficulties, not only with bone manure but in the case of serum, semen and all sorts of other things coming from those countries, in all those cases the precautions which are now taken are thought to be as adequate as it is possible to make them.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, arising out of the original Statement, will the noble Lord say whether the Government are prepared to accept all the recommendations that the Northumberland Committee have made up to date?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, if the noble Earl reads the recommendations he will see that there is a certain balancing, and that it is impossible to give a "Yes" or "No" to the question which he poses. But in addition to what I have said that my right honourable friend is accepting, it is also the case that Recommendations V to VII in the Report are also accepted in principle.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether any recommendations are rejected?
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, arising out of the noble Earl's question, may I ask whether any consideration has yet been given to Recommendation No. VII, calling for an expansion of research work, particularly in epidemiology; and may I ask whether the Government would agree that, if this had been carried out in the past, the work of the Northumberland Committee in the present would have been greatly helped?
LORD BESWICK: Yes, my Lords. Recommendation VII in the Report has also been accepted in principle by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question? He said, I think, that the import of beef on the bone was going to be banned from October 1 next. Does he mean this October 1, or October next year?
LORD BESWICK: I mean the next October 1, as ever is.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, may I ask one question of the noble Lord? In view of the fact that the slaughter policy is a policy of despair, however necessary it may be—it destroys many thousands of fine beasts and a lot of the hopes of farmers and of the veterinary surgeons who look after these animals—would the noble Lord give an indication to the pharmaceutical industry that there will be support from the Government (moral support, anyway) in the production of a vaccine which will be not only highly efficient but also cheap? As I understand it, in Europe at the moment there has been produced a vaccine which is much more efficient than anything we have had in the past.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, possibly the noble Lord will be good enough to read the Report and what it says about vaccination. A good deal of work is being done in this country, and not least by the Purbright Institute, which has been accepted as a world reference library on all these matters. Although I accept what the noble Lord says about the evils of slaughter, nevertheless all the authorities that have looked at this matter, and all the evidence that was submitted to the Committee, bear out the unfortunate fact that slaughtering, certainly for any conceivable time ahead, is essential.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, would my noble friend give a guarantee that the Government will be very cautious about adopting a policy of vaccination, in view of the danger of the disease becoming endemic in this country, which I understand is what vaccination may lead to
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, that is one of the points discussed in the Report.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, is there not the same possibility in the case of any disease? This disease is no different from any other, such as smallpox. We have stamped out many diseases which, in our youth, were killing. There is no reason why in the future—I am not saying that it is possible at the moment—if the effort is put into it, we should not be able to have a perfectly efficient and cheap method of vaccination.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I note what the noble Lord has said.

DECIMAL CURRENCY BILL
4.31 p.m.
House again in Committee.
LORD HIRSHFIELD: I rise to oppose both Amendments, and in doing so I rather regret that the noble Lord, Lord Crowther, with whom I work and cooperate on such a good and friendly basis in some activities outside this House, and for whose ability I have profound respect, has by his support of these Amendments diverged from the views which I am conscientiously bound to reflect. I think that on an earlier occasion in this House I may have mentioned something which I repeat to-day only because of its rather humorous coincidence. Until a couple of years or so ago my official telegraphic address was "Ellessdee, Westcent." I hasten to add that the spelling was "Ellessdee", and not just "LSD", for I would not want it to be thought that I am an emergency supply centre for "pot". That telegraphic address may have carried the implication that I supported both an £ s. d. currency and a cent or decimal currency. Recently, however, the G.P.O. authorities eliminated "Westcent.", leaving me with only "Ellessdee," by which nomenclature messages reach me now.
It was a good telegraphic address but I am not such a sentimentalist as to be upset by its very diminished meaning under a decimalisation of coinage. After all, the farthing and the silver 3d. bit passed away quite peacefully. Some of your Lordships may remember the particular popularity of the tiny 3d. bit and

973
the quantities of that coin which used to come into London with the arrival of the express steam trains from the North. Other money or coin orientated names which were once famous may have lost their effectiveness, but I believe that the organisations which used them continue to develop and prosper. I have in mind the Yorkshire Penny Bank, the Five Shilling Shirt Company, the "Fifty Bob Tailors" and the Woolworth 3d. and 6d. Stores, or, as they were known in America, the 5 and 10 cent Stores. One recognises that past inflation largely produced those changes. Now the "copper" is going, and the "bob"; and I hope also the "tanner". New pet names will undoubtedly emerge for some of the new coins, but I will not proffer any suggestions to-day.
We are in a period of rapid technological change, and we must show a more ready acceptance of its various aspects. With the adoption of decimalisation, which is to Britain's obvious benefit in its international transactions, as well as internally, we must remember that 6d. belongs to £ s. d. currency. It really should have no place in decimalised currency if we are going to be sensible from the outset with our new coinage.
The argument which we are considering on this Amendment is generally regarded as an argument about the 6d. The question at issue is expressed as: "Should the 6d. be retained?" It is significant that the argument should be expressed in these terms—significant, but also misleading. In a sense, there is no argument about the 6d.; so long as we are using the £.s.d. currency system we shall be able to use the 6d. The 6d. will be available as current coin and legal tender throughout the changeover period of dual currency working which will follow D-day. It may be with us for as long as 18 months after D-day; that is to say, until the middle of 1972. Until that time, when we stop using the £.s.d. system, shops can, if they wish, continue to sell goods for £.s.d. prices, including 6d.; and shopkeepers and anyone else who wants them will be able to draw 6d. pieces from the banks.
About all this there is no question and no argument. The argument is about whether this coin should continue in use after the end of the changeover period, when we are working entirely in decimal
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currency. In that context we cannot think of the coin as a 6d.; it is positively unhelpful to do so; we can think of it only as a 2½p piece. But it is significant that the argument is in general conducted in terms of the 6d., because it shows that the advocates of the retention of this coin have not thought through their arguments in a pure decimal currency context, and are falling into the trap of supposing that because a coin is useful in the £.s.d. system it will be equally useful in a decimal system.
The implication of the Amendment appears to be twofold: first, that after the end of the changeover the present 6d. coin should continue in circulation, presumably re-denominated as a 2½p coin, just as our present shillings and florins will be redenominated as 5p and lop coins; second, that a 2½p coin identical in specification with the present 6d. should be minted as a permanent feature of the new decimal coinage.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGS-BRIDGE: Would the noble Lord give way? Is he not referring to the second Amendment? There is no mention of any of this in the first Amendment.
LORD HIRSHFIELD: We are taking both Amendments together.
A NOBLE LORD: No.
LORD BESWICK: The noble Lord is quite entitled to talk to both Amendments, but his argument, as the noble Lord has said, relates to the second Amendment.
LORD HIRSHFIELD: The decimal coinage would therefore be: new halfpenny (½p,), new penny (1p), 2 new pence (2p), 2½ new pence (2½p), 5 new pence (5p), 10 new pence (10p) and 50 new pence (50p). This would give the United Kingdom a unique sequence of coins. Most of the countries of the world have a decimal currency system in which there is a major unit divided into 100 minor units. For convenience, let us call the minor unit a cent. Many of these countries have a 2 cent coin, as we shall. A few, very few, such as Portugal, have a 2½ unit coin. Not one—I repeat, not one—has both a 2 and a 2½ cent coin. We may be certain that if this were a desirable feature of a decimal coinage someone would have

975
thought of it before now. In fact, it is a thoroughly undesirable feature. If you have a new halfpenny (½p) a new penny (1p) and a new 2d. piece (2p), there is no reason for another coin so close in value to the two. It does not enable you to carry out any transaction that could not otherwise be carried out. it merely means that there is an extra denomination to be recognised, accounted for, handled and so on. It is an unnecessary complication.
There is, of course, an argument for providing a 2½p coin instead of a 2p coin, although this is not what the Amendment proposes. Provision of a 2½p coin rather than a 2p coin was considered by the Halsbury Committee who took the view that the use of this additional fractional coin was a weakness. They regarded the 2½p as tolerable in a decimal system but inferior to the 2p and were much influenced by the fact that experiments had shown that 2½p was more difficult to reckon with than 2. It is hardly surprising that the experiment had this result. Our own experience tells us that we can count: "2, 4, 6, 8, 10", and so on, almost as easily as: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5." But we do not naturally or easily count: "2½, 5, 7½, 10, 12½" and so on.
This vividly illustrates the point I was trying to make at the beginning; namely, that there is an important difference between the 6d. and the 2½p coin and it is not as easy to add, let alone subtract in the latter as in the former. It is hardly surprising therefore that few countries have a 2½ cent coin and that none has a 2 cent and a 2½ cent. There cannot be a long-term case either for a 2½p as well as a 2p or for a 2½p instead of a 2p. It would be a great mistake to burden ourselves with the wrong denominations of coins, or too many denominations, for purely short-term reasons. Yet the arguments for letting the 6d. continue as a 2½p after the end of the changeover period can only be short-term arguments and really amount to saying that the interests affected cannot make the necessary adjustments between now and 1972.
In fact, the only interests affected are the coin-operated machine interests. Anyone else who sells goods or services for 6d. can do so now without a 6d. coin and can do so for 2½p without a 2½p coin.
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The coin-operated machine interests will have to make changes but they are no. alone in this. Every firm and organisation in the country will have to make changes of one sort or another as a result of currency decimalisation; but in the majority of cases changes in the denomination of coin which operates a machine can be accompanied by commensurate changes in the quantities of goods or services sold, so that there is no change in the value of what is provided.
Do not let us be too greatly impressed or permit our thoughts to be governed by the interests of vending machine manufacturers or coin box operators. The machines are often aids to consumer spending or amusement of the kind where the scales are loaded in favour of the operator. On the contrary, when we think about coin boxes let us rather be promoting the use of those coin boxes which are aids to personal savings; the savings boxes of our kiddies and the adult population. I am sure that no costs will be involved in converting those boxes to receive the new coinage.
Now that we have at last decided to change over to a decimal coinage, it is important that we should, wherever possible, go for the best solution in the long run; that we should not adopt inferior courses of action which seem attractive only as an easy way out of a short-term but soluble problem. So far as coinage is concerned, the important thing is to get the denominations right from the outset and to get people used to working in those denominations. There is an economic cost in having the wrong denominations. Let us not needlessly complicate a system which is designed to aid productivity by simplifying our money calculations and our cash transactions.
It is sometimes suggested that professional accountants have too great an influence in industrial affairs and policy making. Naturally, I do not share that view but I can inform the Committee that the leading accountancy bodies of our country, including the Institutes of Chartered Accountants, have not expressed any official views on the withdrawal or retention of the 6d. This is because under modern and sophisticated auditing techniques professional accountants are less concerned with the aspects of cash handling than they are with conversion tables.

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Those most vitally concerned with cash handling are of course the retail tradesmen and the public, most especially the large chain-store groups. The position on this subject of both Marks and Spencer and of Sainsbury's can best be indicated by other noble Lords who are connected with those firms and better qualified than I to give the considered views of their experts.
Fortunately, we have heard one such view expressed this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, and I know, if others do not, that Marks and Spencer share the views which he has expressed. One announcement I am authorised to make to your Lordships to-day concerns the considerable retail chain of Tesco Stores. Their managing director has informed me that on the advice of the organisation's experts Tescos Stores most definitely favour the withdrawal of the 6d. If the position in this matter of Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury's is the same as Tesco, as it seems to be, then it becomes clear that within these three groups the aggregate of change-giving transactions represent a very high proportion of the nation-wide volume of small money change-giving.
I urge that we do not lightly overlook the considered position adopted by those three great British organisations and by many others like them. Moreover, we must not forget that firms engaged in retail selling on a large scale, as well as others, must train their staffs in the use of the new coinage and consequential pricing policy. They must make headway with their training schemes, and we should decide quickly about the future of the 6d.
In your Lordships' House I speak from the Government Benches, but I hope and believe it is recognised that I am usually capable of expressing a frank and politically unprejudiced view on subjects which, either directly or indirectly, are within my sphere of activity and experience. I am being frank now, and after mature thought I sincerely recommend your Lordships to oppose these Amendments.
4.48 p.m.
LORD JACQUES: The case for the 6d. is somewhat different. It is this. A coin which represents 5 per cent, of the pound will always be a key coin in our currency. and whether we call it 1s. or 5p makes no
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difference. In the past it has been convenient to have another coin which was half the value of that key coin, and we argue that it will be equally convenient in the future.
I should like to thank the noble Baroness for the reply which she gave to the point that I raised in the debate on the Second reading. In effect, she said two things. The first was that there has been research which has shown that two-thirds of the use of the 6d. was in pairs, in substitution for the 1s. Because of that, there will be no public inconvenience when the 2s. 6d. coin is withdrawn in January of next year, provided that more shillings are introduced so that the 6d. will be liberated and may be used with other coins in substitution for the 2s. 6d.
I must express some surprise at the figure of two-thirds, but nevertheless I believe that is an effective answer to the proposition that coins marked 2½p should be put into circulation next year when the 2s. 6d. goes. The second point made in reply to the debate was on the long-term. At the present time we have a currency which has eight coins below the value of a pound. We are proposing to commence the new decimal currency with only six units, and only one of these will have a fractional value—namely the ½p. All experience has shown that a coin of such a small value eventually becomes redundant because of inflation. Therefore, why frustrate this admirable purpose of getting in due course a rationalised. coinage of five coins with no fractions by introducing now a 2½p piece?
Although it is too late, I think it should be mentioned that we could have had such a rationalised currency at once, and not at some time in the future if the Government had taken note of the view of organised consumers and retailers who wanted a 10s. unit. It would' have been rationalised forthwith. There would have been no halves. However, it is now too late for that. But let us look at the question of inflation and its effect. I suppose that in a democratic society, with a mixed economy and with full employment, some inflation is inevitable. Let us look at the value of the new ½p. At the time when it is introduced, the new ½p will be equal to 1·2 old pennies, so that if we wait until the price has dropped and the value of money is halved, that

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new ½p will still be worth ·6 of an old penny—more than ½d.is worth to-day. On the basis of that evidence one can say that it is likely to be twenty years and more before we are in a position to discard the ½p.
Why cannot we use the 6d. in the meantime? My noble friend, in replying to the debate on Second Reading, said:
"The Government are convinced that by the end of the change-over period the sixpence will have ceased to be a useful coin."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15/4/69, col. 51.]
Are not the Government prepared to put their conviction to the test? The Government set up the national economic development councils and the N.E.D.C. for the trade concerned—distribution—put forward very reasonable advice. They said:
"The sixpence should not cease to be legal tender until there has been an objective research in the changeover period which shows that it is redundant."
I would put two questions, to which I hope I shall get a reply from the Government. First, are they prepared for this research? Secondly, if this research shows that the 6d. is not redundant, will they give it a new lease of life, if need be, for the period between now and the time when we dispense with the new ½p?
LORD FERRIER: I will be brief, but I feel that this debate on the Amendment, which I support, will be incomplete without a slight embellishment of the reference which my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve made to the problem of the 6d. in relation to the parking meter. He pointed out—and I know this is a point made by motoring organizations—that the absence of the 6d. means a departure to the shilling, the "bob", the 5p piece. It is clear from the Press that local authorities are not thinking in terms of bringing down the rate for a period at a meter to the new 2p level, but of putting up the price.
I believe that, as my noble friend said, this will have the effect of encouraging illegal parking, because of the higher cost of going to a meter for a short period. As everybody knows, motor vehicles parked in the wrong places are a high contributory factor to road accidents and to accidents to pedestrians as well. It is also fair to say that in many townships a
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number of retailers suffer because their customers cannot get to their doors without going to a meter. If these meters are going to be at a "bob" for one hour, or perhaps half-an-hour, that is a high price to pay and too long a period for a visit to one shop.
I would differ from the noble Lord, Lord Hirshfield, and agree with the last speaker the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, that the new 2½p piece would be just "half-a-bob". That is the important thing about it. When we originally debated decimal coinage I made an appeal that we should stick to this meritorious term, the "bob", although no one knows why the shilling got that name. I believe that in terms of the cost of living, which is forever creeping up, this problem of the meter and of the new coins should not be overlooked when we are considering this Amendment.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: I rise in defence of the new 2·5p coin. The point has been made that in the coinages of other countries there are no fractions. I would point out that in practically every case this applies to a 10s. system and not a pound system. Besides, these other countries have coins of very small values. We are only in this jam because we do not have a small enough coin to prevent large jumps and difficulties. We have recognised that by having a new ½p, so that to begin with we have been illogical. If we are as illogical as that, let us keep the direct equivalent, which is the useful one of half of 10p.
Vending machines have been mentioned this afternoon. The point about vending machines is not the volume of trade done by these machines but their convenience to the consumers. The longer we can leave these machines in circulation, the longer we put off the time when the owners who have paid for them will have to spend money converting them or buying new ones. Let us wear these machines out first. It is perfectly easy to have new vending machines to suit the new decimal currency, but let us keep the existing machines going for as long as we can, so that we do not voluntarily use them to contribute to inflation, as scrapping them would do. I would ask whether the figures for vending machines include such things as prepayment meters belonging to the Electricity and Gas Boards.

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Also, when we are told of machines being weighted in favour of the owner, does that apply to telephones? I have long suspected that it does, and we have heard to-day that it might.
On the question of the ease of handling change, I should like to know exactly how one is going to hand out the 2s. 6d. fee for crossing the Forth Bridge. You will have to use lots of bits and pieces. Finally, as the Scottish thistle appears on the back of a 6d., may I ask whether anybody has asked the Scots whether they want their emblem destroyed?
LORD SOMERS: I should like strongly to support this Amendment. Naturally, I cannot claim even one-tenth of the knowledge of the retail trade possessed by the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, but I can say that every small retailer I have spoken to on this subject is strongly in favour of retaining the 6d., or its equivalent. I must confess that I speak as one who would like to see the entire Bill abolished. I was against it from the beginning, and I remain against it still. But obviously it is too late to do anything about that. However, I think we should try to make it as convenient for the public as we possibly can.
One reason why I am against the Bill is that it is going to cost many millions of pounds to make this changeover and at a time when we are finding it difficult to bridge our balance of payments I do not feel that a totally unnecessary change like this is justified. And if we abolish the 6d. coin, it will just about double the expense. Just think of the number of coin-operated machines throughout the country which use the 6d.: telephones, ticket machines at Underground stations, confectionery machines, parking meters, which have been mentioned, and innumerable others. These will all have to be adapted, and this adaptation will involve a considerable addition to the cost of this changeover. I, for one, do not feel that it is warranted.
One noble Lord seemed to think that 2½ is going to be a very clumsy figure. I do not think that there is anybody in the country who is not aware of the fact that 2½ is half of 5—after all, we once had 2½d. stamps. I cannot remember that anybody found these difficult to deal with. That was just about half the present postage, because then all postage
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was first-class. Therefore, I feel that unless we retain the 6d. we are jus: about going to double the expense of this extremely unnecessary change.
LORD McCORQUODALE OF NEWTON: I should like to say just a few words in support of this Amendment. I want to emphasise the human side of the problem. Let us make no mistake: during the changeover period this whole business is going to be most unpopular with the ordinary man and woman in the street. If they also see that their favourite coin, from their earliest childhood, is to be arbitrarily swept away, rightly or wrongly they will regard this as a calamity. Everybody in this House, I am sure, wants to see this changeover carried out as smoothly and as favourably as possible. Therefore it seems to me common sense to allow the public's favourite coin to remain, until we can see quite clearly whether it is going to be required or not. I therefore support the Amendment.
5.5 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I should like to thank those of your Lordships who have participated in this interesting debate. I was sorry that it appeared to be suggested as "only the 6d., and all that" because it is about this that we are attempting in this Bill to decide not a short-term change but a long-term change. I hope your Lordships will bear this in mind when voting, if we have to vote this afternoon. The noble Lord in introducing the Amendment pointed out—and I should like to emphasise this—that this cuts right across Party lines. Therefore I hope that noble Lords will approach it with an open mind, mud will make up their minds on the arguments that have been advanced.
First of all, I think we must accept that we are arguing on existing currency. It is argued that, because the 6d. is a popular coin in the £.s.d. system, it will therefore be a necessary coin in the decimal system. This is not so. Reference has been made to the coins which we have seen disappear in our lifetime, and there is little doubt that the British people have a great capacity for adaptability. I was interested that the noble Lord, Lord Crowther, made some reference to the price endings. As a woman, I naturally enjoy shopping, whether it is window shopping or shopping for cash,

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and I can assure the noble Lord that many of the price endings are not 6d.; many of the price endings are 11d. and 11½d. But I have not found it necessary to have one coin in order to purchase something which was 19s. 11½d. So it does not seem to me that the price ending necessarily calls for one complete coin. Indeed, as your Lordships will have noticed, one popular form of description still is the guinea. Most ladies' clothes are still priced in guineas. But I cannot remember in my lifetime ever having gone to a shop and presented a guinea. The price ending seems to be a very small point in this discussion. What is important is that we have to think all the time of the simplicity of the system; and the more halves we introduce, whether they are called 0·5 or a half, the more the cash transactions are slowed down.
The noble Lord, Lord Crowther, and the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair, called in aid very powerful battalions of people who were supporting the retention of the 6d. I do not think it is necessary for me to linger on that because, on the other hand, we have had equally big battalions speaking in the voices of the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, in his very able speech, and the noble Lord, Lord Hirshfield, who of course handles figures all the time. I feel it is unnecessary for me to attempt to answer the argument that this particular federation is in favour of the retention of the 6d. But I should like to emphasise the point made by the Chairman of the Retail Distributors' Association in a letter to the Financial Times, in which he said:
"Most sectors of retailing are now well advanced with their plans for decimalisation and these plans do not include the use of the sixpenny coin."
I talked this week with a group of headmasters who are very concerned that they are not yet able to get on with the training of the children in this system because they are still waiting on events. If we are to wait, as the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, suggested, to have yet more research during the changeover period, surely it will again complicate this system which we want to see in operation. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Jaques, was rather skilful in calling in aid of his argument my reply to him. I would say that I did not at
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any stage suggest the retention of the 6d.; I said that the banks would have to provide more shillings. I just want to put that right for the Record, in case I am re-shuffled next week on this account.
If we were starting the system from scratch, I would suggest it is quite unlikely that we should have 5p and also have the 6d. It is equally unlikely that we should think in terms of 2½. Certainly 2½ is half of 5, but, whether we call it 2·5 or 2½, we are introducing into the system a slowing-down factor.
I have here several replies to various of your Lordships who have raised specific points. The noble Lord, Lord Crowther, asked how you would buy something for 2½p. Well, I have worked that one out pretty quickly. You would give 1p, 1p and ½p, which I think would be roughly what you would be giving now. I have frequently bought things worth 5d. and given five pennies, or a 3d. piece and two pennies. In fact the number of coins handled would not be very different. That is in relation to what is now called the "tanner" and would be called the 2½p.
LORD CROWTHER: Would the noble Baroness forgive me? The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, intervened in the middle of my speech to say that he could not follow my argument. I fear that I must now return the compliment: I have difficulty in following the noble Baroness's argument. If it is now maintained that there is to be a long-term or semipermanent retention of the ½p coin, does not that destroy at once, at one blow, both of the arguments against this Amendment: about the difficulties of change-giving and also about the undesirability of retaining fractions.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: The noble Lord made the point that he seemed to be under the impression that somebody (he did not make it quite clear which member of the Government) had said that the ½p— the new halfpenny—was likely to disappear. This, of course, is not true. It is unlikely to disappear for at least a generation. I am sure the noble Lord would not want, just because we have a ½p (and I get the feeling this was in response to some appeals made on the lines of the debate which we have had to-day; the ease of the consumer, and so

985
on) to add to this, and have yet another fractional coin. In fact the ½p will be used as we now use the penny. And probably it will be used only in a very small number of cases, because—and I pointed this out to your Lordships in the last debate—if you were to look into your pockets right now you would find that you had far more coins of a larger rather than a smaller demomination. You call in aid the smaller ones only on certain occasions, unless you have been rather deliberately looking for sixpences in order to fill in the points in this debate.
Some reference has been made to the expense of abolishing the 6d. coin; or, it noble Lords prefer it, quite a number of noble Lords made reference to the abolition of the 6d., and the cost of doing so. Several figures have been given. The conversion of the 6d. machine was put by the Halsbury Committee at £3½ million. I am now prepared to advance the figure of £5 million. I think the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier (or perhaps it was the noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven) suggested a larger figure. But that is the figure, for the Record, of changing the machines.
Now I come to the question of parking meters. There are something like 50,000 parking meters (perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, knew this) which take 6d. That is the figure which is estimated, and that is quite a number. Those of us who live in London are certainly not used to the 6d. meter. I take it from reading the Reports of the debates on these occasions that the 6d. meters were to be found outside London. But if in fact a 6d. meter has now been changed to a 1s. one, I am sure the noble Lord will accept this is not decimalisation, but something that was going to happen. I do not think this is because of decimalisation.
LORD FERRIER: I do not think there are any 1s. meters in Scotland.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I will not comment on that.
LORD HAWKE: Before the noble Baroness leaves those figures, could she by any chance give any breakdown of that £5 million as between the Post Office telephone machines, and the private machines?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: No, I cannot do this now; but I will let the noble Lord have that in due course.
So far as Scotland is concerned, I think it was the noble Viscount, Lord Stone-haven, who wanted some reassurance, and I am very happy to tell him that the Scottish thistle appears on the new 5p coin. So we hope that the Scottish Peers will not vote against us, at any rate on that score.
I think that if we were to go on for a long time debating this subject many of us would have already established a point of view—indeed, one of your Lordships mentioned that in any case he was committed to the 10s. system, and his argument stemmed, therefore, from this. What I do beg your Lordships to appreciate is this: if industry, education, and the trades generally, are to get on with the training schemes for this new currency, we cannot delay any longer. We have to think in different terms; we have to think in decimals. We must not continue to think in the old system. I beg your Lordships to appreciate that much research has been done on this matter. Lord Sainsbury's firm has done very interesting experiments on this, and has shown that the shoppers do not need the 6d. May I beg your Lordships to think into the future. I believe that we are getting a reputation for being a very forward-thinking House. May I to-day ask you to think into the future, into decimal coinage, and not back to the 6d.; and, therefore, to reject the Amendment?
5.18 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The noble Baroness always disarms criticism by the great charm and courtesy with which she speaks. I am sorry the Government have taken an intransigent view in regard to this Amendment. For the information of those of your Lordships who do net take the Opposition Whip, so far as we are concerned on this side of the House it will be an entirely free vote, and I wish that on matters of this kind there could always be a free vote in all parts of your Lordships' House. This is such a good example of a subject on which your Lordships can benefit so much from the advice of those Members of the House who have special knowledge on this subject, more than perhaps any other Assembly in the world, and this knowledge can he more valuably used if it

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is not guided too much by the usual channels. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Hirshfield, seemed to take credit to himself for the fact that he was not taking a Party political view on this question. I cannot imagine how anybody could find it remotely possible to take a Party political view on this question of whether we are going to keep 6d. or whether we are going to be content with 2p instead.
I have put my name down to this Amendment, although I know much less about the subject, and have had much less experience of these matters than any of your Lordships who have spoken. But I listened with very great interest to all that has been said, both for and against the Amendment. I think the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, who has very great business experience in these matters, will probably agree that, although he may he right, he is the minority among those interests and bodies who have expressed their views to many of your Lordships. I thought the noble Lord was quite right when he said that 2½ cents, which is 6d., will be illogical under our new currency. It is illogical, but so is the new ½p—much more illogical—and it is the new ½p which makes it necessary to have three places of decimals instead of two.
As many of your Lordships have pointed out in this discussion, all these troubles and difficulties would have been avoided if, as many of us wanted, we had adopted the 10s. pound instead of the 20s. pound. We should then have had the present new ½p, which would have been a penny or a cent, and we should have had the present 6d., which would have been 5 cents, instead of 2½p as it is going to be temporarily now; and 1s. would have been 10 cents and so on. But what we must consider now is what to do about the 6d. having lost our fight on the 10s. pound.
I would just point out again to your Lordships that this is not an Amendment, as I think the mover clearly explained, to make the 6d. permanent in our new currency. It is only an Amendment to prevent us from committing ourselves to the abolition of the 6d. 18 months after the changeover period has come to an end. That is all that the Amendment does. The reasons I will
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not go into again because they have been gone into thoroughly already. I think there is a good deal to be said on the point of temporary saving of expense in regard to meters and coin machines. I do not think that any of your Lordships has really put this forward, or would wish to put it forward, on grounds of sentiment or feeling of tradition about this coin. But what most of us do feel very apprehensive about is that the premature disappearance of this coin will have a real adverse effect on the rise of prices, especially to small people making small purchases—consumers who are buying goods in the shops.
No one, I think, has suggested keeping the 6d. after the ½p is abolished, if that should happen; and it was foreshadowed, your Lordships will remember, by the Halsbury Committee. They took the rather large view that in twenty or thirty years' time we should have had so much inflation that this ½p would be of no service at all. I thought that that was a rather pessimistic view. However, it may be a true one. But if for any reason the should eventually be abolished—the noble Baroness said she thought it would go on for twenty years, and she may be about right—no one would suggest continuing the 6d. after that. We are not arguing for having 2½p without a ½p; we are arguing only for having temporarily a ½d. and 2½d. And we are not proposing that the 2½p should necessarily be prolonged for as long a period as the ½d. What I should have hoped is that the Government would have adopted the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, which I thought was a very sensible one, that they should set up a research body to find out what is happening, what the effect on prices was as we went along, and that we should not abolish the 6d. until after we were quite satisfied that it would have no adverse effect on the rise in prices.
There are going to be so many factors which in any event will tend to push up prices. People who attack the Conservative agricultural policy say that it will put up prices; and people who defend it say, "Yes, it will, but not so much as the Government, who are putting up prices every six months anyhow". But however that may be, there are a great many factors which are going to tend to

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create inflationary pressure. And we fear that the abolition of the 6d. will encourage a rounding up. It may get some encouragement from the last table in this Blue Paper which I have in my hand, in which it is proposed that after the changeover the 6d. will be exchangeable for 3p, which is a move in favour of inflation.
Of course, some of the new equivalents go the other way, and to do the Paper justice I must add that paragraph 48 says that it is meant to be fair to both sides and a balance is intended to be struck which overall, says the Paper, is equitable both to creditors and to debtors; and I accept that that is the intention of this new valuation. But so many prices are habitually fixed in terms of 6d. pieces. The fact that the 6d. in this last statement is equivalent to 7.2d. means an increase in value by something like one-fifth in favour of inflation,
and while some of the other equivalents may correct that, what we fear is that the great multiplicity of traditional prices which have been fixed in sixpences will have the effect of making the average round-up upwards instead of downwards. It is for that reason that I would have wished that Lord Jacques's suggestion could have been accepted by the Government. I do not think it will do any harm to keep the 6d. a little longer. We are not ourselves seeking to keep it for ever. All we are asking your Lordships to do is to say that we are not going to commit ourselves to abolishing it 18 months after the changeover.
5.26 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents 74; Not Contents 66.

CONTENTS

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Airedale, L.

Dudley, L.

Perth, E.

Albemarle, E.

Dundee, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Elgin and Kincardine, E.

Redesdale, L.

Amulree, L.

Ferrier, L.

Rennell, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Foot, L.

St. Helens, L.

Auckland, L.

Glasgow, E.

St. Oswald, L.

Audley, Bs.

Goschen, V.

Salisbury, M.

Balerno, L.

Gray, L.

Sandford, L.

Barrington, V.

Grenfell, L.

Sandys, L.

Belstead, L.

Gridley, L.

Selkirk, E.

Berkeley, Bs.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Brecon, L.

Hacking, L.

Sinclair of Cleeve, L. [Teller.]

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Hanworth, V.

Somers, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Hawke, L.

Stamp, L.

Carrington, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Stonehaven, V.

Conesford, L.

Hylton-Foster, Bs.

Stradbroke, E.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Ironside, L.

Strang, L.

Craigavon, V.

Jellicoe, E.

Strange, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Killearn, L.

Strange of Knokin, Bs.

Crowther, L. [Teller.]

Lauderdale, E.

Strathcarron, L.

Daventry, V.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Vivian, L.

Denham, L.

Merrivale, L.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Devonport, V.

Milverton, L.

Yarborough, E.

Dilhorne, V.

Morrison, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Hilton of Upton, L. [Teller.]

Aylestone, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Bessborough, E.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Jacques, L.

Beswick, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Kennet, L.

Boothby, L.

Evans of Hungershall, L.

Lindgren, L.

Bowles, L. [Teller.]

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs.

Brown, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Geddes of Epsom, L.

McLeavy, L.

Burden, L.

Gifford, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Burton of Coventry, Bs.

Granville-West, L.

Mitchison, L.

Chalfont, L.

Haddington, E.

Molson, L.

Champion, L.

Hall, V.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Chorley, L.

Hankey, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Clwyd, L.

Hill of Wivenhoe, L.

Phillips, Bs.

Platt, L.

Shackleton, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Shannon, E.

Walston, L.

Poppleweil, L.

Snow, L.

Wilberforce, L.

Royle, L.

Sorensen, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Stonham, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Wise, L.

St. Davids, V.

Strabolgi, L.

Wootton of Abinger, Bs

Serota, Bs.

Summerskill, Bs.

Wynne-Jones, L.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
5.37 p.m.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE moved Amendment No. 2:
After Clause 1 insert the following new clause:
Additional coinage of the new currency
". Schedule 1 to the Decimal Currency Act 1967 shall be amended by inserting after the entry relating to Five new pence the entry

Two-and-a-half new pence

2.82759 1.9405

Three quarters copper, one-quarter nickel

.0188"

The noble Lord said: As I explained earlier this afternoon, this Amendment is a necessary corollary to the first Amendment which has just been carried. This Amendment puts the new 2½p coin in its proper shape, designation and form. I beg to move.
LORD BESWICK: Although the noble Lord says this is a necessary corollary, it is not that at all. The implication of this Amendment is that the 6d. coin would be retained as a permanent feature of the currency. My feeling was that there were a number of noble Lords who felt that there should be a further trial period during which the 6d. should be allowed, as some noble Lords put it, to "die out". If this Amendment were to be incorporated in the Bill it would not be possible for the coin to die out. I feel we should take another Division here to find out the opinion of the Committee, and I very much hope noble Lords will come to the conclusion that it is not necessary for this House to say that in the future, in what purports to be a decimal currency system, there shall be this obsolete 6d.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE: I should like to answer that. In terms of the Amendment which was earlier debated we were seeking to secure—and
992
by the carrying of the Amendment I hope we have secured—a continuance of the 6d. beyond the transitional period. In order that it shall continue beyond the transitional period it is desirable and necessary that it should have a form which is consistent with the general proposals for the new decimal currency—that is to say, half a shilling—and that is what this will be. It is in exactly the same terms as regards size and description and weight as was moved in another place. Acceptance of this Amendment does not mean that the 6d. must be with us for ever. It merely means that it can take its place after the transitional period to serve such a life as may prove to be convenient and useful. It means no more than that. It can be subsequently demonetised, if the Government of the day so decide. That, at any rate, is what I understand to be the purpose of this Amendment.
LORD BESWICK: If it was felt necessary after adopting the previous Amendment, what the noble Lord intends to secure could be secured by proclamation under Section 11 of the Coinage Act 1870 and Section 2(3) of the Decimal Currency Act 1967. If this Amendment were carried, it would give the impression that we are proposing for the future that there should be a 2½p piece, and we should be adding another element of uncertainty. Much of the argument was on the basis of helping the consumer over the period of uncertainty. If this Amendment goes in, the machine manufacturers about whom the noble Lord, Lord Crowther, speaks really will not know where they stand.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I think my noble friend Lord Sinclair has made it quite plain that he does not intend to do more than remove the commitment to abolish the 6d. in the middle of 1972. I think he may be right in saying that this second Amendment is properly related to that. But if the Government tell us that in their opinion that is not the effect of this Amendment, I am sure my noble

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friend would not wish to press the matter now.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE: I will not press it so long as we understand—and I take it from what the noble Lord said that we can understand—that the Government will give serious consideration to the point I just made, that there would seem to be strong practical reasons for having such an Amendment as this. I will not press the Amendment at the moment, if the Government undertake to consider it in the light of the best technical advice they can obtain.
LORD BESWICK: I have told the noble Lord that so far as the practical considerations that he has in mind are concerned, they can be covered, if necessary, by other means.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Method of calculating in certain cases the amount in new pence corresponding to an amount in shillings and pence]:
5.45 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE LORD AIREDALE moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 16, leave out lines 32 to 42.
The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment to Schedule 1, which attaches to Clause 3 of the Bill, which provides for conversion at the appointed time of money in writing in the form of, for instance, cheques, postal orders, bank statements and so on. The accepted principle is that these newly expressed sums of money shall be in whole new pence without any fractions. Therefore it is necessary to have a conversion table for converting the old shillings and pence into whole new pence. The question is whether we have a table going up to 1s. or, as the Government propose, a table going up to 1s. 11d.
I think that anyone looking at this problem completely afresh would say that the obvious solution must be to have a table going up to 1s., because surely you convert first your old shillings and then your old pence. The shillings are very easy to convert, because the shilling is 5p, and the only problem is the conversion of the old pence. It is a bit of a problem because in no case, I think I am right in
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saying, does any number of old pence up to 1s. convert exactly into any whole number of new pence. It is not a very difficult problem in most cases, because in most cases there is an obvious r umber of new pence which is almost the equivalent of the old pence; and it is only when you come to the 6d.—I am sorry we are back with that—that a bit of a problem arises. As every noble Lord knows by now, the old 6d. is 2½p. The question is, do you round it up to 3p or down to 2½p? Her Majesty's Government had to decide one way or the other, and they have decided to round it up to 3p.
Having done that, they were apparently rather appalled at what they had done, and they said, "We must atone. How shall we do it?" And apparently they had the bright notion that they could round down the 1s. 6d. in compensation for having rounded up the 6d. So they published a 2s. table, or, to be quite exact, a 1s. 11d. conversion table, in which your Lordships will see that whereas the 6d. has been rounded up from 2½p to 3p, the 1s. 6d. has been rounded down from 7½p to 7p. This, I think I am right in saying—and I shall surely be told if I am wrong—is the sole reason for having the 1s. 11d. conversion table instead of the simpler one only to 1s.
The Government's argument, as I understand it, is that you get equalisation this way, because what people will lose or win on the 6d. conversion they will win or lose on the 1s. 6d. conversion. But this is false; it does not follow. I know what my luck will be on conversion day: in all my 6d. transactions I shall be a debtor and I shall lose by the rounding up, and in all my 1s. 6d. transactions I shall be the creditor and shall lose by the rounding down. If we were all born creditors or debtors and remained so for all our lives no doubt this wonderful equalisation scheme would work in practice. But in fact it will not.
The Bankers Association, the Finance Houses Association, the Trustees Savings Bank Association and others are most strongly in favour of abandoning this tiresome 1s. 11d. conversion table and sticking to the much simpler 1s. conversion table. What is rather striking about this is that the banks are going to lose money if they have their way. The banks point out that most of their customers'

995
accounts are in credit, so that every time a bank converts a banking account ending in 6d., under their own proposals they will be rounding it up from 2½p to 3p and the banks will be losing on the deal. I do not usually find the banks setting out to lose money without a good reason, and I should have thought if they were prepared, for the sake of this simplicity of operation, to lose money over it, that was a pretty weighty reason for Her Majesty's Government to think again whether it was not more practical and better to have a conversion table going up to 1s. in preference to this 1s. 11d. monstrosity. I beg to move.
5.50 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: Of course I remember that the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, made this point on Second Reading and I had anticipated that he would move an Amendment to the same effect. I would at once say to the noble Lord that it is true that the short table which he suggests would be more convenient administratively, and the long table which it is my business to defend is based on equity. I am sorry that the noble Lord feels that the banks are going to cheat themselves; but I am sure he will agree that it has always been common practice, even in general book-keeping, with which I have been a great deal concerned, that what one called the rounding-up in connection with ½d. was that you took the ½d. off and you transferred it on to something else.
This is, in fact, merely another technique within that transaction; and while the noble Lord says that we are not all debtors and creditors, in connection with the transactions with which these tables will be concerned surely it is true that we are all either debtors or creditors. This is really a rounding-off, merely carrying out the old principle in the £ s. d. system but transferring it to the decimal system. Therefore I hope that the noble Lord will accept that this table will be quite fair in application, that there is no need to memorise these figures because people will be working on tables, and that in the end it will work out quite fairly because the rounding-off will apply both ways. I hope that the noble Lord will accept that.
LORD AIREDALE: I should have thought there was a great advantage in not having to use tables, and that people who will have to operate this system in banks, building societies and so on, would quickly be able to memorise a table of pence up to 11d. but that they would not be able to memorise a table up to 1s. 11d. and would continually have to be looking at the table. If for the sake of simplicity, by having a simple table instead of a complicated one, the banks were prepared to lose money, I should have thought there was something to be said for it. But I have not got the overwhelming support from your Lordships that I hoped to receive, and I do not think it would be worth my taking this matter to a Division; so I propose to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
First Schedule agreed to.
Remaining Schedules agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with an Amendment.

EMPLOYER'S LIABILITY (DEFECTIVE EQUIPMENT) BILL
5.54 p.m.
LORD MORRIS OF KENWOOD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This Bill is presented as a modest but useful measure of law reform in the field of employers' liability. The Bill has the approval of Her Majesty's Government. It has passed through another place, where the principle which it embodies was accepted on almost every hand.
The Bill is concerned with the regulation of liability at Common Law when an employee is accidentally injured because of a defect in a tool or other equipment with which he has been issued to do his job. There is already, of course, a good deal of law dealing with this situation. The Factories Acts contain a statutory code for the use of industrial machinery, plant and equipment under which the employer may be liable if he does not see that the rules are followed. And if the defect in the tool was caused by the negligence of the employer or his servants, or they knew of its existence but did nothing about it, the employer will

997
be liable in damages at Common Law to the injured employee.
But there is a certain class of cases where the defect in the equipment which caused the accident was created before it ever came into the hands of the employer, and where it could not have been discovered by any inspection which he could reasonably have been expected to make: in other words, the employer has not, by himself or his servants or agents, been negligent in any way. In these cases, the injured employee has of course, as he always has, a full right to sue the person who made the tool negligently or whose negligence, by whatever means, actually created the defect which led to the accident. This erring third party may be difficult to identify, and when identified he may be abroad, bankrupt or otherwise difficult to sue. So the question has naturally arisen whether the employer, who after all is the person who actually bought the equipment and provided it to the employee, and who has wide responsibilities for his safety, can be jointly liable with the erring third party.
Until about ten years ago, there was not very much authority in England and Wales on the position in cases of this sort, though there was in Scotland, as I have no doubt the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate will be able to tell the House. In 1959, however, the question came before your Lordships' House in the well-known case of Davie v. New Merton Board Mills. What happened in that case was that a workman, in the course of his duty, was using a tool called a "drift" which was used and hammered rather like a chisel. The drift had been supplied to the employer by reputable suppliers as part of a regular course of bulk supply, and the employer's staff had given it a cursory inspection, which was all that could reasonably be expected. Nothing appeared to be wrong with the drift, but in fact the metal of which it was made was too brittle, owing to the negligence of its manufacturers. When the employee hammered the drift, it broke; and a piece flew into his eye, seriously injuring it. Your Lordships held that although the negligent manufacturer was liable, the employer was not.
998
It is not perhaps for a lay Member of this House to pontificate on matters involving intricate interpretations of the Common Law. But it seems clear that the effect of your Lordships' decision in Davie's case is that an employer, whether in England or Scotland, who purchases equipment from a reputable supplier and who has it inspected to an extent which is reasonable in the circumstances, has discharged his duty of care and cannot be liable if his employee to whom he issues the equipment is injured by a defect in it. If the employee cannot recover damages from the negligent third party, he cannot recover at all.
Now it is no part of the argument for this Bill that Davie's case was anything but a clear and correct statement of the law. When the House of Lords says what the law is on a particular subject, nobody (except itself) can gainsay it. But if it is the essential function of the courts to declare what the law is, it is equally the function of Parliament to take account of the state of the law, as declared by the courts, in the light of social and equitable considerations, which the courts very properly cannot recognise; and where appropriate it is the function of Parliament to legislate so as to change the law.
The question is, therefore, whether the law as revealed by the decision in Davie's case is really fair. To recover damages, the employee has got to find the person whose negligence caused the defect which injured him. This may not be easy. All the available records of the source of the equipment are in the hands of his employer. Most employers are no doubt very helpful in producing such information. However, they are under no obligation to do so, and in a few cases, employers (who may not wish to create difficulties with regular suppliers) have been so recalcitrant in this respect that employees have had to begin futile proceedings against them, not for the purpose of recovering damages but simply for the purpose of getting discovery of documents so as to be able to find and sue the negligent third party. But even with the employer's help, it may be difficult to identify the proper defendant. The defect may have been caused in transit—perhaps by the negligent handling of an unknown foreign docker. This kind of negligence might never be tracked down,

999
and the injured employee (or his surviving relatives) may never be able to recover damages.
But even if he can find the negligent third party and prove his negligence, the employee may have great difficulty in recovering damages. The defendant may be a foreign firm (this is more and more likely these days), or he may be bankrupt or in liquidation. In these circumstances, a judgment in favour of the employee, no matter how hard-won, will not be of much use, for it will often be virtually unenforceable. Some sad examples of this sort of case were given during the debate in another place.
Now in these cases, there has been an accident in the firm which is not the fault of either the employer or the injured employee. Ex hypothesi, neither of them is to blame. But as between these two innocent parties, which is the better able, and the more appropriate, to bear the loss? This Bill is based on the proposition that it should be the employer. The employer is already, and rightly, recognised as having a wide responsibility for the safety of his employee. He is much more likely to have the information and the organisation to mount a successful action against the negligent third party, and if such an action cannot be brought he can much more easily stand the loss. He will already be insured against employers' liability and further cover against liability in these cases will not be a significant burden for him to bear.
The Bill is extremely short, consisting of only two clauses. Clause 1(1) is the operative provision. It provides that wherever an employee has suffered personal injury in the course of his employment in consequence of a defect in equipment provided by his employer for the purposes of his business, and the defect is attributable to the fault of a third party, whether identified or not, then as well as the third party the employer shall also be deemed to be liable, but without prejudice to all his rights to recover over against the third party.
It has been said that the purpose of the Bill is to reverse the decision in the case of Davie. This is partly true, but there is a little more to it than that. Under the present law as declared in Davie, the employer is not liable in cer
1000
tain circumstances. The Bill lays down a new principle of liability, and it cannot therefore be strictly tied to the circumstances of Davie. It will be noted that the rule proposed by the Bill makes the employer liable without any fault of his: that is, of course, its main purpose. But the Bill does not impose absolute liability on the employer: he is not made into an insurer. He is only liable where there has been proved fault by someone. The employee still has the task—and it may still be a heavy one—of proving that the third party was at fault. Only if he does so can either the third party or the employer be liable. The employer's liability is thus only auxiliary to the third party's. But the fact that he is so liable will help to restore the balance of advantage somewhat in the employee's favour.
The Bill applies only to personal injuries, and only where the equipment was provided by the employer for the purposes of his business. This means that domestic servants, for example, are not covered, and on the whole that seems right. Their whole situation and relationship with their employer is different from that of an industrial worker.
Some criticism was made at first in another place (though it was later very much modified) of the drafting method employed in Clause 1 of saying that where the Bill applies,
"the injury shall be deemed to be also attributable to negligence on the part of the employer…".
It was said that this was objectionable, because it was calling an innocent man guilty. I hope it will be agreed that it is doing nothing of the sort. It is merely a technical device: and the Government's advisers, after considerable inquiry, are firmly of the opinion that this form of words, or something like it, is essential to safeguard the rights, not only of employees but also of employers—and, it may be added, of the Crown. This is a matter on which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate will of course be able to speak.
Clause 1(2) provides that the employer cannot contract out of his liability under the Bill. The necessity of this seems obvious. It may be remarked, of course, that employers purchasing equipment from suppliers may well contract out of their

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right to recover in contract or tort if the equipment is defective. There may thus be cases where the employer will be jointly liable with the negligent third party under the Bill, but will have deprived himself by contract of his right of contribution against the third party. Again, a little reflection will show that this ought not to be relevant to the employee's right to recover from the employer. It will not make much difference in practice if, as is expected, employers will be insured against liability under the Bill as part of their general insurance against employer's liability.
Clause 1(3) defines some of the principal expressions used in clause 1(1)—"business", "employee", "fault" and "personal injury". Clause 1(4) provides that the Bill binds the Crown. This will affect only the civil servants of the Crown and not the Armed Forces, because the Bill is framed so as to create liability in tort: and Section 10 of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947 exempts the Crown from liability in tort for death or personal injury to a member of the Armed Forces.
Clause 2 provides that the Bill shall come into effect three months after receiving the Royal Assent. The Bill applies to Great Britain, but not to Northern Ireland; but Clause 2(3) empowers the Parliament of Northern Ireland to pass similar legislation if it thinks fit.
It may be that technical legal questions will be asked about the Bill; if so, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate will be able to answer them, The principle behind the Bill is one which most people would agree is a fair one, and I hope that it will receive your Lordships' support. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be read 2a.—(Lord Morris of Kenwood.)
6.9 p.m.
THE LORD ADVOCATE (LORD WILSON OF LANGSIDE): My Lords, the persuasive eloquence of my noble friend Lord Morris of Kenwood has transformed what might have been for me an onerous duty into something rather of a pleasure. I should like first to congratulate the noble Lord on having brought forward in your Lordships' House this altogether useful Private Member's measure. I would also, if I may, pay
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tribute to the very clear and helpful explanation of its purpose to your Lordships.
My only regret, perhaps, is that the warmth of my congratulations and of that tribute, which I am sure your Lordships would wish to be paid to him, must be tempered by the diffidence that is perhaps due from, and appropriate to, one who has not previously addressed your Lordships, an experience which I understand is traditionally regarded as being awe-inspiring. Whether it is more awe-inspiring when the Benches of your Lordships' House are relatively deserted or when they are more fully occupied is, perhaps, a matter upon which in due course I shall be able to form a judgment. Before turning to the Bill, let me say that I am grateful, too, to the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, and touched by his consideration in asking me to speak at this particular stage.
Of course, the Bill extends to both Scotland and England, and in welcoming it and commending its purpose to your Lordships on behalf of the Government, I do so with the concurrence of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor. Perhaps I may, however, suggest that it is not altogether inappropriate that it should fall to a Scottish Law Officer to express the Government's support for this particular measure. I think there are three reasons for this. First, because many of the advances and developments in the field of law, known in England as tort and in Scotland as reparation, have emerged from notable decisions of your Lordships' House in Scottish appeals. I venture to mention, at this late stage of the evening, only two of these.
There was, of course, the classic of the decomposed snail which floated out from the dark, opaque glass bottle of ginger beer where it had been lurking unseen. This incident all started simply enough on a peaceful summer's night in the Scottish town of Paisley, when a simple Scottish housewife sought a modest refreshment in a little café, and ended in your Lordships' House as a historic landmark in the Law Reports, as Donoghue v. Stevenson. History does not relate whether this circumstance mitigated the distress which had been caused to Mrs. Donoghue by her experience, but it may well be that it did, particularly

1003
since at the end of the day, thanks to the wisdom of your Lordships, she won her case. The other notable case which I would mention in passing is English v. Wilsons and Clyde Coal Company in 1938—a case somewhat different in its facts, but of equal significance.
A second reason which I might mention, and which perhaps makes the Bill appropriate for a Scottish Law Officer (and I think it is right and in order to acknowledge this), is that a good deal of the inspiration of this Bill came from my learned predecessor in the office of Lord Advocate, Lord Stott, before he became a Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland. A third reason, which is certainly relevant, is that prior to 1959 it was in Scotland quite widely, but as transpired mistakenly, believed that in law the obligation upon an employer to use due care in providing sufficient equipment was not satisfied by obtaining it from a merchant or manufacturer of good repute. This belief will of course be realised if this measure is in due course enacted.
The Bill, as my noble friend said, has been generally welcomed by the Trades Union Congress and affiliated organisations representative of those working in industry and exposed to the dangers of industrial accidents. It has been welcomed, too, I may say, by many lawyers and others experienced in dealing with the claims of those injured in such accidents. As my noble friend said, it is a small but useful, and not unimportant, measure which seeks to reform one aspect of the law governing the liability of an employer for injuries sustained while at work by his employee. It does not, as the Government see it, constitute a major and fundamental change in the established doctrine of the law in this context.
Over many years the Common Law has been altered. It has been adjusted and refined to give a fuller and a better protection to men and women by misfortune injured in the course of their work. The Government see this measure as a further, a proper and a desirable step in this process. As my noble friend said, the need for considering whether or not there should be change was focused by the decision of your Lordships' House in Davie v. New Merton Board Mills. It emerged that prior to that decision there
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had been some uncertainty as to where the law stood in this particular context. In Scotland, certainly, it had been held in 1953, in the case of Donnelly v. Corporation of Glasgow, that an employer was liable for injury sustained by his employee due to a defect in plant, albeit it was hidden from the employer and albeit the employer had obtained the plant from a reputable and competent supplier whose negligence caused the defect. The decision in Davie, to which my noble friend has referred, necessarily, of course, overruled the decision in the case of Donnelly. In the outcome, the Government's view is that the law as it stands gives rise to hardship and to difficulties, and these emerge quite simply, as my noble friend made so clear to your Lordships, from the circumstance that the injured man is often without knowledge of the source from which the equipment came or, equally important, of its history. This may, as my noble friend put it, make his right of action illusory, particularly in those cases where the equipment has been imported.
My Lords, most of us with experience and practice at the Bar have seen the kind of difficulties and problems which arise, and at this late stage of the evening I shall not weary your Lordships with such illustrations, for this matter is surely not in dispute. The Bill has the merit of simplicity. It places responsibility for equipment supplied for the purposes of the employer's business on the employer. He, after all, is the person who obliges the workman to use the equipment, and he, in the event of a dispute as to the source of the equipment or in the event of the inability of the original defaulter to pay damages, is better able to bear the burden of an accident than the innocent worker, who may have been more or less seriously injured in the service of his employer.
I think there is little more that I need say about this Bill—perhaps only three things. First of all, I would emphasise that the Bill does not give a blank cheque to an injured workman. It does not impose an absolute liability, in a true sense. The injured workman will still have to prove fault by some third party as having been the cause of the defect; and the employer will still retain his rights of recourse against the ultimate defaulter who was responsible for the

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defect. Indeed, at the end of the day the practical result will be that the judicious employer will make certain that his employers' liability insurance policy covers this slightly extended field.
My noble friend referred to the technical device involved in deeming the fault of the responsible manufacturer or supplier to be that of the employer. This form of words, or something indeed like it, is essential to safeguard the rights of both parties, quite simply because it is essential to know the basis of the liability in order to be assured that the usual incidents of liability are automatically attracted to the situation. In short, my Lords, the Government regard this Bill as a limited but necessary and humane extension of the existing principles of the law governing an employer's liability, and a Bill which should commend itself to your Lordships' House.
6.24 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, my chief reason for wishing to say a few words on this Bill is that it gives me an opportunity to welcome the noble Lord the Lord Advocate to your Lordships' House as well as to congratulate him on the clear and interesting maiden speech to which we have just listened. The Act of Union between Scotland and England has now existed for 262 years, and I think I am right in saying that the noble Lord is the first Lord Advocate during this period who has sat in your Lordships' House, although since the Act of Union the Lord Advocate has in fact on some occasions been the only Scottish Minister and on other occasions has been more powerful than the Secretary of State. I hope I shall not be misunderstood if I say that I rather wish he were now. But, my Lords, he occupies a very high and very ancient Office in Scotland and one which I think it is fitting should be accompanied by a seat in your Lordships' House. Quite apart from that, it will be exceedingly useful to have him here, because the only other Scottish Minister we have, although extremely able and brilliant, has far too much work for one man to do; and we shall now look forward to having a greater variety of Scottish talent on the Front Bench opposite.
My Lords, I asked if the noble Lord could speak before me because on the occasion of his maiden speech I did not
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want to subject him to any kind of cross-examination, and I hope that the very few and short questions which I have to ask can be replied to simply and quickly, because I do not want a long reply from the noble Lord, Lord Morris, who has moved the Second Reading of this Bill. If he should have to appeal to the Lord Advocate I have no doubt your Lordships will give the Lord Advocate leave to speak again, but I hope that will not be necessary. Naturally, some misgivings are bound to be caused by a Bill which transfers legal liability from people who are negligent to people who are not negligent and which lays down in Statute Law that those who are proved not to be negligent shall nevertheless be deemed to have been negligent. Anyone who is not a lawyer feels a little uncomfortable about legislation which does that kind of thing.
If I understood the noble Lord, Lord Morris, rightly, I think he made clear in his speech something which had not been quite clear to me from the Bill, and that is that an injured employee has the choice of suing either his employer or the negligent manufacturer from whom the equipment was procured, although the employer is in a position to prove that he has taken all reasonable care to make sure that the equipment is safe; in other words, that he has not been negligent. I should like to be assured that the employee who is injured is not compelled to sue the employer and then make the employer get it back from the manufacturer. I should like to be assured of this particularly because I can think of some cases in which it might be very much to the disadvantage of the employee that he should think it the normal thing to do to sue his employer. For instance, the employer might be a man of small means who does not possess enough to pay the damages appropriate in respect of a serious accident, and if the employer had accepted an indemnity clause in the contract for the sale of the equipment which had caused the accident he might in any case not be able to recover what he had to pay to his workman from the manufacturer whose inefficiency or negligence was really responsible for the accident. I think that would be most undesirable from every point of view. I should like to be assured that it could not happen as a result of this Bill. It seems to me that if the employer and

1007
the manufacturer are both equally identifiable, and even if they are both able to pay the compensation, there is no good argument for transferring the liability from the negligent manufacturer to the non-negligent employer. It seems to me that that would be an unjust and antisocial thing to do.
The only reason for doing it would be (as in the hypothetical case the noble Lord mentioned; although there may be actual cases) where the employer refused or was unable to supply they injured person with the identity of the manufacturer who had been negligent or with the evidence which was necessary to enable the injured party to recover damages. In that case I do not know whether the simplest remedy would be to have a narrower Bill which would apply to those special circumstances or whether this Bill is the right way of doing it. But I should like to be assured that the injured party has the right of choice, and presumably he would rely upon his legal advice to take whatever course would be likely to lead to satisfactory compensation. There are obvious circumstances in which he ought to have the right of suing against his employer. One circumstance, which I think the noble Lord also mentioned, would be where the manufacturer was outside the country and could not be sued except at prohibitive expense or with great difficulty.
There are also, I think, possibilities in this Bill of hardship to the employer. One can easily imagine circumstances in which an employer who was entirely innocent of any negligence would have to pay damages for reasons which one could not regard as socially just. I dare say that these cases might be very few and I am prepared for the moment to accept the Bill as it stands. My noble friend Lord Colville of Culross was to have taken charge of the Bill for the Front Bench on this side this afternoon, but he has a case of importance in East Anglia in which he has to appear. I shall have a short consultation with him when he returns on the question whether or not it is necessary to put any Committee Amendments down for this Bill. Meanwhile I do not wish to detain your Lordships further. I should be grateful
1008
if the noble Lord could assure me on the few points I have mentioned.
6.34 p.m.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I shall not keep your Lordships for more than a moment or two. I cannot conceal that my object in speaking is exactly the same as that of the noble Earl who has just spoken. As an Englishman, I should like from these Benches to congratulate the Lord Advocate on what was I think his maiden speech. It is perfectly true that Lords Advocate are not quite what they used to be. Anyone who wants to look into their history might examine in the museum in Inverness the very blunt letter which Lord Dundas wrote to the bailies of Inverness who had been trying cases between smugglers and the police and who had always believed the smugglers but never the police. None the less, Lords Advocate still remain very important people. I should like to discover at some time whether my noble and learned friend exercises his right to plead in court in a hat. I did not know that a Lord Advocate had that right; and from the slightly astonished appearance of my noble and learned friend I am not sure that he did. But, if I may, I will show him the authority for it afterwards, if he should want to see it. Anyway, apart from the position of a Lord Advocate, it was, if I may humbly say so, a very good, clear speech, and I hope we are going to get a great many more of them. When I was in the Commons—and I was there for quite a long time—we much regretted the absence of a Scots Law Officer somewhere in Parliament. I am glad that we have one here to-day.
As regards the Bill, all I need say is that I think it is a very good Bill; but on this occasion, as indeed on some others, the Scots were rather a little before the English. There is one small point that I propose to raise in Committee. I think the word "equipment" needs a little more clarification. The point was raised on Report in the Commons, but it was very shortly discussed. It is a small point, so small that it raises no question of principle at all. Having discharged my main purpose, I once again congratulate the Lord Advocate—and I am sure that I do so on behalf of all noble Lords—on his first speech here.
6.37 p.m.
LORD DELACOURT-SMITH: My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Mitchison, I shall not speak for more than a minute or two, but I should like to express a warm welcome to a Bill which commends itself so strongly as this one does to trade union opinion. I am happy to say that speaking on this subject gives me the opportunity of joining in the congratulations and welcome to the Lord Advocate. It is perhaps a little presumptuous of a Back-Bencher to offer such congratulations to a Front-Bencher and I cannot do so with the historical knowledge of my noble friend Lord Mitchison, but I can perhaps claim one ground for not being too presumptuous: at least, I can claim to be half English and half Scottish.
As I said, this Bill commends itself strongly to trade union opinion, and since the present law was clarified a number of representations have been made by trade union organisations in favour of a change in the law. It closes a gap in the legal provision for the protection of the worker against the financial consequences of injury by accident at work. It has been sought because the present position seems to place an unfair onus upon the worker. I take the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, that there may be cases in which the employer is himself a person of small means, but I should have thought that in general the employer was far better circumstanced for shouldering a responsibility of seeking compensation from the person with the ultimate responsibility than was the individual worker. Further, I should have thought that any employer who employs workers upon any scale would cover his liabilities for his responsibilities in the case of injuries by insurance, and that this extension of the law, this change, would hardly add materially to his insurance liabilities.
I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will give a cordial welcome to the Bill. Even though there may be, as my noble friend Lord Mitchison has said, one or two points which will require attention in Committee, I do not think we can feel any doubt that the Bill represents a valuable step forward, and we are grateful to my noble friend Lord Morris of Kenwood for having introduced it in this House.
6.40 p.m.
LORD MORRIS OF KENWOODMy Lords before answering the points which have been raised, may I take the opportunity to associate myself with my noble friends, Lord Mitchison and Lord Delacourt-Smith, and the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, in their congratulations to my noble and learned colleague, the Lord Advocate. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that his "baptism" in your Lordships' House is a good augury of what we may expect from him in future, and I look forward with great pleasure to hearing from him again.
The noble Earl, Lord Dundee, raised as his main point the question whether the employee has a right of choice; whether he is to sue the third party or whether he must sue the employer. The answer is simple: he does have that choice, and I am sure that if the employee is able to sue the third party, the negligent party, without any difficulty, this he will do. It is only when this becomes difficult that the Bill gives him the right to sue the employer. The noble Earl raised the question of the small employer, which I think has already been answered by my noble friend, Lord Delacourt-Smith. Regarding the question of insurance, I think most employers will, as I have already said, have taken out insurance under the normal employers' and if they have not done so I am sure that the advent of this Bill will persuade them so to do, so that the chances of a small employer having to carry a heavy burden as a result of an accident in the circumstances concerned will not arise. This, after all, is one of the main defects of the Bill so far as the employer is concerned.
My noble friend Lord Mitchison raised the question of the definition of "equipment". This is a point which has occupied the minds and thoughts of the Government Law Officers for some considerable time. They do not have strong feelings on it, one way or the other, and I am sure that if the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, wishes to put down an Amendment on the Committee stage we shall be pleased to give it careful consideration. I do not think there is anything further that I can add at this stage. I would perhaps say that I do not know whether the emptiness of the House is any indication of a lack of interest, or is an indication of

1011
general support for the Bill. I hope that it is the latter.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

NURSES BILL [H.L.]
6.43 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (BARONESS SEROTA): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Serota.)
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Constitution of General Nursing Council for England and Wales]:
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 3, line 3, leave out (" appointed by the Central Midwives Board ").
The noble Baroness said I beg to move Amendment No. 1. Amendment No. 2 is linked with it, and Amendments Nos. 3, 4 and 7 relate to the same point; so perhaps to save your Lordships' time we could discuss them all together. The purpose of all these Amendments is to ensure that before making any appointments the appointing body, or the appointing Minister, has consultations with people who have special knowledge and experience in the field. The Central Midwives Board, for instance, should consult the Royal College of Midwives, and so on. This requirement is already in the 1959 Act for the Minister's appointments, and I think it should be made general. I know that the nursing profession attach tremendous importance to the principle of consultation and it would be taken by them as a blow in the face if the Government do not accept these Amendments; so I greatly hope that they will.
LORD AMULREE: I should like briefly to support these Amendments. I do not want to go into great detail about them; I think that they are obvious. I am sure that it would be a great advantage to all concerned if the appropriate bodies could be consulted before appointments are made, for that would not only ensure that the right people are appointed, but also inspire confidence in the appointments.
BARONESS SEROTA: May I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte, for the business-like way in which she started the Committee stage of the Bill. Let us hope that it is a good omen. I am grateful to her for putting her points so concisely and briefly, and for enabling us to deal with Amendments Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 at the same time. It is a question here of judgment. This particular requirement was not included in the Bill, in that the bodies we are discussing, the Central Midwives Board, the Council for Training in Social Work—and indeed, the Secretary of State himself—are presumably all responsible people. It was felt that bodies of this standing would consult in any event, without the words' being written into the legislation. It is a question of balance.
I think the noble Baroness said that the nursing profession would take offence if the Amendment was not made. It was our feeling that they would regard it as slightly derogatory if special provision were made for this in the legislation. If the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke, can assure me that this view would not be taken of the formula she is suggesting, perhaps we may reach agreement on it.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: I am most grateful to the Minister for the way she has received the Amendment. I can give her the assurance for which she asks, as much as one can ever answer on behalf of a large body of people. The representatives of it certainly made clear to me that that is what they would like and I would, on their behalf, give that assurance.
BARONESS SEROTA: As this is a Bill that the Government have brought forward on behalf of the General Nursing Council, and in the light of the assurance we have just heard, I suggest to the Committee that we accept the Amendments.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: I beg to move Amendment No. 2:
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 7, at end insert ("appointed by the Central Midwives Board after consultation with persons and bodies having special knowledge and experience of the work of midwives so engaged")—(Baroness Brooke of Ysiradfellte.)
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: I beg to move Amendment No. 3:
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 9, leave out ("appointed by the Council for the Training of Health Visitors")—(Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte.)
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: I beg to move Amendment No. 4:
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 14, at end insert ("appointed by the Council for the Training of Health Visitors after consultation with persons and bodies having special knowledge and experience of the work of registered nurses and health visitors so engaged")—(Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte.)
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE moved Amendment No. 5.
Page 3, line 43, at end insert—
("( ) For paragraph 2(2) of that Schedule there shall be substituted the following:

"(2) (a) For the purposes of the election of the fifteen nurses mentioned in head (a) of the foregoing sub-paragraph, England and Wales shall be divided into fifteen areas determined by the Secretary of State and one of those nurses shall be elected for each area.

(b) Each of the nurses elected under the foregoing sub-paragraph shall, on the date fixed for the purpose of the election as the last date for the receipt of nomination papers, be engaged in nursing or other work for which the employment of a registered nurse or an enrolled nurse, as the case may be, is requisite or for which a registered nurse or an enrolled nurse, as the case may be, is commonly employed; and, in the case of the fifteen nurses elected under head (a) of the foregoing sub-paragraph, shall on the said date be so engaged in the area for which he is elected." ")

The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 5. This Amendment relates to the elected nurses. I am i sure it is desirable that a registered nurse elected to represent registered nurses
1014
should be currently engaged in work. normally done by a registered nurse, and that an enrolled nurse elected to represent enrolled nurses should be engaged in work normally done by an enrolled nurse This Amendment, too, matters a great that to the nursing profession. I cannot see why anybody should be opposed to it, and I hope that the Government will accept it.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 43, at end insert the said subsection.—(Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte.)
BARONESS SEROTA: The objective of the Amendment which the noble Baroness has moved was in fact agreed by my Department in correspondence with the Council following the publication of the Bill. Indeed, it was our intention to table an Amendment at the Committee stage. I shall be very happy to accept the excellent draftsmanship with which we have been provided by the noble Baroness, and in these circumstances we will accept the Amendment.
6.50 p.m.
BARONESS SEROTA: I beg to move Amendment No. 6, which has been tabled at the request of the General Nursing Council. The object is to make clear that bodies to be consulted must have special knowledge and experience of the work of medical practitioners engaged in the teaching of student nurses training for the general part of the Register.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 11, leave out ("engaged in the teaching of nursing") and insert ("so engaged").—(Baroness Serota.)
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: I beg to move Amendment No. 7.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 44, leave out from ("persons") to end of line 46 and insert ("engaged in the control and management of hospitals, appointed by the Secretary of State after consultation with persons and bodies having special knowledge and experience of such control and management.").—(Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte.)
BARONESS SEROTA: This is the last of the group of Amendments to which the noble Baroness spoke at the outset. I come to the Despatch Box only to make

1015
a particular point. This part of the Bill relates to persons appointed by the Secretary of State. I was going to give the noble Baroness an undertaking that the Secretary of State would always consult to make sure that the persons he (perhaps one day even she) appoints under this Bill would satisfy the particular requirement. It is open to the Committee to decide whether they wish to accept the broad lines of the Amendments that the noble Baroness explained at the outset of our discussion or perhaps, in the light of the undertaking I have given, the noble Baroness herself may feel that she would like to withdraw this Amendment.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: While thanking the noble Baroness very much for the way in which she has clarified her point of view on this, I am afraid that I should like to press the Amendment.
BARONESS SEROTA: This Amendment has been put down to rectify a drafting omission in the Bill submitted to the House. Indeed, it serves the same purpose as that which the noble Baroness proposes in her Amendment No. 17. I hope that the Committee will find it acceptable. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 46, at end insert—
("(4) In paragraph 6(1) of that Schedule for the words from 'if the member was appointed' to 'as the case may be' there shall be substituted the words 'if he was an appointed member, be filled by a person appointed by the Secretary of State or body that appointed him'.").—(Baroness Serota.)
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 [Consitution of General Nursing Council for Scotland]:
BARONESS SEROTA: I think that it would be for the convenience of the Committee if I were to speak to Amendments Nos. 9, 10 and 12 together. These Amendments extend to enrolled nurses the requirements as regards qualification for election corresponding to those applicable to registered nurses. This is a corresponding Amendment to the Amendment to Clause 2 of the Bill which the Committee has already accepted. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 10, leave out ("(1)")—(Baroness Serota.)
BARONESS SEROTA: I beg to move Amendment No. 10.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 12, leave out ("(1)") and insert ("2(1)")—(Baroness Serota.)
BARONESS SEROTA: I beg to move Amendment No. 11. This is purely a drafting Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 13, leave out ("(including male nurses)")—(Baroness Serota.)
BARONESS SEROTA: I beg to move Amendment No. 12.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 30, at end insert—
("(2) Each of the nurses elected under the foregoing sub-paragraph shall, on the date fixed for the purpose of the election as the last date for the receipt of nomination papers, be engaged in Scotland in nursing or other work for which the employment of a registered nurse or an enrolled nurse, as the case may be, is requisite or for which a registered nurse or an enrolled nurse, as the case may be, is commonly employed.")—(Baroness Serota.)
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 4 to 10 agreed to.
Clause 11 [Commencement, transitional provisions, citation and extent]:
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 8, line 2, leave out ("on 1st January 1970") and insert ("one month after the passing of this Act.").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 13. I think that there is a case for bringing forward the date when the main part of the Bill will come into operation. I believe that preparations for holding the 1970 election will actually need to start before January 1. It will help matters if the Act is already in force before the preparations start, and so I am suggesting in this Amendment that it should come into force a month after Royal Assent. There would be an advantage in that and I cannot see any disadvantage.
BARONESS SEROTA: We have held discussions with the General Nursing Council on this point and we understand that it will assist them in preparations for the election. In these circumstances, I am happy to advise the Committee to accept the noble Baroness's Amendment.
BARONESS SEROTA: I beg to move Amendment No. 14. The object of this Amendment is to widen the clause so as to permit a vacancy arising among the elected members of the existing Council not to be filled, the point being that such an election might be for only the last few weeks of the existing Council's existence. Again, this is a point we are putting forward after discussions with the General Nursing Council. I hope that this Amendment is acceptable to the Committee.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 16, leave out ("appointed")(Baroness Serota.)
Clause 11, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Minor and consequential amendments]:
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: I beg to move Amendment No. 15. Amendment No. 16 relates to the same point. When I looked in Sections 31 and 33 of the Nurses Act 1957, I could not find the word "disorder" anywhere. I then discovered that it had later been inserted into those sections by the Mental Health Act 1959. I suggest that it will save other people from being puzzled, as I was, if these Amendments are made in the Bill.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 41, after ("Act") insert (", as amended by the Seventh Schedule to the Mental Health Act 1959,").—(Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte.)
BARONESS SEROTA: The noble Baroness clearly follows these complicated matters more easily than I do, but I am advised that these Amendments are not necessary. The Amendments which are being made in this Bill are to the Nurses Act 1957 as subsequently amended in other legislation, including the Seventh Schedule of the Mental Health Act 1959. Therefore, it is felt that no further reference need be made to this, and no
1018
Amendment as put down is necessary. I hope that the noble Baroness accepts and understands the point that am making. If there are still doubts in her mind, we can discuss these at a later stage of the Bill.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the child's guide to knowledge with which she has entirely sot my mind at rest. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
BARONESS SEROTA: Perhaps the Committee will be prepared to consider Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 together because these have been submitted merely to remedy earlier drafting Amendments. I beg to move Amendment No. 18.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, leave out line 28 and insert—
("11. In section 4 of the Nurses (Amendment) Act 1961, for the words from the beginning to "occurs" there shall he substituted the words "In paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 to the Act of 1957 for the word 'fourteen'".
12. In section 6 of that Act—").—(Baroness Serota.)
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Enactments repealed]
BARONESS SEROTA: I beg to move Amendment No. 19.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, leave out line 47 and insert ("In section 4, subsections (2) and (3).")—(Baroness Serota.)
BARONESS SEROTA: I beg to move Amendment No. 20. It is perhaps a reflection of the co-operation between all sides that I conclude by moving an Amendment which is consequential on an earlier Amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 54, column 3, at end insert ("and, in paragraph 13 and paragraph 15, the words from the beginning to 'papers; and'.")—(Baroness Serota.)
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

INTERNATIONAL SUGAR ORGANISATION (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) ORDER 1969
7.5 p.m.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, I rise on behalf of my noble friend Lord Chalfont, who is unable to be here, to move that the International Sugar Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1969, a draft of which was laid before this House on April 15, be approved. If I may, I will speak also to the other similar Order, relating to the International Coffee Organisation.
I ask for the approval of the House for these Orders to be made under Section 1 of the International Organisations Act of 1968. The first three Orders laid under that Act, last November, were well received by your Lordships, and I hope that these two Orders also will be welcomed. One of the three Orders approved related to the immunities and privileges of the International Wheat Council. The two now before the House relate to the International Coffee Organisation and the International Sugar Organisation, and are almost identical with the Wheat Order. They enable Her Majesty's Government to conclude a Headquarters Agreement with a commodity organisation based in this country. Neither Organisation has yet received immunities and privileges which are entirely adequate for their functions. These Agreements put this right.
My Lords, the International Coffee Organisation has been operating from headquarters in the United Kingdom since it was set up in 1963, and 62 countries participate in it. The International Sugar Organisation is the successor to the International Sugar Council, and has 41 parties, so far; but more are expected to join. This has been operating from United Kingdom headquarters for even longer. Her Majesty's Government is a member of both organisations. The two organisations both seek to regulate the production and export of coffee and sugar. The House will know that both commodities are of particular concern to developing countries—for example, the West Indies and Mauritius, in the case of sugar, and a number of African and Latin American
1020
countries, as many noble Lords know, in the case of coffee. The work of the organisations is consequently of very great importance for these countries' economies.
The proposed Headquarters Agreements with these two organisations were laid before Parliament in draft in February. The terms of the Orders are based fundamentally on those of the European Space Research Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1965. The House recognised this 1965 Order as suited not only to the needs of the organisation, but also to public and Parliamentary opinion on this subject.
Similarly under the Coffee and Sugar Orders all members of the staffs of the two organisations, except the head of each, will be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts in respect of both criminal and civil proceedings arising from motoring offences and accidents. The organisations are not entitled to claim immunity from jurisdiction in respect of the enforcement of an arbitral award made against them under compulsory provisions in the Agreements. Personal privileges given to staff and representatives are of a limited character, and do not extend to their families. Exemption from United Kingdom income tax is conditional on the payment of an internal tax to the organisations themselves.
My Lords, Parliament is rightly concerned that extensions of immunities and privileges should be limited to the needs of the organisations and should conform to the general policy of the United Kingdom. Although' the immunities and privileges set out in the Orders will much improve the treatment which Her Majesty's Government will be able to give to the organizations—and this we are anxious to do—they are on an appropriate scale.
My Lords, I have explained these Orders in some detail, because this is a slightly complicated matter, and I hope I have shown that the Coffee and Sugar Orders closely follow the Wheat Order which was approved here as recently as last November, and I ask the House to approve these Orders.
Moved, That the Draft International Sugar Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1969 laid before the House on 1st April be approved.—(Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe.)
7.10 p.m.
The EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, we are most grateful to the noble Baroness for having explained these Orders to us at such short notice. We see that she is alone on the Front Bench with the two other noble Baronesses—the three Graces, as they have become to be known—with only one noble Lord behind. I do not know how many of these Orders have come before your Lordships' House since I have been dealing with these matters, but I think I can recall some half a dozen occasions during the fairly recent past. The noble Baroness herself referred to some of them, and although we always tend to say that we should not allow these immunities and privileges to proliferate too far, we always approve the Orders in the end.
Before the war I was myself an international civil servant in the League Secretariat concerned with refugees, and our headquarters were based in London, too. I may say that at that time we did not have any of these immunities and privileges, and we did not complain too much, although we enjoyed them when we went abroad. We in Britain were much less generous then than we are to-day. I do not propose to say any more on these Orders than to note that both of them, Sugar and Coffee, go well together if you have a sweet tooth—and I hope the noble Baroness has—and that they differ from the International Wheat Council Order only in according exemption from social security obligations in respect of staff members, other than those who are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, or permanently resident in the United Kingdom.
Clearly, we should not discourage the activities of such organisations, and if the Government really think that they should receive all these immunities and privileges, which perhaps they enjoy in other countries, I do not think we should be too parsimonious. But I should like to ask the noble Baroness one or two questions, and particularly one concerning exemption from social security obligations. First, are any other countries which have a National Health Service, or similar facilities, conferring full participating benefits without payment of contributions? Why is there this different provision (it is set out very clearly in the Explanatory Memorandum), in the
1022
case of sugar and coffee, which is not applicable in the case of the International Wheat Council? Secondly could the noble Baroness say how many people will be covered by these Orders who do not already have such privileges. Thirdly (I am not sure whether or not the noble Baroness answered this point in her preliminary remarks), I wonder whether she could confirm how many other countries have so far granted such privileges. I think she gave the total number of members of the Organisation, but she did not, I think, actually say how many other countries had granted such privileges to the members of the Organisations and how many had indicated that they intended to do so?
7.13 p.m.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, I am very familiar with the work done by the old League Secretariat, since I worked for twelve years with my right honourable friend Philip Noel-Baker. I well know the services which were done by that magnificent organisation. The answer to the noble Earl's questions are as follows—I will start with the last one first No other countries have granted privileges, because they are not applicable. These Orders are only for headquarters agreements, and the headquarters are here, so there is no need for privilege; elsewhere. The agreements have been arrived at on a multilateral basis. If ever there was a question of extending them, that could be done. As to the social security point, it is quite true that the Wheat Council Order did not contain this exemption, but that was because at the beginning the staff of the Wheat Council were largely British, and it would not have applied to them in any case The foreign staff there were perfectly happy with that arrangement The staff of the Coffee and Sugar Organisations are largely foreign and prefer to remain under the arrangements made either by their own countries or by the Organisations themselves.
As to the numbers of the staff who are not at present receiving these privileges, I have divided them into the two organisations. First is the Sugar Organisation. I should like to give these figures broken up still further: foreign staff, 6; British staff, 12. We think there may be an extension of that number; that would

1023
be another 10 posts. Representatives are 41 in number. I have just had to add the figures up because I forgot to do so before, and I hope the total is 69. Now the Coffee Organisation: foreign staff, 54; British staff, 11; Representatives, 62. That makes 127—I say that hopefully! I do not think I have left uncovered any points that were raised. I commend these Orders to your Lordships.

INTERNATIONAL COFFEE ORGANISATION (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) ORDER 1969
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, on behalf of
1024
my noble friend Lord Chalfont, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft International Coffee Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1969 laid before the House on 15th April be approved.—(Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe.)

LEVER PARK BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.

BARCLAYS BANK BILL
Reported without amendment.
House adjourned at sixteen minutes past seven o'clock.