Lords Sitting of 18 November 1969

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chichester.
The Earl of Liverpool—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his kinsman.

SOUTHERN YEMEN CIVIL SERVANTS' PENSIONS
LORD TREVELYN: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have now further examined the question of responsibility for the pensions of indigenous civil servants formerly working in the Colony of Aden and the Protectorate of South Arabia, and what decision they have reached.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, on July 22 I told the House that Her Majesty's Government's consistent policy over many years is to regard overseas Governments as responsible for the payment of all public service pensions, including, in the case of independent Governments, the obligations of their predecessors. Consequently, responsibility for the payment of these pensions rests with the Southern Yemen Government. This Question remains under examination and I regret that I cannot say when a decision is likely to be reached. Both I and my right honourable friend the Minister of Overseas Development are well aware of the strength of the noble Lord's feelings, but the difficulties in relation to other pensioners to which I referred on July 22 remain very real.
LORD TREVELYAN: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware
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of the many hard cases which there are as a result of the Government's not taking any decision in favour of these pensioners two years after the independence of South Arabia; for instance, that of one man who, having served the British for 15 years in South Arabia in the Protectorate service and having retired before independence, was given an M.B.E. and a Certificate of Honour, and left without any pension, or even the payment of his whole gratuity?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am well aware of the numbers and I have already expressed great sympathy for them, particularly those who have been unjustly deprived of their pensions by their own Government. As I have already said, this matter is still under close examination and I hope that in the not-too-far distant future a reply can be given.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, if this Government is in receipt of financial assistance from the British Government, would it not be appropriate to deduct from that financial assistance sufficient funds to meet the legitimate claims of pensions for civil servants?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, that may be, but I believe (I speak subject to correction) that the aid and assistance to the Southern Yemen Government to which we had committed ourselves has now been given.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, since this problem is one which covers a number of ex-British Colonies, may I ask my noble friend whether he can say what consultation has taken place with Commonwealth Governments about this issue; and whether it is intended to discuss it at the next Commonwealth Ministers' Conference to try to find a solution?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, this is not, I suspect, a matter on which Her Majesty's Government would consult Commonwealth Governments, since the Southern Yemen is not part of the Commonwealth. But in answer to a previous Question, I have already indicated the great difficulties that arise in this particular case; and that is one of the reasons, I fear, why undue delay has taken place.

RHODESIA: SANCTIONS AND CHROME ORE SUPPLIES
2.40 p.m.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what has been the change, if any, since November, 1965, in the price of those grades of chrome ore which were previously imported into this country from Rhodesia.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, MINISTRY OF TECHNOLOGY (LORD DELACOURT-SMITH): My Lords, there are no official figures for the prices of Rhodesian chrome ore, nor for comparable grades from other sources. Price series published in the British and United States trade Press suggest that broadly comparable grades of ore have risen in price between 25 and 50 per cent., depending on source and quality. We do not now import these grades. The Overseas Trade Accounts of the United Kingdom show that the average value of the chrome ore we did import in the six months ended September, 1969, was £12 2s. per ton, compared with £11 1s. per ton in the six months ended November, 1965. In terms of dollars, the average value fell, since sterling was devalued in the intervening period.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the rise in price of between 25 and 50 per cent. in roughly comparable grades of ore is to be taken as evidence of the success of the sanctions policy or of its failure?
LORD DELACOURT-SMITH: My Lords, I cannot express a view upon the influence of the sanctions policy on this rise, but I should like to make the point that Rhodesia was only a minor supplier; and in the two years prior to the imposition of sanctions—that is to say, in 1964 and 1965—our imports from that source amounted to 31,000 tons, out of a total import of 423,000 tons. As the United Kingdom imports have fallen to 256,000 tons over the past two years, the loss of Rhodesian ore has had no effect on our overall supply position.
LORD COLERAINE: But, my Lords, is it not the case that Rhodesian ore was
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of the very highest grade, and therefore the most valuable to industry?
LORD DELACOURT-SMITH: My Lords, Rhodesian ore was metallurgical ore and used mainly in the production of ferro-chrome. There is now no production of ferro-chrome in the United Kingdom. Production ceased about three years ago because it had become uneconomic, and I understand that consideration of the cessation of production had been taking place before that time. No chrome ore has been imported since 1967 from any other major source, so the ending of the Rhodesian supplies of metallurgical grade chrome ore, although it followed the application of sanctions, was not a consequence of them, and imports of this grade of ore from other sources have been equally affected.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether their attention has been drawn to a report in The Times newspaper of November 6, 1969, to the effect that the Union Carbide Company has asked the United States Government for permission to import chromium ore from Rhodesia because Russian production, even though it has been increased, is unable to fill the gap created by sanctions; and whether Her Majesty's Government will reconsider a policy which is evidently most damaging to the interests of the free world.]
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, since Union Carbide is an American firm this is a matter for the United States Government and not one on which I can properly comment. There is no question of Her Majesty's Government reconsidering their sanctions policy.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord how long he expects other countries like the United States to "carry the can" for Her Majesty's Government's mistaken policy in Rhodesia?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the countries of the United Nations are committed to the resolution of the United Nations. If the noble Lord has any doubts about the attitude of the United States Government, I would refer him to what Mr. Newsom, Assistant Secretary in

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the State Department, said when the Union Carbide Company lodged a petition with the State Department to be permitted to bring chrome into the United States.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, is not the reality of the situation this: that there is a considerable shortage of chrome and nickel in the world, both of which are available in Rhodesia; and is it not likely, whatever the attitude of Her Majesty's Government, that the world will obtain these commodities from Rhodesia if they cannot get them from anywhere else?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I understand that there was some shortage of chrome in the United States, mainly due to a strike in Canada. The noble Lord speaks of the reality of the situation, but surely the reality is that Rhodesia is in rebellion, not only against the Crown of this country but also against what the people of the world generally accept as right. Until Rhodesia brings itself back into a legal position with the Crown, sanctions should continue.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of us do not agree with his view?—though of course we cannot debate the matter now.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the noble Lord has made that perfectly clear on many occasions.

NIGERIA: PEACE NEGOTIATIONS EFFORTS
2.41 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action has been taken, in view of statements by both General Gowon and General Ojukwu that they are prepared to enter negotiations unconditionally, to encourage a meeting between representatives of both sides in the Nigerian/Biafran war.]
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, African statesmen from many countries are working hard to get negotiations started. The Government are giving their full support to these efforts.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for his Answer, may I ask this question? In view of the fact that both sides have now indicated that they are prepared to enter negotiations without any conditions, is it not desirable that the British Government should use their influence with the Nigerian Government to accept this opportunity, rather than increase the arms supply to Nigeria, which has shocked and shamed many of us on these Benches?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, my noble friend knows that pressure of international opinion in favour of peace is not lacking, and that recently African statesmen have been most actively seeking to bring about this peace. There is no lack of friends on both sides who would wish to help if they were asked, but it is the opposing sides alone who can make this possible. We are satisfied that the Federal Government is willing to send representatives to any mutually acceptable place to talk with Colonel Ojukwu and his representatives, without any conditions, to explore whether the basis of a settlement can be found. Colonel Ojukwu knows this well. Is he willing to accept? Some of his recent statements have been bellicose. He is reported to have said on November 16 that Biafra would refuse to rejoin Nigeria, even if the security of its people were guaranteed. He is therefore apparently still seeking sovereignty and independence, rather than the security of his people. Until the two sides can find an acceptable basis for talks, I do not believe that any special initiative by this country would prove successful.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, again thanking my noble friend, may I ask: in view of the facts he indicated, that the difficulty is opposition on both sides, and that while Colonel Ojukwu is making certain statements, on the other side similiar statements, which make peace difficult, are being made, is it not now the responsibility of the British Government, who are providing arms to one side, to use their influence with that side to try to bring about negotiations, which both sides have accepted without conditions and which, with British pressure, could be brought about?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, my noble friend is as well aware as I am that

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Her Majesty's Government, through many months, have taken considerable initiatives with the Federal Government of Nigeria. We are satisfied that the Federal Government would seek a settlement, provided that one Nigeria would remain. It is the failure of Colonel Ojukwu and those in Biafra to come together and talk in realistic terms that has kept the two sides apart.
LORD GRANTCHESTER: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government make it clear that, so far as they are concerned, the tribes of Africa, which I understand number over 2,000, have a perfect right to group themselves as they wish without interference or advice from outside? May I also ask the Minister what conclusion he expects Biafrans to draw from the supply of arms for use against them, other than that the British Government want to continue the war for their own ends?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I think that that is a most outrageous statement in the noble Lord's question. We believe that the fragmentation of Africa, if it were to continue, would be very dangerous for the peace of Africa and for its economic growth. We believe that the problem of Nigeria is an African problem and therefore something for the Africans themselves to solve. We certainly will do all we can.
I would remind the noble Lord that Nigeria is a Commonwealth country, which has looked to us as a traditional supplier of arms. If we were to say, as the noble Lord and many of his friends suggest, that the supply should be discontinued, that would be an arbitrary and unilateral act against a lawful Government in Africa.
LORD GRANTCHESTER: My Lords, is it for the British Government to decide how these tribes wish to group themselves?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, how the tribes of Africa are grouped is a consequence of history. But Nigeria is a sovereign country. It came into being by the united voice of its people, and it is not for any of us here, I suggest, to seek to break it up.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that it is contrary to the interests of Africa as a whole that the development of tribalism should be assisted from outside sources, and that there are many people who fully support Her Majesty's Government in carrying out their obligations to the Federal Government, as a Commonwealth Government, under the defence Agreement by the supplying of arms?
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether more could be done to assist the needs of the starving while this is going on? Does the statement made by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in another place yesterday, in reply to a Question about assisting mercy flights, that it would not be proper for Her Majesty's Government to assist in such flights over the air space of a friendly country, imply that the difficulties in promoting those flights do not rest with Biafra only, but with both sides?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, that is another question different from that on the Order Paper. It is one that we have gone over many times, and if the right reverend Prelate will put it down on the Order Paper I should prefer to deal with it as a separate question.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is my noble friend aware how very deeply many of us on these Benches feel about this issue? Indeed, is he aware that some of us have doubted whether we ought to continue to receive the Whip while the policy of the Government proceeds? But we are reassured by the fact that the Labour Party Executive and the Labour Party Conference support us in our view, and that it is Her Majesty's Government who are defying the Labour Party on this issue.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I know that my noble friend has very strong feelings on this matter. I am sure that, knowing my own particular interest in it, he will agree, that I share equally the same desires that he does, but I see it in a different light.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, could the noble Lord say whether the statement that appeared in the Press about a

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fortnight ago, in which Colonel Ojukwu was reported to have said that he was prepared to enter into negotiations without the secession of Biafra as a precondition, was in fact true; and, if so, did this not give some glimmer of light?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, one of the difficulties right through these many months has been to know what was, or was not, an authorised statement. The noble Earl has put one statement. May I remind the House of a statement that was issued and was printed in the Guardian yesterday, November 17? It said that Colonel Ojukwu said that he would be ready to accept a cease-fire during peace negotiations provided that a time limit was set. He then said that Biafra would refuse to join Nigeria, even if the security of its people were guaranteed. Some three or four weeks ago he was standing on the security of his people. Now he is getting away from it. But, as I have said on many occasions, one of the difficulties is to know what is the voice of Colonel Ojukwu and what is the voice of propaganda.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question? We have heard a good deal about strong feelings on this and that. I understand that in other circumstances strong feelings are felt by
certain Members of this House about the rebellion and the way it ought to be treated. May I therefore ask whether it is not being overlooked by many Members, and especially by the noble Lord who asked this Question, that in this case we are dealing with a rebellion, because in 1960, after lengthy discussion among every section represented in Nigeria, a document on which the Federation was founded was signed by every representative of every section, stating that secession was not to be permitted unless it was universally agreed upon?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I will not follow the noble Lord in his long supplementary, but I would agree with him that there was this statement. There was a Constitution that was accepted by the representatives of the people of Nigeria; and it was on that that Parliament gave independence to Nigeria.

TRANSPORT (LONDON) AMENDMENT BILL
Brought from the Commons on Friday last, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill, within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911, and printed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 45; read 1a.
EDINBURGH CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936), deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That in the present Session a Committee of twelve Lords be appointed to join with a Committee of the House of Commons as a Joint Committee to consider the following classes of Bills:—

1. All Consolidation Bills whether public or private;

2. Statute Law Revision Bills;

3. Bills prepared pursuant to the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure Act 1949), together with any and any representations made with respect thereto;

4. Bills to consolidate any enactments with amendments to give effect to recommendations made by one or both of the Law Commissions, together with any report containing such recommendations:

5. Bills prepared by one or both of the Law Commissions to promote the reform of the Statute Law by the repeal, in accordance with the Law Commission recommendations, of certain enactments which (except in so far as their effect is preserved) are no longer of practical utility, and by making other provision in connection with

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the repeal of those enactments, together with any Law Commission report on any such Bill;

That the Lords following be named of the Committee:

V. Colville of Culross,

V. Brentford,

L. Rathcreedan,

L. Cawley,

L. Meston,

L. Guest,

L. Ilford,

L. Upjohn,

L. Royle,

L. Segal,

L. Wells-Pestell,

L. Lloyd of Hampstead:

That such Committee have power to agree with the Committee of the House of Commons in the appointment of a Chairman.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith and to desire them to appoint an equal number of their Members to be joined with the said Lords.

AMENDMENT OF THE MILK MARKETING SCHEME 1933
2.56 p.m.
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Beswick, I beg to move that the Amendment of the Milk Marketing Scheme 1933, a draft of which was laid before this House on October 29 last, be approved. Your Lordships will not wish me to remind you of all the activities of the Milk Marketing Board. You will appreciate the need for capital equipment, especially in the effort to maintain a manufacturing demand for milk when seasonal surplus exceeds the liquid market demand. The Board also has a large transport fleet and some wholesale and retail depots. It is not empowered to issue shares on the market, though it may borrow through normal channels. Under the original scheme of 1933, the Board could require each registered producer to contribute up to 1s. annually for every milch cow in his possession. From this the Board had to meet all its costs, including the costs of administration and any capital expenditure.
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In 1955, the Scheme was extensively amended, with the approval of both Houses of Parliament. One of the amendments altered the method of financing the Board by empowering it to finance its operations from the revenues of its trading in, and handling of, milk and milk products, and also by allowing it to require registered producers to contribute up to one farthing from each gallon of milk sold during the year. Both these provisions still apply. I will refer to the first, for convenience, as the revenue method, and to the second as the levy method.
Finance is raised under the revenue method by reducing the buying price to producers. The Board's revenues from trading in milk are thus increased; these of course are subject to tax in the hands of the Board. Up to 1964 the Board raised all the money it needed in this way. However, a ruling was given by the
Inland Revenue in 1964 that the Board would not be taxed on money raised from
producers and used solely for capital purposes. The Board therefore began to raise finance from producers by the levy method, using the proceeds for capital purposes only. By this means some Board capital expenditure could be financed at a lesser cost to the producers than would have been the case if the money had been raised by the revenue method. The levy was increased from 0·16d. per gallon in the 1965–66 financial year to 0·25d. in the 1968–69 year. This is the maximum allowed by the Scheme as it now stands. The Board continues to finance its current expenditure by the revenue method.
My Lords, the Board now needs extra capital for development. The Board has acquired 17 new creameries and dairies and two cheese stores since 1961, and further developments are planned. Substantial re-equipment and modernisation is also proposed. New transport depots have been set up, and the number of lorries owned has increased. The growth of bulk collection means that more tankers have had to be added to the Board's fleet and more will be needed. Other interests also are developing—for instance, artificial insemination. That is why the Board needs more than the £2¼ million yielded annually by the present farthing levy. The Amendment now before your Lordships would raise the

849
maximum rate of levy to one halfpenny per gallon, which would produce on present sales a total of £4½ million annually.
My right honourable friends, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the Secretary of State for Wales, in considering whether this Amendment should be submitted for your Lordships' consideration, recognised that while the Amendment would enable the Board to increase its capital resources at the lowest possible cost to producers it would also enable the Board to take further advantage of a tax arrangement which does not apply to its competitors in the private trade. But it is the Board's duty to carry out its functions at the minimum cost to producers and, as I have said, the Board, unlike its trade competitors, has no power to issue shares on the market. My right honourable friends concluded that it would not he justifiable to refuse to recommend this Amendment, because they were satisfied that to do so would hamper the Board in its efforts to use producers' money to the best advantage. They also believe that consumers can benefit from an increase in the Board's manufacturing capacity, in that the establishment of Board creameries at places where seasonal surpluses arise avoids the need for milk to be transported long distances at a cost which ultimately falls on the consumer. I commend the proposed Amendment to your Lordships as one which will conduce to the more efficient operation of the Scheme.
Moved, That the Draft Amendment of the Milk Marketing Scheme 1933, laid before the House on October 29 last, be approved.—(Lord Hilton of Upton.)
3.5 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hilton of Upton, for explaining to us the purpose of this Order, which I recommend my noble friends to accept. In introducing the Order to us, the noble Lord explained the tax advantage which the Milk Marketing Board gets from this strange concession but which no ordinary trading organisation would get. The Milk Marketing Board has my complete sympathy and support in choosing the method of financing its developments most advantageous to it, but I would observe to the noble Lord that this tax philosophy seems
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a little strange in the general commercial context, and perhaps his right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will think about it.
The developments about which the noble Lord told us—the greater development of milk products, the acquisition of new creameries, cheese stores, and more transport in order to convey the milk—have implications which it would not be right for me to go into to-day. But they pose very powerfully to noble Lords opposite, and to the Minister of Agriculture, the problem of the structure of the milk industry, because if more butter, more cheese and more milk powder are to be manufactured, then there must be a remunerative outlet for it, and at present a large part of that outlet is filled by imports. As we well know, imports tend to flood into this country from Europe, where they have what I believe is called the "butter mountain" of some 400,000 to 500,000 tons of butter surplus waiting to slide into this country at any time it can do so. If the Milk Marketing Board is developing in the way where more of its product is going into manufacturing processes, so that a smaller proportion of the total goes for raw milk, some thought must be given to the economic structure of the industry; and some means must be found to ensure a more advantageous financial return than it is now getting in direct competition with these milk product imports.
The other point I want to raise concerns another of the many valuable activities which the Milk Marketing Board carries out—and this is a development that causes no embarrassment to the Government: I mean the encouragement by the Board for dairy farmers to use the spare breeding capacity of their cows to produce beef calves. They do this by providing an artificial insemination service for the cow. Services that are not required for the supplementation of the dairy herd itself are therefore used to produce a beef calf by crossing a beef bull, by artificial insemination, with the dairy cows. This raises no embarrassing problems such as I have just mentioned with regard to butter or cheese, because this produces beef, and we are desperately short of beef. As we know, we have to import large quantities of beef, principally from the Argentine, which is expensive and carries with it the risk of

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foot-and-mouth disease coming into this country. Therefore in every way this is a development to be encouraged.
The Milk Marketing Board has done a great deal in the development of these beef bulls for crossing, both in the progeny testing of them and in laying on the service, which is entirely attractive to the dairy farmer. But this all costs him a great deal, and I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he will pass on to his right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture the suggestion that, as this particular development is something so valuable in the public interest, the Minister should consider some means of further encouragement, by means of some suitable award in the Price Review, to dairy farmers to produce these beef calves from the dairy herd. This would seem to be in every way in the public interest and would take the present cost off the shoulders of the dairy farmers.
In a general way, I should like to pay my tribute to the efficiency of the Milk Marketing Board. It really is a most remarkable body, which not only serves the dairy farmer well but, I believe, serves the whole economy well and efficiently in collecting milk from the farms and distributing it to the wholesalers, and generally organising this industry with very great efficiency indeed. I am quite sure that no money is wasted in this vast administration. Therefore I accept the noble Lord's recommendation to us that we should increase this levy. Most of the increase, as we know, is going for capital purposes. Perhaps in replying the noble Lord would answer just one further point. Is the levy an expense which is taken into account at the Price Review as part of the cost to the dairy farmer of production, and therefore recovered to him in the Award? With those few comments, my Lords, I have much pleasure in supporting the Order.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: My Lords, I support this Order, but may I ask the Minister one question? Could he explain to us the policy of the Milk Marketing Board so far as its development as a manufacturing industry is concerned?
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: My Lords, in reply to the question just posed
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by my noble friend Lord Macpherson of Drumochter, if he does not mind I should prefer to write him on this point. The reply would be rather long, and might take up too much time now. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, very much for the support he has given to this Amendment and for the interesting remarks he had to make about it. I think he did well to remind the House that, if we were not careful, a considerable amount of butter could at some time easily be arriving in this country to flood our market.
I was interested in what the noble Lord had to say about policy for beef calves, because this is one of the facets on which, as the noble Lord said, the present Government are concentrating, and this is why I referred in particular to the need for more money for the purposes of artificial insemination, which plays such an important part in this field. I will certainly draw the attention of my right honourable friend to what the noble Lord had to say about a little more recoupment at the next Price Review. Would the noble Lord remind me of the other question he raised?
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, is the increased levy an increased cost which is taken into account at the Price Review for recoupment to the farmers?
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: My Lords, I am pretty sure that the answer to that question is, "Yes", but if I may I will write to the noble Lord on this point.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (INDUS TRIAL INJURIES) (COLLIERY WORKERS SUPPLEMENTARY SCHEME) AMENDMENT (No. 2) ORDER 1969
3.14 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPSrose to move, That the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) (Colliery Workers Supplementary Scheme) Amendment (No. 2) Order 1969, the draft of which was laid before this House on October 29, be approved. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the Colliery Workers Supplementary Scheme

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provides supplementary benefit for colliery workers (or their dependants) who receive benefit under the Industrial Injuries Act for colliery accidents or diseases. The Scheme is administered by a National Committee comprising equal numbers of representatives drawn from both sides of the industry. Benefit is provided from a Fund to which contributions are made by employers and employees only—there is no charge on the Exchequer or on the Industrial Injuries Fund. Your Lordships may recall having approved previous Orders maintaining the present rates of supplementary injury and disablement benefits. The Order for which I am now seeking approval will extend this standstill arrangement until June 2, 1970.
The National Coal Board and the unions have been involved in negotiations about not only this Scheme but other benefit schemes in the industry, and although agreement has been reached in principle it has not been possible to agree and to draft all the detailed amendments to the various schemes in time for them to have effect before the present Order expires on December 2. This extension has
therefore been requested by both sides of the National Committee. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) (Colliery Workers Supplementary Scheme) Amendment (No. 2) Order 1969, laid before the House on October 29 last, be approved.—(Baroness Phillips.)
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, there is just one point that I should like to ask the noble Baroness. Am I to understand from what she says that this standstill of the supplementary benefit is purely so that further negotiations can take place?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, that is quite correct.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether this applies only to coal mining or to all mining in this country?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, as I understand it, it applies to coal mining.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MATRIMONIAL PROCEEDINGS AND PROPERTY BILL [H.L.]
3.17 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: 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.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Financial provision for party to a marriage in cases of divorce, etc.]:
THE LORD CHANCELLORmoved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 36, at beginning insert ("Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1)(c) above").
The noble and learned Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 1 standing in my name on the Order Paper. I should be grateful if the Committee would allow me to refer also to Amendments Nos. 2 and 5, which are on exactly the same point. The Amendment arises out of a question raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, on the Second Reading of the Bill, when he suggested that, as drafted, Clause 2(2)(a) could be read as restricting the circumstances in which a lump sum order can be made under Clause 2(1)(c). That was certainly not the intention, and it had not been my view that a court would so construe it. But, as we all know, construction is something on which even lawyers are apt peculiarly to differ, and exactly the same point has been raised
by the President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. Therefore it is obviously a matter on which there may be doubt; and if there is doubt it is of course wise to remove it. The doubt is removed by prefacing this subsection—and similarly in Amendments 2 and 5—by the words, "Without prejudice to the generality of subsection 1(c) above". I beg to move.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I should like to thank the noble and

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learned Lord for this Amendment, which entirely meets the point.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 2, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD WADE: May I raise one point before we leave Clause 2? On Second Reading debate I referred to the payment of lump sums and pointed out that all too often the capital just is not there. It has been represented to me by a Committee of the Law Society, however, that where a lump sum is awarded together with periodical payments it is important that the party receiving the lump sum and the periodical payments should not be able to fritter away the lump sum and then seek to increase the periodical payments. It seems to me that where an application was made for a revision of the periodic payments the court would naturally take into account what had happened to the lump sum. I do not know whether it is possible to make any provision that the lump sum shall not be frittered away, but as this point has been drawn to my attention it seems only right that I should mention it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the point, but I think the answer is as he suggests. The Bill carefully provides that orders for lump sums cannot in the future be varied; they are intended, like a transfer of property, to be a settlement made on the breakdown of the marriage. I do not think any provision could be inserted in the Bill making it impossible for anybody to spend the lump sum, but I think such a person would get little sympathy if he or she tried to obtain an increase in the periodical payments simply because the lump sum had been squandered.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 [Financial provision for child of the family in cases of divorce, etc.]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is the second of the three Amendments to which I referred. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 30, at beginning insert ("Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (2)(c) above").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
3.22 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL BARONESS SUMMERSKILL moved Amendment No. 3.
Page 4, line 3, at end insert—
("(6) Whenever the court shall make an order for periodical payments by one party to the other under section 2(1)(a) or (b) of this Bill and also an order under section 3(2)(a) or (b) for the maintenance of dependent minor children of the family, the amount of the order made under section 3(2)(a) or (b) shall adequately cover the cost of maintenance of such children of the family, including the cost of such adult supervision as they shall require, before any sum shall be expressed to be made under section 2(1)(a) or (b).")
The noble Baroness said: Although this Amendment appears to be a little involved, my object is quite simple, and I hope the Committee will agree that it is a praiseworthy one. The object of the Amendment is to provide greater financial security for the children of the parties by making them the first charge on the available resources. I feel that I have powerful support in this matter, for I would ask your Lordships to read footnote No. 70 to paragraph 33 of the Law Commission's Report No. 25. This footnote exhorts the courts to draw a clearer distinction than they do at present between provision for a spouse herself and provision for the children. May I just read that footnote in the Report? It refers to the case of Northrop v. Northrop, and it says:
"If our foregoing recommendation that provision for a spouse should cease on remarriage is implemented it will behove the courts to draw a clearer distinction than they always do at present between provision for a spouse herself and provision for children, since payments relating to the latter should not cease on the remarriage of the spouse."
I do not believe that this exhortation at the bottom of page 15 of the Law Commission's Report is enough. In my view, we need a legislative provision that where any maintenance order covers maintenance for a spouse and one totally dependent child of the family the first charge—say, £9 per week of the order—must be expressed to cover maintenance for the child, with correspondingly larger amounts for two or more dependent children. The reason I mention the figure of £9 is that £9 per week is suggested in paragraph 173 of the Report of the Committee on Statutory Maintenance Limits (Cmnd. 3587) as the appropriate cost of maintaining one such child. I believe there should be an end to the

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present fiction that a man is maintaining his former wife when probably in the majority of cases all he is doing is making an inadequate contribution towards the maintenance of the dependent children, whom he helped to bring into the world. I hope that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor will agree with me on this matter because it is quite clear to me that within the Law Commission there must be some great sympathy with my point of view, otherwise the footnote that I have quoted would not have been included in their Report. I believe that only if we amend the Bill in this way shall we implement the Law Commission's Report. I beg to move.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have listened with the greatest care to what my noble friend Lady Summerskill has said. We shall all, of course, agree on the importance of making proper provision for the children; indeed, this Bill emphasises that in many ways. Although certain
applications cannot be made by a spouse after more than a reasonable time following a divorce, there is no time limit so far as children are concerned. But the Amendment which my noble friend proposes provides that whenever a court makes an order for periodical payments by one party to the other for the maintenance of the dependent minor children of the family the amount of the order made under Clause 3(2)(a) or (b) shall adequately cover the cost of maintenance of such children of the family, including the cost of such adult supervision as they shall require, before any sum shall be expressed to be paid under Clause 2(1)(a) or (b) —that is to say, for the wife.
No doubt it is a matter of opinion whether, if there is not enough for the proper maintenance of the wife and children, the children should have it all and the wife should remain destitute. But I should have thought that many of your Lordships would not think that that was the right principle. After all, where there are small children in the custody of the wife, as nowadays is normally the case, whether the wife is what used to be called the "innocent" party or the "guilty" party, the money obviously cannot be paid to small infants. It is paid to the wife, and out of it she provides for them as best she can. She does not write down on a piece of paper how much she spends
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on food for herself and how much for the children. Moreover, the wife is not necessarily looking after the children; and if she is not looking after the children then the Amendment would clearly produce the wrong result, because it would mean that she would necessarily get nothing unless there was more than was required to cover the cost of the maintenance of the children.
Another difficulty of principle about the Amendment is that it assumes that the maintenance of the children is the responsibility of one parent only. Of course, that is not so: it is the responsibility of both parents; and both should be expected to contribute, so far as they can and so far as their resources allow, towards it. If, therefore, the wife has earnings of her own, it may well be wrong in principle to make the husband responsible for the whole of the children's maintenance.
The Bill is carefully constructed and the Amendment is clearly inconsistent with the structure of Clauses 2 to 5 of the Bill. These clauses provide a code under which the matters to which the court is to have regard in making any of the possible orders are carefully set out. My noble friend's Amendment would, for the benefit of one particular case, cut across the principles laid down. It is clearly in conflict with Clause 5(1) if, as that subsection provides, the result to be achieved is prima facie to put the wife in the same position as she would have been in had the marriage not broken down. It must be wrong to provide that she gets nothing until the full claims of the children are catered for. It is equally inconsistent with Clause 5(3), which clearly contemplates that a husband may properly be ordered to pay reduced payments to a child of the family of which he is not the father. The Amendment would make this impossible. If such a child were included in the order, either he must get full maintenance or the wife can get nothing.
A further difficulty about the Amendment is that it assumes that there will be enough available to maintain the children and to provide, I suppose, for a nurse or a nursery school. I say that because of the words
"including the cost of such adult supervision as they shall require …".

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But there may not be enough, and the court cannot then both provide for the wife and comply with the new subsection, except, curiously enough, by making no order for the children, because there is nothing in the Amendment to provide that the court must make an order for the children. The court is given no guidance as to what adequately covers the cost of maintenance and supervision. Some people might think that it would be a good thing if the child went to a fee-paying school, but if so and that had to be provided, there again if there were insufficient to maintain the wife as well she would be left destitute.
One of the curious things about the Amendment is that it has no effect unless the court makes an order for periodical payments in favour of both the spouse and the children. So the court can easily exclude the operation of the Amendment by giving the wife a lump sum; the Amendment would not apply at all. It seems strange that the court's only alternative to giving the children everything may be to give them nothing, which would have the same effect. As a matter of fact, as I am sure the noble Viscount will appreciate, in a sense there is a logical impossibility about the Amendment, because it applies only where a judge is making an order for periodical payments to both wife and children. When it is applied, the wife must not have anything unless the children are fully provided for, but unless an order is made for the wife as well it does not start to operate. I hope very much that when my noble friend considers what I have said she will see the difficulties and will not press the Amendment.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The noble Baroness founded her argument very much on the footnote on page 15 of the Law Commission's Report. I wonder whether the learned and noble Lord could clear up the facts of the situation for me. Plainly, it is right that if periodical payments to the spouse are to cease on remarriage the courts should differentiate, if they can, between those payments and any periodical payments to the children. But even if they do not, as I understand it the periodical payments to the children under Clause 3(2) can be varied on subsequent appli-
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cation under Clause 9. So, even if the courts do not listen to the good advice of the Law Commission in this footnote and they make some inadequate order at the initial stage which then turns out to be wrong, upon remarriage of the wife there is no reason why somebody should not go back on behalf of the children and ask for the order to be varied. Therefore, the matter is not irremediable if it is not done correctly in the first place, and I think this is a complete answer to the noble Baroness's point.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Viscount is quite right.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Once more I am all alone with the law on the other side, but as I feel I have the members of the Law Commission quite clearly supporting me I feel that I have a strength which, unfortunately, is not represented in this Chamber today. My noble and learned friend has not convinced me; in fact he frightens me when he tells me what the courts might do—the ruthless things which the courts might do. As I shall seek to show on another Amendment, in my opinion the fundamental weakness of this Bill is the fact that any decision is at the discretion of the court. The court is not one single entity; it represents all kinds of different human beings scattered all over the country. Because of that, I think the courts of this country should have much clearer directions, and I agree with the Law Commission in their footnote. We must recognise that leaving these matters to the discretion of individuals, who may well be subjective in their approach, is dangerous.
My noble and learned friend says he hopes that I will not press the Amendment to a Division. I have several Amendments down on the Marshalled List to-day and I probably shall not press any of them—not, I assure the House, because my convictions are weakened, but because whereas on the Divorce Reform Bill we had a free vote, and we were told in July that this Bill was expected to be complementary to the Divorce Reform Bill, there is no free vote to-day. I am astonished and disappointed that a Whip has been issued on this matter. Therefore, it would be simply wearying your Lordships to press the Amendment to a Division, however I

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regard the Amendment and whatever the justice embodied in it. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4 [Orders for transfer and settlement of property and for variation of settlements in cases of divorce, etc.]:
3.37 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL BARONESS SUMMERSKILL moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 4, line 32, at end insert—
(" (2) Unless the court finds reasons to the contrary, which shall be stated, it shall make an order under section 4(1)(a) for the transfer to the other party of property which shall put that other party in possession of approximately one half of all property acquired by either or both parties during the marriage.")
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 4. I am moving this Amendment in order to incorporate a provision to protect that wife for whom all the House had great sympathy on July 24, the woman innocent of any matrimonial offence who, on the operation of the Divorce Reform Act, can be divorced against her will. I am sorry to repeat this, but it is a piece of very important history which I think should be recalled. In July, when an Amendment was accepted by the promoters of the Divorce Reform Bill that the operation of the Bill should be postponed until January 1, 1971, we were under the impression that that would enable the Government to introduce a Bill which would contain provisions to protect that particular wife, whom we call the paragraph (e) wife. I have said this before but I must repeat it. The Bill before us now had already been prepared on July 24, and instead of being amended, as one would have thought after that debate on July 24, nothing at all was done; the Bill was printed and published as it was, and it is before us to-day. Therefore, all those excellent speeches showing the compassion of Members on both sides of the House for the woman who is going to be divorced against her will meant nothing. This Bill was printed, published and no amendment made.
What I am trying to do to-day is to move an Amendment which in my opinion should have been incorporated
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in the Bill. The Law Commission's Report No. 25 expressed the view that in considering financial provisions regard should be given to the contribution which over the years the woman makes to the home in terms of service—cooking, cleaning, bearing children, looking after children, looking after her husband and so enabling him to go out and earn a wage or salary. This point has been pressed time after time, and at long last it is a recommendation of the Law Commission's Report, and is mentioned in the Bill in Clause 5(1)(e). But this provision, which surely equity demands, is left to the discretion of the court. However individuals up and down the country may feel about the contribution which a woman makes to the home, it is left to the discretion of the court whether that contribution shall be reflected in the financial provisions which are made.
In many families the possessions accumulated over the years consist of a modest terraced or semi-detached house, probably with a mortgage on it, some furniture and a second-hand car—I am thinking in terms of people whose earthly possessions are things of that kind which have accumulated over marriage. I believe that these small accumulations can be attributed as much to the wife's good management and services in the home as to the husband's capacity to earn a wage or a salary, and I believe that the Matrimonial Property Bill, which passed its Second Reading in another place but was withdrawn in anticipation of an improved measure, contained this provision. That Bill obtained a large majority in another place.
I am not for one moment trying to legislate for the tiny minority of "gold diggers" who, having lead a parasitical existence, would on a divorce automatically take half of the property or goods. I am not concerned with those women. Everybody knows that they exist. We have heard so much in regard to this new Bill about a woman supporting her husband that I suppose that soon "gold digger" will be applied to both sexes. But since before this Bill is passed it refers to a female, I say that I am not concerned with her. I believe that she can be outwitted—I deliberately use the word "outwitted" about that kind of

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woman—by the opening words of this Amendment; namely,
"Unless the court finds reasons to the contrary, which shall be stated,"—
in other words, the court shall be told that this particular woman has made but little contribution to the home and that she really is not entitled to a fair share of the accumulated goods. But with regard to the lower income groups, I am concerned that unless the first wife is specifically protected and given a first claim on the available resources she will be denied elementary justice.
This Amendment draws attention to what I have already said is a fundamental weakness of this Bill; namely, the lack of any rules limiting the discretion of the court. It lies with any court simply to decide how a woman, innocent in the matrimonial sense—not for one moment do I say that when a marriage breaks up one individual is completely innocent—is to be treated. I believe that the treatment accorded her in regard to financial provision is left to the complete discretion of the court. I think this is grossly unfair and that if we arc to secure justice there should be some specific direction. I beg to move.
3.43 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: What the Bill does is all the Bill can do. It extends the powers of the court by allowing it, not alternatively but cumulatively and in a proper place, to award not merely those payments which have to be made while the suit is going on but, on a divorce, periodical payments, or a lump sum, or a transfer of property; and things can be secured. For the first time it puts down in writing in Clause 5 the matters which the court is to take into account. This is really the effect of the present case law plus something which has never been put down before; namely, that the court should have regard to the contribution which the wife has made by staying at home and looking after the family. But every case varies, and it would be quite impossible to draw up some sort of mathematical table as to what a judge should do. Naturally, where circumstances vary so much, it must be a matter of discretion.
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What this Amendment would do is to introduce the substance of Mr. Bishop's Bill, which was designed to provide for community of all property. The Committee should be clear as to exactly what the Amendment says. It says:
"Unless the court finds reasons to the contrary"—
so again it really all goes back to the judge's discretion—
"which shall be stated, it shall make an order under section 4(1)(a) for the transfer to the other party of property which shall put that other party in possession of approximately one half of all property acquired by either or both parties during the marriage".
That is a principle which I should have thought is just as likely to lead to the wrong result as to the right or the fair one. Are half the wife's hard-earned savings to go to pay the husband's bookmaker? Are half his business assets, acquired independently of his domestic life, to be taken away from the business and given to a woman who knows nothing about business? He may have turned his business into a limited company with 100 shares, and he has the 100 shares. What happens if he gives 50 shares to his wife? All in the courts are familiar with the impossible position where two men jointly own a company and they fall out. If one calls a directors' meeting and the other does not attend, the only thing to do is to put the company into liquidation, just as, where there are two 50 per cent. partners who do not agree, the only thing to do is to wind up the partnership. Again, if the husband has deserted his wife and the wife remains in the matrimonial home with the children, is she to be obliged to hand to her husband half the furniture, although he may have plenty of pre-marriage furniture of his own? Curiously enough, under this Amendment the interests of the children appear to be ignored. And when a judge is to do this and when he is not is left entirely to his discretion. So one again comes back to discretion.
The fact is that in the Bill there is a consistent scheme. Clauses 2 to 5 constitute a coherent whole, and Clause 5, with its guide-lines, is equally applicable both to orders made under Clause 4 and to orders made under Clause 2 or Clause 3. The Amendment singles out a particular type of order and requires it to be made regardless of the guide-lines. It

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says nothing about the relationship of such an order to other forms of financial provision. Is a transfer in pursuance of the order to be treated as part of the financial provision made for the transferee, or is the court first to direct the transfer and then apply Clause 5 to the post-transfer situation. No guidance is given, and it is difficult to see what my noble friend intends.
But apart from this, when one thinks of the practical side of it one realises that the court has to take into account every piece of property which has been acquired by either party during what may have been a marriage of thirty years, and then it all has to be valued. It is clear from the Amendment that this includes property which has been acquired and subsequently disposed of. Whether that is to be given credit in the receipts, I do not know. But what ordinary people could write down everything which either of them has acquired during a period of thirty years, let alone value it? I suppose they both would have to engage valuers; and we have not got the Registrars or Masters who could do this work in 40,000 cases a year. Whether gifts or legacies received from a relative would be included or not, one does not know.
I have always wanted to see some form of community of property. That is what most married people arrange for, only they do not do it in a very legal way. They arrange between themselves who is going to pay the rent and who is going to pay the hire-purchase instalments, and how much of whose earnings the other spouse is going to have. Difficulties of this kind about community of property accounted for one of the reasons why Mr. Bishop's Bill really could not be allowed to go through. You cannot have any form of community of property which is limited to the spouses of marriages which break down. Otherwise you would leave the good wife, whose marriage endured until her husband's death, in a worse position than that of a nagging wife whose nagging had caused the marriage to break down. You would really have to alter our laws of intestate succession. You would find, too, that you would have to provide most carefully for the rights of third parties which arise in property transactions. You can only do what is proposed if you apply it to married people
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as a whole. That means that if you are going to have community of property—and if a practicable form can be found I have always been in favour of it—you have to apply it to married people as a whole. But you must remember that you are dealing in that case with virtually the whole of the private wealth of the whole country, because nearly all private wealth is owned by adults who are married.
The Amendment does not deal at all with the rights of third parties. It is silent about legal ownership. It says that possession has to be transferred, though what exactly happens to legal ownership I do not know. And surely it is not right, on the face of it, there being such things as millionairesses (though I do not know that I have myself ever come across one), that if a man marries a millionairess and the marriage ends, whether or not it is his fault, after two or three years, he should be able to walk off with half a million.
The truth is that the Amendment is seeking to introduce community of property by the back door; and it is open to all the objections and difficulties which the Law Commission, who are still considering the question of community of property, have found arises with regard to it. As I think I said on the Second Reading, one of the great difficulties about any scheme of community of property is what is to happen if the partners do not agree. In some American States where there is community of property they answer that by saying that, if the parties do not agree, in a case where the husband has had a good year in his business, and wants to plough the money back in his business and the wife wants the house redecorating and a second car, what the husband says goes. Well, that is not quite the sort of community of property that I have in mind: it seems to me that then you go back to square one.
Under the French system, and again I think in Roman Dutch law, if there is a dispute the parties go to the court. This is not really the best way of having a happy marriage, for the parties to be always going to court. Those systems, however, also allow for contracting out; and, as I understand the position, in France, owing to the practical difficulties which have been found in implementing their community of property, all modern

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people, as a matter of common form, now contract out at the time they enter the marriage. So the problem needs a very great deal of consideration, and I am afraid that the proposed new subsection, which in effect attempts a form of community of property in saying that the other party shall be left with one half of all the things which either party, or both of them, have acquired at any time during the course of the marriage, is open to all the difficulties which I have suggested. In these circumstances I hope that the Committee would agree that the Amendment should not be accepted.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: I wish to make only one remark about my noble friend Lady Summerskill's argument. As usual, all the arguments made by my noble friend lead one to only one conclusion: that what my noble friend desires can be obtained only in a polygamous society. It is only under polygamy that one can have the discarded wife protected in the way my noble friend would like. I doubt whether she would like polygamy in this country, or whether most of the women in this country would also desire that, even to protect the discarded—and what my noble friend calls the "innocent"—wife.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: With respect, I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor about the catalogue of difficulties of this Amendment, and I very much hope that the Committee will not accept it. However, there was one thing the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, said that greatly perturbed me; and it is a matter of the broad principle that runs right through this Bill. She said that it is a fundamental defect of this Bill that the type of order that is to be made, the financial provisions and various other matters of this sort, are to be left to the discretion of the court. I suggest to the Committee that this is not a fundamental defect; it is the cardinal merit of this Bill, and it is literally the only way in which these things can be dealt with. It is ludicrous to suppose that one can lay down hard and fast rules—as this Amendment proposes, in a subject matter of this complexity, and with the variety of different circumstances that come to the courts—and suppose that you are going to get justice. You will not get
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it. And if the noble Baroness thinks that is a defect, then I would suggest that her entire approach to this Bill is wholly misguided and really ought to be re-thought out again.
3.56 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I am very surprised to hear all these denunciations of me for suggesting something which, in my opinion, is based on equity. My noble friend Lady Gaitskell talks about polygamy. Is there polygamy in the Scandinavian countries? Is there polygamy in Norway, Sweden, Finland, France, Italy or Germany? Are all the lawyers there so utterly dumb and stupid that they do not know what they are putting on their Statute Books?
LORD FARINGDON: I wonder whether my noble friend—
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Perhaps the noble Lord will wait until I finish the sentence. Surely these enlightened countries have lawyers who are equally eminent to the noble Lord opposite and my noble and learned friend here. Why is it that they put this provision on the Statute Book in their laws? Are they all stupid? Are they all convinced that this will ruin marriage? Do they have polygamy there? My noble friend on the left said that this could operate only in polygamous countries, though in fact it is operating in so many enlightened European countries. She may say that there may be some polygamy in the United States, but the fact is that this provision is also operating in States in the United States. Are all the lawyers there obtuse, stupid, failing to understand that they are putting on to the Statute Book something which should not be there?
I am very disappointed in my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor when he raises these niggling little legalistic objections, and then charges me with bringing something in by the back door. Does my noble friend think that I am afraid to bring anything in by the front door? I have been forced to do this because the Bill that we should be debating is the Matrimonial Property Bill, which gained a large majority when all this was discussed in the other place and the lawyers spoke and made their contribution on this provision now before your Lordships. And what happened after a long debate in another place? It

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was passed by a large majority. Am I so utterly stupid and blind in trying to get something on the Statute Book that will not work? What nonsense! I say that the situation that we have to-day is based on prejudice, custom, and a failure to recognise that the woman in the home is making a contribution to-day which should be recognised.
LORD FARINGDON: I wonder whether my noble friend could tell us, as she has mentioned a number of places which have this rule, how many of these have a provision for contracting out.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I should think that probably they all have. Of course, if they want to contract out, they can do so. If we want to do so, we can contract out of a great deal of our legislation. There is other legislation on the Statute Book which give those concerned a right to contract out. I do not object to people contracting out. What is the objection about that? There we have the back door for somebody to go out of the back door if he or she wants to do so. All I am saying—and the noble Lord is strengthening my case—is: let us try what these other countries are trying. To say that everybody arranges soon after marriage to contract out is not true. I should not be so foolish as to come to this House and discuss this question without having had consultations with some of the most eminent lawyers in the country—lawyers who know the law in other countries—who have discussed it with me; and all I am now asking is that we should introduce a provision which has been accepted in so many other countries, and which has benefited the innocent wives we are talking about. I shall not press this Amendment to a Division. There is a Whip on and the chances of my getting a majority are absolutely nil. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Matters to which court is to have regard in deciding what orders to make under ss. 2, 3 and 4]:
On Question, Whether Clause 5 shall be agreed to?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: During the debate on Second Reading, I
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raised a point on Clause 5. The noble and learned Lord was good enough to write to me and say that it was still under consideration, and I understand that an Amendment may be forthcoming at a subsequent stage of the Bill. Will the noble and learned Lord confirm that that is so?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, that is the position. We are still looking at the matter. I have to consult the Law Commission as to their original draft. I thought the point of the noble Viscount was right. As I said, this matter is still being considered and I hope to produce an Amendment at the Report stage of the Bill.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Neglect by party to marriage to maintain other party or child of the family]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move Amendment No. 5, which is one of the three Amendments with which I opened.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 38, at beginning insert ("Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (6)(c) and (f) above").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 [Duration of certain orders made in favour of party to marriage and effect of remarriage]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 8, line 28, leave out ("any such proceedings") and insert ("proceedings for judicial separation").
The noble and learned Lord said: Clause 7(2) refers in paragraph (a) to "proceedings for divorce or nullity of marriage", and in paragraph (b) to "such proceedings". That obviously refers to proceedings for divorce or nullity of marriage, but paragraph (c) refers to "proceedings for judicial separation". It is not quite clear whether "any such proceedings" in paragraph (d) refers, as it was intended to refer, to the immediately preceding kind of proceedings mentioned in paragraph (c)— namely, judicial separation—or to those referred to in paragraph (a). Therefore,

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the purpose of this drafting Amendment is to prevent any possible ambiguity. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8 [Provisions as to powers of court to make orders in favour of children and duration of such orders]:
4.3 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL BARONESS SUMMERSKILL moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 9, line 38, leave out subsection (4).
The noble Baroness said: May I read subsection (4) to the Committee, so that it will be quite clear what I intend to do? It reads:
"(4) An order made by virtue of section 3(2)(a) of this Act or section 6(6)(d) thereof shall, notwithstanding anything in the order, cease to have effect on the death of the person liable to make payments under the order except in relation to any arrears due under the order on the date of such death."
The purpose of my Amendment is to delete that provision. I feel that there is one matter about which we must all be agreed, and that is that dependent children must, wherever possible, continue to be provided for on the death of the payer. There is no reason why orders for the maintenance of children of the family should cease on the death of the payer, which makes it necessary for renewed application to be made under the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act for the child's maintenance during minority or incapacity.
I want to know why it is necessary to frame the Bill in such a way that this should have to be done. I believe that by deleting subsection (4) the children will continue to be maintained without further action, which I should have thought was highly desirable. I should like to know from my noble and learned friend whether this Amendment can be accepted, in order to remove the difficulties of taking further action on the death of a payer.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I gladly respond to my noble friend's request. As your Lordships see, the Amendment is intended to enable an order for unsecured periodical payments in favour of a child to continue in force after the payer's death. The Law Commission had canvassed the possibility of empowering the
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court to order unsecured, as well as secured, periodical payments to last for the life of the payer. But the practical advantages would be so slight and the resulting difficulties so great that the Law Commission concluded that no such power should be given to the courts. The Commission accordingly recommended the preservation of the current rule, that an order for unsecured periodical payments cannot last beyond joint lives. So far as provision for a spouse is concerned, this rule is embodied in Clause 7(2)(a); and subsection (4) of Clause 8, which the Amendment would delete, applies the same rule to orders in favour of children.
I am not quite clear why the noble Baroness distinguishes between children's orders and spouses' orders. But the reality of the situation is that, unless the estate comprises a substantial capital asset, there will be nothing out of which the periodical payments can be made, while, if there is capital, the surviving ex-spouse has her remedy under Section 26 of the 1965 Act, and any dependent child can apply under the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act 1938 for maintenance out of the estate.
There are many occasions on which it is both practicable and fair that periodical payments, whether for a surviving ex-wife or for children, should continue to be made after the husband's death. But an essential feature is his ownership of capital. If that capital exists at the time the order is made the payments can be secured on it. If it comes to light only on his death, then the ex-wife and dependent children already have their remedies.
There are also practical difficulties involved in the Amendment. On the death of the husband there would be nobody liable or authorised to pay until representation to his estate had been taken out. Secondly, a liability to make periodical payments not secured on any particular assets would raise estate duty complications and would lead to delays and difficulties in connection with winding-up the estate. Since the practical advantages, if there are any, would be so slight, it is not worth while creating all these difficulties. It is for those reasons that I respectfully agree with the course which the Law Commission have recommended, and which has been taken in the Bill.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I thank my noble and learned friend for that explanation. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Variation, discharge, etc., of orders for financial provision]:
4.9 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR: moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 10, line 23, leave out subsection (5) and insert the following subsection—
("(5) No such order as is mentioned in section 4 of this Act shall be made on an application for the variation of an order made by virtue of the said section 2(1)(a) or (b) or the said section 3(2) (a) or (b), and no order for the payment of a lump sum shall be made on an aplication for the variation of an order made by virtue of the said section 2(1)(a) or (b) or the said section 6(6)(a) or (b).")
The noble and learned Lord said: This is a drafting Amendment. As drafted, Clause 9 (5) prevents the making of an order for the transfer or settlement of property, or the payment of a lump sum, on an application to vary an existing order for periodical payments for a spouse or child, whether made on divorce, nullity or judicial separation or in proceedings instituted on the grounds of wilful neglect to maintain. But there is no reason why the court should not have power to order a lump sum payment in favour of a child on an application to vary an existing order for periodical payments in his favour, since an application for a lump sum payment for a child can be made at any time. Accordingly, the amended version of Clause 9 (5) allows a lump sum order to be made on such an application in favour of a child, but not on an application to vary an order for periodical payments to a spouse. I hope that my noble friend Lady Summerskill will approve of the spirit of the Amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 9.
Page 10, line 42, leave out ("is") and insert ("was")
The noble and learned Lord said: With the Committee's approval, I should like to take Amendments Nos. 9, 10 and 11 together, as they are all linked Amend-
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ments. These linked Amendments cure a drafting defect in Clause 9(7). As drafted, Clause 9(7) requires the court, in exercising its powers to vary, and so on, an existing order, to have regard to
"any change in any of the matters to which the court is required to have regard by section 5 of this Act. …"
Clause 5, however, applies only to orders made under Clauses 2, 3 or 4, and not to an order made under Clause 6, which deals with wilful neglect. Clause 9(7) is equally applicable to an order made under Clause 6, and it is therefore inappropriate to refer to Clause 5, which in such a case would be irrelevant.
As amended, the relevant part of subsection (7) will read:
"… change in any of the matters to which the court was required to have regard when making the order to which the application relates and where the party against whom that order was made…",
and so on. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move Amendment No. 10.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 42, leave out ("by section 5 of this Act") and insert ("when making the order to which the application relates")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move Amendment No. 11.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 43, leave out ("the order in question") and insert ("that order")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 10 to 29 agreed to.
Clause 30 [Extension of s.17 of Married Women's Property Act 1882]:
4.12 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL BARONESS SUMMERSKILL moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 23, line 39, at end insert—
("An application may also be made by a surviving spouse under the said section 17 as amended, against the personal representatives of a deceased spouse within six months from the date on which representation in regard to the deceased spouse is first taken out.")
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my

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name. It seems to me that it is an outstanding anomaly that all the financial remedies under the Matrimonial Causes Act, under the Matrimonial Proceedings and Property Bill before us and under Section 17 of the Married Women's Property Act 1882 cease on the death of one of the parties. The Law Commission considered Section 17 of the Married Women's Property Act 1882, and in paragraph 61 of the Law Commission's Report No. 25 said:
"… on balance"—
and I want to emphasise the words "on balance", because it is quite clear to me that the Law Commission must have been a little uncertain, and that there were those who took one point of view and those who took another—
"we believe that this would be inappropriate"—
that is, that
"the remedy under section 17 should be available to or against personal representatives of a deceased spouse.…"
However, other lawyers believe that there are many good reasons why it should be available. Surely, there was no good reason why Section 23 of the Act of 1882 should have been repealed in 1962, and the recent decision in the case of Thornley in 1969, which is very well known in legal circles, illustrates the hardship which may result from the present position.
May I briefly describe to your Lordships the case of Thornley. In that case the husband and wife married in 1938. They opened a joint account, into which the husband paid £2,000 and the wife between £400 and £500. After various property dealings, they acquired for £5,000 a public-house with 32 acres of agricultural land, which they let. Of this sum, about £4,000 was borrowed and subsequently repaid. The judge found that the wife—and I quote:
"… worked hard and contributed to a considerable extent in the success of that business."
The business was that of a public-house, and I think everyone realises that the right woman behind the counter in one of those places makes an important contribution and that it is a very hard and exhausting job.
From 1958 the husband became very violent when in drink, and in 1962, after twenty-four years of marriage, the wife left him after he tried to strangle her. The judge said:
"This gravely wronged wife, who, after some years of reasonably happy domesticity, endured four years of intermittent fear for her safety, was then ignominiously pensioned off with a weekly pittance of £5, her husband flatly refusing to give any undertaking even as to that".
The husband continued to run the public-house with the help of another woman who came to live with him there and whom he treated with similar violence. In 1966 the husband took his own life after a quarrel with her. I remind your Lordships that this was only four years after the wife had left, and after she had been married for twenty-four years, during which they had built up the business.
His estate was worth about £16,000, of which he left £1,000, the public-house and agricultural land worth about £12,000 to the other woman; an annuity of £416 for life to the wife; and the residue equally between the wife and the other woman. On the facts, it is clear that if the wife had taken proceedings under Section 17 during the husband's lifetime she would have had a good claim to a considerable share, if not a half share, in the public-house and land. This property was not the husband's to give, but because he was dead before the wife applied to the courts all the property was considered his alone, and passed by his will. The widow was left with her £416 a year and such provision as the court could make for her from his estate under the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act. That was this year.
Even where there has been no marital disharmony there is a strong case to be made for an application under Section 17 after the death of one spouse. Suppose the couple engage in a joint enterprise, as in the Thornley case, and they have two adult children who also help in the business. Suppose also that the wife then dies, leaving to the children equally all her interest in the business, which has never been quantified by a court. As matters now stand, the children can claim nothing, and will be entirely at the mercy of the surviving parent, who might, for example, bring another

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wife into the enterprise, to the total exclusion of the children's claim under their mother's will, as well as under our present law of intestacy unless more than £10,000 is involved.
I should like to ask my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor not to give a hasty decision now unless he feels absolutely confident he can do so, but to examine the cases that I have quoted—cases which came before the courts and about which we therefore know all the details. But, of course, there is equal injustice in other cases of which we do not know the details because they have never come before the courts. I would ask him to consider this matter very carefully, particularly so since the Law Commission arrived at their conclusion on balance and perhaps—who knows?—if they had considered it longer or at another time (or even later on with, perhaps, a new Law Commission) they might have come to a different decision.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I should be happy to read the cases to which my noble friend has referred, to consider them and perhaps to return to the subject at the Report stage of the Bill. Meanwhile, if I may, I will explain my present view. It is this. It is quite right to say that the Law Commission considered making Section 17 applicable to claims after the death of a spouse, but they came to the conclusion that it was inappropriate. I am not sure that my noble friend realises that Section 17 does not confer any rights on anybody. It is a form of procedure. Where the form of procedure is used then the court has to apply what I might call matrimonial property law. Section 17 is merely a useful procedure between husband and wife where it is disputed whether some of the property—very often it is wedding presents—belong to both or to the husband or to the wife. It is a procedure which involves a hearing in Chambers at which the parties give their evidence before the Master or Registrar.
The two spouses are necessarily in conflict with each other and it is generally thought to be in the public interest that that kind of thing should be heard in private. That is what this particular procedure is for. But if one of the parties is dead there is no such public interest. Moreover, there is a public interest in
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seeing that disputed claims to a deceased person's property are not litigated behind closed doors. The widow, or widower, and the executors may have the same interest in establishing before the court that the property was not that of the deceased—for example, to avoid estate duty or to defeat a legatee. Indeed, the surviving spouse may himself or herself be the executor, and if he or she is to obtain a judgment from the court it should be obtained openly. If a right to apply under Section 17 is to be given to a surviving spouse against the other spouse's estate, a corresponding right would have to be given to the personal representatives to proceed against the survivor; otherwise cross claims which might exist could not be decided in the same proceeding. The Amendment does not do this.
Therefore, while I sympathise with my noble friend's objects, I think she is rather under the impression that Section 17 in some way confers a right on a spouse whereas it is really only a very convenient procedure where a husband and wife cannot agree as to whether something belongs to one or the other or both. I will read the cases referred to by my noble friend, and if she wishes to raise the matter at Report stage I have no doubt that she will do so.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I thank my noble and learned friend. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 30 agreed to.
Clause 31 agreed to.
Clause 32 [Order for maintenance of party to marriage made by magistrates' court to cease to have effect on remarriage of that party]:
4.24 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 24, line 29, at end insert ("and shall not be capable of being revived")
The noble and learned Lord said: This Amendment resolves a possible doubt which could arise on the construction of the new subsection (4) inserted by Clause 32(1) in Section 7 of the Matrimonial Proceedings (Magistrates' Courts) Act 1960. There is authority for the proposition that where a magistrates' court order has ceased to

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have effect it can nevertheless be revived by the magistrates' court. It is not intended that an order ceasing to have effect on the payee's remarriage should ever be revived and the Amendment makes it clear that there is no power to revive it. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 32, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 33 and 34 agreed to.
Clause 35 [Citation, construction, commencement and extent]:
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL BARONESS SUMMERSKILL moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 25, line 26, leave out ("Matrimonial Proceedings and Property") and insert ("Financial Provision in Matrimonial Proceedings")
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 14. I move it because I believe that the Short Title is misleading. The Bill is concerned not with matrimonial proceedings but with financial provisions and with children of the family; it is only marginally concerned with property. I agree that if this Bill had been the kind of Bill we anticipated (which of course would be complementary to the Divorce Reform Act) the present Title would be relevant; but at the moment it is not. I say "at the moment" because I anticipate (the Lord Chancellor has mentioned that the Law Commission have other things in their minds) that we shall have another Bill as soon as possible which will strengthen the one before us, and that we shall have one dealing with property and with matrimonial affairs which are related to finance. I feel that the Bill before us has failed, because the House was given a promise which has not been kept. Therefore, this Bill comes before us with this Title—which of course has no relationship to its contents.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There may always be two views as to what is the right Title for a Bill. I must again make it plain that my noble friend is quite inaccurate in saying that anybody made a promise which has not been kept. I do not want to repeat what I have said previously; but I would remind the Committee that on the Second Reading of the Divorce Reform Bill, I said that
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it was no good whatever relying on the financial provisions of the Bill which the Law Commission were working out to help wives under the Divorce Reform Bill because the Divorce Reform Bill itself, particularly in Clause 6, did everything for them financially which could be done.
I may remind the Committee again that on the Second Reading of the Divorce Reform Bill I produced and had copied and circulated a letter from the Chairman of the Law Commission making this plain. With great respect, I do not think that the alternative Title suggested by my noble friend would be right, or that it is either elegant or accurate. This is not a Bill simply to deal with financial provisions; it also deals with property—
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: And proceedings.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: And proceedings. Clause 20 abolishes the restitution of conjugal rights. That is not concerned with financial provision. Nor are Clauses 17 to 19, which deal with the custody of children. A large part of Part II of the Bill has nothing to do with financial provision, but deals really with property. Clause 28, a most important clause, is in relation to property. Clause 29 deals with possession of the matrimonial home: that again is not financial. Clause 30 deals with Section 17—which again relates to property rights. Clause 33 abolishes the agency of necessity.
I never feel passionately about the question of Title, and I welcome the Committee's views. But I should have thought that "Matrimonial Proceedings and Property Bill" is a more accurate Title, in relation to the content of the Bill, than my noble friend's suggestion, which would make it the "Financial Provision in Matrimonial Proceedings Act". The latter I should have thought, with great respect, would not be an improvement.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I wish to thank my noble and learned friend. I did not think for one moment that I should succeed in persuading him to change the Title, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.30 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Amendment No. 16 is a drafting Amendment which extends Clause 35(2) so as to permit the court to refer also to the Law Commission's Report advocating the abolition of restitution of conjugal rights, as well as to the Report on financial provisions. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 25, line 29, after ("had") insert ("to the Proposal of the Law Commission for the Abolition of the Matrimonial Remedy of Restitution of Conjugal Rights (Law Com. No. 23) and").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I wonder whether I may take the somewhat unusual course of asking the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to think again about this Amendment. I entirely appreciate that there is merit in the novel suggestion already in this subsection, that the courts and practitioners and the public should look at the Law Commission's paper No. 25, which contains a great deal of explanation about substantive changes in the law of great complexity. Paper No. 23 is a rather different matter, however. All that is done by Clause 20 of this Bill is to abolish the old remedy about the restitution of conjugal rights. The Law Commission's paper setting out the reasoning on this matter contains the following contents. There is an introduction saying when they were asked to look at this; there is a history of the decree of restitution, setting out the present position and the number of petitions under these proceedings in a certain number of years. Then there are the arguments for retaining the remedy and for abolishing it, and a conclusion in which they recommend that it should be abolished. There is also a draft clause, only part of which reappears as Clause 20 because the consequential Amendments were not made.
I cannot think that in construing Clause 20 a court would ever want to look at any of that. There cannot be any question of a court or anybody else construing Clause 20, because there is nothing in it to construe. It merely abolishes an old remedy and there will be nothing further upon which any litigation would take place. There does not seem to be any explanation that anybody would want to have, and I am a little nervous about getting too much of this material referred
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to as a matter of Statute. There are, no doubt, instances when it is quite right, but I think we ought to be rather careful and not go in for a wholesale inclusion of a whole lot of material, particularly when, as I suggest is the case here, it will not help anybody at all to see what the Bill means.
I do not know whether the noble and learned Lord would be good enough to look at this point again; it occurred to me only when I got the Law Commission's paper, but I think there may be something to be said for not having this Amendment. Certainly I should not wish to divide the Committee against it, but if the noble and learned Lord thinks there is anything in what I have said perhaps he will reconsider it, and we can come back to it at the next stage in the Bill if he still wishes to proceed.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I should have liked to proceed with this Amendment now. Obviously it is not a point of vast importance either way, but is it not going to appear to anybody to be rather odd if, in a Bill which everybody knows proceeds from two Reports of the Law Commission, there is a clause which says that you can look at one Report but you cannot look at the other? While I have not at present in mind an obvious conflict on the question of the construction of Clause 20, experience suggests that it is almost impossible to have a clause upon which some lawyers cannot find some point to raise. It would look very odd, and they would say, "I wonder why on earth they abolished the restitution of conjugal rights. I know there is a reference to go and look at which will tell me the answer, but I am not allowed to look at it." It will look odd—will it not?—if you get legislation, notoriously well known to have resulted from two different Reports, in which it is stated that you may look at one Report but, whatever else happens, you cannot look at the other? I should have hoped that the Committee would be prepared to accept the Amendment to-day. If, having considered that, the noble Viscount returns to the attack on Report stage I shall be quite ready to consider it again there.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: May I just say that I should be perfectly content with that course, but I think it

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raises the question of why we are making a statutory reference to these papers. I should have thought, with respect, that what we wanted was to draw to the attention of the courts, the petitioners and the public the detailed explanation of how the major provisions of this Bill were arrived at, and how they are meant to work, and of the cross-references. For that purpose I think that reference to the Law Commission Paper No. 25 is a good idea, certainly as an experiment, and that this is an admirable occasion on which to carry out such an experiment.
But I think it is for the interpretation of the clauses of this Bill, and not for any other purpose; that the references are wanted. After all, if it is for any other purpose; if it is for writing learned treatises or making speeches in your Lordships' House, or anywhere else, one can look at the Law Commission's Papers, all of them. But if we are legislating in this way in order to extend the material which courts may look at, which is what I think we are doing, then I feel that we should be careful. After all, why should they not look at the OFFICIAL REPORT of the debates in this House? There are changes which the noble and learned Lord has moved by way of Amendment to-day. There is no suggestion that those should be looked at by the courts; and of course I am not suggesting that they should. But, according to the noble and learned Lord's argument, they would be just as relevant, I think, as the Law Commission's Paper No. 23.
I take the point that it would be a little strange, but it is strange only if you are embarking on a fairly widespread permission for the courts to look at extraneous material outside the Bill. If, as I believe, we ought to be careful about this and allow them to look only at material which is helpful in interpretation, I still think that the Law Commission's Paper No. 23 is not going to help interpret that clause. But I agree with the noble and learned Lord that perhaps we can consider the matter further before the next stage.
LORD CONESFORD: May I very briefly support my noble friend in this matter? I think that the Amendment which the
noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, is moving would be
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justified only if it could help the courts in interpreting some clause other than Clause 20. If it could, then I agree that there is something in it; but I cannot see, for the reason given, how any conceivable question could arise that would give a court the least difficulty on Clause 20. So far as Clause 20 is concerned, this is completely unnecessary.
LORD LEATHERLAND: I was about to draw attention to Clause 35(2) because I think that we are probably embarking on an experiment which could be dangerous. I feel that to some extent it ties the hands of the judges. Hitherto we have always regarded it as the duty of the judges to interpret the law in the light of their own individual wisdom, and I do not think it is wise to ask a judge, when interpreting an Act of Parliament, to refer to a document which has not quite the statutory authority that an Act of Parliament has.
I am not a lawyer, but in my young days I spent many years reporting cases in every type of court, from the magistrates' court to the High Court. I have never been a member of another place although I spent many years in my young days as a lobby correspondent there. From time to time I have heard, both in the courts and in another place, that when an Act of Parliament is being interpreted the judge, the magistrate, or whoever he may be, must not have regard to what the promoting Minister said he wanted the Act to mean when he was introducing it. If we are not to take into account what a Minister says when introducing a Bill, and speaking from what is probably a very carefully prepared brief drawn up by the Department in which Bills are promoted, I hardly think it wise for us to say to a judge, "You are not to take the words of this law as they are printed, but you are to interpret them in the light of some other document which you will get out of the library".
I think that this would also tie the hands of a judge when he came to interpret certain provisions in the light of the decisions made in the past by the highest courts in the land. Our legislation should be drafted with such clarity that a judge can interpret it and understand what it means. If we are asking a judge not merely to read the Act of Parliament, upon which pleas are being put before him in his court, but to refer also to some

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semi-official document, I think that we are moving in a very dangerous direction.
LORD LLOYD OF HAMPSTEAD: I had not intended to intervene on this matter because I arrived rather late and did not have the benefit of the opening exposition of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and heard only a fragment of the subsequent speeches. But in view of the speech of my noble friend Lord Leatherland and of some other comments, I should like to put in a word in favour of this kind of provision. I venture to think that it is a progressive move.
Hitherto, our courts have always been rigidly tied to the literal interpretation of the actual words before them, even though in many cases it might be possible to ascertain what is the real intention of Parliament. In many countries, including the United States, a much freer use has been allowed of legislative material, such as Reports upon which legislation is based. I venture to suggest that this is a peculiar type of legislation, in which documents of this kind can be helpful. Here we have legislation which is based on a learned and well-informed Report of a highly qualified body, the Law Commission, and surely it is desirable that the courts should be given at any rate the opportunity of exploring the background of the provision in order to enable them to interpret the provision in the actual Act.
After all, we must not read too much into this kind of provision. It does not compel the courts to adopt any particular interpretation or construction. All it does is simply to allow the courts to look at this material and to derive from it such help as they may wish to glean from it. The notion that there is anything dangerous in this or that the courts are in some way going to be perverted or corrupted by giving them the benefit of being allowed to look at the Law Commission Report or the relevant portion of it, seems to me to be utterly exaggerated. Therefore, I wish warmly to support this provision, which I think is an interesting and valuable experiment, one which is in line with the general recommendations which the Law Commission have themselves put forward in an elaborate and carefully argued Report, which also pays regard to the practice in statutory interpretation in many other
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countries with wide experience in this kind of matter.
I wish to add only this comment. It is said: if we are going to allow this sort of thing, why do we not allow the courts to refer to the columns of Hansard, to Parliamentary debates? Logically, I suppose that we ought to allow the courts to do that. In practice, this probably would not assist the courts a great deal, certainly not compared with the assistance they would get from a learned Report upon which legislation is based. It may involve the court in an unnecessary amount of irrelevant inquiry. Experience shows that in most countries which allow legislative material to be cited, the tendency is not to rely so much on Parliamentary debate but rather upon actual Reports. Therefore, I would support this provision, which is limited in terms simply to the Report of the Law Commission upon which this Bill is based.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.44 p.m.
LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 25, line 32, leave out subsection (3).
The noble Lord said: Unfortunately, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, is unable to be here this afternoon and he has asked me to deputise for him. I am afraid that I am a very inadequate deputy for the learned Master of the Rolls, but fortunately this is a simple Amendment. It is one that does not require a great deal of explanation, and the noble and learned Lord said a word about it on Second Reading. The short point is that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, is desirous that this Bill should come into operation as soon as it receives the Royal Assent, arid the Amendment contains the operative words for that purpose.
I think that practically everybody in the Committee, with one exception, strongly supports this Bill and would like it to come into operation at the earliest possible moment. I think we all agree that it contains many provisions which are beneficial to wives and children and which will help them very much. If my noble friend really understood this Bill, I am sure that even she would support this Amendment and want it to come into operation at once.

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The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said on Second Reading that in the Court of Appeal he was concerned with a considerable number of cases relating to disputes between husband and wife. But he merely receives them when there is an appeal. A great many more are dealt with in the courts of first instance, and there are also a great many cases pending at the present time. I know that there might be difficulty, in dealing with cases that are pending, as to which law should govern them once the Bill comes into operation. But, after all, this is not a unique problem.
The majority of Bills that come before the House come into operation once the Royal Assent is given. The provision for postponing the date of operation is rather exceptional. I do not say that it is unique, but it is somewhat exceptional. Only in certain special cases and for special reasons is the operation of a Bill postponed. In this case, it was stated that the Bill was to be postponed for a reason which, if my noble and learned friend will forgive me, I did not altogether understand. He related this Bill to the Divorce Reform Bill and gave the impression, at any rate to me, that he wanted both Bills to come into effect on the same day, when in fact his case was—and I agree with it—that the two had really nothing to do with one another. The real problem in the Divorce Reform Bill was dealt with in the Bill itself. This is merely a reform of the relationship between husband and wife and children and an improvement in the provision that was made for parties separated. Therefore, I can see no reasons, from that point of view, why it should not come into operation at once.
I can see certain difficulties. On Second Reading, my noble and learned friend referred to rules which might have to be made and some provisions which might not be easily brought into operation at once. Again, I am going to emulate my noble friend Lady Summerskill and not force this Amendment to a Division, but I should be grateful if my noble and learned friend would look at this carefully to see how much of this beneficial measure can be brought into operation at once and how much he feels it is essential should be deferred until January 1, 1971. I cannot think of any matter which
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need be deferred, even the sort of case that he has put forward. If he can give me an assurance that between now and the next stage of the Bill he will be willing to look at it from that angle and see whether, as I hope, the major part of the Bill can be brought into operation at once, I shall be happy to withdraw the Amendment. I beg to move.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I should have thought that my noble friend, being such an old Parliamentarian, would have thought once or twice before charging me with not knowing what I was talking about on this Bill or on the Divorce Reform Bill. He has admitted that he is in a confused condition. The confusion is in his mind, and not in mine. If he will allow me, I will help to erase that confusion by giving him a clear picture of why he should be moving this Amendment.
I think he will be shocked to learn that I am going to support him wholeheartedly. I see no reason why there should be great thought about this. He said to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that he could not understand what was in his mind last July when he put this date into the Bill. The date was put into the Bill because, as I have contended again and again, it was agreed that this Bill should be complementary to the Divorce Reform Act, and, therefore, the two dates should synchronise as January 1, 1971, when the Divorce Reform Act should come into operation and at the same time this Bill, which was to give some help to a woman divorced against her will. That is why this date was put into the Bill. But, of course, it is no longer necessary, because this Bill has no relevance to the Divorce Reform Act. If this date was put in for that reason, there is no reason why we should any longer observe it as necessarily the date when this Bill should come into operation.
I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and with my noble friend Lord Silkin that there is no reason why this Bill should not operate prior to 1971, because it has no relationship to the Divorce Reform Act which comes into operation on January 1, 1971. In fact—and I feel this strongly—the women of this country have been cheated. This is the date on which they were going to have protection. They are not going to

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have the protection; therefore I absolutely agree with my noble friend that there is no longer any need to honour this particular date of January 1, 1971.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: I should like to support this Amendment. There seems to me to be very little reason why this Bill should not take effect before January 1, 1971. In particular, I would draw attention to Part II of the Bill, which has no relationship of any kind to the Divorce Reform Act: it is devoted entirely to tidying up some points of law of an entirely different character. It seems that the rest of this Bill might well take effect before January 1, 1971. It is intended to be an improvement in the law as regards provision for the maintenance of wives or children, and, in so far as it is an improvement, it would be a good thing if it could be brought into operation more quickly.
If this particular Amendment has some defect, then I would respectfully suggest to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that he should on the next stage of the Bill put down an Amendment in a quite common form, giving power to bring different parts of the Bill into operation at different times. That would give the matter flexibility and enable it to be dealt with as quickly as possible.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The difficulty is to please everybody. I will certainly consider this proposal, and I am inclined to think that the course proposed by my noble friend Lord Douglas of Barloch is the right one. I get many complaints from lawyers that there ought to be a period between the time when a Bill receives the Royal Assent and when the Act comes into force if it is making somewhat complex changes in the law and, in particular, in its procedure and practice. They say: "We do not get enough time to study what you have done, because so much law reform has been going on. We are not interested in the Bills, but in the Acts, and until a Bill gets the Royal Assent we cannot get copies. Then we have to get copies, and with the busy lives that we now lead, overworked as we are, we ought to have a reasonable time in which to study it."
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The position here is that Part I of the Bill will require extensive amendments to the matrimonial causes rules. The Divorce Reform Act, which comes into force on January 1, 1971, will also require extensive amendments to the matrimonial causes rules. That is why it was thought by the Law Commission that the convenient course would be to bring both into force on that date. I am in this difficulty about rules. The Government, as the House knows, have taken a view about the total number of civil servants that there should be, and it is not everybody who can draft rules.
I have at the moment to draft county court rules for the purposes of the Civil Evidence Act 1968, which I have not yet been able to get done; the matrimonial causes rules for the same purpose; county court rules for the purposes of the amendments made by Part I of the Law of Property Act 1969 in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954; Supreme Court Rules to prevent process being served or executed on a Sunday, so as to honour the undertaking given to the Joint Committee on the Statute Law (Repeals) Bill; adoption rules for the purpose of enabling the Adopted Children's Register to be kept in a different form; new scales of county court costs to give effect to an anticipated publication (I think to-morrow) of the National Board of Prices and Incomes; a new scale of costs for cases within the extended jurisdiction of the county court conferred by last Session's Administration of Justice Act, and a number of amendments to the county court rules and other provisions in the Administration of Justice Act relating to county court jurisdiction, and so forth. I am in some difficulty, therefore, in getting rules drafted, particularly as it is not very satisfactory to draft rules until one knows the final form of an Act. So in general I should think there may be some difficulty.
This Bill will not receive the Royal Assent, I suppose, before Whitsun or round about then; so there is not a lot in it as between then and January 1, 1971. At the same time, there are some clauses such as Clause 28 which is only declaratory of the law, which would be useful soon. That is why I think the course proposed by my noble friend Lord Douglas of Barloch, of making provision so that an Order can be made bringing some parts of the Bill into force and not

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others, is probably right. I hope, in those circumstances, that my noble friend Lord Silkin will withdraw his Amendment.
LORD SILKIN: I am quite satisfied with that assurance. I know that my noble and learned friend will look at this matter sympathetically as soon as he can, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 35, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Transitional provisions and savings]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendments Nos. 18 and 19.
Page 28, line 12, leave out ("is") and insert ("was")
Page 28, line 13, leave out ("by section 5 of this Act") and insert ("when making the order to which the application relates")
The noble and learned Lord said: If the Committee will allow me, I should like to move Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 together. They are drafting Amendments corresponding to the drafting Amendments made to Clause 9(7). The reference to Clause 5 is equally inappropriate to subsection (3) of Clause 5 because this operates on variation orders made before the commencement of the Bill. Ex hypothsi such orders must have been made at a time when the court could not have been required by Clause 5 to do anything. I beg to move Amendments Nos. 18 and 19.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining Schedules agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported, with Amendments.

THE HOVERCRAFT INDUSTRY
5.3 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL THE EARL OF KINNOULL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government how far the hovercraft industry has progressed in the last five years. The noble Earl said: My Lords, the Question in my name, asking what progress the hovercraft industry has achieved over the past five years, gives me a belated opportunity of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord
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Delacourt-Smith, who I see will be replying, both on his recent appointment to the Government and on the further honour awarded him last week. The Question also gives the House the opportunity to hear the noble Lord reply on a subject for which he has direct Ministerial responsibility—a rather rare luxury nowadays for this House.
The purpose of raising this question to-night on the growth and emergence of what I personally believe to be one of the most important and valuable British inventions since the war is, in the first place, to inquire just how healthy the growth state of the industry has been over the past five years, and, secondly, to see what plans the Government have for the future to ensure that the industry remains strongly competitive in face of increasing foreign activity and is not allowed to sink into a role of selling know-how rather than the hardware.
When one looks back over the past few years at what the industry has achieved in the way of return for the patient investment from both Government and private industry, the answer, I believe, is a good deal more encouraging than many realise. I hope the noble Lord will be able to verify some of the figures I have obtained when I say that over the years the Government investment has been something just over £10 million. Over the past two years, the period of time when sales started to pick up, the industry has been awarded over £32 million worth of orders, £9 million of which have been export orders. This is not, I would suggest, a discouraging picture. I am also informed that it is anticipated that the total world market for hovercraft within the next five-year period could exceed £40 million a year, and that the growth of the British industry could well be running at 20 per cent. a year.
The present role of Government investment runs, I understand, at approximately £3 million a year, and although on first sight this may appear generous, in comparison to Government support in other countries, like France, Japan, and the United States whose industries are a good deal smaller and less advanced, it is not by any means too generous. For, in practice, only a third of this investment goes to advance industry in the

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form of research and development contracts, and to assist the exhaustive trials needed to meet the commercial requirements. The remaining two-thirds is split between running the Joint Services Military Trials Unit at Lee-on-Solent and the N.P.L. unit at Hythe.
My Lords, many people, I am sure, would feel a good deal happier with the size of Government support for the industry if their policy towards the development of military hovercraft were not so excessively stingy. Most of us will remember the tremendous benefit that companies like Boeing, of America, have gained over the years from military aircraft design contracts, and the subsequent spin-off into their civil side. The same pattern would surely follow with the hovercraft development. But either the Government do not accept this view, or they are
deliberately showing a woeful lack of confidence. For since 1968 not only have they cancelled the Army version of the B.H.7 project, causing the break-up of a design team, but they have also brought to a stop the feasibility study of the very important large ocean-going craft. This year, with the launching of the Navy version of the B.H.7, the Government threw caution to the wind and announced with a flourish the order of one craft for the Ministry of Technology. Since then, I am glad to say, two other craft have now been ordered for the Navy—not, one might add, for the British Navy, but for the Iranian Navy. That is not a very encouraging record of support. I hope that the noble Lord will have something to say later about the Naval orders.
One of the most interesting developments in the many flexible uses to which the hovercraft principle can be adapted is the tracked hovercraft, or hover-rail. The House will recall that a company was set up by the N.R.D.C. some years ago and was granted initially £2 million towards developing this form of transport. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could advise us tonight of the progress report on the development, the likely cost up to the evaluation stage, and the estimated time this will take. I should also be grateful if he could tell us just how the Government propose to develop this project beyond the N.R.D.C.'s stage of evaluation. For instance, will British Rail be invited to take on some of this development?
The success of the development of tracked hovercraft must surely open very wide horizons for foreign markets, particularly in America. With the French developing their form of tracked hovercraft, and making what appear to be quite rapid strides, the British development has obviously no room for complacency. Perhaps the noble Lord could tell us whether in fact any interest has been shown
recently by the Americans in this concept, particularly on a co-operation basis. Another use of hovercraft, which was developed four or five years ago, is the hoverbed, the bed for badly burned patients. This important technique was. I understand, installed in a London hospital on a trial basis for a period of nine months, and for almost a year now the clinical appraisal of the concept has lain with the Ministry of Health. Perhaps the noble Lord could tell us how soon now the Ministry of Health will publish their findings and their decision as to whether the concept is acceptable. Could he also guide us as to the probable cost of installing such a bed in a hospital?
Turning to the marine form of hovercraft, perhaps one of the most disturbing features in recent months has been the failure of Hovermarine, one out of the four major hovercraft companies. This company was the leader in the technique of the side wall craft, a concept, one cannot help noticing, which the U.S.A. have chosen for their very large oceangoing project. I do not expect the noble Lord to comment at this stage on the failure of Hovermarine, but I hope he will be able to assure us that efforts are being made on behalf of the industry as a whole—the British industry—to retain the sidewall technique developed by this company.
The marine craft which of course captures the eye most of all is the present queen of the fleet, the SRN4. This craft, the largest commercial hovercraft in the world, despite its setbacks and teething problems, has I believe come through its first year of operations with some credit. The two operators, Hover Lloyd and Seaspeed, have carried no fewer than 380,000 passengers across the Channel this year; and the number is expected to double next year. Four of these craft have now been sold, two to Hover Lloyd and two to Seaspeed, and four more are

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now in the pipeline being built, but, I am sad to learn, with no firm orders. The future success of the craft must now surely rest on its appeal to foreign customers. Its uniqueness at being the only 160-ton craft available will shortly be challenged by the French Navyplane, the N.500, which might be a direct competitor and which I understand is due to be launched next year. The time, therefore, for an important sales push for the N.4 must now seem imminent.
When one is talking of selling this craft to the United States of America and perhaps Canada, one often wonders whether it is good enough to give potential customers a folder of glossy publications and then tell them that if they are further interested they must travel 3,500 miles to Cowes. Is that not like telling the mountain to move to Mohammed? Would it not be better for Mohammed to journey across the Atlantic to the mountain? It is, after all, an oceangoing vehicle. The noble Lord may well say that this is no responsibility of the Government and that it is up to B.H.C. to decide if they wish to take an SRN4 over to North America. B.H.C. may say in turn that the cost is prohibitive. But if such a sales expedition were mounted, and if support was given by all the
various companies involved who would benefit from ultimate sales, could the noble Lord say to-night whether his Ministry would look favourably upon supporting such a project? As the House will know, the development of many techniques of hovercraft is of course carried out at Hythe by the N.P.L. unit. This unit over the years has done splendid work for the industry, in particular of course in developing some of the industrial techniques.
There are two small points I should like to ask the noble Lord about this work. In the first place, what proportion of their effort is devoted to hovercraft research, and what proportion to hydrofoil research; and secondly, is any work being carried out on water jet propulsion, a technique we know that the United States are studying very closely? My final question to the noble Lord on the industry concerns the planning aspect of hoverports. As the noble Lord will know, for some time now the cry for a national and rational airport policy has been heard, and it would seem that the need
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for this has at last been generally accepted. The siting of hoverports as well, although on a much smaller scale, requires in many people's opinion a rational policy.
The need for this was of course foreshadowed in the Hovercraft Act under Section 4, which gave local authorities power, subject to a Board of Trade Order being introduced, to control the siting of hoverports, even where no material change of use of land, under planning eyes, is involved. This question has been raised a number of times before, particularly in regard to the Solent. On each occasion the Government reply has been that the need for giving local authorities this control has not yet been established. I should like to know to-day from the noble Lord what criteria the Board of Trade use in testing whether there is a need or not. Secondly, could the noble Lord say whether any local authority, supported by evidence, have requested that a Board of Trade Order be introduced?
My Lords, the few questions I have put to the noble Lord to-day on the hovercraft industry are really only an introduction to what I hope the noble Lord will treat as an opportunity to review the progress on the industry. Although my Question on the Order Paper looks back over five years, I hope the noble Lord to-night will also be able to look forward a little and say something on the new generation of hovercraft and the potential of this splendid British invention.
5.16 p.m.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, I am intervening in this debate, not because I am an expert on the hovercraft like the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, but because I see such a good potential for this type of vehicle. At present I do not think there is sufficient co-operation between military, naval and commercial interests in the development of the hovercraft industry. This attitude must surely be wrong. I realise that money for defence is a bad smell in some Governmental minds. Still, we must defend our shores. The best way of defence is attack. The hovercraft can land troops anywhere, so it becomes an essential vehicle.
The Americans are, I understand, trying to develop a hovercraft to carry

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4,500 tons commercially. This will most likely take ten to twenty years to develop. We have developed a hovercraft to carry about 40 tons. Commercially there is need for a craft to carry 300 tons. For this there is a tremendous potential and world market. What is needed is an inquiry into what is most needed. Is a water only vehicle wanted? Are amphibious vehicles wanted, or semi-amphibious vehicles that pull up on the shore? Surely a joint committee should be set up between the Services and commerce to investigate our requirements. This committee should have the object of recommending the Government to back the industry.
I believe that £5 million to £7 million should meet the industry's commercial requirements over the next two to three years. Surely this is a small amount to pay to set this potential industry on its feet for what it can return in money to this country. I hope that the Government in their reply can answer some of my points and give the industry fresh hopes.
5.19 p.m.
LORD KINGS NORTON: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, replies, may I add a few words from a different point of view; namely, from the point of view of safety of hovercraft. For the last ten years the worthiness (and I use the term in the sense that "airworthiness" is used in relation to aircraft) of hovercraft has been the responsibility of the Air Registration Board. The Air Registration Board, of which I have the privilege of being Chairman, has taken on this responsibility at the request of Government, but always on a rather informal basis. It is an arrangement which, in its informality and its apparent impermanence, has really been very unsatisfactory. Consequently I hope—and I believe I have some reason to hope—that the noble Lord will be able to say something about a more formal remit of this responsibility to the Air Registration Board. If he is able to say that, I would assure him in advance how very pleased everyone will be who has been concerned with this rather difficult and unusual kind of worthiness.
If, indeed, it becomes the delegated responsibility of the Air Registration Board to deal with the safety of hovercraft, that can be only a stage on the
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way to a different arrangement, because the Government have already foreshadowed their intention of creating a hovercraft Board. That hovercraft Board is, I fear, a little more distant than many of us would hope, and despite what the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has said about the development of the industry I feel that it has not yet developed to a scale which would warrant the creation of a special body to look after it. But it needs a special body. It is not an aircraft, it is not a boat: it is, in our view, sui generis and must be dealt with in its own particular way.
I should like to see—and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, will be able to comment on this point—this Board coming into existence at an early stage. I wonder whether I may ventilate a thought (without asking the noble Lord to comment on it) which might bring this body into earlier existence than would otherwise be the case. The hovercraft has another kind of overwater craft frequently in competition with it, and that is the hydrofoil boat, which was briefly mentioned by the noble Earl towards the end of his remarks. It is strongly felt in hydrofoil circles that there is a disadvantage in being treated as a boat—which indeed the hydrofoil is—while the hovercraft is dealt with as being something approximating to an aircraft. Possibly it would be of great value to all concerned with high-speed overwater craft if, when the hovercraft Board comes into existence, it is given a rather different name and rather wider responsibilities; namely, for the safety of all high-speed overwater craft. There is more than one kind: there is the hovercraft which progresses on a cushion of air; there is the hydrofoil which progresses on planes or foils, and there is the fast boat which planes on its stem. I feel there is a case for all that kind of craft which travel over the water with their hulls mainly out of it, to be treated in the same sort of way.
In support of this view, which I believe is worth serious consideration, I would refer your Lordships to a most interesting paper on the future of hovercraft by Mr. Stanton Jones, which was published earlier this year in the Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, in which he said that when the hovercraft becomes I really large it will not be possible to drive

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it with airscrews; it will have to have water propulsion. It will not be possible to stabilise it as it now is, but it will need hydrofoils to stabilise it. So one sees these two technologies in the end coming together, and I think there is a case for serious consideration to be given to a safety organisation which will look after both, and ultimately look after the combination of the two.
5.25 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, MINISTRY OF TECHNOLOGY (LORD DELACOURT-SMITH): My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has placed us all in his debt by initiating this debate this afternoon, and I should like to express my appreciation to him of the kind remarks he made about me and, if I may, of the whole manner in which he brought this matter to your Lordships' attention. I do not think I should want to contest the statistics which he gave of the present size of the industry, and I am glad that his raising the matter in this way this afternoon gives me an opportunity to give a comprehensive reply, as he said, upon a matter for which I have personal Ministerial responsibility. I hope that what I may be able to say will coincide with his own remark that the situation is perhaps more encouraging than many people are at present inclined to think.
The hovercraft industry, as your Lordships may recall from the passage of the Hovercraft Act last Session, covers all vehicular applications of the air cushion principle, and can go wider still. The story of this industry can perhaps be seen against the often expressed thought that in the past we in Britain have initiated significant inventions but have allowed their development and their exploitation to pass to other countries. This industry, of course, derives from work undertaken by Sir Christopher Cockerell, which led in the early 1950s to a study contract being placed with Saunders Roe by the then Ministry of Supply. This led in turn in 1958 to the sponsorship of hovercraft by the National Research Development Corporation, I believe following a recommendation made by the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, to Sir Christopher and the subsequent formation by the N.R.D.C. of a subsidiary, Hovercraft Development Limited, which holds the patents. From these an industry has been
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developing, based upon this British invention. It is a field in which Britain has led, and continues to lead, the world.
The noble Earl directed his attention particularly to the last five years. By 1964, there were four British companies working under licence. Since then, the two largest of these, Westlands and Vickers, have merged their interests to form the British Hovercraft Corporation Limited. The licence of another of the companies was withdrawn, but since 1964 a further six British companies have been granted licences by the N.R.D.C. and five of these companies are still in operation. In addition, a number of smaller companies are emerging with whom discussions on licensing arrangements are taking place.
The first commercial craft was produced in the spring of 1964. This was the British Hovercraft Corporation's SRN.5, with its capacity to carry 18 passengers or two tons of freight, and it can move at up to 60 knots. The characteristics of this craft make it perhaps better suited to military and paramilitary use. Fourteen SRN5s have been produced to date—ten of them have been for export. A year later, in the spring of 1965, the first commercial ferrycraft was launched. This was the SRN6, a development of the SRN5, with a maximum speed of 50 knots and a capacity to carry 38 passengers. This craft, the SRN6, has been demonstrated throughout the world and is on regular commercial operations on the Solent, particularly operating ferry services between the Isle of Wight and the mainland, which have proved extremely popular. Over 30 SRN6s have been built so far, 27 of them being either in service overseas or earmarked for export.
Then we come to the third type of hovercraft in actual operation, which has already been mentioned by the noble Earl and to which I want to make particular reference because it has attracted the most attention. This is the SRN4—the largest hovercraft in the world, with its capacity for 30 cars and 250 passengers and its maximum speed of 65 knots. This is the type which has provided the cross-Channel services during the past year. The noble Earl referred to the problem of transporting large hovercraft like the SRN4 across the Atlantic, say, to the United States of America. We have

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given thought to this matter, as have many others. We do not regard it as an immediate issue. When sales are made to distant markets and if the manufacturers find transportation a problem, our Ministry will certainly be prepared to consider any proposals from them and to discuss the problem with them.
I should like to return a little later to the question of the hovercraft operating the cross-Channel services, and continue with one or two remarks about the manufacturing side of the industry. In addition to the three types which I have mentioned, British industry has five other types of hovercraft available for sale. Perhaps I may mention one, because it is at the very opposite end to the SRN4. This is the Hoverhawk, which is a two-seater manufactured by Hoverair Limited. During the summer the Ministry of Technology funded a trials and demonstration tour of two Hoverhawks on the Eastern seaboard of the United States and in Canada, and to date 60 Hoverhawks have been sold, most of them to overseas buyers.
There is only one country in the world where independent development of hovercraft has been taking place, and that is France. In a number of other countries, notably the United States of America and Japan, some development of hovercraft is taking place under licence—in many cases under a joint licence from the N.R.D.C. and British Hovercraft Corporation. Except in France, every commercial hovercraft sold in the world involves a royalty payment to N.R.D.C.
This is, as has been said and as the facts and dates show, a very new industry, and what is significant is the considerable amount of development work in manufacture which is going on and the number of new varieties of craft which are likely to come into production. I should like to mention two of these because I had the opportunity a few days ago of seeing both of them. The first has been mentioned already in the course of the debate: the BH.7, built by the British Hovercraft Corporation. The first BH.7 has been built under contract with the Ministry of Technology and it was launched only a few days ago. It will have a maximum speed of 65 knots and its civil version will have a capacity for six to eight cars and over 70 passengers. Already, as has been stated by the noble
Earl, two of these
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have been ordered for export. But as far as the one which has been built for the Ministry of Technology is concerned, it will begin trials in the middle of 1970, and the results of these will assist the Royal Navy to determine its hovercraft requirements, either for the BH.7 or for other types.
The other craft which I want to mention is the VT.1 the first hovercraft to be built by Vosper Limited, who have brought to the industry their long experience of lightweight marine structure and high-speed marine transport. The first VT.1 was built in August and it is still undergoing manufacturer's trials. It has
been ordered by Hovertravel Limited for use in the United Kingdom, and discussions are taking place at present to enable an extended period of testing to precede its entry into commercial service. The standard version of this craft will carry 10 cars and up to 148 passengers. Thus in fact the industry is continuing to develop a wide range of sizes and types of hovercraft, virtually all of them with some substantial aid from N.R.D.C. towards their cost.
I should like to refer to the operating problems involved, but before I do so may I turn to other applications of the air cushion principle being tried, especially as the noble Earl referred to one or two of them? These are, of course, a part of the hovercraft industry, although hitherto interest has mainly centred upon the waterborne type of hovercraft. One application is of course, as the noble Earl said, in the field of high-speed land transport, and he asked what the position was there. In 1967 the N.R.D.C. set up a subsidiary company, Tracked Hovercraft Limited, to evaluate, develop and exploit a high-speed ground transport system. The most viable system is likely to be based on the use of air cushions for support and guidance and linear induction motors for propulsion. The new company established itself in Cambridge and has a test site North of the city.
The current programme involves the construction of two experimental vehicles, a three-mile electrified test track and a series of trials and evaluation up to spring, 1971. One of the experimental vehicles runs on wheels and will be used for the independent development of linear motors at what are called in this industry

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"modest" speeds of about 100 miles per hour. The other will be air-cushion supported and used for the development of the linear motors and air-cushion suspension and guidance systems up to a design speed of approximately 300 miles per hour. Both vehicles will be fully instrumented and are expected to start running on the test track by the middle of 1970.
N.R.D.C. consider that hovertrains will have a particularly useful application as high-speed links between cities, and between cities and their airports, not only in the United Kingdom but abroad. Tracked Hovercraft, Limited, are co-operating both with the Ministry of Technology and with the Ministry of Transport on the assessment of the roles of new and existing transport systems on intercity routes. They have established and will maintain contact with Governments and with industrial and commercial concerns in West European countries, in the United States, in Canada and in Japan.
The noble Earl asked about future lines of development. It is, in our view, too early to decide how the further development and operation of hovertrains will be organised in the United Kingdom after completion of the experimental programme which I have described, but these issues will be fully considered by Tracked Hovercraft, Limited, in conjunction with Government Departments and with other interested parties.
The noble Earl asked also about the stage reached with the hoverbed. Clinical trials of this were completed at the Mount Vernon Hospital in August. The Medical Research Council is studying results and will advise the potential customer, the Department of Health and Social Security, upon their outcome. I understand, however, that the results were quite encouraging, and considerable interest has already been generated here and overseas. It will be appreciated that decisions upon the development for production must depend on a complete assessment of all the factors involved, technical, commercial and medical. In connection with cost, I would make the point that the bed itself is not very expensive—something like £5,000 for a unit of two or four beds. The cost of the installation arises in the buildings and
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the units necessary to provide the streams of sterile air.
There are, in addition, a number of other industrial applications that I should like to mention. Platforms with aircushion pads can be used for the movement of stores over relatively smooth surfaces in factories, warehouses, or in the holds of ships. The Central Electricity Generating Board has been promoting examination of the use of the air cushion principle for the transport of heavy loads by road. The significance of the use of this method, of course, is that spreading the load permits the movement of, for example, very heavy loads over bridges which would not otherwise stand the strain. It is calculated that on its first outing the air-cushion equipment commissioned for this purpose effected economies equivalent to half its own development costs. One newly formed firm, Air Cushion Equipment, Limited, is working exclusively on the application of the principle in the field of industry, where, as I have suggested and tried to demonstrate, a number of important possibilities exist. It is, I think, of interest that in its relatively short life the hovercraft industry has stimulated the growth of its own varied and well-informed technical Press, which is fulfilling a valuable function in spreading discussion of the possibilities and the problems of the industry.
I might complete my account of the manufacturing side by reference to the unhappy development in respect of Hovermarine, Limited, which, as the noble Earl said, has recently gone into liquidation. This company accounted for less than one-tenth of the employment in the manufacture of hovercraft but, as has been said by the noble Earl, it was the only company engaged in the development of hovercraft of the sidewall variety. We do not believe that the difficulties which this company experienced were due to any faults in the basic design of their craft, which was the HM.2; they were due rather to managerial and commercial problems, and to difficulties which arose in the engineering and quality control fields.
The Ministry of Technology and the N.R.D.C. were made aware of the financial difficulties of the firm in the middle of February. In response to a request, we received early in May particulars of

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their position, and after examination and discussion the Ministry advised the company on May 27 that it could not furnish the required support. Discussions arose again during the month of October, and two successive proposals were put involving extensive reconstruction of the company with Government financial assistance. We recognised the initiative of the original members of the company and the perseverance of their financial associates, but in the case of either proposal we were not able to accept the degree of involvement of public money or of financial risk which the proposals would have meant. The company is now in the hands of the liquidator, who has invited bids. A number of parties are known to be interested. But Hovermarine, like other companies, operated under licence from the N.R.D.C., and I understand that the N.R.D.C., in accordance with the agreement which it had, has terminated the Hovermarine licences.
The Ministry of Technology and the N.R.D.C. are anxious to see the development of sidewall hovercraft technology in the United Kingdom, and the establishment here of a sound manufacturing base to cater for as much as possible of the world market for sidewall hovercraft. We are prepared and anxious to consider any proposals designed for that purpose which seem to offer the prospect of commercial success.
My Lords, perhaps this might be a suitable point for me to respond to the invitation to indicate the basic approach which we make to the sponsorship of the hovercraft industry and the lines upon which we have made, and hope to continue to make, a contribution, either from the Ministry itself or through N.R.D.C., to the sound development of the hovercraft industry. Our contribution really has three aspects. First, we are giving basic scientific assistance with the fundamental, theoretical and practical problems of hovercraft technology. Most of this work is done in the National Physical Laboratory, which has its own hovercraft unit, but the resources of all our research establishments are drawn on as required.
I was most grateful for, and glad to hear, the tribute which the noble Earl paid to the National Physical Laboratory, and its hovercraft unit in particular, because it has done and is doing most
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valuable work. The noble Earl asked about the extent to which it has done any work on hydrofoils. The National Physical Laboratory has done, and is doing, some work on hydrofoils, but the hovercraft unit is exclusively devoted to hovercraft technology—although I should say that I am informed that on one occasion a test rig was used for the measurement of hydrofoil propellors. But in terms of total National Physical Laboratory effort, that on hovercraft is many times greater than that on hydrofoils.
The noble Lord particularly asked a question about water-jet propulsion. The National Engineering Laboratory and the National Physical Laboratory are both working on this as a possible means of development. The second aspect of our contribution takes the form of research and development contracts placed with firms to develop major components required for hovercraft. Examples of this form of assistance are development contracts for engines, propellors, skirt design and so forth. Our object is really to anticipate the requirements of designers for such major components.
The third form of contribution is made generally by N.D.R.C., and consists of financial support for manufacturers. This, of course, represents investment of public money, and it has to be made on terms that make commercial sense. The noble Earl mentioned a figure of £10 million as the total amount spent by the Ministry of Technology and N.R.D.C. up to a recent date. I can confirm this figure. It takes into account the expenditure on tracked hovercraft. Of the expenditure other than on tracked hovercraft, £7½million has been incurred in the last five years; and, as the noble Earl said, we are spending at present at the rate of between £2 million and £3 million a year. The future rate of investment will of course have to be determined by the practical needs and the prospect of commercial viability of hovercraft projects which are proposed for such assistance.
Perhaps I might now make reference to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton. The growth of the industry and the increasing use of hovercraft, both at home and overseas, emphasises the need to match our technical lead with legislation to regulate construction and operation at home. We have already recognised, I think, that

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this new means of transport is unique. Noble Lords will recall the discussion on the Hovercraft Act and, as foreshadowed by the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, I have the agreement of my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade, to indicate the Government's intentions in respect of worthiness.
The design, construction and maintenance of hovercraft are at present supervised, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, by the Air Registration Board, who issue a certificate of construction and performance. It is the Government's intention that the Air Registration Board should continue to exercise these functions for the time being, and that formal authority to do so, and to issue certificates of safety, should be conferred on the Board by means of Order in Council under the Hovercraft Act 1968. When the A.R.B. become absorbed into the new Civil Aviation Authority we see no reason why the functions should not be transferred temporarily to that new Authority, on the assumption, of course, that the expert staff will be transferred at the same time. When, however, the growth of the industry justifies it, the Government consider that the certification functions should be entrusted to an independent Hovercraft Authority. The President of the Board of Trade has in mind the appointment of a committee on which the A.R.B. and Lloyd's Register of Shipping would be represented, to make recommendations about the constitution, the terms of reference and the financing of such an independent authority.
I trust that what I have been able to say will give satisfaction to the noble Lord. I take note of the points he made on which, as he said, he would not expect me to comment at this stage. Broadly, under the Hovercraft Act, the Board of Trade are concerned with safety arrangements at hoverports, and they intend to include in a draft Order in Council to be made under the Act, and to be laid before Parliament early next year, a requirement that operators should take adequate safety precautions at hoverports. Control over the use of land for hoverports is dealt with by the local authorities under the provisions of the
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Town and Country Planning Act. I am afraid that I am not in a position to answer all the points which the noble Earl raised in that connection, but I will examine them and will write to him.
My Lords, I am conscious I have spoken for a long time, but the problem in talking about this industry is not what to say but what one must regretfully leave out. I should like to turn to the experience of those who are operating hovercraft commercially. All such operating companies have emerged in the last five-year period to which the noble Earl's question refers, and the longest established of them, Hovertravel, ended the last financial year profitably. In addition to the regular passenger services they have found a new application for hovercraft in seismographic exploration. Indeed, one feature of the industry is the rapidity with which the recognition of the variety of uses to which hovercraft may be put is growing.
I should like to say something particularly about the cross-Channel services
which have been provided by the SRN 4 craft. There are four of these craft operating this service, and it must be borne in mind that this new form of travel is still in an early stage of development. I would remind noble Lords that the SRN6s—the smaller craft which have been operating regularly now over a rather longer period, but still for only three years—have been brought by the combined action of the operators, manufacturers and the A.R.B. to a service reliability exceeding 99 per cent.
All the operators who are operating the SRN4s, especially British Rail and Hover Lloyd, are in our view to be congratulated on their skill and enterprise in beginning these services. They have been attended with considerable maintenance difficulties, and during the winter we are mounting an extensive research programme, particularly on the SRN4s, in full conjunction with the operating companies, aimed at assisting with the problems both of reliability and of maintenance costs.
This is perhaps an appropriate point to refer to one of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Nunburnholme, who spoke particularly of the military application and the part which hovercraft

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could play in the operation of the different Services. Last week I had the opportunity of seeing a little of the Inter-Services Hovercraft Unit at Lee-on-Solent, and there also, of course, extremely valuable operating and practical experience is being gained for the purposes of evaluating future uses, particularly military uses, of hovercraft. It is significant that the Inter-Services Unit has the largest single fleet of hovercraft to be found anywhere in the world.
In concluding, I must again emphasise how much basic work still has to be done to gain a full knowledge of the possibilities of economic and reliable operation, and our research establishments are co-operating and will co-operate fully in this. A number of measures—the design and production of instrumentation systems; the fitting of television cameras which can record what is taking place underneath the hovercraft while it is in motion, and other methods of gaining detailed information about performance—are all being used.
The hovercraft manufacturing and operating industries in this field are at an early stage in their development. We hope and believe that with the proper exercise of commercial judgment and initiative they will become substantial industries. I have described the contribution which the Government and the N.R.D.C. have made, and are prepared to continue to make, on the basis of partnership and co-operation with these industries, provided, of course, that it continues to make commercial sense to do so.
There is naturally a great deal of speculation about the ultimate possibilities of this new method of transport. I think again it was the noble Lord, Lord Nunburnholme, who said that some of the scale of craft which are being talked about now are really unlikely to be developed for a number of years to come; but it is not only, in this industry, a question of the feasibility of hovercraft taking over services already performed by existing forms of transport, it is also, and perhaps even more, a question of hovercraft fulfilling transport tasks which are outside the compass of any existing forms of transport. Transport over rough ground; in the estuaries and
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deltas of great rivers; these may provide some of the fields in which hovercraft will have no competitors. Possibly a lead in this field is given by one recent development—the design and adaptation of hovercraft, either self-propelled or trailers, for use in such difficult areas as the Alaska North Slope. We are, therefore, in the stage with the hovercraft industry in which very many new applications of the air cushion principle, both in transport and in other fields, are rapidly becoming apparent. On the other hand, the tasks which confront us are very practical ones: that of seeking in a steady and organised fashion solutions to immediate problems of manufacture and of operation, and so enabling the industry to establish itself, with the prospect of continuing growth, on viable foundations.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down and concludes his most interesting, encouraging and important speech, I wonder whether I might ask him one question? In speaking about high speed land transport, the 300 miles an hour tracked hovertrain, the noble Lord referred to international co-operation and the interest of other countries. I wonder whether he can tell us whether any international consortium, a European consortium, or a consortium with other countries, is being formed perhaps in order to share research and development costs. This is a new area where the R. and D. costs are extremely high, and, as your Lordships know, in our debate on European technological co-operation there was considerable interest in these new fields in our sharing R. and D. costs with other countries. I wondered whether there was anything in the Government's mind on those lines, particularly, of course, with regard to France.
LORD DELACOURT-SMITH: My Lords, as noble Lords will know, there is a separate development in France. In response to the noble Earl's question, I do not think I can go beyond saying that contacts have been established with Governments and industrial concerns in the countries which I mentioned, which includes the countries of Western Europe.

PUBLICATION OF PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT
Message from the Commons, to acquaint this House that they have appointed a Committee of three Members to join with the Committee of this House
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on the law of defamation and Parliamentary privilege in relation to the publication of proceedings in Parliament, as desired by this House.
House adjourned at two minutes before six o'clock.