Lords Sitting of 13 October 1969

Preamble
Reassembling after the Summer Recess, the House met at half past two of the clock: The Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Exeter

EAST GRIMSTEAD CHALK QUARRYING
Lord O'HAGAN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the treatment of East Grimstead, Wiltshire, is an indication of their attitude towards the preservation of the countryside.]
The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY. MINISTRY of HOUSING and LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): My Lords, the decision taken last year to allow quarrying of chalk at East Grimstead. to which I think the noble Lord refers, was taken by my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government after a most careful weighing up of the needs of industry and the export trade against the damage to amenity. The permission lasts five years, and for the details I will send the noble Lord copies of the inspector's report and the decision letter which were issued in September last year.
Lord O'HAGAN: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that this was the first planning application ever to be held in secret? Will he tell your Lordships under which section of which Act these proceedings were authorised? Would not the noble Lord agree that, as half a million planning applications a year are held in public, objectors should have been warned that on this occasion they had no chance?
Lord KENNET: My Lords, the appeal was not, as such, heard in camera. Out of a hearing which lasted a great many hours, twenty minutes of the pro-
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ceedings were in camera. The inspector was perfectly within the law—I am sorry that I cannot quote chapter and clause—in agreeing to that course, which was proposed by the company. The reason he agreed to it was that the justification for working chalk in this beautiful area was that the chalk was of a special kind, and the company could not answer the question of what special kind without divulging commercial secrets, which would have put them at a disadvantage with foreign competitors. That was the justification for the unusual course of taking a small part—I emphasise a very small part—of the hearing in camera.
Lord BROOKE of CUMNOR: My Lords, this is not the first time that chalk quarrying has caused trouble. Can the noble Lord tell us whether, under this procedure, there was any opportunity at all for the objectors to bring geological evidence to rebut the evidence which was given on behalf of the company in secret? If there was not, there must be something wrong with the procedure.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, if I remember rightly some of the geological evidence was not heard in camera, and of course there the normal procedure applied. However, the matter was looked at with the help of Government scientists, and this may be some reassurance to those who doubt the validity of the testing which was given to this evidence.

ROYAL PARKS: USE AT NIGHTS
2.38 p.m.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is their policy to continue to allow people to sleep in the Royal Parks after the Parks are supposed to be closed for the night.]
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens and Regent's Park are closed at night and it is an offence to be there after closing times. St. James's Park is permanently open. This year Green Park was left open experimentally and some people took the opportunity to sleep there at night. Many were young

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overseas visitors and tourists who often find difficulty obtaining overnight accommodation in London. My right honourable friend has received reports about the experimental opening and is studying them before reaching a decision about the future opening arrangements.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, is the noble BARONESS saying in regard to Green Park that the majority of those sleeping there were people who had tried to get accommodation and had failed?
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I could not possibly verify that they had tried individually to obtain accommodation, but I think it is well known that there is at the moment a phenomenal shortage of proper accommodation for visitors in London.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, can the noble BARONESS say how soon we can be told about what the policy is going to be for Green Park?
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I understand that my right honourable friend will be making up his mind in the very near future.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether she agrees that so long as these people are asleep in the Park no harm is being done, and it is only while they are awake that any damage might be caused?

BIOLOGICAL WARFARE AND SEA-BED ARMS CONTROL
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 decisions were made at the Geneva Disarmament Conference, particularly in regard to biological warfare and the demilitarisation of the sea-bed.]
THE MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Chalfont): My Lords, the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament is still in session in Geneva. Useful and detailed discussions have taken place on the draft Convention which Her Majesty's Government have
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put forward for the prohibition of Biological Methods of Warfare, and the associated draft Security Council resolution. Further versions of the drafts, revised to take account of comments that have been made on them, were tabled on August 26. We expect the drafts to be submitted to the current session of the United Nations General Assembly with the report on the work of the Committee on Disarmament. We hope that the General Assembly will commend our drafts and that it will call on the Committee on Disarmament urgently to pursue the search for international agreement on effective and realistic measures in the C.B.W. (Chemical and Biological Warfare) field when it re-convenes.
On the subject of arms control on the sea-bed, I am happy to say that on October 7 the United States and Soviet Co-Chairmen of the Disarmament Committee tabled a joint draft treaty calling for a ban on the emplacement of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction on the sea-bed outside a twelve-mile coastal zone. This draft will now be discussed by the Disarmament Committee and it, too, will be referred to the United Nations General Assembly, under the Committee's report.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of us greatly appreciate the initiative which the British Government have taken on this matter, which has placed these subjects on the agenda for serious international consideration? Also, may I ask the noble Lord what plans are in the minds of the Government, carrying out the indication by the Minister at the Geneva Conference, for extending this consideration to chemical weapons as well as to biological weapons?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I think my noble friend is aware of the reasons why we tackled these matters separately. Biological weapons are at an earlier stage of development than are chemical weapons. So far as we know, they have never been used in war, and so we thought it would be easier to get agreement on their prohibition. So much for the
reasons why we took them separately. But the draft Convention includes an article under which parties to the biological Convention would undertake to pursue in good faith negotiations on effective measures to strengthen existing

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constraints on chemical methods of warfare.
As my noble friend will be aware, in the field of chemical weapons there are complex problems of definition and interpretation to be considered. We think that the Secretary-General's report will help us in the future consideration of these measures and in the future consideration of means of restricting chemical warfare, as well as biological warfare, which we shall pursue both in Geneva and in New York.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I also ask my noble friend this question? While welcoming the accord between the United States and the Soviet Union in proposing the prohibition of nuclear, chemical and biological warfare under-seas, are Her Majesty's Government prepared to support the proposals made by Sweden and other Governments at the Geneva Conference for the total prohibition of the sea-bed for war implements?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, this is an extremely complex problem. If it were simply a problem of extending the prohibition from nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction to other weapons, this might be a matter for sympathetic consideration. But when we talk about complete demilitarisation of the sea-bed, Her Majesty's Government cannot support proposals of that kind because it would make it impossible for us and our allies to use the sea-bed in a number of ways that are of great importance to our security. Therefore complete demilitarisation is a matter that we find it difficult, if not impossible, to support, although we see no reason why in due course we should not extend the present definition of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction.

IMMIGRANTS: ACCOMMODATION FOR DEPENDANTS
2.45 p.m.
LORD O'HAGAN: 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 why the police cannot be relieved of the invidious duty of vetting accommodation intended for dependants of Commonwealth immigrants.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (BARONESS SEROTA): My Lords, we have consulted the local authority associations about the suggestion made by the Wilson Committee on Immigration Appeals, that inquiries into accommodation and similar matters arising from entry certificate and visa applications might be undertaken by local authority welfare services rather than by the police. The local authority associations on the whole took the view that such inquiries were not a suitable task for welfare workers in local authority services. But the Corporation of the City of London and the London Boroughs Association have taken a more favourable view of the Wilson Committee's suggestion, and consultation with them is proceeding with a view to setting up a pilot experiment in Greater London.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask whether she is aware that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is probably glad to get rid of me, and that even she will have a tough job rivalling his patience and concern over issues like this? Is the noble BARONESS also aware that I am asking her about the stumbling block to good relations between the police and the immigrant community?
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, we are aware of the difficulties, and I think we would accept that the use of the police for this particular service is not always ideal. As I pointed out in my reply to the noble Lord, we are seeking possible and appropriate alternatives to the use of the police for this service, but in the meantime we have to provide a 24-hour service, and the police are providing it well.
LORD WADE: My Lords, may I ask the noble BARONESS whether there are not a certain number of voluntary services which might be willing to assist the local authority welfare services in this matter?
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, in certain cases, such as, for example, the case of a relative other than a parent who wishes to bring a young child into this country, the local authority children's service is used. Similarly, one might think of certain voluntary services being used in this way. But I understood the noble Lord's Question to apply to the

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scheme as a whole, and I can assure the House that this matter is under active consideration by my right honourable friend.

THE ORGANISATION OF GOVERNMENT
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, at a convenient moment after half-past three my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making a statement on the organisation of Government.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 41 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with for the purpose of allowing the Statute Law Repeals Bill [H.L.] to be taken through its remaining stages to-morrow.—(Lord Shackleton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS BILL
2.48 p.m.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. Perhaps I may first offer your Lordships a word of explanation about the number of Government Amendments which have been put down for Third Reading. Only three of these are Amendments of substance and they modify Amendments that we made in Committee and on Report. The remainder are drafting and technical Amendments and I hope the House will agree that, in order to expedite business, I can move them in most cases fairly formally.
Some of the Amendments are consequential on Amendments which were made earlier, and a number of them dealt with the extension of parts of the Bill to Scotland and Northern Ireland. I remember that when my noble friend Lord Stonham moved these "cross-Border" provisions on Report, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, speaking from his long experience of these matters,
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warned us that this was a field in which it was very easy to make a slip and he hoped that we had got it right. I am afraid that a close study of the Bill in London, Edinburgh and Belfast showed that we had not got it quite right and I am sure your Lordships will agree that it is desirable to put the matter in order now, even at the expense of certain Third Reading Amendments.
As to the Amendments of substance, one amends an important new provision which the House added on Report, and it has taken account of the discussion which we had then. The other two Amendments concern an identical point which arises on two provisions which we added in Committee. The point was raised with us by an
outside body, the Justices' Clerks Association, whose vigilance we welcome but who unfortunately did not put this particular point before us until the Report stage. I am sure the House will feel that we should be failing in our duty if we did not take this last opportunity to consider all these matters and to add some further improvements to the Bill before we finally pass it.
Turning now to the first group of Amendments—Amendments Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 16, 17, 18, 19, 35, 48 and 49—these arise out of the Amendment made on Report which added a new condition (b) to subsection (2)—
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble BARONESS for one moment? I do not wish to interrupt at all on the merits of the Amendments, but in order to put ourselves in order. Do we not generally take the Third Reading first, then have the Amendments and, finally, have the debate, if necessary, on the Motion, That the Bill do now pass? I thought that we did not have the particulars of Amendments on Third Reading until we had passed the Third Reading.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I apologise to the House if the procedure is wrong. I can only say in explanation that I was anxious to get on with the business.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I think we should do that if the noble BARONESS simply moved that the Bill be now read a third time. We should then

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resolve that, and then deal with all these Amendments.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.
Clause 1 [Care proceedings in juvenile courts]:
BARONESS SEROTA BARONESS SEROTA moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 20, leave out ("mentioned") and insert ("set out")
The noble BARONESS said: My Lords, perhaps I may begin again. I am sure the House will not wish me to repeat the serial numbers of the Amendments that hang with Amendment No. 1, but those Amendments are merely, as I was saying, to add a new condition (b) to subsection (2) of Clause 1, and a new subsection (7) to Clause 2. In those subsections the word "mentioned" is ambiguous, and the Amendments—that to Clause 2 is on page 4, line 5—accordingly replace it by "set out". All the other Amendments in this group which I have already mentioned are similar, and they are made only to ensure consistency of drafting throughout the Bill. I beg to move Amendment No. 1.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I, too, hope that I am not going to get out of order, but I can assure the noble BARONESS and the House that it is my intention to do all I can to help her to rattle us through this very big bunch of Amendments which she has produced for us—and I am very glad that she is doing so. But I should like to take this opportunity to say—and I hope she will forgive me if I do—that on this occasion my gratitude towards her is tinged with a real regret that it is not the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, who is taking this Bill, which he has done so much to father, through its final stages.
I suspect that we may be saying something from this side of the House in a moment about the latest batch of Ministerial changes—almost as many changes as there are Amendments at this Third Reading stage here—and all I wish to say now is that I was really very sad indeed
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to hear on my car radio last night that the noble Lord was leaving the Government and the Home Office, to which Department he has made so distinguished and marked a contribution during the past sixty months. We all know the dedication which he has given to this work—typically, in this Bill, for example; or in his work in Northern Ireland—and not least, I think, almost all of us know how much the noble Lord has done to forward the cause of prison reform in this country. That being so, I suspect it must have been a great source of pleasure to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, to attend last week the opening of the new industrial prison near Bisley, which marks a very real step forward in prison reform, to which the noble Lord has made a distinguished personal contribution.
At an earlier stage of this Bill the noble Lord said, if I may quote his words:
"I should like to think that I have a great many personal friends on the other side of the House and that we mix on terms of very warm personal friendship."—[Official Report, 18/7/69; col. 596.]
I should like to assure Victor Stonham that this is the case. He has many friends on this side of the House. He has earned them by the sincerity of his work and by the courtesy which he has invariably extended to all those who are working in this field, whether opposing him temporarily or not, as the case may be. Given the Lord that he has carried in your Lordships' House in the past years, I fail to see how this House is going to get on without him. Be that as it may, while we on these Benches are really sad to see the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, leaving the Home Office, we are delighted to note that he has been made a Privy Counsellor, and we know that on later occasions we shall be hearing a great deal from him with his great experience in these fields, and we look forward to that.
Meanwhile, having said that, may I merely say that so far as this batch of Amendments is concerned I think that "set out" is an improvement on "mentioned".
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I wonder whether I may add just one word from this Bench of profound regret that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has left the Government Front

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Bench. He has always treated the House, as Leaders have, with the greatest possible courtesy; he has always given the most careful consideration to everything brought forward, and he has always answered any debate without shirking any question. I should like to say, from this place, how very much we regret that Lord Stonham will no longer grace—and I use "grace" deliberately—that Front Bench.
LORD REA: My Lords, noble Lords on these Benches cannot possibly be left out of this tribute to a man whom they have admired so long for the fine work which he has done. He and I both suffered a certain illness which comes to those getting on in years, and how he has done so much work since then I cannot imagine: I could not possibly have done it. He has been quiet, efficient and diligent in the accuracy and detail which he has brought to his work. What I think is most notable is that so many unfortunate people—prisoners, mentally retarded people and so on—owe such a debt to the noble Lord, who is giving up his post, in which we have admired him for so long.
LORD DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, as a Back Bencher from this side who has worked in the same field and behind my noble friend Lord Stonham, I want only to endorse every word that has been said.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, at the risk of being out of order twice in a very short period of time, may I say that I am sure that all noble Lords in all parts of the House would wish to join in the tributes that have just been paid to the work of Lord Stonham in his period of office at the Home Office. This I have always felt was to him the flowering of a lifetime of voluntary work in this particular sector. I myself have in the last two years sat by his side on many occasions long into the night, and have admired the courage and fortitude with which he has, with endless patience and courtesy and without a single complaint, dealt with Government business, with questions and with Amendments at a time when many of us were flagging.
It has fallen to me to speak of his work. I am sure that if my noble Leader, Lord Shackleton, were here he could speak with far greater power and effectiveness
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than I can. We all shall miss him, particularly on this Front Bench, and join in congratulating him on his latest ho tour. With the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, I am sure that there is much in life still for him to do, and we look forward to seeing him here regularly in his new position.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, quite unexpectedly but with great humility I have listened—in particular to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe—to words that never used to be said until after a man had died. They have been most moving and heartening I thought I should mention this because the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, in the course of his most generous tribute, inadvertently said that I had left the House. I should like, therefore, to make it clear that it is my earnest hope that I shall have the pleasure and privilege of sharing with Members from all side of the House in the work that we have done together, nearly always in complete agreement, and to say once more what I have long felt and often said in public, that although it may not be possible to justify the means by which we come to this House, whether it be by heredity or by appointment, once here we find this the most democratic Parliamentary Chamber in the world. And despite the uniformly bad Press that we get—even if we get a Press at all—the work that is done here is uniformly constructive and helpful to our country. I hope that we shall all be spared to go on doing it for a long time to come.
On Question, Amendment agreed 10.
Clause 2 [Provisions supplementary to s. 1]:
BARONESS SEROTA BARONESS SEROTA moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 3, line 44, leave out ("shall bring him forthwith") and insert—
("(a) may make arrangements for his detention in a place of safety for a period of not more than seventy-two hours from the time of the arrest and it shall be lawful for him to be detained in pursuance of the arrangements); and
(b) shall within that period, unless within it the relevant infant is brought before the court aforesaid, bring him").
The noble BARONESS said: My Lords, Amendment No. 2 and Amendments Nos. 9, 21 and 50 that hang with it are the Amendments to which I referred earlier which had been put down to meet a point which was put to us by the

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Justices' Clerks Society. As at present drafted, Clause 2 (5) requires a person arrested on a warrant issued in care proceedings to be brought before a justice forthwith if he cannot immediately be brought before a juvenile court. Juvenile courts do not sit daily and it may be some days before he can be brought before the juvenile court which issued the warrant.
It has been put to us by the Society that the word "forthwith" in this context may require the child or young person to be brought before the justice unnecessarily, e.g. at night or perhaps at the week-end. These are cases where a juvenile court has issued a warrant for the purpose of securing the child's attendance before it, and it is proper that such a warrant should constitute authority for detention for a reasonable period and should specify where he shall be detained during that period.
The first Amendment accordingly requires the young person to be brought before a justice within 72 hours if he has not been brought before a juvenile court within that period and authorises detention in a place of safety meanwhile. The Amendment to Clause 16 makes similar provision in relation to a person arrested on a warrant issued in supervision proceedings. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 3 formally.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 5, leave out ("mentioned") and insert ("set out").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 4.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 9. leave out ("mentioned") and insert ("set out").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3 [Further supplementary provisions relating to s. l (2) (f)]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 5.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 2, leave out ("mentioned") and insert ("set out").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7 [Alterations in treatment of young offenders, etc.]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I think it will be for the convenience of the House if I move Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 together. These are both drafting Amendments. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 12, line 22, after first ("order") insert ("as is mentioned in this subsection")
Page 12, line 35, leave out ("making") and insert ("exercising a power to make").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 8 [Finger-printing of suspected young persons]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, this Amendment hangs with Amendment No. 1. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 26, leave out ("mentioned") and insert ("set out").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 16 [Provisions supplementary to s. 15]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 9.
Amendment moved—
Page 20, line 29, leave out ("shall bring him forthwith") and insert—
("(a) may make arrangements for his detention in a place of safety for a period of not more than seventy-two hours from the time of the arrest (and it shall be lawful for him to be detained in pursuance of the arrangements); and
(b) shall within that period, unless within it the relevant infant is brought before the court aforesaid, bring him").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, this is merely a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 20, line 39, leave out ("foregoing") and insert ("preceding").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, Amendment No. 11 corrects a misreference which unfortunately occurred in the printing. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 21, line 26, leave out ("(6) of that") and insert ("(5) of the preceding").—(BARONESS Serota.)
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I have checked on that. The noble BARONESS is quite correct.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 24 [Powers and duties of local authorities et cetera with respect to persons committed to their care]:
3.6 p.m.
BARONESS SEROTA BARONESS SEROTA moved Amendments Nos. 12 to 15.
Page 30, line 10, leave out from ("If") to ("and") in line 14 and insert ("a person who is subject to a care order and has attained the age of five is accommodated in a community home or other establishment which he has not been allowed to leave during the preceding three months for the purpose of ordinary attendance at an educational institution or at work")
Page 30, line 15, leave out ("during that period")
Page 30, line 20, after ("not") insert ("lived with or")
Page 30, line 21, at end insert ("during the preceding twelve months")
The noble BARONESS said: My Lords, I hope the House will allow me to move Amendment No. 12 and together with it Amendments 13, 14 and 15. Your Lordships will remember that on the Report stage my noble friend Lord Stonham introduced a provision which is now embodied in subsections (5) and (6) of Clause 24 requiring the appointment of a "visitor" for certain children in care. This provision was drafted in the very short space of time that occurred between the Committee and the Report stages of the Bill, and the Amendments which I am now moving are the result of further reflections during the Recess which have taken into account some of the comments made on the Amendment when we discussed the new provisions on the Report stage.
Subsection (5) as it now stands requires the appointment of a visitor where a person subject to a care order has throughout the preceding twelve months been accommodated by virtue of a court order in an establishment where care, treatment and education are given wholly or mainly on the premises forming part of the establishment, and where he has not visited or been visited by either of his parents or guardian during that twelve months. The House will remember that this was a matter to which the closest attention was given by various noble Lords. The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe,
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suggested that a shorter period than twelve months might be appropriate. We have looked at this point again, and on reflection we feel that it would be preferable to lay down a separate, shorter period of residence in a closed situation before the duty to consider the appointment of a visitor arises, keeping the twelve months' absence of parent; I contact as the long-stop when the duty to appoint a visitor becomes absolute. One effect of this first Amendment is to reduce the specified period in a closed situation from twelve months to three months. I think this is the change of direction in which the noble Earl hoped that the House would go and which he was suggesting to my noble friend Lord Stonham.
We have also looked again at the definition of a "closed situation" which was the subject of comment during the debate. Subsection (5) at present refers to
"an establishment where care, treatment and education are given wholly or mainly on premises forming part of the establishment".
The difficulty with this formulation is that there may be community homes in which some of the children go out to school or to work and some do not. In the clause as it stands, the definition would be ambiguous in relation to such homes. It might mean, for example, that because some children were going out of school, others, who were not, did not qualify for a visitor.
The Amendment which we have put down avoids this difficulty by relating the duty to appoint a visitor to the situation of each individual child. The object is to provide for a visitor to be appointed for a child who has little or no parental contact and who is in a closed situation in that he does not regularly go outside the establishment and have contacts with the outside world. The Amendment defines this situation as being in an establishment
"which he has not been allowed to leave during the preceding three months for the purpose of ordinary attendance at an educational institution or at work."
This, of course, excludes such things as church attendance or casual outings.
Noble Lords will note that children under five have been excluded from the provision. Inevitably, young children spend most of their lives in the establishment where they live, and the younger

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they are the more time they are likely to spend there. In our earlier discussions I think we all agreed that our major concern here was with the older child or young person who spends nearly all his time in community homes. The second and fourth Amendments to this clause are consequential. The third covers the situation where a child has lived with his parents during the previous twelve months—that is, before coming into care—and where the reference to being visited by his parents would not be appropriate.
My Lords, I have dealt with these Amendments at some length because I know the concern which the House showed for this part of the Bill. If I may try to sum up, the effect of this subsection with the Amendments I am now moving would be this: if a child is subject to a care order and has been in a closed situation in the sense that I have just described for three months, the local authority must appoint a visitor if they think this appropriate, because communication between the child and his parents or guardian has been so infrequent; and in any case if the child has not seen his parent or guardian for twelve months. Compared with the subsection as it stands there are two main changes. The definition of a closed situation, we think, hits the nail more firmly on the head; and the prescribed period spent in such a situation is reduced from twelve months to three months. That is in the direction for which I think that the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, was asking. I hope that with that explanation the House will be prepared to agree to the Amendments which I have just moved.
3.15 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble BARONESS for her clear exposition of these Amendments and I am grateful, too, to the Government for the care which they have given to this part of the Bill. As the noble BARONESS reminded us, this is a part of the Bill which has greatly exercised many of us on both sides of the House. As I said during the Report stage discussions, I think that the Amendment which was then introduced by the Government went at least part of the way to afford the safeguards to the children and young people concerned which we felt were necessary. By and large, I think that
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these grouped Amendments are a further improvement on the position.
I should like to say straightaway that I am glad that the Government have conceded that this new machinery should operate within a shorter period than twelve months. I note the period of three months and I assume that although it is mandatory on the local authority to appoint a visitor after three months if the other criteria are met, there is absolutely no bar to their doing so beforehand if they consider that desirable in the special circumstances of a particular case. If the noble BARONESS can confirm that, I should be glad.
I see no objection to the age limit of five which has been proposed. I made it clear during our previous discussions that it was the older child about whom we were really concerned, and five seems to me to be about reasonable, although I am not certain why five has been chosen. I said that by and large these grouped Amendments seemed to me to be an improvement, and I think that they are, but I must say that I am still unclear why this additional and important safeguard is restricted (and it is clearly designed to be restricted by the Government) to children in secure accommodation, in the approved-school type of accommodation. I would agree straightaway that safeguards are probably more necessary here than when the young person concerned is in a more open situation, but I still believe that this safeguard would be useful as a stand-by provision where children are in some form of residential accommodation but, normally speaking, going out to work or for education.
If I recall correctly, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. in arguing the more restricted case, referred to the children who were being fostered and to the obvious absurdity, when they are being befriended and have somebody in loco parentis, as it were, of having an additional visitor; and that I would concede absolutely and straight away. Nevertheless, just because we do not wish to extend the provision to children with foster parents, I see no need to restrict it. as is so clearly done here, to children in closed, approved-school type establishments; even though I concede that it is probably less often necessary in the more open type of establishment. Personally

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I should much have preferred Amendment No. 12 if it had been put before us without the qualifying words "which he has not been allowed to leave" and the next two or three lines.
I regret that the Government have not seen their way to meet this particular point which was urged upon them during the Report stage, not only from this side of the House but also from the Benches opposite. Having made that reservation to my welcome to this Amendment in general and to this subsection as improved by the Amendments which the noble BARONESS has moved may I ask one question? Am I right in thinking—I think that I am, after glancing at subsection (6)—that if for any reason a visitor gives up or is sacked from his job immediately thereafter it is incumbent on the local authority to appoint another visitor? That is certainly my reading of the Bill as at present drafted, but I should like confirmation that that is the case.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I think this is a very useful addition and improvement to the Bill. I merely wish to ask the question: what kind of person is this visitor to be? Is this visitor to be a kind-hearted lady or gentleman from the general community—a "do-gooder" as they are called—or is it to be a children's officer in the employment of the local authority? My mind goes back more than 25 years to my early days on the Essex County Council when we inaugurated what we called a system of "uncles" and "aunts" whereby kind-hearted men and women would, so to speak—I put the word in quotes—"adopt" a child in one of the children's homes or with a fosterparent, and pay regular visits to that child. We thought that a very good scheme, and so it proved to be. If it is that kind of person who is to be a visitor, it is one thing. If, on the other hand, it is to be a disciplined children's officer from the headquarters of the county council or the county borough council who is to be the visitor, it could be another kind of question. I do not say that one is better than the other, or worse than the other. I merely want to know what kind of person the Government have in mind as a visitor under this clause of the Bill.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, with regard to the first point that the noble
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Earl, Lord Jellicoe, put to me, as the Bill stands at present, a local authority cannot appoint a visitor within the meaning of Clause 24 before three months in a closed situation. My noble friend Lord Leatherland has told us of the kind of informal work that many children's authorities do in this field. They can of course encourage a suitable person from outside to take an interest in the children, but that person would be a friend, an aunt or an uncle, and would have no right to take a case to court, unless he was a visitor within the statutory meaning of the phrase as we have put it in this Bill.
My noble friend asked what kind of person—is it to be a children's officer? I can only refer him to the Bill itself, where the kind of person is spelled out on page 30, at line 32:
"In this section 'independent persons' means a person satisfying such conditions as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State with a view to securing that he is independent of the local authority in question and unconnected with any community home."
I think that that definition is quite clear.
I am glad that the noble Earl feels able to accept these Amendments. I can assure him that the greatest thought has been given to their wording. I think that they meet almost to the full extent the particular points he made to us, and I hope that the House will now rest content and pass them.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 28 [Detention of child or young person in place of safety]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will move Amendments Nos. 16, 17, 18 and 19 en bloc, as they follow from Amendment No. 1, to which the House has already agreed.
Amendments moved—
Page 35, line 6, leave out ("mentioned") and insert ("set out")
Page 35, line 9, leave out ("mentioned") and insert ("set out")
Page 35, line 24, leave out ("mentioned") and insert ("set out")
Page 35, line 26, leave out ("mentioned") and insert ("set out").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment to ensure consistency between sub-paragraph (b) of

1227
subsection (4) and subsection (5). I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 36, line 17. leave out ("has reason to believe") and insert ("considers").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 32 [Detention of absentees]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, this Amendment hangs together with Amendment No. 1, and therefore I beg to move it formally.
Amendment moved—
Page 39. line 39, after ("section") insert ("2 (5), 16 (3) or"). —(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 48 [Financial provisions applicable on cessation of controlled or assisted community home]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, this, too, is a drafting Amendment, which substitutes a straightforward reference to designation as a community home for the reference to paragraph (9) (1) of Schedule 3. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 56, line 10, leave out from beginning to ("then") in line 12 and insert ("were designated as a community home in a regional plan approved by the Secretary of State").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 56 [Extension of disqualification for keeping foster children]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, this is another drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 64, line 13, leave out ("foregoing") and insert ("preceding").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 70 [Interpretation and ancillary provisions]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, this Amendment I regard as a technical drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 73. line 16, at end insert ("and (5)").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question. Amendment agreed to.
Clause 73 [Citation, commencement and extent]:
3.25 p.m.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, we now come to a great block of ten Amendments, from No. 25 to No. 34, all to Clause 73, so, with the leave of the House, I will move them together. These are technical Amendments, which relate to the application of certain provisions of the Bill to Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. These are the set of Amendments to which I referred at the outset and on which we were warned by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, and 1 offer them now to the House to make amends. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 75, line 16, leave out ("subsection") and insert ("section")
Page 75,line 19, leave out paragraph (6) and insert—
("(b) section 72 (2) and Part II of Schedule 4; ")
Page 75, line 21, after ("35") insert (", 38")
Page 75, line 29, leave out ("subsection") and insert ("section")
Page 75, line 32, at end insert ("section 29 of the Criminal Justice Act 1961 and")
Page 75, line 36, leave out from ("1933") to end of line 37 and insert (", paragraph 13 of Schedule 2 to the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937, section 29 of the Criminal Justice Act 1961, sections 10 (1) and (2), 53 (1) and 65 (5) of, and paragraphs 27, 34 and 50 of Schedule 3 to, the Act of 1963 and sections 73 (2), 76 (1) and (2) and 77 (0 (6) of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968; ")
Page 75, line 42, leave out ("subsection") and insert ("section")
Page 75, line 44, leave out ("section 53 (1) of") and insert ("paragraph 13 of Schedule 2 to the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 and section 53 (1) of, and paragraph 34 of Schedule 3 to, ")
Page 75, line 46, leave out ("extends") and insert ("and this section extend") at end insert—
("(7) It is hereby declared that the provisions of sections 69 and 70 of this Act extend to each of the countries aforesaid so far as is appropriate for the purposes of any other provisions of this Act extending to the country in question.").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Modifications of Part IV of Criminal Justice Act 1967]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I beg to move the next Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 76, line 33, leave out ("mentioned") and insert ("set out").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Approved schools and other institutions]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 36 to 43 to Schedule 3 are all purely drafting Amendments. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 83, line 28, leave out ("accordance with")
Page 83, line 30, leave out ("are") and insert ("is")
Page 83, line 42, leave out ("accordance with")
Page 83, line 43, leave out ("are") and insert ("is")
Page 84, line 38, leave out ("accordance with")
Page 84, line 40, leave out ("are") and insert ("is")
Page 86, line 4, leave out ("accordance with")
Page 86, line 7, leave out ("are") and insert ("is").—(BARONESS Serota.)
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, we took the last large block of Amendments on trust, and I hope that we were right to do so. All I can say about this block is that we can much more easily understand them, and we are certain that they are neater.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Transitional provisions and savings]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, this is a technical Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 88, line 27, leave out ("the information was") and insert ("apart from this paragraph the information would have been").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, Amendments 45 and 46 can be taken together. The object of the first Amendment is to avoid casting any doubt on the extent of paragraph (9) of Schedule 4. The second Amendment is consequential to the first. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 91, line 20, at the beginning insert ("Without prejudice to the preceding paragraph")
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Page 91, line 21, leave out ("paragraph 9 (a) of this Schedule") and insert ("sub-paragraph (a) of that paragraph").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, this Amendment has been put down as it is felt that the word "commencement" is inappropriate here, because there are different dates on which the different provisions of the Bill will be brought into force. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 92, line 16, leave out ("commencement") and insert ("passing").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 5 [Minor and consequential amendments of enactments]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, Amendments 48 and 49 to Schedule 5 form part of the group that I dealt with under Amendment No. 1. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 94. line 44, leave out ("mentioned") and insert ("set out")
Page 97, line 16, leave out ("mentioned") and insert ("set out").—(BARONESS Serota.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, this Amendment, No. 50, hangs together with Amendment No. 2. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 98, line 9, after ("section") insert ("2 (5), 16 (3) or").—(BARONESS Serota.]
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Lord Wilson of Langside): My Lords, Amendment No. 51 is yet another drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 101, line 1, after the word ("person") insert the words ("to whom the notification relates").—(Lord Wilson of Langside.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD WILSON of LANGSIDE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will take Amendments Nos. 52 and 53 together. No. 53, as it appears on the Marshalled List of which your Lordships have a copy, has been printed wrongly, and it is accordingly necessary that before moving the Amendment I should draw the attention of your Lordships to the error. The error consists in the omission at the end of Amendment

1231
No. 53 of the figure (2), in brackets. This Amendment in the correct form has previously been printed and circulated on Amendment Sheet 160 (b) of October 3. I propose to move the Amendment in its correct form.
These two Amendments are designed to clarify the way in which the Secretary of State is to exercise the various powers to prescribe which are set out in the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, whether by order, by regulation or by rule. Section 90 (1) of the 1968 Act provides that the power to prescribe shall be exercisable by statutory instrument, but does not state whether this shall be regulations, rules, orders, or by some other form. The intention when the Bill was enacted was that the Secretary of State should choose whichever form of statutory instrument seemed most suitable, but it is now thought preferable, for the avoidance of any doubt, to set out specifically the way the power is to be exercised in each case. It is to achieve that end that these Amendments are moved. I beg to move.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I did not follow where the figure (2) should be.
LORD WILSON OF LANGSIDE: My Lords, it should appear after the last word "order" at the foot of page 5 of the Marshalled List.
Amendments moved—
Page 107, line 36, at end insert—
(". In section 90 (1) of the said Act of 1968, the words 'or to prescribe any matter,' shall be omitted.")
Page 107, line 37, after the word ("1968") insert—
("(1) after the definition of "place of safety" there shall be inserted the words—
"prescribed" means—

(a) in section 3, prescribed by regulations,

(b) in section 44, prescribed by rules, and

(c) in sections 62(2), 66(1) and (2), 94, paragraphs 2(2) and (3), 4(3) and (4) of Schedule 7, prescribed by order).

(Lord Wilson of Langside.)
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I should like to express gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, for making it unnecessary to point out to him that there was this slight inaccuracy, and to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack for getting the (2) in the right place.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 6 [Repeals]:
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will move Amendments Nos. 54, 55 and 56 together. They are consequential on the abolition of approved schools, remand homes and fit persons orders. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 112, line 12, at end insert—

("1937 c. 37.

The Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937.

Sections 82, 86, 87 and 89. In Schedule 2, paragraph 13.")

Page 116, line 53, leave out ("'and 53 (1)'") and insert ("' Subsections (1) and (2) of section 10 and', 'and 53 (1)' and '27' and '34'").
Page 116, line 56, after ("27") insert ("33, 34,").—(Baroness Serota.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD WILSON Of LANGSIDE: My Lords, this Amendment is consequential upon Amendment No. 52. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 118, line 16, at end insert—
("In section 90(1) the words 'or to prescribe any matter, '")—(Lord Wilson of Langside.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, this last Amendment is purely a drafting Amendment to correct an omission. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 118, line 18, after ("words") insert ("from").—(Baroness Serota.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE ORGANISATION OF GOVERNMENT
3.37 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, perhaps it would be convenient to your Lordships if I were now to repeat a Statement being made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in another place. I must warn your Lordships that it is rather a long Statement. It says:
"As the House knows, I announced a few days ago certain changes in the machinery of Government and departmental responsibilities, and I am taking this first opportunity of informing the House about them. There are two main areas where the responsibilities affecting a number of Departments are

1233
concentrated under a senior Minister, following the principle which has already been applied in the fields of defence, overseas affairs and health and social security.
"In the industrial field a great deal more responsibility will now be concentrated under the Minister of Technology. He will take over the duties of the Minister of Power, and, subject to the approval by Parliament of an Order which is being laid to-day, the two Ministries will become a single Department. The Ministry will also take over from the Board of Trade responsibility for the remaining principal manufacturing industries of which the Board of Trade has been the sponsoring Department. The expanded Ministry will also take over the responsibilities of the Department of Economic Affairs in the field of industrial policy including the Statutory responsibility for the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation.
"The responsibility for the distribution of industry, including industrial development certificates, advance factories, industrial estates in development areas, building grants and loans will also pass from the Board of Trade to the Ministry of Technology, as will the responsibility for paying investment grants to industry.
"This change means that the same Department, as sponsoring Department, dealing with the greater part of private and public industry, will also be responsible for executive decisions concerning the location of industry.
"As a result of these changes the same Ministry will now be responsible for electricity generation as well as nuclear power and the electrical plant industries, for gas and oil as well as chemicals, for the steel using industries, as well as for the production of steel, for the whole range of mineral development, for textiles as well as textile machinery.
"With the transfer of many industrial functions from the Board of Trade to the Ministry of Technology, the Board will concentrate the greater part of its energies on overseas trade and export promotion including a considerable proportion of the sectors responsible for invisible earnings. In ad-
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dition to its responsibilities for external commercial policy (including tariff policy) and export policy and services the Board of Trade will remain responsible for civil aviation, shipping, tourism, hotels and insurance. On the home side, its work will be primarily related to commerce including the administration of the Insurance and Companies Act, patents and copyright. It will continue to be responsible for consumer protection, for the distributive and service trades, including retail distribution, for newspapers, printing, publishing and films, these being more in the field of communications than in industries as normally conceived. My right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade and my noble friend the Minister of State "will be able to spend more of their tine in direct contact on exports with industry throughout the regions, in addition to promoting the sales of British exports overseas. The regional export organisation will be strengthened.
"I shall continue to take the Chair at meetings of N.E.D.C, and responsibility for N.E.D.C. in connection with the agenda and consultations thereon with industry, and also the vote and establishment of the National Economic Development Office will be in the Cabinet Office.
"Certain other aspects of the change in responsibilities will be set out in the statement, which, with permission, I will circulate in the Official Report. This deals with the question of extractive industries, certain aspects of the work of N.E.D.C, and with the transfer of a number of productivity services from the Board of Trade to the Department of Employment and Productivity.
"The other area of Government where a concentration of responsibilities is taking place lies in the field of housing, local government, regional planning, land use, transport and the environment generally. This will be particularly important in connection with the consultations on the Redcliffe-Maud Report, and the work which will follow those consultations. The House will, I think, have drawn from the Maud Report the clear conclusion that in the modern world the work of local government and the range of decisions concerned with

1235
planning, land use and transport, social and environmental development, cannot in practice be separated. A Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning has therefore been appointed. He will have working under his general direction, the existing Ministers of Housing and Local Government, and Transport. My right honourable friend will take personal charge of the local government negotiations, following the Redcliffe-Maud Report.
"My right honourable friend, assisted by my honourable friend the former Minister of State for the Department of Economic Affairs (Mr. Urwin), will be responsible for the Government's regional policy as a whole, taking over the work in this fiield previously carried out by the Department of Economic Affairs, and responsibility for the Regional Economic Planning Boards and Economic Planning Councils, as well as the follow-up to the Maud recommendations for greater devolution to the regions. My honourable friend the Minister of State will act in particular as Minister concerned with Northern Region affairs with direct responsibility to the Secretary of State.
"To an increasing extent, as the House knows, the work, reports and plans of the Regional Economic Planning Councils are not confined to purely economic development, but are concerned with transport planning and social development, urban renewal, the removal of pit heaps and other amenity questions covering the wide range of environmental problems.
"I have asked the new Secretary of State to go urgently into the question of environmental pollution in all its forms and to make proposals to me on how this should be dealt with, including any changes he may feel it right to recommend in the machinery of government or the law. His responsibilities of course extend only to England, but in this matter of pollution he will of course make his recommendations in consultation with the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales who will retain all their present responsibilities and statutory functions.
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"The House will be aware that for the time being the existing Ministries of Housing and Local Government, and Transport will continue, with the same statutory functions, but working under the general direction of the Secretary of State. I have, however, asked him to report to me on the changes which, in his view, should be made at a later date with a view to creating a more integrated Department.
"The House will be further aware that with the appointment of my honourable friend the former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State to the Department of Education and Science as Minister of State in Housing and Local Government, the very valuable work he has been doing on sport, local and national, will now pass, with him, to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, which I feel is now the right place for these duties to be exercised.
"The other change in Ministerial responsibilities which I should report to the House is that my right honourable friend the former Minister Without Portfolio, Mr. Thomson, now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, moves to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where he will be the deputy to my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary over the whole range of duties of that Office. In addition, he will take personal charge under the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary on all questions affecting relations with Europe, including the conduct of negotiations with the European Communities.
"The draft Order in Council providing for the formal merger of the Ministries of Technology and Power and certain other transfers of functions in the industrial and economic field is being laid to-day, and will require prior Parliamentary approval. Separate Transfer of Functions Orders relating to statutory responsibilities for sport will be laid before the House shortly. As the House knows, this will be subject to the Negative Resolution procedure.
"These changes in Ministerial responsibilities will involve some alterations in the arrangements for answering Questions in this House.
"Where the changes in responsibility have not required Parliamentary

1237
approval, interim arrangements for the remainder of this Session have already been made after discussion through the usual channels. Discussions will be held about the roster for the new Session."
The last paragraph, as your Lordships know, is not really applicable to us, but some arrangements will be necessary here.
Following are the other aspects of the change referred to in the Statement:

MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT CHANGES
1. The main changes in the Machinery of Government, announced by the Prime Minister to-day, are as follows:

(i) The Ministry of Technology will take over the responsibilities of the Ministry of Power, and will become a single Department under the Minister of Technology.

(ii) The expanded Ministry of Technology will assume responsibility for certain additional functions in relation to industry which were previously in the Board of Trade and the Department of Economic Affairs.

(iii) The work of the Board of Trade will be concentrated upon exports and overseas trade, and trade and commerce in the United Kingdom.

(iv) A Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning is appointed.

(v) The allocation of the functions of the Department of Economic Affairs is as set out in detail below.

Technology, Industry and Trade
2. The Ministry of Technology becomes the Government Department with the main responsibility for industry both in the public and private sectors.
3. The merger with the Ministry of Power will bring together in one Department responsibility for all primary fuels and plant industries for electricity generation, together with other power and energy supply and plant industries.
4. The expanded Department will also be concerned with the structure of industry and with industrial productivity. It will therefore assume responsibility for the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation.
5. The industries concerned with mineral development in both the public and the private sectors (except those which are closely linked with the construction industry) will also be brought together under the Ministry of Technology. The Ministry will thus have the main responsibility for all general questions relating to mineral development.
6. The Ministry of Technology will assume the Department of Economic Affairs' responsibilities in the field of regional economic development and also the related distribution of industry functions of the Board of Trade. The regional organisations of the Ministry of
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Technology and of the Board of Trade will be adjusted so as to reflect the new division of responsibilities between the two Departments.
7. The Ministry of Technology will assume responsibility for investment grants.
8. In addition, the Department of Employment and Productivity will assume responsibility for a number of bodies concerned with the provision of certain of the productivity services to industry hitherto handled by the Board of Trade.
9. The Board of Trade will concentrate on overseas trade and export promotion, including the many activities which contribute invisible earnings to the balance of payments. Thus, in addition to its responsibilities for external commercial policy (including tariff policy) and export policy and services, the Board of Trade will retain responsibility for civil aviation, shipping, tourism, hotels and insurance.
10. The Board of Trade's other field of responsibility will relate to trade and commerce in the United Kingdom. It will continue to be responsible for the distributive and service trades, including retail distribution, newspapers, printing, publishing and films. It will also retain a number of general responsibilities in relation to commerce including the administration of (he Insurance and Companies Acts, Patents and Copyrights.
11. As has been announced, the Government is urgently reviewing the question of the public accountability of firms in industry, including the role of the Monopolies Commission and the National Board for Prices and Incomes. The future departmental responsibility for monopolies, mergers and restrictive practices will be decided in the light of the Government's decision which will be announced shortly.
N.E.D.C. and the National Economy
12. The Prime Minister will remain Chairman of the N.E.D.C. Responsibility for coordinating advice on the content and priorities of the Council's business and for supervising the Vote and staffing of the N.E.D.O. will pass to the Cabinet Office. The Government's consultations with the "little Neddies" will now pass to the relevant sponsoring Departments.
13. Responsibility for medium and long term economic assessment will pass to the Treasury as part of the reorganisation; and that Department will assume co-ordinating responsibility for those aspects of the work of the N.E.D.C. which relate to the continuing process of preparing, producing and following up planning documents and for co-ordinating the consultations between Department and industry on these.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND REGIONAL PLANNING, AFTER THE MAUD REPORT
14. The new Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning will coordinate the work of the Ministries of Housing and Local Government and Transport. He will be particularly concerned with following up the recommendations in the Maud Report. He will take personal charge of the negotiations for carrying through the reform

1239
of Local Government in England. Responsibility for the Regional Planning Councils and Boards will pass, with their staffs in the regions, from the Department of Economic Affairs to the new Secretary of State.
15. The Secretary of State will also have special responsibility in relation to all aspects of environmental pollution. He will coordinate the activities of the executive Departments in this field. The Prime Minister has asked him as a matter of urgency to submit recommendations for improving the machinery for dealing with pollution problems. The Secretary of State's responsibilities in this field cover England, but he will have the task of securing co-ordination with the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales, whose responsibilities and statutory functions remain unchanged in this and in all other matters.
TRANSFER OF FUNCTIONS ORDER
16. The creation of the new post of Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning and the re-distribution of the functions of the Department of Economic Affairs take effect at once; and the Minister of Technology will for the time being become Minister of Power. But the actual merger of the Ministries of Technology and Power, and the transfer of functions from the Board of Trade, as well as the transfer of responsibility from the Department of Economic Affairs for the I.R.C., have to be effected by an Order in Council, which requires Parliamentary authority. For this purpose it is intended to lay a draft Transfer of Functions Order as soon as possible after the two Houses resume.
3.48 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the House will want to thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for repeating that Statement, and congratulate him on his stamina in reading it. All I can say is that even though I had a copy before me I was as bewildered as I was before he started. It is one of the most complicated Statements that I have ever heard read in this House. I only hope that it will not take those in the Departments as long to understand what they are all supposed to be doing now, and to whom they are responsible, as I am sure it will take your Lordships to get into the habit of referring to different people by different names, working for different Departments.
We shall obviously have an opportunity to debate this matter when the Orders are before this House. All this really leads me to wonder whether, at this stage in a Parliament, it really is very sensible to make radical changes of this character. However, the Government have decided to do it, and we must see how it goes. At
1240
first blush, I should have thought there was a great danger in creating two enormous Ministries which will be so big that they will really be unmanageable. But here again we must see how it goes.
Before I sit down, I should like to associate myself with the congratulations which have been voiced, following these changes, to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, and to the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, on their promotion; and also to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, on his very well deserved honour. It gives much pleasure to everybody in this House, as I hope it does to the noble Lord.
3.50 p.m.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, I should like to follow the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, particularly in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, on the honour which he has received, and to thank him particularly for all the courtesies which we in many parts of the House have received from him during his term of very difficult office. As to the Statement, I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. I am a great one for change, but for change in its right place. I think that as a piece of political reorganisation, a piece of political rationalisation, this reconstruction may well go down as being extremely beneficial, but I have some grave misgivings about its timing. I should have thought that a radical reorganisation of this kind ought to be brought about when a Government can look forward to three or four years of office, and not in the fag end of a Parliament. I do not know whether the Leader of the House would like to say what positive achievements he hopes to see between now and the General Election, or how many months will be required for this machine to be running in.
In addition, there are only two points I should like to ask the noble Lord. Can he say what is the new relationship between Mr. George Thomson and the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, who up to this point, I believe, had quite a number of responsibilities in relation to Europe? The other point is: what has happened to the Coal Board in all this?
3.52 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I should like first of all to thank the noble

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Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Lord, Lord Byers, for what they have said about certain of my noble friends. I had myself thought to say this, but I thought it came less appropriately after a very long Statement, and the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was kind enough to give me notice of his intention to pay these tributes. I understand that a number of tributes have already been paid to my noble friend Lord Stonham. Nevertheless, I am bound to pay my own personal one. He has been a colleague of mine in this Government for five years now, and to speak of his energy, his thoroughness, his devotion, his courtesy, makes him sound almost like a very unlikely paragon; and I am sure that noble Lords opposite would say that it is almost impossible to find such an individual in a Labour Government. But I must say that he is outstanding among my colleagues, and I am absolutely delighted that he should have had this very notable honour—and it is a very notable honour—and a very just reward for his services. I do not doubt that he will continue to be as active and energetic in a number of fields where his interests will still continue. Much as one regrets his going, I am sure he will continue to help us very much. Of course, we particularly recognise his work in Northern Ireland.
May I also say how pleased I am regarding the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. He has laboured very long and we are delighted that he is a Minister of State. And those who know the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, from his time in another place will know that we have had an access of very high ability to our Front Bench.
If I may turn to the noble Lord's points. I agree that it is a complicated Statement. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has been away from Government for a long time. Government can be complicated, and whenever the Government explain something in detail of course we are attacked for telling too much; if we had not explained this we should have been told that we had not explained it enough. None the less, his remarks were kindly. But I assure him there is a very determined attempt to rationalise the functions of Government, which is a very complicated business, and complication always arises particularly in relation to the borders of different
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bodies. Therefore, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Byers, for suggesting that in fact this reconstruction: should yield benefit.
As to whether this is the right time, this question seems to be based on some vague misconception that there may be a Government of a different colour after the next Election. It so happens that I think that after the period of experience we have had with Government it is right now to initiate changes which have been considered for a very long time. I am quite certain that, in the unlikely event of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, finding himself in Government, these changes will stand in good stead any Government of this country who are seriously setting out to face the problems that confront us.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Byers, who asked what my noble friend Lord Chalfont will do. I do not think he is here.
LORD CHALFONT: Yes.
LORD SHACKLETON: The noble Lord is here. The noble Lord will have an opportunity to deal with this matter in the debate on the Queen's Speech. As to my right honourable friend Mr. Thomson, I have explained what he is doing and his particular responsibilities for Europe. I understand that my noble friend Lord Chalfont will take over some of the duties Mr. Mulley has been doing, particularly in the field of disarmament, as well as having certain territorial responsibilities.
May I say just one thing on size? It is very easy to get this out of perspective. The actual numbers of staff are not increasing very much. The Ministry of Technology goes up by about 4, 000; the Board of Trade goes down by 2, 000, and the Ministry of Power and the D.E.A. disappear, except that certain D.E.A. functions go elsewhere; so there is enormous variation in the size. Of course, none of these Departments is remotely as large as the Ministry of Defence, which the previous Government very rightly created.
Lord BALFOUR of INCHRYE: My Lords, would the Minister be so good as to clarify one point? It will be within the memory of the Leader of the House that some years ago, when civil aviation was transferred from the

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Ministry of Transport to the Board of Trade, the argument was very strongly put that it was necessary that manufacturing and operation should be under the same Department. Now I understand that the functions of civil aviation will remain with the Board of Trade, but from what the Leader of the House said I gather that what I call the manufacturing and technical aspects of production will go to the Ministry of Technology. If that is the case, we shall then get back to the very position the Government were saying they wished to avoid in the past.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the manufacturing responsibilities for aviation have been with Technology for some while now, and this is one of the areas where there is in fact no change. I assure the noble Lord, because when I was at the Ministry of Defence I did my best to prevent it from going to the Ministry of Technology, so I know the argument very well. But there are powerful arguments either way and the basic argument is that sponsorship of the aircraft industry should not be confused with sponsorship of civil aviation; and I think there was a real danger of schizophrenia. There are, I agree, powerful arguments, but this was a decision taken probably two years or more ago, which seems to have escaped the attention of the noble Lord.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, which Minister will be responsible for the siting of airports?
Lord SHACKLETON: My Lords, the siting of airports will continue, as I understand it, with the President of the Board of Trade.
LORD ERROLL of HALE: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord could give the House an assurance that these very important changes were fully discussed democratically in the Cabinet as a whole before being implemented.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I can only say to the noble Lord that I regard that as a somewhat improper question.
LORD ERROLL of HALE: My Lords, surely there is nothing improper in asking. I was only hoping that as the noble Lord said he is in difficulty if he gives
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too much information, and in a difficulty if he does not give enough, he might at least vouchsafe to us this piece of most important information.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, there is impropriety in the question's coming from somebody who himself is a former Cabinet Minister and President of the Board of Trade. The noble Lord knows that the machinery of Government is the responsibility of the Prime Minister and the consultations he chooses to have with his colleagues are for him.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether there was prior and democratic consultation in the Cabinet when Mr. Macmillan sacked seven of his Ministers overnight?
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I ask one supplementary to the question I put previously? In the interesting Statement that the Leader of the House read to us he used the word "pollution" to cover, I think, various threats to the environment. Is it clear that he includes in what he said pollution by noise?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am never quite sure whether the roads themselves do not constitute a form of pollution. Let me say that I am speaking personally. It may well be that in another two hundred years' time we shall not need roads and they will be as difficult to deal with as are all the runways from the last war. I would agree with the noble Lord that, if one is going to look at the environment, it covers a very wide range, but I should not like to specify before my right honourable friend the new Secretary of State has looked across the board at these questions. I know that Mr. Greenwood was interested in problems of noise, and I think the important thing is to place the responsibility; and thereafter it will be a matter of consultation as to where the limits are drawn.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I should like to join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend for his Statement and also in congratulating both the noble Lords who have been promoted and the noble Lord who has resigned. Does not my noble friend feel, however, that as a result of the concentration into one sponsoring Department with conflicting interests—it is not so much a question of

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the size of the Department as of conflicting interests among the sponsored—the quality of decision-making may suffer and certain democratic control over decision-making will be weakened? Moreover, does he not feel that as a result of the inevitable immense increase in the control of the Treasury over decision-making as a result of these changes we shall tend to get back to a situation from which we have emerged?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, my noble friend has raised an interesting point. The extent to which one makes use of creative tension in Government raises interesting philosophic aspects, and there are times when there are arguments that the responsibilities should be separate, and there are other arguments that if we put them all together and provide the right representation within a Department, we shall arrive more effectively at a decision with somebody with responsibility across the board, thereby diminishing the amount of work that has to go to inter-departmental committees. There are such arguments—and I think possibly modern thinking is going in that direction—but I should not like to be dogmatic and say that this is a principle which should be followed in all circumstances because we should then have only one Department of State for the whole of Government. I could not accept what (he noble Lord said about the Treasury, but I noted it with interest.

CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS BILL
4.3 p.m.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. On the Second Reading of the Bill, the House gave it a general and warm welcome. Of course we had our points of difference subsequently, and one of these concerned a crucial issue which was the subject of a particular Amendment, which no doubt we shall return to at a later stage. But I think it is fair to say that there has been wide support in this House for nearly all the provisions of the Bill, and total support for its broad aims.
Some of our most important discussions have been concerned with the situation of children and young people, particularly adolescents, who have such serious behavioural problems that they
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require special care and treatment in a carefully controlled setting. Parliament, rightly, has been vigilant to ensure that there are proper safeguards for these children, and our discussions have had an important outcome in the provision of a "visitor". Of course, most of the children with whom we are concerned will not be in a secure establishment, but a relatively small number have to be kept in conditions of security while an attempt is made to provide the treatment they need. Paragraphs (c) and (e) of subsection (2) of Clause 43 will enable my right honourable friend to make regulations providing special safeguards in these cases. In view of the very close interest which the House has taken in this aspect of the Bill I thought it might be useful to summarise what it is intended to provide in the regulations that are to be made under these powers. At the outset I should like to make it clear that I am talking only of those children and young people in the care of local authorities under a court order; there will be no special provisions to allow restrictions on the liberty of children who are received into care voluntarily and at the request of their parents.
The regulations which are to be made by my right honourable friend will provide that no part of any community home may be used for the purposes of restricting liberty, beyond the extent, of course, of normal parental powers, unless expressly approved for this purpose by the Home Secretary. In this way my right honourable friend will control both the extent to which secure accommodation is provided in different parts of the country and the actual condition:; in the accommodation itself including, for example, the arrangements for staff supervision.
The procedures for admission to this secure accommodation will be carefully graded according to the length of stay considered necessary. We have to cater for a wide variety of situations ranging from a sudden but, we hope, temporary outburst to a need for long-term treatment and care in a secure situation. I would stress that this accommodation will not be available for punishment. The regulations will thus permit the person in charge of the home to admit a child for up to 24 hours, as a short cooling-off measure. If a longer period is necessary

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the managers of the home (or the local authority in the case of a local authority home which has no managing body) will have to authorise any further period in the secure accommodation, but this authorisation will not last beyond 14 days at most. Should the assessment of the child's needs be that he should remain for a period longer than 14 days, the express consent in writing of the local authority to whose care the child has been committed would be required, and this written authority would not last for more than three months at a time.
The regulations will also set out the special review procedures, involving the participation of at least one completely independent person. The committee undertaking these reviews will consider all proposals to extend a written consent by the local authority for a child to be kept in secure accommodation; that is, each consent will be reviewed not less than every three months. On each occasion all the circumstances will be fully examined before deciding whether or not the child must be kept for a further period in such accommodation. My right honourable friend will be discussing with the local authority associations just how this review machinery is to be set up, and in particular whether there should be one review committee for each local authority, or whether, in those cases which exist in certain parts of the country, where several authorities share in the use of a home with secure accommodation, there should be one committee for that home including representatives of each contributing authority. The inspectorate of the Children's Department—and all of us who know that inspectorate have the highest regard for its professional skills and quality—will watch the working of the review committees to ensure that there is no question of their becoming "rubber stamps".
My Lords, I have explained the proposed content of these regulations in some detail as the House has regarded this as one of the most important issues raised by the Bill. However, I do not wish to minimise in any way the importance of all the other provisions, and in particular of those relating to the work of the juvenile courts and of all the services concerned with children who are in trouble, but not in residential care. What
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we are doing in this Bill is to re-write the basic framework of law within which these services perform their functions. In doing so, we are re-emphasising the constructive aspects of their work while recognising the need to provide control as well as help for children according to their individual needs. We are also, rightly, removing some of the more rigid and inhibiting features of the present law while preserving intact the essential judicial safeguards for the rights of the children and of their parents. I hope and believe that we have devised a flexible framework which will be capable of great development and will serve for a considerable span of years. But at the end of the day I know that all noble Lords will agree that this will depend, as it always does, on the individual people who deal with the individual children.
Whatever arguments we have had about particular aspects of the Bill, I am confident that we would all stress the need for a harmonious working partnership between all those in the statutory and voluntary field who have a part to play in implementing the different sections of this Bill. It is they who have the difficult job of tackling individual and social problems to which no society has yet found a complete answer. The Bill is based on the principle that we should support the men and women who actually do the job, who actually have the day-to-day contact with the children and their families and all their problems. This Bill, as I see it, is an enabling measure in the best sense of that term, in that it is designed to enable them to do a better job; that is, to meet the needs of individual children more effectively. It is for this purpose that the Bill emphasises the need for more flexible arrangements, for the effective use of resources, and for full judicial safeguards.
Society must surely ensure that the necessary care and control are provided for children who are in trouble, both in the child's interest and in its own interest. The Bill is therefore based on the fundamental recognition that these two interests are not separate and that they can both best be met by dealing with the child within his own family and within the community wherever possible, with the help of the normal services available to all children and all families,

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and avoiding the separation and isolation of the difficult or delinquent child. This is a Bill for children, and I think it is right that we should end our long debates on its various provisions with our attention focused firmly on this essential objective.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Baroness Serota.)
4.12 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, during our Second Reading debate the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, claimed that this Bill was
"part of the historical process of making the law about children more humane, juster, and more effective".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19/6/69; col. 1128.]
We have, as we have made dear at the various stages of the Bill, entertained, and in certain cases we still do entertain, doubts about the Bill. Nevertheless, I hope that the noble Lord's claim will be justified by events so far as this Bill is concerned, warts and all, although I think it would have been even more justified if we had been able to remove rather more of the warts. I only wish that the noble Lord in making this claim had been able to add that it made the law about children and young persons less complicated. I think we are at one in this House in urging future Governments to tidy up and simplify and consolidate the law here. It is realty appallingly complicated, at least to the layman like myself.
This Bill deals, of course, with cure rather than prevention, and this should not blind us to the fact that here, as elsewhere, prevention is more important than cure. There was a Clause 1 of the 1963 Act, which is important here, but I think even more important is the action which could flow from Seebohm. During our Second Reading debate the noble Baroness said:
"… we will make every possible effort to make a statement as soon as is humanly possible … "—[Official Report, 19/6/69; col. 1209.]
about the Government's views on the Seebohm Report. I listened with rapt attention to her speech to learn whether it has yet been possible for this human and fallible Government to achieve the humanly possible. It would seem that the miracle is still to be awaited, and I hope the noble Baroness will soon be able
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to enlighten us as to when we may expect the Seebohm Tablets to be handed down from on high.
When this Bill was before us earlier I expressed the hope that we should be able, as we conventionally do, to say on Second Reading that the Bill would leave your Lordships' House better than when it came to us. I think that, by and large, this has been the case. The Government have introduced some Amendments to meet undertakings given in another place and to meet some of the administrative and technical points which have been made from this side of the House by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, by the noble Baroness who sits beside him on our Front Bench, and by my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross. But I regret that in some respects the Government have not shown themselves a bit more flexible. I regret the fact that they were not able to meet the arguments advanced by my noble friend Lord Colville, and indeed by myself, in favour of giving the courts rather more latitude, for example, in invoking the aid of the Probation Service in the case of a child under 14 where the Service was already involved with the family and where the local authority have no objection.
I wish again we had succeeded in persuading the Government that they were wrong to make it possible for the supervisor entirely to ignore the supervision order of a court. It is a small point, but it shows how obdurate and inflexible all Governments can become. I am sad that we were not able to persuade them to treat the co-opted members of regional planning committees rather better, at least in this legislation. Apparently some people prefer them to be deaf, dumb or absent.
That said, I think it would be churlish of me not to recognise that in two important respects this Bill has been materially improved in its passage through your Lordships' House. I think that Clause 1 is better. I believe the Government were absolutely right to introduce the new paragraph (b) of subsection (2) to deal with what are termed the "battered baby" cases. Likewise, I hola, although I grant that this is perhaps more debatable ground, that this clause has been materially improved as a result of the vote of your Lordships' House in

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Committee by the elimination of the so-called double test. But that of course was not the Government's doing, and they have made it clear that they will seek to reverse in another place the judgment of your Lordships' House, a judgment in which a number of noble Lords opposite happened to concur. Secondly, there is the additional safeguard now to be found in subsection (5) of Clause 24 which we discussed just now when we were dealing with the Amendments. The Bill introduces a more flexible form of treatment, but this of course increases the responsibilities placed upon the local authorities. I was glad the noble Baroness gave us some further inkling of what is in the Government's mind here as regards the regulations to be introduced.
In any event, your Lordships do not need reminding that we argued long at the earlier stages of the Bill whether the safeguards for young children in care were adequate. We did not get all we asked for from this side of the House, but I think we have obtained something quite substantial from the Government, namely, the provision for a visitor to be appointed to stand in the position of parent or guardian for the child who is in a closed establishment and who is neglected by his parent or guardian. I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, may have had something to do with the introduction of this new piece of machinery, and, ifso, it is typical of the care with which he always addressed himself to points made in debates in your Lordships' House, from wherever they came. I only regret, as I said, that this machinery is not going to be extended to the more open establishments, as we pressed for from this side and as indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. and the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, also advocated. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Serota, did not cover this point rather more fully when she was dealing with the Amendments at Third Reading.
I have only this to say in conclusion. I suspect that we may not have entirely done with this particular Bill; but, be that as it may, it would be wrong if we were to delude ourselves that in this troubled, mobile and constantly changing society we can afford in this area to rest on our laurels or on legislation alone. Laws may help, but clearly they are not
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enough. And here I would associate myself entirely with what the noble Baroness has said. There is need for the closest possible co-operation between the statutory authorities and the professionals, and the voluntary organisations and the volunteers; and there is a great pool of voluntary effort here still untapped, waiting to be tapped. The particular field with which this Bill deals is, above all, a field where all hands, whether they be statutory or professional or voluntary, are required to be put to the community pump and kept there. That said, I should like to wish this Bill well when it becomes legislation.
4.20 p.m.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, I wish to thank my noble friends on the Front Bench, and in particular Lord Stonham, my valued friend of many years, for having put this Bill before this House and carried it so far. I wish to thank him for a number of reasons. To begin with, I think that it represents a most valuable revolution in the way we treat children. For that reason alone I would give this Bill my most hearty welcome. I am myself a bit of a revolutionary—I only hope that my noble friends do not at times find me too revolting. I wish to thank them also for educating me. I have learned a lot in the course of listening to the proceedings on this Bill as it went through this House. I only hope that all noble Lords have learned as much as I have. I am not too sure about that, but I personally, as I say, have learned a lot.
I believe that this Bill will do a great deal of good. I see two large fields where we shall need to do a great deal of practical work if we are to put this Bill to its best possible use. One is the bricks and mortar side. We have a large number of establishments operated by different people for many different purposes which are not necessarily in line with the types of establishment, or number of establishments, or the number of places that we need. There is much practical work to be done in this connection. I am thankful that that particular field falls outside my own activities.
But one field in this work does fall within my own activities and, as was
mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe,

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it concerns those who work in all possible ways with children, both the professionals (I suppose that I am now one of those) and the volunteers. In this field, a great deal of co-operation is needed, but in my opinion it is not now taking place. Here I am pointing a finger at myself, at my own lapse in this field, as well as at other people. It is quite clear that all of us who have anything to do with children, whether in their school time, in their leisure time, or anywhere else, have to get together, to pool our information, so that we have some sort of basis for knowing, and knowing it at the earliest possible moment, whom we ought to be serving.
I still feel that this Bill is lacking, in that there is not in some ways power to collect information about the children as well as it should be collected or as early as it could be collected. That may need to be put right at some later date. But it is quite clear to me that if, under this Bill, we are to do our best for children all of us who do anything whatever in regard to them must put our heads together as soon as we can in regard to each individual child, so that as soon as possible we can use this Bill to cure the situation which has arisen and help children in general.
Those are two fields where I think that those of us dealing with children have now to step in. roll up our sleeves and put in the heavy work. This Bill gives us power to start that work. It may be that we shall need a further Bill of the same type to deal with this matter further at a later date.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

DIVORCE REFORM BILL
4.25 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. I believe it is in accordance with your Lordships' general practice that when there are on the Paper Amendments for consideration on Third Reading the Motion for Third Reading is normally taken formally and the debate arises on the subsequent Motion, That the Bill do now pass. On the assumption that I am right in so understanding, and that your Lordships would desire to follow it in this particular instance, may
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I formally move that the Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Stow Hill.)
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.
Clause 2 [Proof of breakdown]:
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, Amendment No. 1 is a purely drafting Amendment. I do not know whether it would be for your Lordships* convenience if with Amendment No. 1 were taken Amendment No. 2, which is to precisely the same effect and also purely drafting. I beg to move Amendment No. 1 and, if your Lordships will allow me, to move Amendment No. 2 also.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, if no noble Lord objects I will put Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 together.
Amendments moved—
Page 1, line 23, leave out ("being a period")
Page 2, line 2, leave out ("being a period").—(Lord Slow Hill.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 4 [Decree to be refused in certain circumstances]:
VISCOUNT DILHORNE VISCOUNT DILHORNE moved Amendment No. 3:
Leave out Clause 4 and insert the following new clause—
"4.—(1) The respondent to a petition for divorce in which the petitioner alleges any such fact as is mentioned in paragraph (e) of section 2 (1) of this Act may oppose the grant of a decree nisi on the ground that the dissolution of the marriage will result in grave financial or other hardship to him and that it would in all the circumstances be wrong to dissolve the marriage.
(2) Where the grant of a decree nisi is opposed by virtue of this section, then,—

(a) if the court is satisfied that the only fact mentioned in the said section 2 (1) on which the petitioner is entitled to rely in support of his petition is that mentioned in the said paragraph (e). and

(b) if apart from this Section it would grant a decree nisi,

the court shall consider all the circumstances, including the conduct of the parties to the marriage and the interests of those parties and of any children or other persons concerned, and if the court is of opinion that the dissolution of the marriage will result in grave financial or other hardship to the respondent and that it would in all the circumstances be wrong to dissolve the marriage it shall dismiss the petition.
(3) For the purposes of this section hardship shall include the loss of the chance of acquiring any benefit which the respondent might acquire if the marriage were not dissolved."
The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, this may appear to be a pretty massive Amendment, but I assure your Lordships that it is not nearly so formidable as it may appear at first sight. The changes I propose to Clause 4 could have been made by tabling three Amendments to the clause, but I thought it might be to your Lordships' convenience to see exactly how the clause would read if it were amended, so as to be able to contrast the clause as it would read with the existing clause without having to fit the Amendments into the Bill.
I will, of course, explain what are the changes I propose, but first may I remind your Lordships of what the present clause does. It enables a respondent to a divorce petition to oppose the petition on an entirely new ground. No matter how frequently he or she may have committed adultery, no matter how grave the cruelty proved against the respondent, and even if there has been desertion and the marriage is really at an end, the respondent can nevertheless oppose the grant of a decree nisi on the ground that the dissolution of the marriage will result in grave or other financial hardship to him or her and that in all the circumstances it would be wrong to dissolve the marriage. If he or she does that, then the court has to go into all the circumstances of the marriage, including the conduct of the parties to the marriage and the interests of those parties and of any children or of other persons concerned. Having completed that inquiry, the court, if it is of the opinion that dissolution would involve great financial or other hardship to the respondent, and that it would be wrong in all the circumstances to grant a decree nisi, must dismiss the petition.
That, as I understand it, is the effect of the clause as it stands. And while I doubt whether a respondent who was proved to have committed adultery on a number of occasions, or to have been guilty of great cruelty, would be able by invoking this clause to get the court to dismiss a petition—although perhaps it might be easier to do so where there is desertion—the fact remains that every time a respondent opposes on this ground
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there must be, as the Bill now stands, that inquiry into all the circumstances before a decision is reached as to whether or not a decree nisi should be granted.
So far as petitions based on the facts contained in Clause 2 (1) (a), (b) and (c) are concerned, I can see no valid reason for saying that there should be this ground for the opposing of a decree nisi. Where a petition is based on these grounds I feel that it would be much better to let the inquiry as to financial provision, as to custody, and all those matters, be dealt with after, and not before, the granting of the decree nisi. If the Bill is left as it is—and I think this is the great danger about this clause—it will give a spiteful respondent (and some respondents are extremely spiteful) ample opportunity to delay a decision on whether or not a decree nisi should be granted. Once the court has to inquire into all the circumstances of the marriage, the conduct of the parties, and the interests of any children or other persons, as the Bill stands the inquiry has to be embarked upon if the respondent opposes on this ground, and then indeed there must be some delay, and in a good number of cases a really considerable delay, in the court's decision whether or not to grant a decree.
When we discussed this matter on the last occasion on July 24 the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter, who I am glad to see in his place, said:
"I have always understood, when we were discussing these things before the Bill was drafted, that these rather exceptional provisions in Clause 4 were drafted with Clause 2 (1) (e) in mind and nothing else."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24/7/69, col. 1138.]
That has always been my understanding, but I think it is the case that the clause as it now stands goes far wider than that. I do not know what your Lordships have felt throughout, but I have felt that the real need for a clause on the lines of Clause 4 relates really to petitions based on a five-years living apart, which is Clause 2 (1) (e). It is in an endeavour to make Clause 4 correspond with what I have always thought was the real intention behind it, that this Amendment has been tabled.
Your Lordships will see that under the Amendment the clause has been slightly rearranged. The power of a respondent to oppose a petition for divorce on this ground is not fettered,

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but where the change comes is that if this Amendment is carried it does not automatically follow that the court has to make this inquiry into all the circumstances of the marriage, but it will be bound to do so when it comes to the conclusion that the only facts on which the petitioner would be entitled to rely for the grant of a decree are the facts mentioned in Clause 2 (1) (e), the five years living apart. The court has got to come to that conclusion, and also to the conclusion that, but for this Clause 4, it would grant a decree, before it has to embark upon the inquiry into all the circumstances, et cetera, of the parties.
I do not think that there is any other material change which this new clause makes. I commend it to the House for a variety of reasons. I think that on the last occasion we debated it I perhaps did not make myself as clear as I should have done; but unless this Amendment is carried, I feel there is a serious risk that Clause 4, instead of proving a beneficial change of the law, will prove a weapon in the hands of respondents, and particularly spiteful respondents, whereby they can delay the obtaining of justice by petitioners, whether male or female. I do not think that in fact respondents will suffer if these changes are made, because in future, as now, after a decree has been granted on the ground of adultery, cruelty, or desertion, the full circumstances can be gone into, and they will continue to be gone into, and the issue here is whether those circumstances of the marriage really can justify the refusal of a decree when it is clear that the marriage had broken down because of adultery, cruelty or desertion, the grounds in Clause 2 (1) (a), (b) and (c).
At the last stage it was suggested by my noble and learned friend Lord Denning that we ought to keep Clause 4 in its present form (and I think I summarise correctly the effect of his speech) because it would now enable the court to have regard to those discretionary bars which this Bill purports to abolish. I do not think that that was ever the intention of Clause 4. I do not think that that would be any justification for keeping Clause 4 in its present form. I hope that I have made this point clear.
It would be right to tell your Lordships that since the last discussion in this House
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I have had the advantage of a very valuable discussion of this matter, not only with the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, but with the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, and others, and I am indeed grateful to them for having had the opportunity of doing so. I am also most grateful for having been given the help of Parliamentary counsel in the drafting of this Amendment. I hope that this is one of the few occasions when it will be said that the Amendment is; technically in order. I beg to move.
4.37 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, there have on this point, throughout all stages of the Bill, been difficulties and, I believe, anxieties on all sides of the House, and we all owe a great debt of gratitude to my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne for having now set those difficulties and anxieties at rest. I hope that Her Majesty's Government and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will be able to say that there are no objections to this Amendment, and that the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, will be able to accept it.
LORD MESTON: My Lords, in my view Clause 4 of the Bill as originally drafted and Clause 4 as now amended are utterly unsuitable for the Bill in every conceivable way. You take two people who have similar circumstances in their lives; one man is wealthy and succeeds in getting a divorce, and the other man is in a very poor financial position and fails to get a divorce. Now what on earth has that to do with a Bill which is for the reform of the divorce law? However, I say that because your Lordships are determined, and have been determined for a long time, to fill up hundreds of pages of Hansard in creating the greatest possible complications. Indeed, Clause 4, whether it is left alone or whether it is amended, will be of enormous benefit to an unmentionable profession.
4.40 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER: My Lords, I support this Amendment and I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, for laving tabled it. I stand by what I said in this House in July, which the noble and learned Viscount quoted. I think that Clause 4 as it now stands in the Bill

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makes a nonsense. As the noble and learned Viscount has said, it will mean that a person whose behaviour has manifestly been most responsible for the breakdown of the marriage will be able to put in a plea that if the divorce goes through he or she will suffer grave financial hardship. Of course, any man who has married a very wealthy wife would suffer grave financial hardship if the marriage were dissolved.
Under Clause 4 as it now stands, it would be possible to oppose almost any petition for divorce. But the new Clause 4 would be a very important clause and would give a further necessary protection to the spouse who might be divorced against his or her will. It is in the situation covered by Clause 2(1) (e) that this question of grave financial hardship is really strictly relevant, and the new clause will be a great improvement to the Bill in protecting such persons to some extent. I hope very much that the Amendment will pass.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I greatly hope that your Lordships will feel convinced by the reasons which have been so clearly put before the House by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, and by the right reverend Prelate who has just sat down. I very strongly support this Amendment which raises a very short, simple issue. Your Lordships know that if this Bill is passed into law divorce will be obtainable on any one of five grounds—if I may state the effect not with complete accuracy, but so far as I think is necessary for the purpose of this Amendment—adultery, cruelty, desertion, consent after separation for two years, and after living apart for five years with or without the consent of the party who is the respondent.
As at present drafted, Clause 4 enables a respondent, against whom divorce is claimed on any of the five grounds, to require the court to investigate whether the granting of a decree would cause grave hardship to the respondent. I respectfully submit that that is a position which cannot be justified. I should have thought, when one is talking of a case in which divorce is sought by one party, despite the wish of the other, after they have lived apart for five years, that everybody would desire that, at the request of
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the respondent, the court should be empowered to investigate the whole question of whether the granting of a decree in those circumstances, against the wish of the respondent, would cause the respondent grave hardship; and that, if it came to the conclusion that the granting of a decree would cause the respondent grave hardship and that it would be wrong to grant a decree, the court should be empowered to refuse to grant a decree of divorce.
But those considerations surely do not apply—they never have and they surely should not now—when the husband or the wife seeks divorce on the ground of adultery. It would be surely wholly illogical, if a respondent is shown to have committed adultery with all and sundry in the most shameless way, for that respondent nevertheless to ask the court to investigate whether a decree should not be refused on the ground that the respondent would suffer grave hardship. Similarly, if the respondent has been grossly cruel to the petitioner, it surely cannot be relevant whether the respondent will suffer grave hardship; and, equally, in the case of desertion.
But it goes even further. As Clause 4 is at present drafted, if two parties, by consent, have lived apart for two years and one seeks a divorce and the other consents to the divorce and says to the petitioner, "I consent", even then the consenting party can turn round and say, "Oh, no! I ask the court to decide whether the granting of a decree would cause me hardship." That cannot be relevant. I entirely agree with the right reverend Prelate and the noble and learned Viscount. I have always thought that the whole purpose of Clause 4 was to provide a safeguard in the case of an application for a decree by one party, despite the wishes of the other, after they had been apart for five years. That is what the Amendment of the noble and learned Viscount does, and it does only that. I respectfully submit to the House that it is a proper change which greatly improves the Bill before your Lordships' House.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, I have no entitlement to be regarded as any sort of expert on this question, but I should very much like to be permitted to raise one philosophic doubt before we leave

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this question. The Amendment has one other effect which has not yet been mentioned. This is, I think, the only clause which enables a court to consider the interests of the children. I speak subject to correction on this point. But if the court is to consider the interests of the children only in considering a divorce under Clause 2(1) (e), are we perhaps neglecting a point which ought to be considered under Clause 2(1) (b)?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I am not inclined to agree with my noble friend. At the last moment, on the Third Reading of this Bill, we hear my noble friend behind me declare that he has completely changed his mind about the meaning of the clause. I remember that on the Second Reading of the Bill he spoke on the clause with equal strength and asked the House to support it as it was. I feel that what we are doing is weakening the clause to such an extent that, apart from paragraph (e), women—and obviously it is usually women who have to appeal on the grounds of hardship—will find their position very much weakened. I want to be assured by my noble and learned friend who sits on the Woolsack that this is not going to be the case. We have the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter changing his mind at the last moment, since he is supporting the new clause. He is changing his mind, as I recall that on the Second Reading he supported the Bill as it stood and did not oppose it.
THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER: My Lords, I indicated during the Committee stage on July 24 that I favoured an Amendment of this kind.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I want to enter a caveat here on behalf of those women who come under the other paragraphs and who, after the petitioner has asked for a divorce, feel that their position and the position of their children should be fully investigated before a divorce is granted. I understand that if this new Clause is accepted their position will be considerably weakened.
It is quite clear to me that it is of little use my going into the Division Lobby on this Amendment against all those who supported the Bill in the first place and who now support the noble and learned Viscount who has moved
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this Amendment. But I express my profound misgivings that at this last moment, when so many of us have been engaged on this Bill and when the provisions of this Bill have been discussed outside the House by women's organisations throughout the country, and by lawyers of all kinds—those who are sympathetic to the Bill and those who are against it—a most important safeguard of women is being withdrawn. I want to express my very deep feeling on this matter, because when this unfortunate Bill—as it will come to be regarded by posterity—comes to be implemented, there will have been removed what I felt was some safeguard.
LORD REID: My Lords, I think the House can accept this new clause with equanimity. The noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, made it perfectly clear in the earlier stages of the Bill that Clause 4 in any form can apply only in the most exceptional cases—one might say once in a blue moon, and I am inclined to think not as often as that—because it is so tightly drawn. You have got to have both grave financial hardship and circumstances which would make it "wrong to dissolve the marriage". What that means one does not know, but I think the court would be very slow to use it.
My own impression is that we are really speaking about a matter which will have the very smallest amount of importance in the future. Whether the Clause is amended or not, it will scarcely ever apply; and the difference which I think is being made by the new clause, which I agree is an improvement, is so minute that I do not really think that anybody is going to be prejudiced by it.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, may I thank those noble Lords who have supported my speech and the Amendment which I have moved, and may I shortly reply to the noble Lord and the noble BARONESS who have criticised it in certain respects. The noble Lord, Lord Hankey, seemed to think that if the existing clause was not retained, with is present width, it might prejudice the interests of children because, he said, it is the only Clause in the Bill which deals with the position of children in relation to divorce. My Lords, I think the noble Lord has forgotten Section 33 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1965, and, if I

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may, I will read the first subsection of that section. It reads as follows:
"Notwithstanding anything in Part I of this Act but subject to the following subsection, the court shall not make absolute a decree of divorce or nullity of marriage in any proceedings begun after 31st December 1958, or make a decree of judicial separation in any such proceedings, unless it is satisfied as respects every relevant child who is under sixteen that—

(a) arrangements for his care and upbringing have been made and are satisfactory or are the best that can be devised in the circumstances; or

(b) it is impracticable for the party or parties appearing before the court to make any such arrangements".

I will not read the whole of that section, but that indicates that the real issue here is not the question of whether the interests of the children shall be considered, because they will be under that provision if they are not under the new Clause 4 in every case. The real question here is whether a petition which is based on the grounds mentioned in Clause 2 (1) (a), (b) or (c) can be dismissed by invoking Clause 4.
The noble Baroness criticised this Amendment. She appeared to think it wrong that it was brought forward at the very last moment—at the Third Reading of this Bill. My Lords, if I may remind the noble Baroness, I raised the same issue on the Report stage, when it was perfectly proper to bring it forward. We discussed it at some length then, and I withdrew my Amendment on that occasion because there were still drafting and technical difficulties which had to be resolved. I really cannot share her view that this Amendment weakens the position of women. It really does not. Their position will remain the same as it now is if they are found guilty of adultery, desertion or cruelty. Their financial situation and all the rest of it can be gone into after the decree nisi, as it now is.
What the noble Baroness seems to want—and I really think she is alone in this—is that no matter on how many occasions adultery may have been committed by a woman, no matter how clear it may be that in consequence of that adultery the marriage has broken down, nevertheless the guilty woman (I use the word "guilty" in the sense of her being guilty of adultery) should be entitled to oppose the grant of a decree because the result
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of that decree, brought about by her own conduct, would be to inflict financial or other hardship on herself. I do not think that can be right, and I certainly do not put this Amendment forward with a view to prejudicing the position of women in any degree at all.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.56 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. May I say at the outset that it would be churlish indeed on my part not to express my very deep gratitude to your Lordships' House for the most careful examination to which these proposals have been subjected in the course of their passage through this House—and my debt of gratitude to your Lordships will be the same whether or not, as the upshot of this debate, the Bill passes.
It is a measure which is of the utmost social importance. If I might try to pick out what are the salient features, the major changes which it introduces, I would list them as follows. First and foremost, my Lords, it replaces the present system (for which, I think I am right in saying, nobody in the course of our debates has said one single good word) by a system which will conduce much more to the dignity of divorce proceedings and to the dignity of marriage as a whole, and which will contain ample safeguards against wanton or hasty recourse to the divorce court. Every provision, I would submit to your Lordships' House, has been embodied in an attempt to secure that the parties become reconciled instead of proceeding to asking for a final decree. Every attempt has been made to introduce into the Bill opportunities for further reflection by the spouses in the hope that, however much the marriage may seem to be in danger of breaking down, nevertheless, at the last moment, it may be rescued. It does not undermine the institution of divorce: it does precisely the opposite. That is the first thing it does. The second thing that it does—
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: The noble Lord said that it does not undermine the institution of divorce. I think he must have meant the institution of marriage.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I was so carried away by my enthusiasm that

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my logic, I am afraid, gave way to my impulse. I apologise to your Lordships' House.
The second change which the Bill introduces is what has been described as "divorce by consent". If two persons part by consent and live apart for two years, and if both consent to the pronouncing of a decree, the courts are given jurisdiction to pronounce such a decree. Surely that is right. I would respectfully submit to your Lordships that it really is almost unthinkable and really uncivilised in our community that if two reasonable, adult people come to the conclusion that they simply cannot make a success of their marriage and decide, in perfect amity and in a civilised spirit, to part; if they show by living apart for not less than two years that they really do mean to put an end to their marriage—that it is not simply a passing whim or tantrum of some sort, but that their marriage really cannot last—and if, then, by consent, they approach the divorce court, then the court should have no power ever to grant them a decree. But that is what the existing law provides. If they part by consent and both consent to a divorce, and they live apart for two years, under the existing system the court can never grant them a decree. They have, if they wish to get a decree, to resort to the disreputable subterfuge of a simulated adultery or something of that sort. I have always thought that situation a blot on civilised proceedings and the Bill puts an end to that.
Then one comes to what is possibly the most controversial aspect of the Bill; namely, the granting of a decree at the instance of one spouse, despite the wish of the other, when they have lived apart for five years. I ventured to cite at the outset of our debate the case of two people who had been apart for twenty years. Years and years before, one had formed a new union with another person, a stable union in every sense. They had lived together for years and years. They had a child, illegitimate in law, and they were drawing towards the close of their years. It was their great desire to become lawfully married. Paragraph (e) of Clause 2(1) would enable them to do so. There is no argument that I have heard—and I would respectfully submit that there can be no argument—why these two people, after being apart from their lawful spouses for years and years,
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should not be entitled to get married after having obtained a decree of divorce from the courts.
I suppose I should be right in saying that a number of your Lordships were anxious lest, in circumstances of that sort, cases might arise where, in particular, a wife who was divorced against her will and who was in a technical sense innocent. innocent in the sense that she had not committed a matrimonial offence, might be seriously disadvantaged in the economic sense. Clause 6 of the Bill vests in the court extremely drastic powers to prevent that happening. Those powers are much more drastic than are contained in the existing law in the Matrimonial Causes Act 1965; although all the existing powers are also retained. They are not in any sense annulled; they are supplemented by extremely wide powers now conferred on the courts by Clause 6.
My Lords, a good deal of discussion has taken place in your Lordship's House as to when the Bill should be brought into operation. After much consideration your Lordships decided that the Bill should be brought into operation in January, 1971, with a specific objective. That objective was that the House and the country should know, before the Bill actually was brought into operation, what proposals designed to improve the situation, among other things, of wives in that condition were forthcoming from the Law Commission; and that ample time should elapse before this Bill was brought into operation to enable the Government to give legislative effect to those recommendations of the Law Commission which they thought were appropriate.
The Law Commission have now reported. If I may respectfully say so, I should have thought that their Report was one of the utmost value. It examines fully the financial situation which may arise on divorce and makes very far-reaching and drastic recommendations. It is now October, 1969; and some 15 months will elapse before this Bill (if it passes into law) is brought into operation in January, 1971. Before it is brought into operation, unless some unexpected event takes place it is reasonable to suppose that there will be on the Statute Book those provisions which the Government feel appropriate as a result of the Law Commission's recommendations. One recommendation, I feel sure, will

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give great pleasure to my noble friend Lady Summerskill. That is the one—if she would look at page 102 of the Report—which amplifies and extends the provisions of the Act of which she has so much right to be proud; namely, the Matrimonial Homes Act, in which she played such a large part. One of the recommendations extends the provisions of that Act very drastically in favour of a spouse, nearly always the wife, who may have devoted money or money's worth to the maintenance or improvement of the real or personal property of the two spouses. I am sure that that will give her gratification. I think it a very valuable provision.
My Lords, that is the general effect of the Bill. No Bill of this sort can be perfect. It is bound to leave doubts in the minds of some Members of your Lordships' House. But I respectfully submit to your Lordships that on balance it will do very great good. If it has defects, those defects will be easily outweighed by the greater happiness it will bring to very large numbers of people and the distress that it will end in numberless cases for persons who live in the utmost unhappiness at the moment. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Stow Hill.)
5.7 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I believe your Lordships will agree that the first thing to do is to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, on his skill in steering this intricate and controversial measure through this House and in making the best of what is inevitably a bad job—as is all divorce—and then to thank him for his courtesy and the pains he has always taken to consult with those Members of this House who have been particularly concerned with the Bill and to go as far as it was humanly possible for him to go in meeting the points that we had to raise. I should like also to thank Her Majesty's Government and especially the Chief Whip for so arranging our affairs that we could consider this tremendously important social re-form really thoroughly and to see that proper time was devoted to it.
I cannot forbear to ask your Lordships to note and to contrast our proceedings on this Bill in this part-time, unpaid
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House with those in another place. We had a single, thorough, full, seven-hour debate on Second Reading, while another place had to take it in two bites, one late on a Friday afternoon and another, nearly a fortnight later, late on a Tuesday night. We took the whole of our Committee stage on the Floor of the House in three full days, with never less than 100 Members voting in Divisions and with one Division as high as 160. The other place sent their Bill Upstairs where the total votes cast in the largest Division did not exceed 16; and one day of the Committee had to be adjourned for lack of a quorum. This I find an interesting contrast between a professional paid House and an unpaid, part-time one.
My Lords, I believe that it is time now that we devoted greater attention to prevention rather than cure in this field and to our social aims rather than to the social diseases that this matter of divorce represents; more attention to the quality of married life as it is meant to be lived than to the failures in it which, to some extent, we are all unfortunately heir to. I take the context of this final debate on the Bill to say this, because, after all, the quality of life, like life itself, stems first and in the main from the quality of love between fathers and mothers.
The lesson, to me at any rate, of these important but very dreary debates that we have been having on divorce is that more positive attention must be given to love within the holy estate of matrimony. Not indeed more legislative help from us—God forbid that—but more attention by all citizens, whether specialists in the marriage guidance movement; whether professionals, like teachers, social workers or clergy; whether amateurs, like parents and grandparents. More attention must be given by all those who can help boys and girls, young men and maidens, to be what above all else they all want to be; namely, loving parents and lasting partners; more help to achieve what is after all, my Lords, the highest civic duty and the greatest joy.
5.11 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, for many years my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill and I have engaged in a very happy verbal combat, but this time I thought I detected a little

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more asperity. Nevertheless, we have come to the end of it now and, of course, neither of us bears any ill-will.
I felt very strongly about this matter because in both Houses there is a tiny minority of women, and it is inevitable that in social measures of this kind, which are concerned with the relationship of the sexes, there must often be a subjective approach. It is difficult for people always to be objective and to adopt a strictly legal attitude to matters of this kind, and I take it that that is why during these debates I have had the wonderful support of some of our Law Lords who have been able, over the years, to adopt an objective approach and a strictly legal attitude. Even at the end I was very pleased to hear my noble and learned friend Lord Reid comfort me (because he, after all, knows precisely how the courts are going to administer this Bill) and tell me that it will not make any difference in the courts when the Amendment of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, is taken into account. But, my Lords, we should congratulate ourselves, because in this House we have amended this Bill in two ways, and I hope very sincerely that there will be no organised attempt in another place to reverse the decisions to which we have come.
May I briefly recall the two Amendments? The first will ensure that in those cases where a divorce is sought after two years' separation the positive consent of the respondent must be obtained. The second Amendment delays the operation of the Act until January, 1971. And, of course, as my noble and learned friend has just said, the object is to provide time for the introduction of a Bill making provision for a wife who is innocent of any matrimonial offence yet is divorced against her will.
It is this omission from this Bill that has been responsible for most of the opposition, and we have been promised over months, almost over the years, that the Law Commission would produce a document—in fact it is more than a document: it is a very thick tome—on the financial provisions in matrimonial proceedings in order that a Bill should be introduced in the coming Session which will be complementary to the
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Divorce Bill. In the other place, of course, if an honourable Member were to make a remark like that a Whip would leap up and say that on Third Reading Members may speak only on those matters which are actually in the Bill; but I think that in this case it is quite in order that one should speak on a Bill which must be complementary to this Bill. Despite this, I feel that we are passing this Bill blindfold or that, as The Times described it on July 2, we are taking a leap into the dark.
I cannot recall an occasion on which the Committee stage of a Bill was completed and the Third Reading given on the understanding that a complementary Bill, designed to remedy injustices, would be introduced. I sincerely hope that our confidence will not prove to be misplaced, but I have grave misgivings. I have read the draft Bill which is incorporated in the Report on Financial Provisions
in Matrimonial Proceedings and it seems to me that it leaves the whole question of financial provision to the discretion of the courts. Partnership in marriage, for which the women in this country plead has not been clearly defined. It would seem that the whole issue has been blurred by a prolixity of words and this overflows into pages and pages of explanatory notes.
My Lords, I should have thought that it could be assumed that the readers of this Report were already well aware of the issues; that they were informed people; that they were attracted to it only because they were involved either in Parliamentary business which was concerned with the contents or because they were on some committee outside Parliament. Therefore these profuse explanations are a little suspicious and, frankly, they tend to create doubt as to the validity of the proposals. A measure based on equity can speak for itself; it does not need all this explanation. A Bill that calls for so much detailed explanation is not good law: it must bewilder the court which will have to administer the Act and, in consequence, justice must suffer. I believe that the chances of the first wife and her children being given justice are remote if the court is guided by the explanatory note on page 71 (and I ask my noble and learned

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friend to look at it), which says, in paragraph 3:
"It would clearly be unjust to insist on a settlement which would leave nothing for the new dependants."
My Lords, if the resources of those in the lower income groups must take into account the new dependants which a man may produce after he has divorced his first wife, how can there be any chance of an equitable sharing of the goods acquired during the first marriage? The judge has got to say—I presume that in some cases he will be put in the position of having to sum up the virility of the man who wants a divorce—"How many more dependants will he have? Because I am directed that before I settle how much, what kind of share, the first wife shall have out of the resources the man has, I have to anticipate how many more dependants he may produce." This makes nonsense of the great, thick wedge of reading matter for which we have been waiting, and which has, at last, been produced. That is why I say that I have the greatest misgivings.
We have delayed the commencement of this Bill until January, 1971, in order that another Bill may be passed to provide for, and give justice in terms of finance to, the first wife. We have said—I have said it over and over again—that the woman who makes a contribution to the home in terms of services over the years should have some recompense. Although it is not she who has brought in the wages, she has in fact enabled her husband to earn wages or a salary. It is she who has cooked, worked and brought up the children, having borne them in the first place; but after fifteen or twenty years of marriage she has no nest egg. This fact has been accepted; but now this document has been produced, and we are told that the courts have not to consider what finances or goods have been acquired during a marriage but have to keep in mind that those goods should be used for the new dependants which a man may produce in another marriage. Is this just? Surely this is not what the House expected. Certainly it is not what the women's organisations expected—and they have discussed this matter ad nauseam.
Finally, I have to say that one can only deduce from this that these proposals
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are designed only with the well-to-do man in mind, the man who will be able to escape his matrimonial responsibilities every five years, irrespective of the innocence of his wife. Consequently, after all this debate and all the discussions as to what form this other Bill should take, it is clear that the Bill, which is to me complementary to this Divorce Reform Bill, is one that will be of use only to the wealthy man. Therefore, I say that the title, "The Casanova's Charter", remains as appropriate as ever.
5.22 p.m.
BARONESS BIRK: My Lords, I rise to support the passing of this Bill. My noble friend Lady Summerskill says that we are passing this Bill blindfolded. This is absolute nonsense. This Bill was discussed for a considerable time in another place and has gone through this House—the noble Lord opposite pointed out the number of hours that has been spent on it—and has emerged, even though there have been compromises, as a Bill which, in my opinion and in the opinion of a majority of your Lordships, provides a far more realistic form of marriage, a far more humane and understanding approach to divorce, doing away with a great deal of hypocrisy and cleaning up the procedure and processes that now have to take place if people are to get a divorce.
My noble friend Lady Summerskill criticised the explanatory note on page 71, which says that it would be clearly unjust to leave nothing for the new dependants. What does she want? Is she against divorce altogether, or are we to have the sort of law in this country in which we say that once people are divorced they must not marry again unless they have a certain income? My noble friend is as aware as I am that this income problem applies to separation as well as to divorce. It is a most difficult task, almost at times impossible, to stretch money over two families where sufficient money is not existent.
I believe that my noble friend does far less than justice to the draft Family Law Reform Bill, from which she quoted. I think that a far more relevant quotation is from Clause 5 (1) (d), which states, for the first time in any legislation in this country, that the contribution made by each of the parties to the welfare of

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the family, including any contribution made by looking after the home or caring for the family, shall be taken into account. In my opinion, this is a tremendous step forward socially. It is something which, I suggest to my noble friend, she should put before women's organisations instead of, if I may say so, encouraging them to take a rather negative and unproductive view of this Bill.
If it had not been for the introduction of this Divorce Bill, as I think we are all aware, the draft Family Law Reform Bill (and it is a draft Bill, which is not before us to-day, and there will be ample opportunity for my noble friend and others of us to try to improve it, if we can, by Amendment) would not even be in the draft form it is in to-day. The plight of the deserted wife is constantly discussed, but I think we should remember the number of deserted husbands who are left to look after their children. We are apt to concentrate on fatherless families but there are also many motherless families, and many husbands and fathers who also need both social and economic help.
If we do not pass this Bill to-day, what shall we have achieved? We shall have stopped thousands of people living in illegal unions from being able legally to break up a marriage that has already broken down completely. We shall also leave thousands of illegitimate children, who cannot be legitimised. We shall do something else which to me is very important. I think that paragraph (d) of Clause 2(1) in the Bill represents the most civilised attitude towards divorce. Naturally, nobody is for divorce: I agree with the noble Lord opposite that we want to prevent it as much as we can. But we are all aware that not every marriage is going to survive, and if people do make a mistake—and we are all human—and marriages break down, surely the most civilised way of handling it is by the two parties themselves agreeing that the marriage has broken down and that, in spite of everything, they must bring it to an end.
There are so many good points in this Bill, it contains so much help for a great many people, that it is a better basis for the education of young people for marriage than the present law. I think it is far more likely to strengthen the institution of marriage than weaken it and I
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hope that your Lordships will pass the Bill.
5.28 p.m.
LORD REID: My Lords, I do not desire to detain the House for long, but I should like to make one or two comments on what I think are the excessive claims made by the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill. In the first place, he says that this Bill will replace the present system by a new one. With all deference, it will do nothing of the kind. It is perfectly true that if we read only Clause 1, it does indicate that. But fortunately—and I think we have to thank the Law Commission for this—the promoters of the Bill have been persuaded to accept other clauses in the Bill which virtually deprive Clause 1 of all effect, and 95 per cent. of the cases which come before the divorce court will go on in exactly the same way and have exactly the same result as if this Bill had never been passed. We have at least that to be thankful for, because if this Bill did what Clause 1 says it wants to do it would indeed be a disaster.
I think it is a pity that we have to have drafting of this kind. I quite see how it has happened. Those who believe in words and in theories have hung on to Clause 1: those who believe that the practical side is more important than verbiage have inserted Clause 2, thereby keeping the present three main grounds of divorce—adultery, cruelty and desertion—practically unaltered. The result is that we have a Bill which speaks with two voices. I hope that when the Law Commission or others come to consider further Bills dealing with family law there will not be this conflict in the draftsmanship and that we shall have a Bill saying clearly and precisely what is intended. But I quite see that when we have a Bill promoted by private Members of the other place (or, indeed, it might be of this House) we are likely to get this kind of jargon. It is most unfortunate, but nevertheless, I think it will do comparatively little harm.
The other point is the five-years clause. If it were not for this pernicious theory, we could have had quite a good Clause 5. I would never assert that spiteful people ought to be allowed to have their own way. But the trouble is this theory that you must have everybody alike, and have the five years separation provision no matter what the circumstances are, what is the cause of the separation or

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who is to blame. It would not have been difficult to draft a five-years clause which covered all the cases of which so much has been made in this House, where two apparently deserving people are kept from being married—of course, they will have been living together for years—by the spite of a discarded wife. That could easily have been provided for without making it necessary that the innocent discarded wife should be divorced by her guilty husband, with all the consequences, social and financial, which might follow from that. It is that to which I object. But it is too late now to put the matter right. We put down some Amendments, but the House did not accept them. Now we must just see how much injustice this Bill will do. It will do some justice, I agree; but it need not have done all the injustice it will do had it not been that the theorists prevailed and insisted on this universal provision. However, there it is.
Now I come to the safeguards. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady
Summerskill, that the Law Commission document, able though it is, is of very little use in this connection. Where there is money to apply, it makes provision for making the best use of that money. But neither the Law Commission nor anybody else is going to be able to provide for the case where there is not enough money to cover the needs of two households, unless you take the very drastic step (which I should be prepared to take, but few others, apparently, would) of saying that the man who discards an innocent wife should regard her as a first charge on his income, and his new wife and new family as only a second charge. If we did that, of course, we should need drastic provisions for the courts to make large allotments out of the man's wages, which he would try to avoid, and a drastic system of follow-up would be required, so that the man when he disappeared or changed his employment could be traced, and thus, make it possible, as a social service, for the allotment of the discarded wife to be collected in full every week. But I am afraid there is no sign whatever that the Government or the Law Commission are prepared to do that, and unless we go as far as that we cannot safeguard the interests of the discarded wife as against the new family.
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Therefore, I agree that all this talk about safeguards is not going to be any good at all. It will help where there is money; but it will not help where there is no money. Therefore, we have to take it that the innocent. discarded wife is to suffer the stigma of divorce; she is to suffer financial hardship in many cases without any protection, all to bolster up this theory that breakdown ought to be a ground for divorce.
5.35 p.m.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, this is a Bill about men and women. I have been married for only 47 years, so, as yet, I do not know very much about women. But I do know something about my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill, and I hold him in very high esteem as a social reformer. Our acquaintance goes back for many years. I think he will probably remember the night when we both addressed a meeting in Essex and he came home with me to my old rectory and we shared a cold chicken and a bottle of wine together. So I look upon my noble friend Lord Stow Hill as a political friend. He made a sentimental appeal on behalf of the man and woman who have been living twenty years together in an irregular union and and who want to endow that union with the sanctity of marriage. I have not much sympathy for that couple. They did not regard their first legitimate marriage with very much sanctity, and I do not think we should get over-sentimental about them at this stage.
I should like to ask my noble and learned friend a question—it is not a political question, but I have been asked the question by many members of the public—to which I am sure he will be able to give an answer. With regard to Clause 2 (1) (c), which provides that a divorce should be granted after two years' desertion, does the two years start in January, 1971, when the new law comes into operation, or does it cover any period of desertion before January 1, 1971?
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, my reading of the Bill is that it covers any period, whether it starts before January, 1971, or after.
LORD LEATHERLAND: I thought that might be so, and I asked the question only because so many people have put it to me and I was not quite sure.

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I opposed the Second Reading of this Bill, not because I objected to some of the liberalising reforms that it proposed to introduce, but merely because of the financial plight of the wife who was left in the lurch. It is a fact that the Report of the Law Commission and the draft Bill which accompanies that Report make some financial improvements. But I do not think—and here I agree with my noble friend Lady Summerskill—that this is a complete remedy, because in many cases it is the second woman who will get her hands on the man's wages and on a good deal of his pension rights, and the legitimate wife will have to resort to what used to be called the National Assistance Board and is now known as the Supplementary Benefits Commission. I hardly think it is right for us to propound a moral law where the wages of sin take priority over the rewards of virtue. Nevertheless, the Law Commission's Report constitutes a considerable improvement upon the bare bones of the Bill that we had presented to us a few months ago.
I should like, however, to ask a few questions about what is to happen to this Law Commission Bill, and I presume that not my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill but my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack will be answering these questions. First of all, when is the draft Bill contained in the Law Commission's Report to be introduced? Secondly, will at least its full terms be embodied in the document that is put before us, or are they likely to be diluted in any way? Thirdly, will this be a Government Bill, or will it be subject to the luck of the ballot in another place? Fourthly—and I know my noble and learned friend cannot commit the House, any more than we can commit the other place—is the Government's attitude of mind towards this Bill such that they are not inclined to make any considerable concessions during its progress through both Houses? Fifthly, will the financial improvements that this draft Bill suggests be applicable to Clause 2 (1) (a), (b), (c) and (d), as well as to paragraph (e), because otherwise the ordinary, normal wife who tries to get a divorce will be deprived of very substantial advantages which might possibly accrue to those who are divorced under paragraph (e).
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If any concessions are proposed by the Government in this Bill—that is to say, the draft which accompanies the Law Commission's Report—then we are passing this Divorce Bill to-day without knowing exactly what we are doing. So we want a definitive pledge on this question as to whether a substantial version of the Law Commission's Bill is going to be introduced. I merely ask those questions; we are far too late in the day to indulge in any polemical argument about it, and I should be very grateful indeed if we could hare an answer to the specific points that I have raised.
5.41 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, the Motion before the House is, That the Bill do now pass. The debate we have been having has been a most interesting one. It seems to me to have been very largely on a Report from the Law Commission dealing with another Bill—a Bill which is not before the House: it is in draft, but has no: been presented to Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, concluded his speech by asking the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor a series of questions. I should have thought they were more appropriate for the Order Paper, in which case the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor would have notice of them.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, would the noble and learned Viscount—
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, if I may just finish what I was saying, I should have thought the noble Lord's remarks were more appropriate for the Order Paper, in which case notice of them would be given, than on the Motion, That the Bill do now pass. I do not want to be controversial, and I do not want to take up time by saying anything about a Report of the Law Commission which this House has not before it for consideration to-day, or that draft Bill. I will reserve my comments. I shall be very interested to see whether any machinery can be found whereby provision can be made for the first wife when the husband who has married again has not the means to support two wives.
I have risen to-day to express, simply and shortly, my congratulations to the

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noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, on his success in piloting this extremely controversial measure through your Lordships' House. If it came to a Division on this Bill—and I know it will not—I am not at all sure how I should vote. There are parts of it I like; there are parts of it which we sought, unsuccessfully, to amend in Committee in the later stages. Some parts of it are
good, some are not. I do not suppose for one moment that this is the last Divorce Bill which will be considered in this House. There have been many before. I remember introducing one in another place but, unlike this Bill, my Divorce Reform Bill received a Second Reading in another place "on the nod". I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, for we have had some interesting debates and a very full expression of views. I, for one, shall certainly not oppose the passage of this Bill to-night, and I hope that my fears with regard to certain aspects of it will prove unfounded.
5.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, this Bill is now most likely in its final form. I believe that it is, on the whole, a good Bill, but I also believe that it is marred by one particular flaw, which is so serious that I think it is actually dangerous. I feel this so strongly that I hope your Lordships will not think me wasting your time if I briefly explain it.
It is generally supposed that the effect and the object of the Bill are to make the irretrievable breakdown of marriage the sole ground on which a decree of divorce may he granted. This, however, is not, strictly speaking, so. What the Bill says in Clause 1 is that an irretrievable breakdown is the sole ground on which a petition for divorce may be presented to the court; and grounds for petition and grounds for divorce are not necessarily the same thing. This may sound like hair splitting, and if applied to four out of the five grounds for petition perhaps it would be; but not if applied to the fifth admissible ground, on which it would be possible to obtain a decree without proving irretrievable breakdown.
I refer, as your Lordships will perhaps suspect, to Clause 2 (1) (e) under which
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one may secure a decree after five years of living apart, as defined in Clause 2 (5). I am not objecting simply that a five-year separation is not proof of irretrievable breakdown. I know very well that adultery, cruelty, desertion and consent after two years of separation are not proof, either. All they do, as one of the highest legal luminaries in the land has pointed out to me, is to provide a prima facie supposition that such a breakdown has occurred; and from that point onwards it is the business of the court to investigate the facts and decide whether or not it has in fact occurred. In that respect, therefore, I am told Clause 2(1) (e) does not differ from Clause 2(1) (a), (b), (c) or (d). But, my Lords, I say, with the greatest respect, that it does so differ—and for this reason. In cases (a), (b), (c) and (d) the burden of proof is on the petitioner, who is required to satisfy the court that the marriage has irretrievably broken down; but in case (e) he is required to satisfy the court on nothing except that he and his spouse have been living apart for the last five years.
To turn that into proof, or even evidence, of irretrievable breakdown it is necessary, in my humble submission, to show some causal connection between the separation and the breakdown; that is to say, that the one either gave rise to or resulted from the other. But it has been made abundantly clear in earlier debates on this subject that a part, or even the whole, of the separation might be quite unconnected with the breakdown, either as cause or as effect. In short, the evidence that the court is empowered to ask for is not enough to prove the case. Nor has anyone asserted that it is. The noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, has made no such assertion. Just what he has asserted I will consider in a moment, if I may, when I come to the end of my immediate thread.
Let us imagine a case in which a husband petitioner has satisfied the judge that he has been separated from his wife for five years. So far as the judge can see, the separation has remarkably little to do with any marital difficulties; but what is the judge to do? Even if the case is defended, what can he do? What can the defendant respondent do? She cannot rebut the petitioner's evidence of irretrievable breakdown, for he has not

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offered any, and he is not required to do so. It is hardly likely that she will be able to convince the judge that the marriage has not irretrievably broken down, in the face of the petitioner's insistence that it has and that he means to have no more to do with her.
The one small safeguard remaining to her is that contained in Clause 3(2). I am supposing that there is no question of hardship such as might arise under Clause 4. If it appears to the judge that there is "a reasonable possibility of a reconciliation" he may adjourn the case to give her a chance to bring the erring spouse back into the fold. But suppose she fails. In that event the judge has no option: he must grant the decree. "And why not?", you may ask. "Obviously the marriage has broken down." I agree that it has, but the Bill is not interested in marriages breaking down unless they have broken down irretrievably.
Your Lordships may perhaps argue that even in such a case as I have postulated it may be clear that the marriage has in fact broken down irretrievably. Perhaps it has, and perhaps the judge thinks it has, so No injustice will be done. But what are the facts before him that have led him to that conclusion? They are two in number: first, the fact that the petitioner has resisted attempts at reconcilation and is obviously determined to have nothing more to do with it, and, secondly, the corroborative fact that he and his wife have been living apart for—how long? Why, from the time when he decided to present his petition until the present moment. Any time of separation before that may or may not be corroborative also, but he is under no obligation to show that it is, only to show that the separation existed.
What then is the point of the five years if they contribute nothing at all to the evidence? Why should the period be five years? Why not three, or two? Make no mistake, my Lords: this question will be asked again, perhaps in no far distant future, in a Second Reading debate on another Divorce Reform Bill designed to amend this one. I confess that at the moment I do not see what logical arguments will be open to resist the reduction of the period of five years to a period of two years; and that will be the end of Clause 2(1) (c), because then
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not only will a deserted spouse be able to petition for divorce against the deserter, but the deserter will be able to petition against the deserted. That having happened, out will go also the last few words of Clause 2 (1) (d):
"… and the respondent consents to a decree being granted".
So after two years' separation, however caused, it will always be available to either party on demand. Do I make it clear, my Lords, why I think this subsection is dangerous?
I return, as I said I would, if I may, to the assertion of the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, and I do so because it shows how Clause 2 (1) (e), with the definition of "living apart" in Clause 2 (5), is justified by the sponsors of the Bill. In the debate on Report stage on July 24 the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, said this:
"… supposing somebody comes and says that A and B have been apart for five years—not for one, two or three years, but for five years—and that A has approached the divorce court to ask for a decree of divorce, I should have thought that any reasonable person would say: 'Well, if there is one thing which is patently obvious it is that the marriage between A and B has broker down.' He will not start asking why they were apart for five years."—(Official Report; 24/7/69, col. 1114.)
Well, perhaps I am not a reasonable person, but I am afraid that that is not what I would say. I would say, "Well, if there is one thing that is patently obvious it is that A wants to get rid of his wife." That indicates some kind of breakdown, I concede, but I repeat that the Bill is supposed not to be interested in breakdown unless it is irreparable or, as the Bill says, irretrievable. If I wanted to know how serious it really was I certainly should start asking why they had been apart those five years and what was the connection, if any, between the separation and the breakdown.
But those responsible for the Bill are not interested in that at all. I refer not only to the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, and to Mr. Abse, but also to the Law Commissioners and the Parliamentary draftsman. The policy on which they have based this subsection is that all the court needs to know about the separation is that it occurred. The states of mind of the parties during all or any part of the separation, and whether either of them intended to return to the other or was determined to stay away—these things

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are irrelevant. I think I express their attitude correctly, as they were good enough to explain it to me, but if I am wrong no doubt either the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, or the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will correct me.
Several noble Lords, including noble and learned Lords of Appeal, have stated their conviction, in supporting Amendments that I have put down at earlier stages on the Bill, that states of mind should count very much indeed. They would like to know, if possible, when the intention to separate—what lawyers call animus separandi—germinated in one or other of the parties. And so would I. It seems to me to be of the very pith and marrow of the matter. Why then does it not seem so to those learned and distinguished personages responsible for the Bill? I think another quotation from the same speech of the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, will make the answer clear. The noble Lord said:
"The question is: does living apart for five years, followed by an application from one of the parties to the divorce court for a decree of divorce—do those two things conjoined together—spell the breakdown of a marriage? I should have thought that in the ordinary course of affairs it is almost impossible to say that when these two situations are conjoined marriage has not come to an end".—(col. 1115.)
In many cases I should find it quite possible to say exactly that. I should know that the petitioner wished to bring the marriage to an end but I should suspect, perhaps, that he was using the five-year period of separation, during some or much, or even all, of which he had had every intention of reunion, as a convenient excuse. And, as I have pointed out, the respondent has no defence.
But now here comes a strange thing. As I have quoted the noble Lord, he relies on a simple conjunction of those two factors, separation and petition. Three sentences later he says this: that it is
"… fairly obvious that it does not really matter why the spouses were apart; the question is whether or not they were apart, and whether their separation led one of the two to approach the divorce court and ask for a decree."—(col. 1115.)
In that sentence the noble Lord has introduced a third factor, the factor of causation, the very causal connection
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that I asked for at the beginning of my speech and of whose absence from the Bill I complain. What is more, he is about to introduce a fourth factor, none other than a decision to part arising as a consequence of the separation.
"What happens, unfortunately"—
he says—
"is that there is a separation, one party gradually comes to the conclusion that he or she wishes for a divorce and then, after five years, asks for it; and all the court does when it pronounces a decree is to recognise that there is the pre-existing situation which has led to the breakdown of the marriage."—(Col. 1115.)
But, my Lords, how are we to know that that is what will unfortunately happen? How is the court to know that, at some stage in the separation, one party gradually came to such a conclusion, if the law prevents it from taking animus separandi into account? Without having any idea of when one party came to the conclusion that he or she wished for a divorce, how can the court, in the words that I have just quoted,
"… recognise that there is the pre-existing situation which has led to the breakdown of the marriage"?
To meet the kind of objection that I have outlined many attempts have been made to improve, by Amendment, the definition of "living apart" in Clause 2 (5). All have failed, probably inevitably, for I doubt if it is possible to produce a satisfactory definition. An Amendment might, then, have been proposed to take out the definition altogether. That might have been even worse. It would have left to the courts a power of interpretation of Clause 2 (1) (e) and Clause 2 (5) so infinitely wide that it might well have given rise to more difficulties than it would cure.
One possibility remained: that of taking Clause 2 (1) (e) out altogether. It is too late for that now. The attempt was made in Committee by the noble and
learned Lord, Lord Reid, and your Lordships rejected it by 85 votes to 35. In that Division I myself abstained. I could not vote against the provision because I am inclined to approve the principle that it enshrines. I could not support it in the absence of satisfactory definitions; or perhaps I should put it the other way round and say "in the presence of unsatisfactory definitions".

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For the same reason, I cannot support it now, even as part of a Bill for which I have a considerable regard. On the other hand, I feel that to reject the whole Bill would be a price too high to pay for the loss of Clause 2(1) (e), dangerous though I believe it to be. So, for what I hope are perfectly positive reasons, I shall abstain again. My Lords, I have no more to say, except to express the hope that the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, will not think me lacking in most respectful admiration of the patient and devoted labour, if I may respectfully say so, that he has lavished upon this Bill; nor am I lacking in any way—definitely I am not—appreciation of the no less patient and unfailing courtesy which he has extended personally to me.
5.59 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I feel that if I said nothing in reply to the requests that have been made to me the House might think me discourteous. The House is, I think, well aware of the Government's position in relation to this Bill. Some of the members of the Government support the Bill; some of the members of the Government are opposed to the Bill. But, as your Lordships know, when it became apparent that there was a majority in each House who were in favour of a Bill on some such lines as these, and particularly after last Session's Bill had failed for want of time, the Government thought it would be only right to provide the time so that Parliament might be able, on a free vote, to come to a conclusion. Also, in accordance with modern practice in these cases, they provided the services of Parliamentary draftsmen. Apart from that the Government have been neutral. I have confined my interventions to cases in which it appeared to me, rightly or wrongly, that an Amendment had not been aptly worded or else was not going to achieve its object.
I must congratulate my noble friend Lord Stow Hill on the way in which he has piloted the Bill through the House. So far as credits are due, it was really your Lordships' House which started this, with the long debate on Putting Asunder, the publication of the Committeee appointed by the most reverend Primate, which came out firmly in support of the proposition that instead of having a divorce law based on the view
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that marriages break down only because somebody commits a matrimonial fault, we should altogether abandon that view and provide as the sole ground of divorce the fact that the marriage had irretrievably broken down.
I do not want to get involved in a long argument about a report of the Law Commission which we have not yet considered, but in answer to the observation made by my noble friend Lady Summer-skill I must remind her of what I have on more than one occasion already pointed out to her. For example, in the debate on July 15 I said to her:
"I have done my best to make it plain to my noble friend, and so has the Chairman of the Law Commission, that it is no good relying on a financial provisions Bill to do much that is not already in this, the Divorce Reform, Bill. The arrangements affecting financial provision which the courts can make, at the dissolution of a marriage can be improved. It is for the purpose of improving them that the Law Commission is engaged in producing the financial provisions Bill. That would be necessary in their view, whether the Divorce Reform Bill is passed or is not passed."
I then went on to say:
"As the Chairman said in the letter which the noble BARONESS read out, he wanted to make it plain that those improvements would in the main apply to people whose marriages were now being dissolved. This Bill itself contains Draconian powers which no petitioner has ever had before."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15/7/69, col. 235.]
I then went on respectfully to point out that it is no good looking to me or to the Law Commission or the lawyers or anybody to provide money which simply is not there, and that the main cause of the financial difficulty of deserted wives has nothing to do with divorce; it is due to the fact that the marriage has irretrievably broken down. Therefore to that extent I can only repeat what I then said.
In reply to my noble friend Lord Leatherland, may I say that my undertaking has been that before this Bill comes into force the Government will introduce a Bill based on a Report to be made by the Law Commission about financial provisions; and in answer to his further question my reply is that the contents will, as I have said, be substantially the contents recommended by the Law Commission. It will be a Government Bill. He asked what concessions the Government would be prepared to make. As the whole history of this Government shows, it is always only

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too happy to consider concessions. I hope, with those who have spoken, that if this is the will of Parliament the other place may feel able to accept the Amendments which we have made here, so that this very interesting Bill may reach the Statute Book next week.
6.4 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I do not know whether, in conformity with the custom and by permission of the House, I may make a few concluding observations. May I thank those noble Lords who have made kindly references to myself. I am most grateful, and deeply appreciative of what they have said. As I have already said, I feel most grateful for the care and the objective approach with which this Bill has been examined. I do not think I can add much to the debate. May I say to the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, that I do not think I can answer his questions otherwise than by again repeating the passages from my speech which he read out and which contain the only answers that I can give. I am sorry I cannot be more explicit than that.
It would be a poor compliment to this House if we all agreed upon a measure of this difficulty. Obviously, people feel extremely strongly about it. I know how strongly my noble friend Lady Summerskill feels. She used the word "animosity". I hope she will withdraw that word: I certainly feel no animosity and I do not think she has displayed any against me.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I thought I said that I did not feel any animosity.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I am much comforted. I think one can say with complete confidence that the Bill has passed through all its stages in an atmosphere of the greatest goodwill, although of course with extreme anxiety, as it should. In those circumstances I hope the
anxieties which have been expressed will be allayed when experience shows how the Bill works. I am sorry that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, feels so pessimistic about what we have tried to embody in this Bill. I remember years ago in the other place when we said the same sort of things to each other across the Floor of the
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House as he has been saying to me this evening. I was always an optimist and I think that in his heart of hearts he is rather an optimist too, and I hope that things will work out better than he believes.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

COLLIERY SPOIL HEAPS: RATING AND RECLAMATION
6.7 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether, to secure further improvement of the countryside by the removal of disused colliery spoil heaps, they will give urgent consideration to the desirability of introducing legislation to exclude such spoil heaps which are being used to provide "fill" material for civil engineering projects and motorway construction from liability to rate levy. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in the past the working of disused colliery spoil heaps—or for that matter, I think, possibly all industrial spoil heaps—has not, generally speaking, been rated. But a change has come about which has altered the position in a very serious way; seemingly because a useful purpose has been found for this waste material. I shall have more to say on that later in the course of my remarks.
I asked a Starred Question on July 17, and I have tabled this Unstarred Question to-day because the replies given seemed to me then, as they do now, to warrant further and fuller consideration, and because the problem is indeed an urgent one. On that occasion my noble friend Lord Kennet said:
"The Government have no power to absolve local authorities from their obligations to levy rates on spoil heaps from which material is being taken away … "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, col 467]:
He went on to say that if there was a case for a change,
"Legislation would be required."
I am asking to-day that urgent consideration be given to the desirability of introducing such legislation. On the earlier occasion, my noble friend also stated:
"the removal of what is in the tips and their use for some good purpose … is going to make only a very small impression on the problem, which is quite colossal … "
If I may, I will return to that a little later.
My noble friend also referred to Government grants being available to local authorities who undertake (he reclamation of derelict areas, ranging, as he put it, from 85 per cent. to 50 per cent. I do not know what sums have been paid from national funds on this score, or what have been provided in current approved programmes—or, indeed, whether there is any figure for the expected ultimate cost of such programmes. If the figures are not easily available to-day perhaps it might be helpful if I indicated that I would ask the question on some future occasion.
I am pleased to see that my noble friend Lord Taylor of Mansfield is to speak later. He has spent his life among peoples who have invested their lives in coal, and he brings to this matter experience and expertise which I cannot claim. My interest, if I may so put it, is in the pursuit of a socially desirable objective, and I doubt whether many, if any, would quarrel with it; for the problem of dereliction in Britain is a blot on our landscape, nothing short of a national disgrace. I am asking that what seems to me like common sense should be applied in support of this socially desirable objective, to help in what is the most effective way possible in usefully putting underground as much as we can of this particular form of dereliction.
Since July 17 the problem has received some well-merited publicity. There was a full-page article in the Sunday Times of July 20 entitled "The Ruin of Britain", by John Barr, the author of the Pelican book, Derelict Britain, which I think was published on July 31. There was also an article in the Daily Telegraph, under the heading "Taxing the tips", by John Bosworth on August 4. Some of your Lordships may have heard a talk on radio in the schools programme on September 29 which described how the "Wigan Alps" were being landscaped, were being turned from an eyesore to provide a range of amenities. I do not recall that in the talk the cost was mentioned, but it must have been a considerable figure.
I was interested, too, listening to the radio the other day, to hear references to the new Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning. Among his many responsibilities listed on
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that occasion was that of dealing with dereliction. In that I wish him every success. He is a very able man, for whom I have tremendous respect and admiration, and I hope that, among other achievements, he will improve the face of Britain by replacing dereliction with amenity. And I hope he will appreciate that: the derating of colliery spoil heaps where they are being used for "fill" material could make a very worthwhile contribution.
My Lords, the problem of dereliction is indeed a very large one. In England and Wales, I understand, there are some 112, 000 acres, and in Scotland another 15, 000 acres. So far as the coal tips are concerned, they amount, I think, to some 28, 000 acres; or, to put it another way, some 2, 000 million tons. My Question refers to the removal of "disused colliery spoil" heaps being used for civil engineering projects and motorway construction. I understand that for some years the National Coal Board have been disposing of some 5 million tons of burnt and unburnt shale a year for this particular purpose; and in the year 1968-69 those sales should rise to 7 million tons. There appear to be excellent prospects of increasing sales still higher, and the estimated figure at the moment, I believe, is some 12 million tons—if the cost of the shale can be kept at a competitive level.
One would think that this was a welcome contribution to the clearance of dereliction, perhaps not as large as one would like, but nevertheless a solid contribution; and, since it secures the burial of the eyesore, a pretty effective one. The point I wish to make, and indeed to stress, is that there is at the present time in the North-East road programme an opportunity which exists in this connection. I understand that the M.62/M.18 motorway project in Yorkshire itself will require some 20 million tons of "fill". If we miss this and similar chances, they will not recur.
I have mentioned that disposals of colliery waste tips have risen from 5 to 7 million tons, and are expected to rise to 12 million tons. But there is a development which threatens the position. I am given to understand that in the past, colliery shale has not been generally rated, except in Scotland, and there only by a very small amount; and,

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so far as the Midlands and Yorkshire are concerned, it seems that there has been no general acceptance of rating, probably, I venture to think, because the workings have been over comparitively short periods. That position has now changed in, if I may say so, a quite dramatic way. The decision of the Court of Appeal in the case of Ryan v. Morgan in 1965 established, as it were, the principle of liability to rating. The decision last year of the Lands Tribunal, when they upheld an appeal against Smiles and Co. Ltd. brought home the full significance of that decision, not only in regard to rating for current workings but for "back" ratings. My noble friend Lord Blyton touched on this point in a supplementary question he put on July 17. He mentioned on that occasion a figure approaching £500, 000. I think that probably it lies somewhere between £300, 000 and the £500, 000 that he gave.
My Lords, if these eyesores are to be rated when they are being removed to provide "fill" material, then the cost of that material will certainly rise—and this is a very competitive market. If rates are added to the cost, there is grave danger that these tips will not be moved and usefully buried, but that they may become subjects for grant for re-contouring or re-landscaping. As the Daily Telegraph article of August 4 stated:
"If the rates come out of the realisation then the business becomes unattractive to the seller; if they are tacked on the price, the product becomes unattractive to the buyer."
And if the contractors are called upon to pay back rates many will be forced to consider going out of business.
I should like now to touch on one of the main competitors to colliery waste for use as road "fill". This is material dug out of "borrow" pits—in layman's terms, huge excavations cut into the land nearby the particular project which is to be supplied—holes which, if left, are themselves an added dereliction. I have with me to-day a photograph showing what such dereliction looks like. I only wish that I had enough copies to send them to all your Lordships. I think you would appreciate that this is a form of dereliction that ought not to be permitted. I have heard it said that in one such case serious consideration has been given to filling such a hole with colliery
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shale. Who would bear the cost of that I certainly have No idea. As I understand it, these "borrow" pits do not pay rates. The position is, as the Daily Telegraph put it:
"Scarring the landscape below the ground is free, but reducing the ugliness above the line is chargeable."
Furthermore, there seems some doubt whether "borrow" pits are checked by way of planning consent, and because "borrow" pits are conveniently placed to the site contractors are able to use unlicensed transport. And this is in competition with colliery waste, where one of the very big items of cost is transport, and it must be licensed transport.
My Lords, if I appear to be doing a little special pleading may I seek to justify it by quoting John Barr's article in the Sunday Times. He wrote:
"The ugliness, and the depression of whole areas, the dangers to life that our industrial wastelands bring—all these apart—in a crowded, land-short island, dereliction is simply plain bad economics."
In this matter there is surely an overriding consideration: that we should do all we can to remove spoliation; to get rid of wasted acres and restore the land to its original condition, and particularly recognise the debt that we owe communities in the affected areas.
There is a particular question that I think might be asked on the subject of disused colliery spoil heaps: cannot the Coal Board itself carry the cost of rates? I gather that the sale of colliery waste produced to the Board in 1968-69 a revenue of about £600, 000. The cost to the Coal Board of maintaining tips is, I believe, running at some £4 million per annum, and that sum is at the present time a charge on the cost of coal which eventually has to be borne by the consumer. The sale of shale, and the increasing sale of shale, could ease the burden which the industry has to meet out of revenue. There is,
too, an aspect which I think should be held to the Board's credit. The present uses of colliery waste are largely, if not entirely, the result of research undertaken and paid for by the Board.
If I may sum up briefly, my Lords, I put it in this way. Derating is surely cheaper than landscaping. Usefully burying waste is the best way of disposing of it. Using the waste avoids the creation of additional dereliction such as

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"borrow" pits may create. The more shale is used, the more chance there is that new and additional uses for it may be found. Because the motorway programmes are in hand there is great urgency to consider the matter. In conclusion, I suggest that perhaps there is a case for considering the derating, not only of disused colliery spoil heaps but of all spoil heaps being used for similar puposes to those I have mentioned. I believe that it might well be cheaper than grants for re-contouring and, in the long run, prove the best way of helping to remove these industrial excrescences. I hope that I may have a helpful answer from my noble friend who is to reply.
6.23 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for raising what has come to be regarded as a most important question, that of colliery spoil heaps. Judging from his Question, there is no doubt at all that he is most interested in the further
improvement of the countryside by the removal of disused colliery spoil heaps. As my noble friend said, I have lived within sight of pit tips, as we call them, for the whole of my life. Only last week I was going through Sherwood Forest, on the edge of which there is situate a colliery. In the forest itself thousands and thousands of tons of this unsaleable rubbish have been deposited. If Robin Hood were to come back I do not know what he would say about such vandalism so far as Sherwood Forest is concerned.
In my view, recent happenings have brought the question of colliery spoil heaps greatly to the fore. This is not because they are new creations, because they have been there a very long time indeed. More people are talking about them
to-day than ever before. I think there are two main reasons for this, about which I want to say one or two words to your Lordships. The first is the tragedy of Aberfan. I make no apology for mentioning Aberfan because I believe that it has impressed itself upon the minds not only of those living within the vicinity of the tips themselves, but of the people throughout the length and breadth of the land. The sad and tragic happening at Aberfan was different from the question posed by my noble friend. There the question was one of safety
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and of danger to life and limb and to the property of those whose homes are in the vicinity of these tips.
Recently, within this Session, there has been legislation to deal with the safety angle so far as these tips are concerned, and the removal of danger is now in legislative form. The regulations that are laid down impose greater duties upon those who are responsible for these spoil heaps, and reports have to be made to Her Majesty's Inspector of Mines to ensure that they are in a safe condition. I am sure that all your Lordships will certainly agree with that, and will echo this sentiment: may we never have another Aberfan!
The second reason why I think that the public is talking about these spoil heaps is because of the permanent closing of collieries. In some cases, the headgear is dismantled, the machinery is taken away and only the spoil heaps are left. I submit that the very presence of these things in the places where the pits were once situated, as my noble friend has said, focuses attention upon what I call the tidying up of dereliction caused by mining operations over many years.
I have no doubt in my mind that the artistic sense in our people is so developed that everyone is desirous of removing these ugly monstrosities. There will be no disagreement about removing those colliery spoil heaps which are unsafe and are regarded as a danger. But there are two kinds of tip or spoil heaps: those which are regarded as dangerous and those which are not—and some are not dangerous in the sense that Aberfan was. But, as the Question postulates, even
those which are not dangerous spoil the countryside. They destroy amenity value, and attractiveness is forfeited where such spoil heaps exist.
That leads me to ask this question: is there a way of carrying out this tidying-up operation? I think there is. As my noble friend has demonstrated, the best way is to clear the heaps away and use the material for constructive purposes. This is now possible. At one time it was regarded as not being within the ambit of possibility. I remember many years ago being a member of a local authority where the argument was put forward: "Cannot this material which comes out of the pits and cannot be sold be used,

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for instance, for roadmaking?". In those days we were told that that was not a possibility; but now it is, and that is what is taking place.
For the sake of emphasising what my noble friend has said, I may have to cover a little ground to indicate the practical possibility of using this material from these spoil heaps. This is very recent history. By the middle '60s, which is not so very far away, the National Coal Board were disposing of about 5 million tons a year, as my noble friend has indicated. To begin with—and I think this is important because some spoil heaps fire and others do not—it was only burnt shale from these heaps that was a marketable commodity, but now I am informed that it has become possible to use unburnt or "black" shale, as it is sometimes referred to. Last year the National Coal Board, because of this discovery in the use of this material, were able to dispose of about 7 million tons. I do not think anybody would dispute that these sales are an extremely good thing. My information is that they have been achieved by cooperation with roadworks contractors, and that the building up of a good market reputation has been accomplished. I would emphasise a point to which my noble friend referred, that it is visualised that within two years sales could reach anything between 10 and 12 million tons per annum—and here comes the fly in the ointment, the little snag—provided that No impediment is put in the way which could possibly destroy the market for the disposing of this material from colliery spoil heaps. That is the purpose of my noble friend's Question, a purpose I heartily support.
If we were to go into various parts of the British coalfields, particularly the North-East (from where my noble friend Lord Blyton comes) the North-West, and the West Midlands, we should see that an impact has been made on derelict land. I admit that there is a lot more of this material left, but what has been removed from the heaps even up to now has made an obvious difference to the countryside. What attracts me about this matter is that no public funds are involved. It is a useful improvement in amenities, and in fact what has already
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been accomplished, in the form of landscaping as I have outlined, has been done at a saving to public funds.
May I mention one single case from Durham. A pit in Washington closed down, leaving behind it a big spoil heap. My noble friend Lord Blyton will know much more about this than I do. I understand that in the main the whole spoil heap was removed for motorway construction, for housing sites and so on. By doing so the first point that strikes us is that first-class land was released for development. In addition, had this colliery spoil heap not been removed the new town of Washington could have applied for a grant from public funds, which could have been anything up to 85 per cent., as my noble friend has indicated. It was estimated that the landscaping of this particular colliery heap in the new 'town authority of Washington would have cost £250, 000.
We have many motorway projects in the county of Yorkshire, and it could well be that from some of these tips or heaps shale to the extent of 20 million tons could be removed and used for this constructive purpose. May I say that if they do not have enough in Yorkshire, we in the counties of Nottingham and Derbyshire should be very pleased to supply them with some, because we have millions and millions of tons.
I now turn just for a few moments to the question of the impediment which could bring to a halt this very useful business of improving our countryside. The impediment, as my noble friend has indicated, is that the valuation officers have been pressing for rates respecting the sale of material from these spoil heaps. My information is that in the North-East, where activity in this field has been greatest, at present there are 50 cases in dispute, involving quite a large sum of money. No doubt these cases are sub judice, and it would be imprudent on my part to make any observations upon them at all. Therefore, I say only this—and this is my main concern—that it would be a pity if the opportunity of removing these spoil heaps is lost, and the improvement of the countryside in these areas where these heaps exist goes by the board. It could well be that, unless this Government give urgent consideration to the
desirability of introducing legislation to exclude such spoil heaps

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from liability to the payment of rates the opportunity for doing something important in this field will be lost and perhaps gone for ever.
May I briefly mention a few of the repercussions which could follow if rates have to be paid for the removal of this material? First of all, if these heaps are not removed they will have to be landscaped and the cost will fall on public funds. Secondly, the nation will lose the difference between second-class land created by landscaping, and first-class land which could be freed by complete removal of this material. Thirdly, motorway constructors and other civil engineering contractors may turn to more expensive material, and that would put up the cost of construction of projected motorways.
May I put this question on colliery rating to my noble friend who is to reply? This subject has intrigued me for a long time. Am I right in assuming that colliery rating takes two forms? First, there is the plant—the headgear, the screening plant, the washery, the winding engine houses and every other item which comes under the term "plant". Is that rated separately from output? Because, as I understand it, colliery rating is double edged: the plant is assessed and then there is an assessment on output. I can understand that, because the plant may be within the area of one local authority, while some of the output two miles away may be in the area of another authority. I know that this matter is rather complicated and tricky, but I should like to have some
information about it. The important question which I should like to ask is this: is the assessment made on the colliery's global output or on the saleable output? If the assessment is made on the global output, then rates will already have been paid on the material which constitutes the spoil heaps.
There are precedents for not levying rates. I recall the Local Government Act 1929, which absolved agriculture from the payment of rates. Under that legislation all industrial hereditaments were relieved of 75 per cent. of the rates. Agriculture is still derated and I believe that industrial hereditaments are derated to the extent of 50 per cent. Those are the observations which I wanted to make.
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In conclusion, may I say that, for the reasons which my noble friend has outlined, I hope the Government will consider the suggestion outlined in his Question. I know that there are complications, but I hope it will be possible for them to look favourably upon my noble friend's suggestion. By so doing, they will assist in the work of removal of these colliery spoil heaps. If that work can go on unhindered and if every facility is given, then we shall reach a stage, which I think we all want, of beautifying the countryside and making it more attractive.
6.46 p.m.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, I do not intend to keep the House very long at this late hour, but because I come from the county of Durham which has had more pits closed than anywhere else in the country I thought I should say a word on this issue. When a colliery closes and a twilight village is left, these hdeous pit heaps still face us and spoil the whole area. In the Government's development plan for my area to meet the unemployment problem, the clearance of pit heaps plays a prominent part. But if by this rate upon the heaps, we make it uncompetitive to lift this material for filling-in roads, then at some time in the future it will fall on the Exchequer or the local rates to clear them in conformity with the Government's regional plan to combat unemployment in the North-East. In the last few years I have seen pit heaps cleared to make marshalling yards for the railways and for pinning new roads, and, as a result, land is being reclaimed for other uses such as agriculture and building.
I ask myself the simple question: why do we now penalise the shifting of these heaps, to let posterity pay in the future? To me this is a penny-wise and pound-foolish policy. We know contractors in Durham who are in financial difficulties because this rate was fixed and made retrospective. I believe the Minister said at that time that he would consider their position. I cannot tell whether he has or not, but I can tell the Government Front Bench that as part of planning I saw a large pit heap taken away eight years ago from the colliery at which I worked for 32 years, and it was buried in the roads of new housing estates. That was a godsend to us, because from my

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window at home I had never been able to see the landscape beyond the pit heap.
If we make this work uneconomic as we are doing, we shall most certainly be inflicting an injury on our mining people. I want to be quite frank with the Ministry. In these twilight villages of my own county, now that the pits have gone every encouragement ought to be given to shifting these heaps away, so that the people left in the villages who are getting on in years, may at least see something other than the hideous heaps which have been left behind. Let us try to make their amenities a little better.
In the years that are gone we paid for putting that stuff down. We paid rates on it, because one had to pay rates on anything that was in gainful occupation. Now that the pit heap has burned itself out, now that it can be crushed for roads and made suitable for pinning, I plead with the Government not to make posterity pay for it. For the little bit of rate that is put on it and which makes it uneconomic, it is not worth it. For heaven's sake take it off! Let us "get shot" of the stuff as fast as we can, and make these villages which have been left derelict happier and brighter places to look at.
6.50 p.m.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Kennet and I have between us listened to the speeches which have been made this evening, and as he has been called away upon urgent business I am going to reply for him. I would say at the outset that we think the speeches have been of an extremely high standard; and we all know the tremendous interest which the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has always taken in this matter, and how often he has raised it with us. I shall not be able to reply in very great detail to the more technical aspects of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Mansfield, and the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, as I am sure they will understand—indeed, one or two of the points I have not completely understood—but I will do my best.
I should like to say at the very beginning that the Government are in sympathy with the spirit in which these points have been made. We understand it and are very much in sympathy with it.
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I must say, however (which, in a way, may be disappointing), that it is not yet possible to give the result of the Government's consideration as to whether there is a case for introducing legislation to exempt from liability to rates spoil heaps which are being worked to provide "fill" for civil engineering works—and I know that this is the basis of the noble Lord's case. As the House was informed in July, the deputation which came to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry was asked by him for more detailed information. Some further information was supplied within a week or so, but it was found not to give sufficient evidence of the economics of shale extraction for the case to be properly considered, and he was obliged to ask for more evidence. This has now been supplied, but we received it only a fortnight ago and there has not yet been time for the Ministry and the other Departments concerned to consider it fully. I very much hope that this consideration will not take much longer, and that we shall be able to end the uncertainty in the minds of those who are deeply concerned with the question.
According to the Question, the purpose of exemption would be to secure further improvement of the countryside by the removal of disused colliery spoil heaps. But one of the assumptions behind this idea must be that the removal of spoil from heaps for the purpose of providing "fill" material for civil engineering works secures this improvement by the removal of the heaps. If this were true, it would obviously be very attractive to the Government to secure the removal of unsightly spoil heaps by encouraging it as a means of gainful enterprise, rather than to pay heavy contributions towards a reclamation programme.
The shale contractor contributes to the removal and reclamation of derelict spoil heaps, and the Government hope that this readily exploitable source of "fill" material for road-making and other civil engineering projects will be used wherever possible, and particularly in preference to the digging of borrow pits. Our information is that local authorities, with the full backing of the Ministry's regional offices, take into account the value of some, anyhow, of these heaps in drawing up their reclamation programmes. Where, for instance, road works are imminent—and the

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noble Lord, Lord Taylor, referred to roads—near a heap containing suitable "fill" material, the form and timing of the reclamation scheme may be geared to the requirements of shale extraction.
But it is an exaggeration to assume or suggest that this is likely to be of great significance in the clearance of the vast acreage of derelict tips despoiling the countryside. I am afraid I must say that the House should not be left under any delusion that any foreseeable contribution to derelict land reclamation from shale extraction for civil engineering works is going to be more than infinitesimal beside that which the Government agree is necessary and are encouraging by the system of grants. Moreover, all the Ministry's experience shows that the presence of theoretically valuable material in a heap as often delays reclamation as it accelerates it. This is because the owner's hope that some local engineering enterprise may one day turn a lump of waste into a gold mine is often sufficient to paralyse outside initiative towards reclamation.
I was very much struck by the description by the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, of the landscape which was improved by the removal of a heap. I am afraid I cannot claim that the Government were responsible for that at any stage, but we very much accept the spirit in which he made his speech, and I shall draw the attention of my noble friend Lord Kennet to that sort of problem and hope that it will be dealt with in the way Lord Blyton wishes. I did not entirely understand the question of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, about global or saleable output. I think the answer is that shale heaps are assessed on saleable output and the assessment is based broadly on royalties, but if I have not entirely understood him I will write to him, if I may.
The most important question which we must deal with is about financial assistance and the particular question of exemption from rates. There are two
interests which are concerned with exploiting the use of shale from colliery tips, the National Coal Board and the contractors. The National Coal Board obtain royalties from the contractors, and out of these, of course, they have to meet expenses which they have to incur as a result of the extraction; but the remainder is profit to them. The con-
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tractors have to pay the royalties and their other expenses (including rates at present) in extracting the shale and marketing it, and, of course, they hops that the sale proceeds will leave something over for profit. Presumably, therefore, there is a balance between the Coal Board's profit on royalties and the contractor's profit on exploiting the tips, if other things remain equal. One way of altering that balance, if the contractors are finding that exploitation is no longer worth while, is to assist them, either by subsidy or by relief from rates or taxes. Another way would be for the National Coal Board, if they can without losing all their profit or making a loss, to reduce the royalty they charge.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, if my noble friend will permit me to interrupt her, will she, before she develops this point, give an indication that in fact the margin the Coal Board receive is sufficiently large to enable them to do what she is suggesting? I am very sorry to put the point, but I should not like it to be assumed that this is manageable. She is being so very precise that I am extremely sorry to be a little difficult.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, the noble Lord is never difficult—no one would ever think that. I entirely take his point. I cannot, naturally, answer it in detail at the moment, but I take the point and I will bring it to the attention of my noble friend. Apart from the immediate effects that the step suggested would have on the market equilibrium, it would probably have a secondary effect on the rates assessment, which, broadly speaking, is based on the royalty. I am not in a position at this moment to say that this is the appropriate solution, because the figures submitted are still under consideration. I have not looked at them myself; nor has my noble friend as yet, but I suspect that at present the scales may be weighted a little too much in the Coal Board's favour.
I am not pre-judging the issue, and I hope that my noble friend will not think that the Government have prejudged it. But it is only fair to emphasise that a real case, and a strong case, has to be made before exemption from rates can be considered. I think that all those who

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are closely concerned in this subject know that. I very much hope that it will not be long before the Government can say whether they think that the case made is strong enough. I am bound to say that I think that the excellent speeches we have had to-night, the obvious care and concern that noble Lords have displayed in this issue, will go a long way towards helping the Government to make their decision quickly.

WALSALL CORPORATION BILL WEST BROMWICH CORPORATION BILL WOLVERHAMPTON CORPORATION BILL
Reported, with Amendments.
House adjourned at seven o'clock.