Lords Sitting of 2 August 1971

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: THE LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Bristol.

GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCTS AND COST OF LIVING COMPARISONS
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they can supply yearly figures, for each year from 1953 onwards (including O.E.C.D. or other reliable forecasts for the current year), which will convey the following information:

(a) the G.N.P. of each of the six E.E.C. countries, the United Kingdom, and each of the EFTA countries;

(b) the yearly percentage increase or decrease compared with the preceding year;

(c) similar figures expressed in terms per head of the population and the working population;

(d) an index figure for each year showing the cost of living in each country as compared with a basic figure of 100 for the United Kingdom;

(e) the value of Marshall Aid to each country during the period.

the figures to be expressed in pounds sterling, U.S. dollars or some other comparable currency.]

GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT AT MARKET PRICES PER HEAD OF THE WORKING POPULATION (Dollars)

1957

1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

1968

1969

Belgium

2,770

2,820

2,910

3,120

3,310

3,500

3,750

4,150

4,520

4,820

5,160

5,430

5,900

France

2,830

2,910

2,810

3,110

3,390

3,770

4,180

4,600

4,900

5,270

5,630

6,120

6,680

Germany

1,970

2,250

2,280

2,730

3,090

3,340

3,560

3,900

4,220

4,500

4,640

5,060

5,680

Italy

1,290

1,390

1,500

1,680

1,850

2,110

2,470

2,690

2,930

3,210

3,510

3,780

4,150

Luxembourg

3,280

3,280

3,360

3,660

3,810

3,820

4,040

4,640

4,820

5,000

5,140

5,610

6,360

Netherlands

2,230

2,280

2,440

2,680

2,910

3,090

3,320

3,840

4,250

4,550

5,000

5,470

6,030

Austria

1,500

1,550

1,630

1,840

2,030

2,170

2,340

2,550

2,780

3,020

3,260

3,480

3,810

Denmark

2,440

2,670

2,840

3,110

3,450

3,620

4,080

4,520

4,840

5,180

5,220

5,910

Norway

2,760

2,760

2,940

3,110

3,360

3,600

3,870

4,250

4,700

5,100

5,550

5,920

6,330

Portugal

660

670

720

780

830

880

940

1,030

1,150

1,250

1,410

1,580

1,740

Sweden

3,080

3,180

3,340

3,570

3,850

4,120

4,400

4,940

5,430

5,840

6,330

6,610

7,150

Switzerland

2,940

3,060

3,250

3,450

3,770

3,940

4,250

4,610

5,030

5,490

5,880

6,340

6,870

United
Kingdom

2,490

2,630

2,760

2,880

3,040

3,170

3,340

3,600

3,850

4,080

4,240

4,000

4,280

Figures prior to 1957 (1958 in the case of Denmark) are not available on a comparable basis.

THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, most of the information sought by the noble Lord is available in O.E.C.D. publications, and I think it would be wasteful to reproduce these extensive tables in the OFFICIAL REPORT. With permission, however, I shall circulate in the Report the titles of the publications and reference from which the noble Lord can obtain the information that he seeks, together with such information as is not contained in O.E.C.D. publications.
Following is the information referred to:
Most of the information is given in National Accounts of O.E.C.D. Countries, 1953–1969, The G.N.P. at market prices, converted to U.S. dollars at the official exchange rate for each year, is given for each country both in total and per head of population on page 10. The corresponding figures at constant prices are given in the form of index numbers on page 11. The yearly changes in G.N.P. at constant prices compared with the preceding year are given from page 400 onwards. The National Accounts volume does not give figures per head of the working population but these have been calculated using data from the O.E.C.D. publication of Labour Force Statistics and these are given below. Price indices for private consumption, taking 1963 = 100 for each country, are given on page 13 of the National Accounts volume, but it is not possible to use these to compare the level of prices in other countries with that in the United Kingdom because of the differences in the patterns of consumption and of internal prices between one country and another. Figures of G.N.P. for 1970 are not yet available. Forecasts for the present year for major O.E.C.D. countries are contained in the O.E.C.D. publication. Economic Outlook, published in July. In the case of the United Kingdom, the O.E.C.D. forecast was prepared before the measures announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on July 19, when he said that he expected a rate of growth of output of 4 to 4½ per cent. between the first halves of 1971 and 1972. There were no commitments in respect of Marshall Aid for the years after 1952, and I have no record of any payments which may have been made during the period from 1953 onwards.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, thank the noble Earl for that reply. But does he not think it is calculated to arouse suspicions in the minds of many people who may be favourable to entry into the Economic Community, but who may be tilted the other way by the refusal of the Government to come out straightforwardly with all the information, impartially and objectively, on this question?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think suspicions would be aroused only in the minds of the suspicious. If I had answered in extenso the five questions put to me by the noble Lord, I think it might have taken me to well past three o'clock.
LORD LEATHER LAND: My Lords, it would be time well spent. I thank the noble Earl.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, in view of the implications involved in this particular Question, is one to assume that we have not attached to this House a research department through which such information could be made available to Members of the House and circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT, as requested?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think that is another question. Before leaping to conclusions, it might be advisable for noble Lords to wait and see the information which is provided in the OFFICIAL REPORT as promised in my Answer.

CHINA: PROPOSED EXCHANGE OF AMBASSADORS
2.38 p.m.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they can report on the progress of negotiations with Peking for full diplomatic representation between this country and the People's Republic of China.]
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, discussions about an exchange of Ambassadors have taken place between Her Majesty's Goverment and the People's Republic of China at intervals since 1950. Following the improvement in our relations with
794
China, these discussions were resumed early this year and are continuing. The content of the discussions is confidential. I regret that I am not yet in a position to make a further statement.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for that reply, may I ask him what preconditions were made, and what obstacles arose during the course of these negotiations which may have held up their successful outcome?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, as these negotiations are at present continuing I think it would probably be unwise if we went into too much detail.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I hope the Government will recognise the imaginative step taken by the President of the United States in visiting China, and that, in the light of the much improved atmosphere between this country and China, Her Majesty's Government will make special efforts to bring about this recognition.
EARL FERRERS: Yes, my Lords. Of course we accept the new state of affairs that has occurred, and we are taking this into account. This is underlying the consideration which is being given to the matter.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, can the noble Earl say whether the existence of an independent, freedom-loving China is a cause which this country ought to abandon?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, we are concerned that all countries which are freedom loving should have the right to express their freedom in the best possible way. We are merely concerned to see that China is as approriately represented as possible.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, would it not be most unfortunate if the opening of these discussions led to Taiwan being overtaken by the same fate at Tibet?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I think it is that kind of consideration that is underlying the detailed concern which is being given to this very point. There are arguments on both sides; the one which the noble Lord has brought forward is one of them.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, is not the noble Earl aware that we are represented in China by a Chargé d'Affaires, and it is merely a question about what status our representation should he? It does not involve the question of Taiwan at all.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, for a long period of time we have been concerned about an exchange of Ambassadors, and discussions are taking place to see whether this is possible.

E.E.C. AND IMPORT PRICES FOR EGGS
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: 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, so far as the enlarged Common Market is concerned, minimum import prices for eggs, which at present protect the home industry from imports below the cost of production, will be removed completely on the first day of the transitional period; furthermore, whether exports of eggs from the E.E.C. to the United Kingdom will be subsidised to the extent of the difference in foodstuffs cost between the Common Market and this country.]
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, under the terms of the agreement reached in Brussels, minimum import prices for eggs would be replaced during the first year of the transition by the system of threshold prices and levies-on-imports from third countries which are already used in the existing Community. During the transition, trade in eggs between members of the enlarged Community would attract subsidies or levies to the extent of the difference in feedingstuffs-costs. These subsidies and levies will be phased out as cereal feed prices are aligned during the transition.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that reply. May I ask whether I am right in understanding that, in addition to this small subsidy which is repre-
796
sented by the feedingstuffs difference, suppliers in the Common Market will be able from the beginning of the transitional period to send their eggs to this country at any price, irrespective of the cost of production, whereas up till now we have always been able to apply to the Board of Trade for dumping restrictions?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, of course the eventual idea is that there should be a free market in eggs within the Community. During the transitional period there will also be a free market, and in that respect other countries may send eggs here and we may export our eggs to other countries. I have no reason to believe that the British egg industry, which is highly competitive, will not be able to fulfil this object.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that over-production is current in the E.E.C. and is on the edge here? It is rather difficult for an industry to be put straight away into a state of surplus on both sides.
EARL FERRERS: Yes, my Lords, I entirely take the point of the noble Lord that there has been a surplus. But, as he probably knows better than most, the egg industry is one which acts rather like a yo-yo, and by the time we enter the transitional period, which will not be until 1973, different circumstances may obtain.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, can the noble Earl say whether the position of Northern Ireland farmers will be considered before the minimum import prices of eggs are abolished?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I think that the position of all farmers, whether they are in England or in Northern Ireland, will be considered.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that I am fully cognisant of almost every clause in the Treaty of Rome and that I can find no reference to a yo-yo?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord has tried translating it.

ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE CONSTITUTION
LORD ILFORD: 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 when it is expected that a Report may be received from the Royal Commission on the Constitution.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD WINDLESHAM): My Lords, it is not yet known when the Commission will report.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, which was not substantially different from the Answer that he gave me to a similar Question six months ago. May I ask my noble friend whether it is not highly desirable, in view of the important bearing that the Report from this Commission is likely to have upon the reorganisation of local services and local boundaries in certain parts of England, that it should be available in ample time before negotiations start in earnest?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, the Commission is hard at work and is anxious to complete its task as soon as possible. But this is a major inquiry of very far-reaching significance, and the Government do not believe it would be right to tie the Commission down by requiring it to report by a given date.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) (No. 2) BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate of the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911; read 1a.

CIVIL AVIATION BILL
2.47 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Carrington, I
798
beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Sandford.)
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.
LORD BESWICK LORD BESWICK moved Amendment No. 1:
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause
".—(1) It shall be the duty of the Authority to prepare from time to time, and cause to be published in such manner as seems to the Authority appropriate for informing persons appearing to the Authority to be concerned, plans relating to the provision and development of aerodromes and air navigation services in the United Kingdom with due regard to the relationship and interaction between air transport and other forms of transport and the Authority shall send to the Secretary of State a copy of any plan prepared by it under this section.
(2) Plans under this section shall be in such form and for such periods as the Authority and the Secretary of State may from time to time agree: and in preparing any such plan the Authority shall consult with the Secretary of State and with any local authority appearing to it to be concerned to a significant degree by the plan and with any other bodies who appear to the Authority to be able to contribute substantially to the formulation of the plan and shall have regard—

(a) to any considerations to which the Secretary of Stale may from time to time draw their attention, including in particular, considerations of national or regional transport policy;

(b) to the development of aviation technology which can contribute to the improvement of the level of air transport services and of the effect of such services upon the community, and to the needs of general aviation.

(3) In this section—

" local authority"has the meaning ascribed to it by section 29(10) of this Act;

" general aviation"means all civil flying except that performed by a holder of an air transport licence."

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall not take up a great deal of time with this Amendment. During the Committee and Recommittal stages, I made the point that we needed for this country someone or some organisation that would accept responsibility for the future planning of our airports policy, and it seemed to me that the Civil Aviation Authority was the right organisation to shoulder that responsibility. I sensed that on both sides of the Committee there was agreement with that proposition. I tabled an

799
Amendment which I thought reflected the general wishes of the Committee, and I made reference to the need for the varying interests to be consulted in the preparation of the kind of plan which I had in mind. Since then the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, and his advisers have been kind enough to consider the problem, and there is another Amendment on the Marshalled List.
For my part, I shall be glad to hear what the noble Lord has to say about the difference between my Amendment and the Amendment which he has tabled on behalf of Her Majesty's Government. If he will give me an assurance that what I am seeking to achieve is, in fact, achieved by his Amendment, then I shall be glad to withdraw mine and accept his. I shall be particularly glad if he will have regard to what was said by noble Lords behind him and on the Liberal Benches, as well as by those on our side of the House, about the need to consult the different organisations concerned, such as the local authorities and so on. There appears to be no reference to this point in the Amendment which he has tabled, and I shall be glad if he will clarify that point. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I shall be glad to respond to the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and deal with his Amendment No. 1 by also speaking to my own Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5, although the substance of the matter is contained in Amendment No. 3. The Government accept that advice about aerodromes, in the sense of drawing up what is generally referred to as a national airports plan, is a matter of sufficient importance to merit specific mention in the Bill, and they therefore fully accept the intention behind the noble Lord's Amendment.
We have, however, put down our own alternative to the same end for two main reasons, and this, I think, will meet the assurances for which the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, asked. First of all, as I think I said at an earlier stage, the advisory functions of the Authority, as opposed to the executive functions, are dealt with in Clause 33. This therefore seems to be the right place in which to insert this additional provision. As I think the noble Lord will agree, it is an
800
advisory function, because the execution of this plan cannot be vested exclusively in the Civil Aviation Authority. Moreover, since these Amendments are concerned with a special case within the general context of Clause 33, it is necessary to make some cross-reference between the new provision and subsection (1) of that clause to make it clear that the new provision does not prejudice the generality of the existing provision.
The second reason why we lean somewhat towards this particular way of meeting the noble Lord's intention is that we believe that the Government's alternative in fact does all that the noble Lord's version is intended to do but that the details are left, as I think his own Amendment recognises, to be spelt out in the guidance in Clause 3(2), where, as I have already said at earlier stages, we were intending to spell this matter out. Some of the points which he has included in his Amendment can, I think, be dealt with there, and among them the necessity to consult with local authorities closely concerned.
There is one further point which I should like to make: that there will be nothing to prevent the Authority publishing its studies in this or in any other field, and it will be able to set out its own advice in whatever form it thinks appropriate. Clause 33 specifically requires the Authority to provide advice and assistance. However, as I explained during Committee, at an earlier stage, the extent and the method by which the Authority's recommendations might be implemented will in this particular case be for the Government to determine. I think, therefore, it would be useful to impose on the Secretary of State the duty to publish such matters, as it will thereby be possible to add any views he may have on them. I think that that will be appropriate when we are talking about a national airports plan. I hope that with these assurances and explanations the noble Lord will be able to withdraw his Amendment and transfer his support in this respect to the Government Amendment.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, I should very much like to welcome this new Amendment by the Government which we are discussing at the same time as the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick. To

801
spell this out as a duty on the Authority is definitely a step forward. May I merely express the pious hope that, now that it is set down as a duty, we shall sooner rather than later actually get a national airports plan?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am disposed to respond to the invitation of the noble Lord. There are just two further observations I would make. First, it seems a little odd that Her Majesty's Government have left it to the last stage of the Second Chamber before inserting anything in this Bill about the planning ahead of airports. However, better late than never; and I am pleased to think that we have had some part to play in bringing the Government forward on this point. The second remark I think I ought to make is this. We had a good deal of discussion at earlier stages about the difficulty, as I see it, of this Authority paying its way one year with another. I should like to emphasise that this fresh duty which we are now placing upon the Authority is not one which will attract any revenue at all. It will be an essential duty, but it will not be a profitable one; and I hope that that will be taken into account. With those remarks, my Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 33 [Provision by the Authority of assistance etc. for Secretary of State and others]:
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 2.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 30, leave out (" the following subsection ") and insert (" subsection (2) of this section ")—(Lord Sandford).
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 3.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 34, at end insert—
(" (1A) Without prejudice to the preceding subsection, it shall also be the duty of the Authority—

(a) to consider what aerodromes are in its opinion likely to be required from time to time in the United Kingdom in addition to or in place of or by way of alteration of existing aerodromes; and

(b) to make recommendations to the Secretary of State arising out of its consideration of that matter;

802
and it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to publish the recommendations (except any of them of which the publication appears to him unnecessary) in such manner as he considers appropriate for bringing them to the notice of the public.")—(Lord Sandford).
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 4.
Amendment moved—
Page 37, line 35, leave out (" the preceding subsection ") and insert (" subsection (1) of this section ").—(Lord Sandford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 5.
Amendment moved—
Page 38, line 7, after (" section ") insert (" and in performing the duty imposed on it by subsection (1A) of this section ")—(Lord Sandford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Additional provisions relating to constitution etc. of Civil Aviation Authority]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 66, line 10, leave out from (" on ") to second (" is ") in line 11 and insert (" such subsequent date as the Secretary of State may determine ")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 6, and it wilt be convenient to consider with it Amendment No. 7. The purpose of this Amendment is to remove a technical defect in the existing text. We had some difficulty here at an earlier stage. The position now is that, without the Amendment that I am moving, the paragraph would require the Authority to make an offer to each person who is employed by a relevant body at the passing of the Act and on the date when an offer is made to them. This would mean that the Authority could not ascertain the persons to whom the offer must be made until the offer was actually made, so that in effect there could be no offer, which is clearly not the intention. It is therefore desirable to amend the paragraph so as to define the class of persons to whom the offer is to be made by reference to their employment at a date determined by the Secretary of State instead of by reference to their employment at the date of the offer. Amendment No. 7 is consequential to Amendment No. 6. I beg to move.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I must just say how gratifying it is to learn that the noble Lord's legal advisers are not always infallible.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 7.
Amendment moved—
Page 66, line 16, leave out from (" shall ") to (" not ") in line 17.—(Lord Sandford.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 9 [Transitional provisions]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 86, line 53, at end insert—
(" (2) In the application of the preceding sub-paragraph to Northern Ireland, for the reference to the said Act of 1963 and the references to section 13(1) of the said Act of 1965 there shall be substituted respectively a reference to the Contracts of Employment and Redundancy Payments Act (Northern Ireland) 1965 and references to section 23(1) of the last-mentioned Act.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move this last Amendment, which stands in the name of my noble friend Lord Carrington. The purpose of the Amendment is to bring Northern Ireland legislation into line with paragraph 4, thus ensuring that employees of the Air Registration Board in Northern Ireland are treated in the same way as their colleagues in Great Britain. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. I think we can now safely say that this Bill has been improved in a number of respects since it has been in your Lordships' House. All I should like to do at this stage is to express the thanks of the Government to a number of noble Lords who have contributed to this: to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and to my noble friend Lord Kinnoull, particularly in respect to the improvements which have been made, not without some travail, to Clause 3(1) and elsewhere as regards safeguarding the interests of travellers. The only thing which divided us was the way in which this should be done. I think we were united, and the
804
number of occasions on which we expressed out common ground on objectives became rather tedious. We were considerably divided as to ways and means, but we are grateful for what has been achieved. Again, we are grateful to the same noble Lord for the improvements to Clause 24, the clause which has to do with air transport licensing appeals; to the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, and the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, in respect of the improvements on Clause 27 concerning the Airworthiness Requirements Board; to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, in respect of the improvement and extension of the powers in designating aerodromes in order to control the noise nusance arising from them, which was achieved in Clause 29 and to the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, and the noble Lord, Lord Burntwood, in regard to the Amendments to the cause affecting the interests of staff both of the Air Registration Board and the Civil Service on transfer.
My Lords, the Bill has translated into legislation recommendations of the Edwards Committee, and I think that this is perhaps an appropriate moment to register again our gratitude to them for the work they did. I hope noble Lords will agree that as a result of this legislation there will be benefits to British civil aviation as a whole, to B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. in particular, and considerable improvements in the further evolution of the machinery of Government. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Sandford.)
3.2 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I think that a word or two of good wishes from this side of the House are called for. So many hopes had been pinned on a new legislative framework for civil aviation that I am bound to say that when the Bill arrived there was a good deal of disappointment. The blame, I am told, can be placed largely upon the lawyers, who appear to feel that caution is better than courage and restriction better than enlarged responsibility. However, we are grateful to them for what they have done in producing this Bill. I have specially in mind, as far as the disappointment is concerned, the vexed question of appeals procedure. However, as the

805
noble Lord has said, the Bill was improved in another place and we can claim that it was further improved in this House. I only regret that the discussion was further cramped by inadequate time at the tail end of the Session. I am grateful to the Minister for Trade, Mr. Noble, for so readily listening to the representations that we made and also to his advisers for the efforts that they made to meet our point of view. I say"our ", because if ever there was a combined effort from the Government, the Opposition, the Cross Benches and the Liberal Benches, it was on this Bill. I should like to pay my own tribute to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for the informed and helpful part he played and also to say how much I admired the sturdy way in which the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, on the Cross Benches stuck to what he thought were points of principle. The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, and his friends also greatly helped. I have a particular reason to be grateful to my noble friend Lord Burntwood for the way in which he looked after the interests of the staff as we saw them.
There it is. We have a Bill, an improved Bill, and all that we can now do is to wish it well. We have reached this stage as a result of two noble Lords taking over in somewhat difficult circumstances and I should like to express my appreciation and thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, and to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, for the manly, patient and courteous way in which they dealt with all our criticisms throughout the later stages of the Bill. I am grateful to them.
LORD KINGS NORTON: My Lords, may I add a few words to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick? This has been a very long haul. It was as long ago as November 5, 1967, that the Edwards Committee came into being and it reported on April 1, 1969—it was a Committee that had a nice taste in dates. Through all that long period there has been a certain anxiety in the aviation world which is affected by what was originally proposed by the Committee. I suppose that if a year ago I had tried to visualise myself speaking to your Lordships on this matter I should have imagined myself intoning a threnody in lamentation of the passing of the Air
806
Registration Board. I am delighted to find that I do not feel like that at all. Most of those concerned with this matter who once swallowed the big pill that there is going to be a Civil Aviation Authority, have in the end been most pleasurably surprised at the way the whole thing worked out. All that remains now, as we have a skeleton plan for this Authority (which at this stage is about as good as it can be) is to make the new machinery work. I am sure that everybody concerned will do that with the utmost good will.
On Question, Bill passed and returned to the Commons.

HOUSING BILL
3.7 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Sandford.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1. [Housing improvement in development areas and intermediate areas]:
LORD JACQUES LORD JACQUES moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 11, after (" area ") insert (" or carried out in the designated area of a New Town which is partly within such a local government area ").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Amendment is to avoid anomalies in the designated areas of New Towns. It can best be explained by way of example. In Lancashire, in and around the whole county borough of Warrington, a New Town is being built. The designated area has a population of 130,000. Of these, 70,000 are in the old county borough and 60,000 are in the surrounding countryside. The surrounding countryside is in one of two rural districts, the rural district of Runcorn and the rural district of Warrington. In the extreme West of both of these rural districts is the development area; so that in the West

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both of these rural districts are in the development area, and as the Bill stands the whole of these rural districts will get the benefits of the additional grants. Therefore it follows that in the designated area of the New Town the centre or core of the County Borough of Warrington will not get the benefits of this Bill but the surrounding countryside will get the benefits.
Let us look at the effects. One of the objects of the scheme for a New Town is to redevelop and improve the whole county borough. The county borough is acting in the spirit and letter of Government policy. It has a special team on house improvements and it is estimated currently that in the county borough there are 5,000 houses which are worthy of improvement. But if the Bill goes into law as it stands, without this Amendment, the additional grants would be denied to the county borough but would go to the surrounding area. This, I suggest, is inconsistent with one of the objects of the scheme for the New Town. There are property owners and agents of property owners who have properties both inside and outside the county borough. They will tend to use such funds as are available outside the borough to get the additional grants, rather than inside the borough where there is the greatest need.
Furthermore, as in many boroughs of this size, those in the higher income group employed in the borough live outside the borough, while those who are lower paid and employed in the borough live inside the borough. Consequently, if the Bill is passed without this Amendment, the higher paid living outside the borough will get the benefit of the additional grants, while the lower paid living inside the borough will be denied those additional grants. For example, a managing director or a professional man living outside the borough could buy a country cottage and get the benefit of these grants, while a lower paid man living inside the borough would be denied the additional grants for his house inside the borough.
This is an anomaly. The effect of the Amendment is to make clear that where any part of the designated area of a New Town is within a local government area which receives the grant, then the whole
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of the designated area shall be treated alike and shall receive the grant. I hope that the Minister will admit that the circumstances I have outlined show a gross anomaly, that this Amendment would avoid that anomaly, and accordingly that he will be able to accept the Amendment.
LORD SANDFORD: I think that in answer to this Amendment, and probably to all five Amendments which we are dealing with to-day, I shall need to stress particularly to the Committee the limited purpose and special purpose for which this Bill has been introduced. It is limited in two respects. It is limited in point of time to the two years beginning on June 23 this year. It is limited geographically to the assisted areas, the development areas and intermediate areas, with one relatively minor adjustment.
This is not the Bill in the Government's programme which is primarily intended to relieve the areas of greatest housing stress. That Bill is the one to be introduced early in the next Session, of which details are set out in the Government's White Paper, A Fair Deal for Housing. I say that at the beginning because I do not for a moment disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, about the importance of getting on with housing in Warrington, and Warrington New Town, or the value of what the team there is doing; but this is not the Bill which is intended to bear directly on that problem, which is recognised to be a very considerable one in Warrington and in many other places in the country which will not be affected by or benefit from this legislation.
This legislation has a purpose limited in time and space, as I have set out, and is designed to accelerate the rate of improvement grant in the assisted areas to match that which prevails in the rest of the country. I think that if that point is fully taken the anomalies, which I fully admit exist in a particularly sharp form in Warrington New Town, can be seen as justified.
To go into the matter in some detail, as the noble Lord, Lord Jacques said, the Amendment would undoubtedly widen the scope of the Bill in a way we are seeking not to widen it (for the reasons I have given) by applying its provisions to the designated area of a

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New Town if it happens to be within a local government area which itself is wholly within an assisted area. Its effect would be to bring in the County Borough of Warrington. We do not deny for a moment any of the housing problems of the County Borough of Warrington. If the County Borough of Warrington in the earlier and different legislation had been included in the Merseyside development area, of course this Amendment would not have been necessary because Warrington and its housing problems would have been embraced within the purpose of this Bill. But arguments on which areas should and which should not be classed as development or intermediate areas fall for discussion on regional development policy or development area policy and do not come within the scope of discussion in Committee on this Housing Bill.
As I say, we fully admit that anomalies are thereby created between the treatment accorded by this Bill to Warrington County Borough and its surrounding districts, but regrettable as they are unavoidable within the context of this Bill, an attempt to remedy them by Amendments to this Bill would lead to far greater and even more numerous anomalies. Development areas, as the Committee knows, are based on areas of local employment exchanges, not on local government areas. They do not by any means necessarily change their size with areas of borough and district councils which have responsibility for housing and area improvements. This applies particularly to local government districts, many of which are cut in two by the boundaries of development areas.
However, from the point of view of efficiency and uniform administration of improvement grants, which is a housing function, it is clearly desirable that the same rate of grant should apply throughout the whole area of a local authority which is concerned with that part of its area which lies in a development area. To that extent we have widened the provisions of the Bill, but I am sure that it would be wrong to go beyond that. That is why the provisions of the Bill extend to the whole of a local government area even if only part of it is within a development area, and in turn
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it is the reason why some districts surrounding Warrington will enjoy the preferential treatment given by the Bill.
I hope that this serves to show why it is illogical to relate the provisions of this Bill to areas of local authorities for the purposes of the Housing Act 1969. It would not be appropriate to have a different criterion for this Bill which merely increases the amount of the financial assistance. I hope that that explanation—although I am sure it will not satisfy the feeling of the noble Lord that an anomaly has occurred here because undoubtedly it has—will serve to explain to him why we cannot seek to rectify that anomaly in this Bill for it would lead to greater anomalies.
LORD SHINWELL: Naturally I am not interested in this particular part of the country, but a New Town has been mentioned and I am a little curious to understand why; because in my old constituency there is a New Town. Is not the position that the housing arrangements of a New Town are quite different from those for which a local authority is responsible? The New Towns for housing purposes, so far as I understand, come within the ambit of the Commission responsible for their administration; they have special housing arrangements and special financial provisions. Is not that the reason why this anomaly exists?
LORD SANDFORD: That is not exactly the reason, but what the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, has said certainly has a bearing on this matter. From Warrington's point of view there is an anomaly in that Skelmersdale will benefit from this Bill. That is because it is a New Town linked with the Merseyside development area, and there are provisions in the Industrial Development Act 1966 which create that link. This will, as it were, enable Skelmersdale, linked as it is with Merseyside which is a development area, to benefit from the provisions of the Bill; but that does not apply in the case of Warrington.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Having represented Warrington as Member of Parliament for about seven years, I should like to ask why in this respect Warrington was excluded and not treated in the same way.
LORD SANDFORD: I am not quite sure of what the noble Baroness is asking me.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: The noble Lord said that Skelmersdale was included in the Merseyside area and therefore would not be excluded, as Warrington is. Why is this exception made?
LORD SANDFORD: I did not say that it was included but that it was linked. Every New Town has a particular function—for instance, Milton Keynes will be concerned with overspill from London and Skelmersdale was linked with Merseyside for the purpose of receiving overspill and transfer of population. Warrington was linked with Manchester, which is not a development area. That is the reason for the different treatment of the two towns.
LORD JACQUES: I was not arguing that Warrington should be part of a development area or intermediate area. I fully understand that it is for administrative convenience for the additional grant to be paid to local authority areas, but I still fail to see any reason why the Amendment could not be accepted, so that where the designated area is in part in a local authority area which receives grant, the whole of that designated area should not receive the grant. The cost to the Government would be negligible and it would get rid of anomalies which amount to an intolerable injustice.
LORD SANDFORD: Unfortunately, this could not be done in respect of Warrington without a considerable number of very similar cases having to be faced and the whole scope of the Bill would be enormously widened.
LORD JACQUES: I did not know that we had so many New Towns as to cause the scope of the Bill to be so enormously widened. If there are other cases like Warrington, then they should all be treated alike and get these grants.
LORD SANDFORD: The noble Lord argued originally that we had problems of housing shortages which ought to be dealt with and on that basis there would not be a case for extending the Bill in favour of New Towns, which were designed to relieve housing shortages elsewhere, but if there was an extension
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to be based on the noble Lord's argument, we should have to think of a wider extension than just to the New Towns.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
3.23 p.m.
LORD DERWENT LORD DERWENT moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 12, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—
(" (a) no work on the improvements has started before the relevant date, and ").
The noble Lord said: I regret that I was unable to be here on the Second Reading of the Bill, but the point underlying this Amendment was dealt with to some extent by the noble Lords, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale and Lord Airedale. I have been in correspondence and in conversation with my noble friend Lord Sandford for some weeks, so he will not be altogether surprised that I have put down an Amendment. Before he starts to answer in the same way as he answered the last Amendment, may I say that this Amendment does not widen the scope of the Bill. It certainly does not widen the scope so far as area is concerned and when it comes to wording, it does not widen that either.
The purpose of the Amendment is simple. According to the Bill it is on or after June 23, which is the relevant date, that an application must be made to get the new terms. The Amendment seeks to say that the relevant date shall apply, not to the date of application, but to the day on which the work starts on the improvement. I must declare a direct personal interest. I am in the unfortunate position of owning a number of rural cottages. I say"unfortunate position ", because, as any landlord knows, most of these cottages show a considerable loss. The way I have always worked matters is this. When a cottage falls in, as they do periodically, I have a look at the question of bringing it up to modern standards before re-letting. In most cases, with the grant, it is more or less a financial proposition, if one does not take too much account of the future, for they are practically all rent restricted and let at very low rents. Occasionally, it simply is not a financial proposition to modernise a cottage at all. I have one cottage that has been empty for several years and even the local authority surveyor agrees with me that it is not a

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worthwhile proposition. It is just standing empty.
The cottage I want to use as an example for my argument is one that fell vacant last year. It is a good stone cottage and the exterior is perfectly sound, though I think it probably needs a damp course. It has very few modern amenities and in my view it is not fit to be let again until it is brought up to modern standards. At the beginning of this year we started the usual rigmarole. I had a long talk with the local authority so as to get an outline of what work was needed to bring it up to modern standards. Then I got tenders from various builders and when all that was ready I applied to the local authority for a grant. At the beginning of June, before the scheme was announced, the local authority offered a grant. They wanted a little extra work done before they finally agreed to my application and that was all right. My agent and I then went into the proposition in detail and came to the conclusion that it was not a financial proposition to do the modernisation of this cottage, taking into account the rent we should be likely to obtain and the amount of work that had to be done. So I gave orders that the work was not to be started and the cottage was not to be let but should remain empty, which I think was a sensible thing to do.
Shortly after that, this new scheme was announced, so I saw the local authority and asked whether it might be worth while going ahead on the new terms. They said that that seemed sensible but they did not quite know what attitude the Minister was going to take about it. They said that the sensible thing to do was to forget the old application and put in an entirely new one, if I was allowed to do that.
In view of the doubts in everyone's mind, I got in touch with my noble friend Lord Sandford, and after some weeks, because I gather that the Department had not made up its mind, I got a letter back from my noble friend, saying that I was perfectly entitled not to go ahead under the terms of the original application, but if I made a new application for the work specified (and I quote, if I may, with my noble friend's permission, one sentence from his letter):
" It would appear to be finally determined by the authority so that the further applica-
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tion in respect of subsidy for the same work could not be entertained."
That is the attitude of the Minister. I would ask my noble friend on what authority he says that. It certainly is not Parliamentary authority, because in this case I think the Parliamentary authority is the Bill and the Bill says nothing of the kind. All the Bill says is that on or after June 23 to get the new grant the application shall be made on or after that date. It does not mention anything about previous applications. I wonder, when it was drafted, if it was ever intended that it should have that effect.
A previous application for the same work might have been made ten years ago. Does that mean that housing of this kind cannot go ahead? It is an absurdity; and not only that, but the attitude of the Ministry is directly contrary to Government policy, as was laid down in the Second Reading, clearly and sensibly, by my noble friend. What he said was that the intention of the Bill was to encourage
" people to bring forward new improvement work that might have been postponed, if indeed ever undertaken ".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22/7/71, col. 1204.]
That is exactly the situation of the cottage about which I have been talking: it has certainly been postponed, and, under the old terms, may never be undertaken. I cannot understand why the Department are being so obstructive when Government policy is so clear.
I was in two minds whether to put down this Amendment. It is rather personal, and perhaps I had better say at this stage that it will make no difference to me financially which way it goes: one way I shall spend some money, and hope to get most of it back in due course; and the other way I shall not spend any money, and the cottage will not be let. The reason why I put the Amendment down was that I find that many local authorities are in exactly the same boat. They are saying that it is unfair as between one landlord and another; and furthermore, when they want these houses, many householders will not go ahead unless they get the higher grant, because they cannot afford it. That is the position.
Finally, I would say this to my noble friend. Presumably, what is going to happen is that the Department will circularise local authorities saying that they

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must not entertain any new application when they have considered such an application at an earlier date. I imagine that is how it will work, because the Bill does not say anything else. If the Department, or the Government, agree to change their mind and say that previous applications do not matter provided all the other things are right, and the new application goes in on or after June 23, then all that has to happen is for them to tell the local authorities that that is the case, and this Amendment will be quite unnecessary. I ask my noble friend to think again, because I believe his Department are going directly contrary to Government policy. But—if he will forgive me for saying so—if it is Government policy, then I think it is extremely stupid. I beg to move.
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE: I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, in what he has said. As I understand it, the object of the Government in promoting this legislation is to give a shot in the arm to the development and intermediate areas and to speed up the improvement of what are appalling housing conditions in those areas, but it seems to me—and it will, I think, seem the same to most of your Lordships—that if this proposal is to help, the test must be whether or not work has been started, and not whether the application has been granted, which at present is the sole test. If I am right, that means that if the argument is still going on, which means that it is a marginal case—it may be, for example, that the house may have a damp course but no sanitation, on the lines that the noble Lord described—it will be eligible for the increased grant; but if the local authority had not objected or questioned the application and it was therefore more obviously a good case, it would not be eligible for the increased grant. That seems to me to be obviously absurd, and I submit to the Government that the test must be whether the work started on June 23, regardless of the date when the application had either been made or considered.
3.35 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: On the previous Amendment we were discussing the possibility of extending the ambit of this
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legislation in area and bringing in certain geographical areas that had been excluded. We are now talking about the possibility of extending it in point of time, and moving from the line which we have drawn with all due deliberation the date at which schemes were approved, and allowing it to run on to the date corresponding to the date on which the work began. My noble friend Lord Derwent mentioned, with perhaps a slight note of rebuke, that he had been kept waiting for the reply to his inquiry. The reason was not that we had not made up our minds, but that when legislation is introduced to Parliament it is important that Parliament should be able to express a mind on the legislation that is introduced before the Government go on to elaborate the details of their policy. It is for that reason that my noble friend did not have an immediate answer to bb letter and why the circulars to local authorities as to precisely how this will operate have not yet been completed or sent out. I am sure that all members of the Committee will agree that that is right: that Parliament has to set its seal on legislation before the policy is brought into operation and all the details for implementing it are worked out.
But what we are dealing with here is the question of whether, in the circumstances of that ritual and this legislation, and this way of accelerating the rate of housing improvement in certain specified areas within a limited time, it would be appropriate to use the same formula that was used in 1969. I would suggest to your Lordships that it is not appropriate. The object in 1969 was to prepare for the introduction of legislation in such a way as to prevent a flood of fresh applications coming in from all over the country when the 1969 Bill was enacted. For that purpose, the criterion was whether or not the work had begun on particular schemes for which improvement grants had been authorised. The object in this case is positively to create a flood of new applications covering a fairly short specified period in certain selected areas. We want positively to encourage a flood of fresh applications. It would be inappropriate, therefore, to use a formula which had been specifically designed to prevent one. That is the reason why we have on this occasion drawn the line at the point of approval. I fully admit that if my noble friend

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has entered into discussions with his local authority with a view to having a particular house improved—and at that stage presumably thought that it was something worth proceeding with at the previous rate of grant—and has taken it to the point of accepting approval from the local authority for that scheme—
LORD DERWENT: I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend, but what does he mean by"accepting "? I understand that accepting the proposal is starting the work, and if you have not started the work you have not accepted. You do not write and say:"I accept it ". They wait until you have done the work, then they come and look at it and pay the grant. They offer it; but you do not accept it.
LORD SANDFORD: I accept that correction. Having allowed this scheme to go forward to the point of approval it is then tantalising to have another scheme coming forward offering superior terms, but were we to accept my noble friend's Amendment and to allow all the schemes which had reached that point to be withdrawn and reconsidered we should be flying right in the face of the particular intention of this legislation. We should be asking the local authorities, at the precise moment when we wanted them to consider new applications which nobody had hitherto thought of and put forward because the sums did not work out right, to reconsider applications which had already been put in and approved, because the owners of the property thought that the terms were appropriate. It is for that reason, which again goes back to the specific purpose of this legislation in contradistinction to the legislation which was put forward in 1969, that I must ask your Lordships to reject this Amendment if my noble friend insists on pressing it. But I hope that with that explanation he will be disposed to withdraw it, though I can see why in his particular circumstances it would be very much better if the legislation were amended.
LORD DERWENT: Before my noble friend sits down, would he deal with the point which I raised? Why does not the Bill say this?
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE: With permission, I think it is a little unfair to say that in the situation of
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the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, this Amendment would clearly be preferable, because I think on grounds of principle that it is desirable and I can only feel that the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, and I did not make ourselves clear in our previous interventions. Certainly I myself did not rely on the 1969 precedent because I very much accepted what the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said on Second Reading. But the point really is that if the local authority were still arguing about a case and saying,"We are not at all sure whether this is a proper case to allow a grant for improvement of property at June 23 ", that property will still be eligible for an increased grant. If, on the other hand, the application which had been put in by the owner of a property disclosed such a clearcut case that the local authority had said,"Yes, we will give a grant on this property ", but they will get it only at a reduced rate, compared with that which the Government are now proposing for the intermediate and development areas. I find it very difficult to defend that either on grounds of equity or indeed of logic. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, will feel able to press this Amendment to a Division, in which case I shall ask my noble friends to support him in the Division Lobby.
3.43 p.m.
LORD FLETCHER: I hope that before the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, rises again he will reconsider this matter, because it seems to me that he has entirely failed to answer the very cogent points put by the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, and my noble friend Lord Greenwood. I have a certain amount of sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, in replying to the earlier debate, in which he said, quite correctly as I thought, that the Amendment was seeking to alter the scope of the Bill; and it seemed to me that he sought to resist this particular Amendment on the ground that it was extending the time limit of the Bill. With great respect, I do not think it is doing anything of the kind. The noble Lord said in the course of his speech that one of the objects of this Bill was to create a flood of new applications; in other words, to encourage applications, as distinct from some other legislation which had been aimed at discouraging applications.

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The noble Lord then proceeded to say that words that had been inserted in another Act were not appropriate to this particular Bill. That in itself did not seem to me very convincing because, as I understand it, the position is this: certain applications have been made before this Bill becomes law; some of them have been granted and some have not. In so far as any of those applications have been granted and, to use the words of the Amendment,"work on the improvements has started ", then no question arises. Those who have made those applications and have had them accepted and have proceeded with the work, although they may feel the same kind of frustration or"tantalisement ", to use the noble Lord's own expression, have no redress.
There will be other applicants, as in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, whose applications have been accepted but who, on second thoughts, have not (no doubt for very good reasons) proceeded with the work. I do not know the statistics, but it seems to me that there cannot be very many of these cases. However, even if there are a measurable number, I fail to understand on what grounds of principle those applicants should now be debarred from the right to make a fresh application. I should have thought that without further examination they were entitled to make a fresh application.
It seemed to me that the noble Lord did not answer the constitutional point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, as to under what authority that letter had been written. May I say, in parenthesis, that as part, and part only, of that letter has been quoted I should like to ask that the whole text of the letter might be made available to Members of your Lordships' House in Hansard, so that we may all see exactly what has been said and what is the authority behind it. With the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, I find it difficult to understand what possible harm can be done by accepting this Amendment. I imagine that the noble Lord has been given some departmental brief which says that it is always a mistake to accept any Amendment; but that is not an argument which should weigh with your Lordships in this House if your Lordships are satisfied that on grounds of
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common sense, reason and justice the Amendment is valuable and worth while. I would also think it consistent with the policy enunciated by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for this legislation to have encouraged a fresh application of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, has in mind. Therefore, as I gather that this matter will be pressed to a Division I hope that the Government, rather than placing themselves in what seems to me an entirely false and untenable position, will accept the Amendment.
LORD HAWKE: I am not a landlord, although I have had some slight experience in this particular field; but I detect behind the Government's attitude here the hand of the Treasury, because obviously they do not want to pay a higher grant for something when they can get away with a lower grant. This reveals to me a thing unknown: the extremely unbusinesslike way in which these matters are conducted, because for a local authority to promise a grant to a person and apparently have not the slightest idea of whether or not he goes ahead with the work seems to me grossly unbusinesslike. How on earth is the local authority to budget properly if it has a series of promises out and it never knows when it will be called upon to fulfil them? I suggest that my noble friend the Minister should take back this Amendment and should look at it, particularly from the angle of the administrative practice to be followed in the future, because if we are to have grants which go up and down we must have some clear-cut line by which people can either accept or refuse. They cannot shift from one to the other at will.
3.50 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: I am grateful to noble Lords. I should like first to clear up some of the minor points. The noble Lord, Lord Fletcher, asked whether the letter to which my noble friend referred, could be published in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I do not believe that that would be possible without some further step. However, to the best of my recollection your Lordships have heard the greater part of the letter, and if my noble friend Lord Derwent feels that there are any other parts of it which bear on the matter perhaps he will mention them when he replies to the debate.

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I should like your Lordships to bear in mind the remarks of my noble friend Lord Hawke. It is important, when we have legislation of this kind coming forward, that the Government should decide at what point a line is to be drawn when one scale of grants is giving way to another, and to stick firmly to that. That is what we propose to do. Once again I stress that the purpose of this legislation is to encourage fresh applications. This is a point which the noble Lord, Lord Fletcher, may not have fully taken. We do not want at this particular juncture, and as a result of this legislation, to involve the local authorities in grappling with a large number of applications with which they have already dealt; we want them to deal with the new applications which, but for this legislation, would not have come forward. We do not want them to be grappling with old applications which came forward because the owners of the property concerned thought that the grants prevailing before June 23 were suitable for their purposes.
The view which the Government have taken, and which I must advise the Committee to support, is that the right place to draw the line for the purpose of bringing forward new applications which otherwise would not come forward was the point of approval. My noble friend asked what authority I had for writing to him in the terms that I used in the letter, and he pointed out that the terms were not in this legislation. My noble friend is perfectly right in that, but he is not right in supposing that we can now write to local authorities and give them directions which go beyond this legislation. All we can do, and all we intend to do, is remind them of the purpose for which it was introduced, and give it as our view that house improvement grants which have been approved under the previous legislation have been dealt with, and that they ought now to be concerning themselves with new applications coming forward under the new legislation. I do not think I can say anything more to explain why we have chosen to draw the line at the point of approval rather than at the point of the beginning of the work, which I agree was quite appropriate for the 1969 Act but is not appropriate for this more limited provision.
LORD DERWENT: I still do not understand what my noble friend is saying. He has said that he is not giving directions to the local authority. Presumably he holds the purse strings and if the Ministry write to the local authority in those terms then no local authority will give the grant. So it is a direction. If we pass this Amendment, and the Government alter their minds, the Amendment is unnecessary because they can write to the local authority and say,"In our view…" and it will be the other view. May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Fletcher, that a large part of the letter is a friendly chat, and I will read out one sentence which appears before the sentence already referred to. It reads:
" I am advised that there would appear to be no legal objection to a local authority allowing an application before June 23 to be withdrawn provided the original application had not been approved."
The letter goes on to the point that I have already read out. An old application will count for the new scheme, provided that the local authority had been slow and had not approved the original application. If they had been quick off the mark and had given approval, then one cannot benefit. It becomes more Alice in Wonderland.
I do not want to divide the House on this Amendment because I am afraid that it may delay the Bill as we are at the end of the Session. We want this Bill in a great hurry. If the Government give way on this we need not have an Amendment at all. If your Lordships pass this Amendment, the Government can cut it out in Report stage and say that they have altered their minds and tell the local authorities accordingly. I am not going to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, because I believe that the policy of the Government is wrong. I was going to suggest that the Amendment might be negatived, but in view of the support that I have received from noble Lords opposite, for which I am very grateful, when the Question is put to the Committee I shall leave it to the Opposition to decide, and if they decide to have a Division I shall be with them. I feel that I ought to leave this decision to the Committee, in view of the late stage of the Session.
LORD SHEPHERD: Unless the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has anything further to say, I do not think that time is a matter that we should take into consideration on what is an important part of this Bill. If the Committee were to support the view of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, I have not the slightest shadow of doubt that Her Majesty's Government, in the days that are still allotted to this Session, would be able to
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
4.5 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE LORD AIREDALE moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 1, line 14, leave out (" completed ") and insert (" carried out ").
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find ways and means for the Bill, as amended, to be reported, go back to another place and still receive the Royal Assent on time.
3.57 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 66; Not-Contents, 62.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Foot, L.

Nathan, L.

Amulree, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Nunburnholme, L.

Archibald, L.

Gardiner, L.

Peddie, L.

Ardwick, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Phillips, Bs.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Geddes of Epsom, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Beswick, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Reay, L.

Brockway, L.

Hacking, L.

Robbins, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Hanworth, V.

Rusholme, L.

Burntwood, L.

Henderson, L.

Shepherd, L.

Camoys, L.

Hilton of Upton, L.

Shinwell, L.

Champion, L.

Hood, V.

Slater, L.

Chorley, L.

Hoy, L.

Somers, L.

Clwyd, L.

Jacques, L.

Sorensen, L.

Crook, L.

lanner, L.

Stonham, L.

Daventry, V.

Leatherland, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Lindgren, L.

Strang, L.

Derwent, L. [Teller.]

Listowel, E.

Summerskill, Bs.

Diamond, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs.

Swaythling, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Long, V.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

McLeavy, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Energlyn, L.

Monckton of Brenchley, V.

Williamson, L.

Fletcher, L. [Teller.]

Moyle, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Northchurch, Bs.

Auckland, L.

Ferrers, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Balerno, L.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Orr-Ewing, L.

Balfour, E.

Grenfell, L.

Sackville, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Gridley, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Barnby, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

St. Helens, L.

Belstead, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

St. Just, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Sandford, L.

Bessborough, E.

Hawke, L.

Sandys, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Ilford, L.

Selkirk, E.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Ironside, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Carrington, L.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Skelmersdale, L.

Colgrain, L.

Kilmany, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Conesford, L.

Latymer, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Craigavon, V.

Lyell, L.

Sudeley, L.

Crathorne, L.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Tenby, V.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Malmesbury, E.

Thomas, L.

Digby, L.

Merrivale, L.

Vivian, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Milverton, L.

Willingdon, M.

Ebbisham, L.

Monck, V.

Windlesham, L.

Eccles, V.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Wolverton, L.

The noble Lord said: Perhaps we could discuss Amendments No. 3 and No. 5 together because the point is the same. At the outset I think I ought to deal with the possible answer from the Government to these Amendments: that the words concerned,"completed"and"carried out ", mean the same thing. The

825
two terms are used throughout the Bill, but in lines 41 and 42, on page 3, the expression is used:
" works…carried out…and completed "
and so I feel that the Government cannot seek to argue that"completed"and"carried out"mean the same thing.
The state of affairs which these Amendments are designed to deal with aroused a fair amount of concern in another place in Committee, where it was pointed out that there is a closing date two years hence by which time, according to the Bill, works must be completed for the increased grants to be payable, and doubts were raised about the justice of this hard and fast closing date in those cases where some small finishing touch has been left out so that it could be said that the work had not been completed. The example I would like to give is the case of a house which has been improved partly by the addition of two or three extra windows. The windows have had their primer paint on the inside and an undercoat of white paint on the outside, and the builder has planned to apply the final top coat of paint during June, 1973, before closing date (which I think is June 22, 1973). But supposing the first half of June, 1973, is like the first half of June was in 1971, last month, when your Lordships will remember the horses at Ascot ploughing through the mud. What is that builder expected to do? Does he have to go out between the showers and apply a top coat of paint to two or three windows on damp woodwork, knowing full well, as does the local authority surveyor, that that work is quite useless and unnecessary, in order to be able to say by June 22 that the work has been completed?
My submission is that, by substituting for the word"completed"the words"carried out ", the local authority would be able to say with a clear conscience in such a case, where 99·9 per cent. of the work had been carried out and some tiny finishing touch had not been applied through no fault of the developer or his builder, that the work had been carried out and that they could pay the increased grant they promised. They would be able to say that if Parliment had meant completed to the last final, finishing touch, Parliament would have said so, but since Parliament has only said in the Act
826
" carried out ", provided the work has been carried out 99·9 per cent. the local authority can feel satisfied and certify that the work has been carried out, and the increased grant that it attracts will be payable. I beg to move.
LORD HAWKE: I am sure that the noble Lord's intention is absolutely correct, but I cannot see how his wording makes all that difference. It would require something much more elaborate to cover the case where a final little bit of work could not be completed for some reason—" substantially completed ", or some wording such as that. I cannot see how his suggested wording achieves what he wants.
LORD AIREDALE: I thought very carefully about this and I thought about the word"substantially ", but none of the wordings I could think of was open to no objection of any kind. If the noble Lord himself, the Government, or anybody else can think of wording which does not give the impression that the final finishing touch has to be completed, then I shall be pleased. I am not worried about the form of words, but I hope I have made plain the spirit of what I want to do.
4.11 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: The noble Lord has made his intention quite plain, but the effect of the Amendment would be very different from what is intended by this particular legislation. The legislation is designed to bring forward a flood (that was the word I used just now) of new applications in these particular areas which would not otherwise have come forward and which would lead to a substantially increased amount of work being completed within the two years. That is the particular purpose of this special legislation. The effect of the noble Lord's Amendment would be to bring forward a lot of new work, but it would remove the incentive to get it done within the two-year period, because the effect would be for all the new work started to attract grant at the higher rate, whether or not it was finished two years from this summer—from June 23, 1971. That is very far from being the intention of this legislation. A whole lot of new work would start and it would then run on without any particular incentive to complete it. Because that is almost the reverse of the

827
incentive we have in mind, or is at least very far from it, I cannot recommend the Committee to agree to this Amendment.
Also, the Amendment would lead to very complex assessments as to which part of the work attracted which scale of grant, which would be extremely cumbersome from an administrative point of view. So I think there is nothing for it, the aim of the Bill having been accepted, but to make it apply to work which comes forward on the relevant date and is completed by the relevant date. Of course, local authorities will exercise their discretion in a reasonable way so that the whole of a particular piece of work which, but for son-le minor detail, is completed within the period does not disqualify the whole scheme from attracting grant at the increased rate. I hope that, with that explanation—again going back to the basic purpose of this legislation—the noble Lord will not feel disposed to press his Amendment.
LORD HAWKE: Will the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, give guidance of some kind to local authorities that they may use discretion, because under the Bill they will not be able to excuse anybody whose work is not 100 per cent. completed? If the noble Lord in some letter of guidance says that a time limit had to be made but it is appreciated that weather will occasionally make 100 per cent. completion impossible, and that local authorities must use their discretion in administering the legislation, I am sure that that will meet the point.
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, of course. Guidance to local authorities based on this legislation will go out when Parliament has set its seal upon it. Obviously there would be occasions where it would be appropriate for local authorities to use that discretion.
LORD AIREDALE: Let us be quite clear about this. Am Ito understand that the Government have in mind to send out a Ministry circular to housing authorities saying that in the kind of case I have quoted—where the whole of the work has been completed except that, perhaps, a top coat of paint has not been applied to a few new windows on account of bad weather during the weeks immediately preceding the completion date—the
828
housing authority is not to take the view that the work has not been completed so far as grant is concerned but in such cases will pay the increased grant? Do I correctly undertsand that that is the kind of advice the Government have in mind to send out to local authorities by Ministry circular?
LORD SANDFORD: I do not think there is great difficulty about this. Local authorities can, and often do, already specify the time within which works must be completed, and no insuperable problem as to the definition of"completion"has arisen.
LORD AIREDALE: I have not had an answer to my question. However, I will not keep the Committee longer. One can think of other examples. Supposing that a special mixing tap with a special nozzle for a kitchen sink has been ordered for months, but because of a strike at the factory it has not been delivered. It would be absolutely monstrous to say that because it is not delivered by June 22, and in fact does not arrive until June 24, the developer loses the grant. If we can rest assured that a circular will be issued dealing with such points, then I have no further quarrel and am willing to seek leave to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD SANDFORD: I was seeking to show that I can go further than to give the noble Lord such an assurance, because the whole concept of applying a completion date to work for which a housing improvement grant has been given is already established. The idea of setting a time limit to a particular piece of work is already being operated by local authorities. So the problem about final coats of paint, mixing valves and so on, is something with which local authorities are already grappling successfully.
LORD AIREDALE: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.18 p.m.
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1, line 16, leave out from (" If ") to (" by ") in line 19, and insert (" where after the relevant date, but within the period of two years beginnng with that date the Secretary of State finds it advisable to extend the provisions of this Act to any other local government area and he, ").
The noble Lord said: I am sure the Committee will agree that my one aim in life is to strengthen the hands of Her Majesty's Government, and I therefore move the Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Jacques and myself. My object is to strengthen the Secretary of State's hands, not by widening the Bill but by increasing the Secretary of State's discretion to widen the effect of the Bill. The Under-Secretary has fairly told us to-day that the Bill is limited in two respects, in point of time and also geographically. My noble friend Lord Jacques and I tabled this Amendment because we were not wholly satisfied by the explanation given by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, on Second Reading. We have been influenced by the fact that so experienced a body as the Housing Committee of the Association of Municipal Corporations have suggested an Amendment along these lines.
Our object is to seek to ensure that the Secretary of State is not limited to bringing in local government areas which are confined to development areas or intermediate areas specified after the relevant date. We want to give him much wider scope than he appears to be anxious to give himself at the present time. On the occasion of the Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said:
" My right honourable friend the Secretary of State feels that he already has adequate powers to increase, as necessary, the various cash limits in the 1969 Act. He can do this generally throughout the country by means of a Statutory Instrument. He can do it selectively under his power to approve or determine higher limits for particular cases, or for particular classes of case."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22/7/71; col. 1202.]
I am forced to the view that if the Secretary of State has the wide discretion that his noble friend then attributed to him there really is not much point in this Bill at all. The Secretary of State could have increased the amount of grant, and he could have extended the areas to which that grant is applicable. I would be the last Member of your Lordships' House to suggest that any measure promoted by the Government was just a gimmick. I am sure it is not just a gimmick. But if it is not, why was it not possible to do it by means of a Statutory Instrument, if indeed the Secretary of State has all the powers which the noble Lord claimed
830
on his behalf? What I want to ensure, and my noble friend Lord Jacques wants to ensure, is that the Secretary of State will, if he believes it to be necessary, extend the area of local authorities to whom the increased rate of grant will be applicable.
We are simply saying to the Secretary of State,"We believe that you will be much wiser, if you do not have this discretion at the moment, to give yourself this discretion in order to avoid the kind of anomalies which are almost bound to develop ". We hope the noble Lord will be able to accept this Amendment on behalf of Her Majesty's Government and avoid the Committee coming to a conclusion which might possibly delay the implementation of this Bill, which we all, without exception, wish to see expedited. I beg to move.
LORD JACQUES: I rise in support of the Amendment. This Bill is selective, that is to say it gives additional grants to some local authorities and not to others. It is inevitable that in this selective process there will be anomalies, and the extent of the anomalies will not yet be known. This Amendment will give the Secretary of State power to deal with those anomalies if and when they arise.
I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, that when we were discussing Amendment No. 1 he admitted that the case which I quoted of the county borough of Warrington was an anomaly, but he opposed the Amendment because that Amendment would widen and bring in the designated areas of all the new towns. I would like to suggest to him that, by accepting this Amendment, an anomaly such as Warrington could be dealt with in isolation. It would be entirely a matter for the Minister to deal with as he thought fit. It need not bring in any other area. I hope the noble Lord will be able to accept this Amendment, and deal with the anomaly which I raised when I spoke on Amendment No. 1.
LORD SANDFORD: It is an unusual position to be resisting unfettered and untrammelled powers which have been offered to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State by Her Majesty's Opposition, but there really are embarrassments in carrying powers which are too wide and too extensive for a Minister

831
to be able to operate effectively without any"say"from Parliament. If this were a Bill designed to give further encouragement generally to house and to area improvement I think the arguments of both noble Lords who have spoken in support of this Amendment would be entirely valid, although I think the reluctance of my right honourable friend to have powers and to be invited to use them as comprehensively as this would still remain. As it is, I think, like the other Amendments, they miss the particular point of this legislation with which we are dealing.
Any method of giving increased financial assistance selectively, as this Bill does, is bound to discriminate against the places which are left outside the scope of the scheme. The starting point of this Bill, as I explained at Second Reading, is that the annual rate of increase in the numbers of grants approved in the development and intermediate areas has been about half that in the rest of England and Wales. That is the specific and narrow point with which we are dealing, and it is only that point. For that reason the Government have deliberately chosen to inject this extra assistance into these particular areas for this limited period, so as to give them a chance to catch up with the rest of the country. The development areas and the other assisted areas already receive preferential treatment over the rest of the country in other economic measures.
During the course of this Bill through Parliament this narrow and limited concept has been generally accepted, although attempts have been made at several points to give it a wider term of reference. Any such attempt would, I submit, alter quite fundamentally the intention of this Bill. But that is not to say that the Government do not fully recognise that there are many other areas—to which the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, and the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, and many others, have been drawing our attention—which will not be helped by the limited short-term assistance to be given by this Bill. That would be fair ground for criticism were it not that we already have in prospect another and much more comprehensive major piece of legislation, which is specifically designed to deal with other—in some senses even
832
more urgent—problems of housing and housing stress. It is because this other Bill is in prospect that we are seeking so firmly to restrict the concept of this Bill now before the Committee.
All these spheres of housing, and housing problems, and housing stress will benefit from the proposals in the White Paper Fair Deal for Housing, the aim of which is to give the greatest amount of help to the areas of greatest housing need, and these are the areas in which the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, and the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, are concerned with their Amendment. But because we have this other legislation in prospect I hope that they will feel able to withdraw this Amendment, with that explanation, and I hope therefore the Committee will not need to consider whether or not to vote on it. All the other problems of housing elsewhere in the country, whether it be slum clearance or building new houses or improving existing houses, will benefit from this further legislation which we shall introduce in the next Session of Parliament. Therefore I hope noble Lords will not press this Amendment, which would give my right honourable friend powers which at this stage he would much rather not have.
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE: The noble Lord is presupposing a measure of agreement with the Government's forthcoming legislation on housing which will not, I believe, then materialise. I know it will be accepted that I am the last Member of your Lordships' House to seek to force my help on a Government who do not need it, and therefore I shall not insist upon asking the Committee to divide in support of the Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend and myself. But purely for the instruction of simple students of the Constitution, could the noble Lord before I withdraw the Amendment, explain why, if the Secretary of State has adequate powers at present to extend the amount of grant and the area of the country to which grant is available by Statutory Instrument, he has decided on this occasion to do so by means of a Bill and not by Statutory Instrument?
LORD SANDFORD: I am not sure. I would have to look at what I said and the precise context in which I said it. But

833
I am sure the Committee would agree that to apply a major increase right across the whole field of housing improvement grants to the whole of Scotland and a quarter of the local authorities of England and Wales would be a step which ought not to be taken without the sanction of Parliament.
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE: In view of the explanation which the noble Lord has given, whatever one may think about its adequacy, I am very happy to withdraw the Amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Jacques and myself; he and I will put our heads together between now and Report stage to see whether any action is necessary. I hope it will not be. If the noble Lord can think of a more convincing argument between now and then, I hope he will put me in possession of it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with an Amendment.

EDUCATION (MILK) BILL
4.33 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD BELSTEAD): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Belstead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD GRENFELL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [School milk for pupils in England and Wales]:
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 9, leave out (" seven ") and insert (" eleven ")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in the name of my noble friends, Lady Phillips, Lady Summerskill and myself. The Amendment
834
is designed to alter the age set out in the Bill from seven to eleven; in other words, to ensure that children will be provided with free milk between the ages of five and eleven. The food value of milk is well established; of that there is no doubt whatever. It provides for the growing child, as no substitute at the same price can possibly do. It is, as has been said, Nature's own diet, and as a nation we are privileged that it is in plentiful supply in this country at a price that has enabled us to produce as fine a generation of young people as the world has seen, far better than in countries not so well supplied and not so well blessed with this world's riches. We know the importance of ensuring that the child at school is adequately fed. If he is not, the greater degree of inadequacy, the less likely he is to benefit from the education offered to him. We know also that an adequate diet is a necessity to build healthy bodies. We have, very rightly, as a nation been proud of the young people who have grown up since the war years, when we decided that all children should have access to nourishing food.
School milk and school meals have been tremendously important. This is not a Bill to provide or not to provide school meals, but it is important that we remember that the price of school meals has been raised recently, and as a result one million fewer children are taking them. And it is most important to remember also that the price is to go up again next April, despite the catastrophic drop in daily numbers of meals supplied as a result of the first cut in the school meals service of the Barber's razor. The Committee would do well to remember the price increase of last April, and the one that is yet to come, in considering this matter of supplying free milk to children between seven and eleven. I venture to suggest that because of what has already happened in regard to the school meals service, and having regard to what we can anticipate may happen next April, there is a greater need to protect the milk position, because many children in primary schools will depend increasingly on the daily one-third of a pint.
We have to remember that in this Bill there is no means test for free school milk. Poverty does not rank for free milk. There is free milk only if the

835
medical officer says it is necessary; and heaven knows how the medical officers are going to get around the schools to do the job!—because many of them, as I understand it, do not see all the children even once a year. With the probability of still fewer children having school meals after the further rise in price next April, it is imperative that we maintain the supply of milk for the children in this age group. Let me once again remind the Committee of what Dr. George Lynch and Dr. Sylvia de la Paz reported as their findings as a result of a survey of the food patterns of 4,382 school children of both sexes in the ten to twelve year age group:
" Of primary children, 18 per cent. and 28 per cent., respectively, were estimated to be at risk in terms of insufficient intakes of calcium and riboflavin. We calculated that in the event of the withdrawal of school milk, and on the assumption that no compensatory changes in dietary habits occurred, the percentages of inadequate intakes referred to would increase to 34 per cent. and 39 per cent. Subsequent investigations of the 2,471 primary children included in the sample have shown that of those consuming milk drinks 39 per cent. depended entirely on school milk for this source of nourishment."
In the course of the Second Reading debate the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said that the interim report of these two doctors—and the report was issued because of their grave concern at the decision to cut free milk for the seven to eleven year olds—
" was based on questions to 4,300 school children who were asked to recall everything which they had eaten in the previous 24 hours, and really this is not the sort of survey which can be put to the Committee on the medical aspects of food policy…".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23/7/71, col. 1367.]
In saying that, he was only repeating what his right honourable friend the Secretary of State had said when the issue was debated in another place. She also spoke of a 24-hour recall survey. The Committee might like to know that the two doctors, in an article in the New Scientist dated July 1, this year, said this:
" Mrs. Thatcher is aware of the existence of the survey undertaken by our unit. She referred to it, albeit erroneously, in the recent debate when she described nutritional analysis as being based on a 24-hour recall instead of the food patterns to which the children were accustomed during the school week."
I think one might give a little more credit to the two doctors than has been given
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by the spokesman on behalf of the Department. There are others who can speak as professionals in this field, and I will leave the matter in the hope that some of them may take part in the debate. I have little doubt that those who are professionals will testify to the health value of supplying food, particularly to young children.
I want to come to what the cut is all about. This desire of the Government to deprive the seven to eleven year olds of a free daily one-third of a pint of milk while at school is to save £5·9 million in this current year and £9 million in a full year. How they estimate that I do not know, as no one knows at the moment what medical officers are going to recommend by way of free milk for children needing medical milk. If they have power to recommend milk for preventive reasons, all calculations could be upset. What is this £5·9 million, and this £9 million, to be used for? The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said it was a significant sum, but, he told us [col. 1329]:
" what is of far greater importance is that this saving forms part of an overall design to discontinue, or reduce, public expenditure which benefits many people who may not need the subsidy that it contains and to concentrate Government help where it is most needed, and to reallocate the savings in scarce public resources to priorities which are crying out for attention. As part of this overall policy my right honourable friend has particularly announced record allocations to replace or improve old primary schools…"
While we welcome the promise, we take note at the same time that the figures for secondary schools, as announced in the programme for improvements and replacements for the years 1972, 1973 and 1974, are cut to zero. No money at all is included for improvements or replacements for secondary schools in that period. All the money is to be spent on the primary schools.
Frankly, this supposed reallocation needs closer examination. With the savings on free milk for seven to eleven year olds, and the savings consequent on higher charges for school meals, it is estimated that a sum of £38 million is secured. I want to ask the Minister where this figure of £38 million is reflected in the totals which are being spent on improvements and replacements at any time from now on, in any programme that has so far been announced. The

837
announced programmes do not show an increase of £38 million. What is proposed by way of expenditure is expenditure that will be undertaken by the local education authorities. I think it is fair to say, therefore, that the sum that will be coming from national sources will be well below the £38 million about which so much play has been made.
If we are to judge the adequacy of the programme that has been announced, we ought to be told the global amount for all the applications which have been received. I note that last week the noble Lord's right honourable friend the Secretary of State indicated that it would be too costly to supply this information, but somewhere along the line somebody must have some idea as to the adequacy of the programme that has been announced when balanced against the applications that have been submitted. By cutting down on secondary school improvements the Secretary of State is not only not giving more freedom to local education authorities; she would indeed appear to be hampering, in the years to which I have referred, any proposals for secondary reorganisation. If, as we have been, we are lagging in this sphere of replacing and improving our primary schools, surely we could make up for those years of neglect without depriving small children of milk.
I doubt whether many noble Lords in this House who received substantial tax relief from the recent reductions would have advocated cutting school milk and raising the price of school meals to find the £38 million required to benefit people in receipt of over £4,000 a year. If there are, they ought to stand up to be counted. Indeed, it may well be that this afternoon they will have the chance. I hope that this House will say that it will not agree to taking milk from the mouths of children aged seven to eleven to put more cream on the tables of those who are in receipt of over £80 a week. This House has an opportunity this afternoon, as it has on so many occasions, to show that it has a heart, and that it also has a proper sense of priorities. I beg to move.
4.47 p.m.
BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE: There is a tradition in your Lordships' House that all subjects that come before us should be discussed in an atmosphere
838
which is calm and courteous, the assumption being that, whatever our varying points of view, we are all making a contribution which we believe is in the best interests of our country. I find it very hard to keep up that tradition this afternoon. I do not propose to go into any juggling arithmetic about what we can save on primary schools and add to building costs, because I think this philosophy of"feeding the dog its own tail"has gone too far. We have to look at the total expenditure on education and the total expenditure on other important subjects, and give them their proper priorities. We have had just about enough of this business of thinking that even crippled children cannot be allowed to go into our museums and art galleries free so that we can have a building fund for more museums and galleries; and that children of 7 to 11 should be deprived of their milk on this false reasoning so that we can do some more building. I am not interested in that end of it at all.
Another thing that bothers me is the idea of children being asked what they have been eating in the past 24 hours. Do you think the children are going to tell you the truth? One of the most dreadful things about what the Government are proposing to do is that they are not only depriving young children of essential nourishment, but they are also exposing them in a way that young children should not be exposed. Many Members on both sides of your Lordships' House may know a distinguished friend of many of us called Miss Griffiths. She was a headmistress in the Rhondda, and she became a leading official of the National Union of Teachers. She was a very great educationist known to many of us. But I was always impressed by what she told me about teaching in the Rhondda in the between-war years, when there was a good deal of malnutrition.
A very friendly and fatherly inspector came down from London, and she told him about the difficulty she had with children who were coming to school in the morning not properly fed. She indicated a child in the class and said,"You know, she is coming to school these mornings with no breakfast at all." In all kindness, the fatherly inspector said,"Come here Mary ", and called this little girl out in front. He was not trying to humiliate her in front of the entire class

839
and he asked her quite quietly,"Mary, what did you have for breakfast this morning?" She looked him in the eye and said,"Ham and egg ". She thought that was the correct thing to say, and she was not going to let the side down.
So I am doubly furious about this Bill. I do not think we have any right to treat children in this way. They are extremely sensitive, and they do not want to be separated because their father and mother are poorer than others. We ought to take note of how many families are not applying for what they are legally entitled to get. There are various reasons for that, and one is that children have a soul as well as a body, and they have their dignity. So I am doubly contemptuous of a Government who are trying to solve the problems of this country by taking away milk from children between the ages of 7 and 11.
I am not qualified to talk as a doctor, but we all know that milk is a very important ingredient in the food that children must have. I am not asking for the impossible. I never expected a Labour Government, and I certainly do not expect a Conservative Government to introduce the millenium straight away. There is a limit to what any Government can do, either forwards or backwards. But the present Government are excelling themselves in the rate they are trying to move backwards. No-one expects that we shall solve all our problems, but why do we not hold what we have? There were decent things done in this country at the end of the Second World War. For a time there was a philosophy that we were going to make life better for the ordinary man and woman. One of the best things we did was to see that even before our children were born they were properly looked after. People came from all over the world and said,"How can this be? Your homes and factories have been blitzed, but look at your babies." We thought them our most precious asset, and we have a very proud record everywhere for the way we took care of our children even before they were born. And what efforts we made in the schools. I should love to see the feeding of children taken out of schools. I should like to see children's community restaurants open 365 days a year. We ought to be thinking ahead and being progressive, and it is very
840
sad that in your Lordships' House we should be called together this afternoon in order to take a glass of milk away from children between the ages of 7 and 11.
4.54 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I fully sympathise with my noble friend who has just spoken. During the Second Reading of this Bill it was very difficult for many Members here—only one noble Lord spoke from the other side—to control their indignation. One should congratulate noble Lords on the Back Benches opposite on the fact that only one noble Lord tried to defend this Bill. I dealt then with every aspect of the Bill, and I now propose to confine myself to this Amendment. In so doing-, I can take up the most amazing question which the noble Lord opposite asked at the end of his speech. He asked: what is the difference between depriving a child of 11 of milk and depriving a child of 7? Between the ages of 7 and 11 are four years during which a child is growing rapidly, and they are four years during which a child should have the added benefit of milk every day. I want to put another point to the noble Lord.
I dealt earlier with the growth of children and the importance to their psyche, to their confidence, and to their whole future of attaining their optimum size and growth. But there is another aspect to consider about the years between 7 and 11. Those are the vital years which precede the 11-plus, or whatever may replace it, which is the most important educational test and determines a child's whole future. As the noble Baroness has said—and we all know Sarah Griffiths, of whom she was speaking—the child who comes to school hungry is the exhausted and inattentive child, and although it may have a good IQ it fails to absorb knowledge. This was known during the last century, but it is only in this century that teachers appear to have had the courage to speak out on the subject. I appeal to your Lordships to help these children between 7 and 11 in this very small way.
The child may have feckless parents and may come to school without food, but it is wholly dependent upon its parents and cannot help itself. All we can do is to try to help it in school by giving it some food. As I said on Second Reading, I look upon milk as a complete food.

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It is the food which nature provided in order that the species could continue to exist. It contains all those constituents—that is, fats, carbohydrates and proteins—which a complete food contains, and we are asking for a third of a pint of milk a day to be given to these poor children between the ages of 7 and 11 throughout the country.
May I appeal to the hearts and minds of noble Lords opposite? Is this where any economy should be made? It may be said that we are a peculiar nation, anxious to spoil our children. But let us look at the other countries—because educationists everywhere know that the better a child is fed the better it can learn. The Scandinavian countries gave then children breakfasts years ago, and now the affluent United States of America has decided to provide breakfasts at a cost of 25 million dollars. If a child comes to school without breakfast, it has to see the morning through in that state. These other countries are saying, quite rightly—and when we see the Government's meanness it makes it very difficult for us to ask for more—that this is wrong. When the hungry child comes to school let us fill its tummy right away, so that we can warm it up—because food is a most important factor in giving warmth—and make it more attentive. Otherwise, as these other countries very wisely say, we are wasting money on education. It is a complete waste of money to try to teach a hungry child.
Your Lordships may say that this is a Party matter and this is a political speech. I ask you to consider the standing of the medical officer of health in your own areas. A medical officer of health is regarded in medical circles as a man of the highest integrity. You have to realise that a man or woman who has decided to become a medical officer of health enters a salaried service, one in which the lure of money, which might attract some doctors in private practice, does not obtain at all. These medical officers of health are in my opinion the very cream of the profession. What are they saying about this? Let me quote from The Times of June 18 an article headed,
" Milk decision retrograde, school medical officers say."—
these are the men who examine the schoolchildren—
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" The principal officers in the 12 Inner London boroughs have sent a memorandum to the authority telling it they regard the abandonment of the principle of free milk for all children aged 7 to 12 as a retrograde step.
" They are particularly concerned about the part they will have to play in the new system, particularly when it comes to deciding who should receive free ' medical milk '. It is believed that the officers' concern was one of the main contributory factors in the…ILEA'S decision on Wednesday to try to resist the new Government measure.
" In their memorandum the officers say the effect of the stooping of free milk can be discernable only after it has been in operation for a considerable time ".
I ask your Lordships to consider that last sentence: you can detect malnutrition only after a child has been undernourished for a considerable time. As I said before, I presume somebody will then come along and say,"Let us give it a third of a pint of milk a day ", when the damage has already been done. I ask your Lordships to-day to reconsider this inhuman decision of the Government. This must have been a Cabinet decision, and without being offensive I feel that every individual in that Cabinet has never had an opportunity to see hungry children and does not know the conditions which we are describing today; otherwise, they could not possibly have allowed this Bill to be printed. Therefore, on this Amendment I do not ask your Lordships simply to listen to my appeal, but to consider the very carefully worded statement of the medical officers of health, who spend their lives among these children, and, having considered it, to vote for this Amendment.
5.2 p.m.
LORD BOOTHBY: Perhaps I may intervene for just one moment. When I was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food in 1940—and the position of this country was a good deal more desperate at that moment than it is to-day—I was privileged to introduce to another place, under the direction of Lord Woolton, the original National Milk Scheme. That was a very good scheme, and it provided the basis upon which the whole subsequent structure of our nutritional policy for schoolchildren was built—meals in schools and milk in schools, and, indeed, milk in the home. To a large extent that structure is being dismantled by the present Government for a paltry sum, and I have already said to your Lordships' House that I

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think Lord Woolton would turn in his grave if he realised what was being done to-day. I think that now to deprive schoolchildren of free milk between the ages of seven to eleven is just about as unforgivable an act as I have ever known a Government take—and for a paltry £5 million or £6 million. We know from expert authority that from seven to twelve is a vital age from a nutritional point of view. It is a critical and crucial age; and to deprive these children of a glass of milk a day in school is, to me, quite incomprehensible. Apart from that, I have nothing to add to what has already been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, by the medical profession as a whole and, above all, by the medical officers of health. I think the arguments cannot be countered, and I would beg your Lordships, if there is a Division, to vote against this iniquitous proposal.
BARONESS BERKELEY: I am afraid I do not agree with the noble Lords who have just spoken. I think children are very much more advanced nowadays, and I very much doubt if children of ten or eleven really need or require milk. Children are fed on adult food at a very much earlier age than they ever used to be 10, 20 or 30 years ago, when milk was very much more of a staple diet for them. That, I gather, is the experience of my friends and relatives who have young children. Nowadays, there are such things as family allowances and supplementary benefits; so surely there should be no reason why mothers should not take title trouble to feed their children and give them a proper breakfast before they go to school. Therefore, if this Amendment is put to the vote I shall have much pleasure in supporting my noble friend the Minister in the Division Lobby.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: I have only three sentences to add in support of this Amendment. First of all, all honour to the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and to the memory of Lord Woolton, for what was done in the war years. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, who asked,"Does it matter when you stop providing free milk for children? ", I would say that it is much more important to let them have milk from the ages of seven to eleven than after eleven. That I do not
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think many people would dispute. It is a matter of judgment whether it is better to improve old primary schools (for this is the excuse that the Government gave when they announced their decision to stop the free milk) than to invest in the health of our young children from the ages of seven to eleven. Given the choice, I come down on the side of old primary schools and free milk, because to have"spanking"new schools for children who are not particularly healthy does not seem to me at all to be the answer to our problems to-day about the young.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: May I say a few words in support of the Government? Noble Lords opposite appear to be saying that the Government are depriving children from the ages of seven to eleven of milk. They are not depriving the children of milk. They are saying, so far as I understand, that if, presumably, the parents can afford it, then they will pay for the third of a pint of milk. If a child is obviously undernourished, then the medical officer will be aware of that fact. If he is not aware of that fact, he is obviously not doing his job: if he is aware of that fact, then the child will get the milk. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, who said that she was very contemptuous of the Government for doing this. I personally think she ought to be very contemptuous of parents. The average parent is to-day earning pretty well £2,000 a year, if you take the industrial wage—£30 a week, anyway; £1,500 a year. The noble Baroness should be very contemptuous of the parents. It is not a packet of cigarettes a week. Surely they could deny themselves that, or maybe the father a couple of pints of beer, to give their child milk. I quite agree that the Bill seems rather niggardly, but to say that the Government are depriving children from seven to eleven years of age of milk is an exaggeration.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: Would the noble Viscount give way? I wonder whether he could state the source of his information that most people earn £2,000 a year?
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: The average industrial wage is now just about £30 a week—£28 to £30 a week—and even if you have four children and are out of work you can

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draw National Assistance up to about £1,000 a year. If you have four children, you can draw up to £18 a week, anyway. But I quite agree that the children of people on National Assistance ought to get free milk. I personally thought their children did, with the extra supplementary benefits and everything else that the Government have now granted. But I really think that the average parent, if he is in a good job, ought to be only too pleased to deny himself a packet of cigarettes to give his child milk.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: If we satisfy the noble Viscount that the child of the poor parent cannot get free milk merely because the parents are poor, will he think again?
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: The medical officer of health will presumably know, or should know, the financial conditions of the parents and therefore should see that the child gets the extra milk.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Can the noble Viscount tell me in what category of work does a woman who has to support her children get £30 a week?
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: The noble Viscount has made clear from what he said at the beginning that he did not fully understand the position. I think we all agree with that. I think that some of the support that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has had from behind him has been rather unwelcome.
The only argument in defence of this action is that families in one way or another, with the rise in wages and benefits, have enough income for this small amount to make no difference. That may be true at the level of £30 a week. I am responsible for an organisation called the Family Service Units. We look after about 1,500 families in 17 different areas of England. These are all problem families, all families who have failed to match up effectively to life. It may be said that it is their own fault. That does not matter: it is not the fault of the children. There is not one of these families who, confronted with the rising rates of everything at the moment, is not in severe difficulties. It is of no use the noble Lord's telling us that this small sum makes no difference; it makes a great difference to families who are
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already short. I think that there should be no question of riding off our criticism on the ground that the sum is so small, that, as the noble Viscount suggested, the people can divert it from cigarettes to milk. This is not what happens in the type of families that I am speaking of: the father probably does spend the money on cigarettes, and he is very likely in prison. The children do not get it. If you cut off the free one-third of a pint of milk, they may get the milk but may not get something else. This is a diminution in an income which is already too small for something like 200,000, or perhaps 300,000 families in this country. This should be underlined. If this is what the Government mean, then let them say so clearly.
BARONESS BIRK: When we are talking about incomes we seem to have overlooked the fact that the unemployment figures in the last month were at their highest for this time of the year since the 1940s. There were over 800,000 unemployed. So far as the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Berkeley, about its being up to the parents, is concerned, this may be so; and it is true that in many cases they do not plan well. But our concern here is with the children. This is not merely a question of lecturing the parents; it is the end result which is our concern. She cited an example of family allowances. This is our point. Family allowances are not given selectively but generally to every family. I will not go over the arguments of all the speakers who have supported this Amendment. Even those experts who argue about whether extra milk for that age group is essential have always done so with the proviso that there is a properly balanced diet for the child. This is not a question only of money but also of knowing a great deal more about nutrition than, with respect, do many of us in your Lordships' House. The less money a family has, the more difficult it is to provide a nutritionally balanced diet. This is why to cut off this milk for the seven to eleven year olds seems grossly wrong and against the whole welfare of children. I hope that the Committee will support this Amendment.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: I made an impassioned speech on Second Reading but I should like to follow up the

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point made by the noble Viscount that the average family can afford to give their children money to buy the milk. How is that going to be supervised? They may not buy milk; they may buy sweets or cigarettes. The point is this. We all know that milk is a balanced food and whether you come to school in the morning with a full"tummy"or go without breakfast, at about 11 o'clock you get a sinking feeling there and a third of a pint of milk will make all the difference. We want to improve the education of our children; we do not want to put a stumbling block in their way at 11 o'clock when they cannot absorb any education. We want to bring them along. I should like to appeal to all medical officers of health who feel as I do about milk for the seven to eleven year olds to certify the whole school as being in need of school milk.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I should like to agree with the noble Lord about the sinking feeling. Where I went to school we had our first class of the day before taking any milk or food of any sort. I agree that there is quite a sinking feeling.
5.18 p.m.
LORD BELSTEAD: I am not seeking to cut short the deliberations of the Committee, but I wonder whether I may make four quick points. I should have thought that if it is shown that children are going to school hungry, whether to new schools or to old schools, it will be the inescapable responsibility of any Government to rethink the policy on nutrition. Secondly, I wonder whether I may, with great respect, put it to the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, that the Government do take this point of view. The Government, like the noble Baroness, Lady Berkeley, also take the view that nutritional standards have changed since the noble Lord introduced the National Milk Scheme in the dark and early days of the war. The noble Lord referred to Lord Woolton. I can remember the"Woolton Surprise ". This is not a flippant remark. It was a baked potato and in the middle was minced meat. Anyone who remembers that dish in the years between 1940 and 1945 will remember that as the years went by, so you dug deeper and deeper
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into the potato to find the minced meat. We do not live in quite that kind of situation to-day. All I would ask the noble Lord to do, with his customary generosity, is to weigh what I am going to put to the House and see whether he still believes that the nutritional standards of to-day and the steps the Government are taking concurrently with this Bill do not make the noble Lord change his mind with regard to the Division Lobbies.
My third point is that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, in moving this Amendment asked specific questions about school building. I did not intend to put to the Committee specific matters about school building. Not once, but again and again, he asked for specific figures. He referred to the primary schools building programme. Off the cuff, I can say this. As the previous Government left the primary schools building programme, it would have taken about twenty years to do away with the pre-1903 primary schools. At the present rate of progress it will take something like six to seven years. We are talking about a substantial difference in this field.
Fourthly, and lastly, perhaps your Lordships will forgive me if I do not range quite so widely as some of your Lordships have done in the interesting and expert speeches which have been made, some of which, I must say, touched on Amendments to follow. May I descend for a moment from the heights to which your Lordships' oratory has led us and come to the effect of this Amendment? Under the Amendment the general entitlement to free school milk would continue to the age at which the vast majority of pupils are transferred from primary to secondary schools. The situation ought to be clear to the Committee. In 1968 the previous Government removed free milk from secondary schools. This meant that any pupil at a primary school, at whatever age, continued with free milk.
This arrangement included those middle schools, which were deemed primary, but owing to an oversight, to which everyone was a party, no-one foresaw that no arrangement was made for the handful of middle schools which were deemed secondary schools. So, in

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1970 a Bill was passed, through the good offices of Mr. McNamara in another place, and this entitled pupils in middle schools deemed secondary to free milk up to their twelfth birthday. So hitherto, up to this moment, the arrangement has been no milk in secondary schools since 1968, milk in all middle schools deemed to be primary and in middle schools deemed to be secondary up to the age of twelve. That is the present position. The effect of these Amendments would be to continue free milk for most pupils' primary school life, but suddenly to cut it off for those who remain at primary and middle schools if they go on at those schools, until they are twelve. This is a small, ragged aspect of the Amendment, but I make no complaint of that. In addition, the Amendments would have the undesirable effect of reintroducing free milk into secondary schools—at least in England and Wales; the date of transfer in Scotland is when a child becomes twelve. There would be consequent inconveniences for local authorities in the schools which any noble Lord can check if he care to consult with those bodies.
What I am surprised at in replying to this Amendment is that, having made one perhaps rather inaccurate shot in 1968 with the withdrawal of free milk from secondary schools, the Government should be asked to introduce or reintroduce free milk to secondary schools. If the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, would consult local authorities she would find, I feel sure, something which they would not like and that the view which her Party took in 1968 is administratively wrong. The only charitable view which I can take—the noble Baroness is shaking her head but I have still to make the point—is that noble Lords opposite are not entirely seized of the effect of their Amendments. However, there are more substantial points between the two sides of the Committee than this.
The Government believe that the age for giving free milk can cease at the end of the summer term after the seventh birthday, probably, on average, at seven and a half years of age; it may be older or younger. Like the Party opposite, we do not know for a fact, despite all that we have heard this afternoon, whether that is an absolutely accurate age. We admit that, and the reason why we do not know whether it is absolutely
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accurate to choose that age is, as I sought to explain on Second Reading, that, like the previous Government, we have not received advice from the Chief Medical Officer and his Committee that withdrawal of milk can be harmful to primary school pupils. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, I agree that the younger the child the greater the care that is needed. That is the reason why your Lordships should open the Bill. You will see that we retain the medical entitlement for almost exactly the same age groups of pupils as those receiving free milk since 1968 and we also add the new power for local authorities to sell milk.
We believe that, contrary to what has been said to some noble Lords, where milk is available for sale, there is every reason to expect that it will be bought. Increasingly schools are starting with more freedom of choice in their school meals service; and with this, of course, goes the regulation—I believe Regulation 5(2)—to sell food and other refeshments: because, again, since 1968, owing to an oversight, it simply has not been possible to make milk available at all in secondary schools. This has been denied to local authorities and the children concerned. In dismissing this new power, as noble Lords opposite have been doing, I would ask them to remember the oversight which occurred in the 1968 legislation. I would also ask noble Lords not to disregard the very considerable social security rights which are now being introduced. My noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard said he thought that if a family was on supplementary benefit there was a right to free school milk. Some of your Lordships seemed to take the view that as he said that it was something which he should know about, but I think that his mistake was very reasonable. This year there have been increased child tax allowances, family income supplement, increases in supplementary benefit and sickness and unemployment benefit—all concurrently taking place with the introduction of this Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, mentioned unemployment, but what she failed to mention is that from September 20 there will be an increase in unemployment benefit. If we take a family with

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three children at school we find that they have an extra £2 10s. (using old currency) coming into the family per week. The same sort of family with three children at school on supplementary benefit will have £2 more per week. I have to point out that this happens to be a small matter—so-called—of twenty times more than will be required per week for a child's milk. Your Lordships may not like the way this is done, but I think it reasonable to point out that my noble friend made a reasonable mistake when he said that he thought supplementary benefit equated with free school milk.
BARONESS BIRK: I am sure the noble Lord must be aware of the lack of take-up. Very soon, as has been pointed out over the week-end, the Government will be spending more on advertising the supplement than in handing it out. The reason why this point about milk is so important is simply that the supplementary benefit is not being taken up.
LORD BELSTEAD: I hope the noble Baroness is not suggesting that when over 50,000 will be entitled to family income supplementary benefit as from tomorrow the fact that the scheme is not advertised as economically as she would like means that these people will not be entitled to their supplementary benefit. I must say that that is a novel and entirely new point of view from the other side of the Committee.
Like my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard, although we obviously disagree on these points, I am surprised that noble Lords opposite have not at least given nodding recognition to these huge extra—I do not like to call them benefits, but extra rights introduced in this year. I would have hoped that, in calling in aid Dr. Lynch particularly, the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, would have weighed some value of the social security rights. The Government are showing good faith and these exist. On Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, perfectly correctly quoted from a recent article in the New Scientist by Dr. Lynch and his colleague, Dr. de la Paz, on their estimates of malnutrition. He has every right to draw attention to the opinions of two very distinguished socioliogists, but why not draw attention to measures which the
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Government are taking to try to keep up incomes? There was the undertaking which I gave the House on Second Reading on behalf of my right honourable friend that as soon as Dr. Lynch's survey comes out it will be put to the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food. I assure your Lordships that it will be awaited hopefully and dealt with quickly.
One thing which does become clear from the remarks made in this debate is that your Lordships require, before I sit down, a very quick sketch of the measures being taken to monitor and check the effect on nutrition to-day. Very swiftly, may I first remind your Lordships of the considerable amount of data already available through the routine medical examinations carried on by the school health service and of the existing data from the National Food Survey, which is a continuous sampling inquiry into domestic food consumption, expenditure and nutrition in private households in Great Britain. In future this information is going to be used differently, in that it will be analysed to test the extent parents make good at home the milk which perhaps is no longer going to be consumed in school. These are what might be called adjustments to the existing sources of large-scale information to make them more useful in a monitoring sense. In addition, a survey is going on in Kent and another in Birmingham. I am bound to say, even under the barrage of expert and threatening advice from the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, that the impression coming in from the surveys so far is that the findings are in harmony with those of the school health survey—that is, that the general nutritional state of our school population is good, with little or no sign of malnutrition to be observed. As I think your Lordships know, this was gone into in considerable detail in another place.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: The reason for that was described by the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and myself. That fact is that we established a nutritional service which was administered all over the country and this is the result. The noble Lord will not be able to stand up at that Box in a few years' time and in that suave manner of his make that statement, if the Party in office stays in power for a few years and this policy of theirs is introduced.
LORD BELSTEAD: I am sure that the noble Baroness wants to be fair to the House. My remarks apply to secondary schools just as much as to primary schools. The Party opposite withdrew milk from secondary schoolchildren in 1968, and now it would be possible to see the effects of malnutrition among secondary schoolchildren if it were there. In addition, a sub-committee of the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Food Policy has recommended that a major survey should be put in hand to study the possible effects of the changes in the arrangements in milk on growth, nutrition and health status of schoolchildren. This survey will involve the study of several thousands of children a year from different areas of the country and it would take into account not only the physical measurements of children but also such factors as health history, dietary information and socio-economic status. I am sorry to take up your Lordships' time, but I felt that this is something your Lordships would want to know, particularly bearing in mind the sort of remarks made, with all his experience, by the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and other noble Lords.
May I finish by saying that the Government believe genuinely that the savings made by this Bill are part of a strategy, not a hypothecation (I think that is the word) of particular pieces of expenditure, to reduce taxation and to concentrate on priorities. I should not have thought that there was so much between us to to divide the two sides of the House. If noble Lords will look at the House of Commons Hansard of November 4, 1968, they will see that when the then Minister announced the withdrawal of free school meals from the fourth and subsequent children in a family, his reason was that the £4 million he was going to save"could be more wisely applied ". When the last Government announced the second increase in school meals charges (incidentally a 75 per cent. increase in school meals by one Government is not bad going), the Minister once again referred to the expenditure needed in other areas of the educational service. I do not in the least criticise previous Ministers for giving this as their reason, because this is precisely the reason for this Bill. The Amendment before us is fundamental, because it would remove the majority
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of the intended saving. Of course, specific savings are not specifically earmarked but I suggest that the Government are remaining true to their word. Taxation has been reduced and my right honourable friend is pursuing a primary schools building programme which is earning her the gratitude of the education service.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I had intended supporting the Amendment before the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, spoke, and I still feel that I ought to support it. I do not know anything about nutritional values, because I am not a doctor. What I do know is that every morning of my life my children say either to my wife or to me,"What is for break?" what is there to eat in the mid-morning break? They are given an apple or something of that kind. In maintained schools where milk is provided—and I have recently been over a whole series of schools, primary, middle and secondary, and seen this happen—children have milk. When this milk is not naturally available, they are going to turn to their parents and ask for something for the break. If there is nothing in the house, they will be given some coppers and told,"Get yourself something on the way." They will buy sweets. It is well known that sweets are the biggest enemy of dental health. I understand that in Birmingham a survey has just been carried out showing that as a result of sweet-eating, dental caries is on the increase. If the children do not have sweets, they are likely to buy a bun, which has no nutritional value it just fills them up. I do not accept that a nutritional survey is necessarily an argument for removing something which is naturally at hand and which the children can take in line with other children.
The only comment I should like to make on the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, is on this aspect of administrative convenience, of tidying up. We have heard so much in recent years, not only from the present Government but also from Governments of the past, that for administrative purposes, tidying-up purposes, it is more convenient to do so-and-so. I suggest that it is not going to be at all a tidying process to pull the teeth out of children at fourteen or fifteen and provide them with artificial dentures. Yet I am convinced that this is exactly what is going to happen if we encourage

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children by their own volition, or through the natural laziness of their parents—because parents are lazy—to eat in the mid-morning break foods that are not suitable. If the Government feel that seven to eleven is the wrong period, then why cannot they suggest a period that is administratively more convenient. I understand that schools work in groups of four to eight, eight to twelve and twelve upwards. Let us have milk available in the primary and middle schools. I fail to see the reasoning of the noble Lord's argument there.
LORD STONHAM: Like the noble Lord who has just resumed his seat, I am no nutritional expert, but one does not need to be an expert to know the effect of school milk on children. My noble friend Lady Summerskill has given a doctor's evidence on this, but anyone who is not completely blind to facts can see it everywhere he goes. As a result of school milk the whole nation has been substantially upgraded in health. My noble friend Lady Summerskill said that this is a Cabinet decision and that it would not have been made if any Member of the Cabinet had seen hungry children. I have. I have certainly seen one hungry child, aged about one year. This child was bandy-legged. It had started to try to walk, and one leg turned over. The child was then introduced to milk, and was given all that it needed to drink and to eat. At times it was amusing to see the child consuming large quantities of food, because it was hungry. It took several years of proper feeding before that undersized, puny child had straight limbs on which to walk. The child will never have good teeth: the teeth were rotten as soon as they were formed.
When my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy said that noble Lords opposite may have to stand up to be counted on this issue, I felt that they ought not to stand up and be counted before they realised what they were voting about. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has done his best to deal with details that do not matter. Most of the things that have been discussed in this debate do not matter. It does not matter how much has been spent, or will be spent, on new primary schools: it ought to be spent, anyway.
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This Amendment is concerned with the health of children. This Bill is a crime against a whole generation of children. I think it is far more important than the Industrial Relations Bill. The health of the whole of the future nation is at stake. This is not just theory, or someone from a political Party speaking about it. This will really happen if children are deprived in this way. The noble Baroness opposite said, quite rightly, that money is spent on cigarettes, pools and sweets that should be spent on milk for children. But it is still the children about whom we are talking, and if the Government take away this milk, the children will not have milk regularly. That is the most important thing. It is their"elevenses"every day, and it is put into them.
I think it was Winston Churchill who once said that the finest way of building up a healthy nation was to put milk into babies. This is the literal truth. The object of this Bill is to take milk away when they are a little older than babies. But we are talking about children of seven and a halt according to the noble Lord; and they are babies. To stop this small amount of milk every day of the week is a real deprivation and its effect will be seen in their figures—not in statistics. The noble Lord can mull through the civil servants' notes and come up with a confusing answer, as he has to-day, but he will not get away from the fact that the nation's health will be adversely affected. Noble Lords may smile, but this is the fact. I hope your Lordships will support this Amendment. If you do not, but decide to stand up and be counted on the other side, I hope you will realise that you are deliberately depriving children of necessary substance. I do not think that any noble Lord in this House would knowingly do this; but that is what they will be doing. I support the Amendment.
5.45 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I should like to say straight away that I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I appreciate very much the effort that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, made to make bricks out of milk straws. I think he has the sympathy of the whole Committee. One has the feeling that his instincts are right, and that if a decision of this kind had

857
to be made by him it would not be made. I hope that I do the noble Lord no injustice, and I certainly wish him no harm in saying that. But if I am any judge of character, I would think that he cannot relish the task that has been thrown upon him.
This is a small Bill, and a figure of £9 million may not be much when one considers the fantastic sums that are spent on other things. The concern that has been shown in this Committee is an indication that it is a matter of priorities, and while it is only a matter of £9 million, children between the age of seven and eleven count a great deal. I think it right and proper that we should take a deal of time in considering what we do, or fail to do, in order to enable them to benefit as much as possible from their years at school. I do not think anybody would dare to contest the statement that the underfed child is unable fully to take advantage of the education offered to it.
I am extremely pleased that this afternoon I am supported by two professionals. My noble friend Baroness Summerskill speaks of course as a doctor. I am also supported in tabling this Amendment by my noble friend Lady Phillips, who speaks from long experience as a teacher: I can only speak as a layman. To those of your Lordships who have suggested that we can wait until we see malnutrition developing before we decide to do anything about it—because that is what some statements made on the other side amount to—may I say that my mind goes back to the years before the war when I visited a school and saw a boy with sores on his legs. I inquired of the headmaster why this was so, and he replied:"Because he is undernourished." There was a manager at that school, and I said:"That boy ought to be taken before the doctor at once." Your Lordships may think that the headmaster ought to have acted on his own. But it was not easy in those days, when attitudes towards providing free milk and school meals were so vastly different from what they are to-day.
I am a little surprised that so many of your Lordships should think that parents are going to make a public showing of their poverty. After all, people are not proud of poverty. I hope that that point may be taken. A number of points that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, made will fall to be answered in regard to later
858
Amendments, but I would warn him—and I would say to the Committee—that, before too much notice is taken of what is going to happen next September, I trust the Committee will appreciate the failure to take up family income supplements on the scale that we are advised by the Department is the case at the moment. It will be more appropriate perhaps to go into that aspect a little more thoroughly later.
May I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Berkeley: do not underestimate what lop a week means to a poor family. It means two shillings per child—and, of course, halfpennies and new pennies count more than they used to do—or four shillings a week for two children and many families will have two children in this age group. So it means a very considerable sum. And if your Lordships have no conception of the importance of money like this, then may I say again that I think some figures may be produced in relation to subsequent Amendments which will surprise one or two of your Lordships who appear to think that this is a land flowing with milk and honey for everybody. If we talk about averages, let us remember those who are below the line.
I always enjoy listening to the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, for his sincerity is evident, and I remember how kind he was to me when I made my maiden speech. I always listen to the noble Viscount with care, but I do not think that he understands how some people live. I am quite sure that if he did understand he would not have made the speech he did this evening. It is absolutely no use running away with the notion that this Bill will not cause hardship. It is going to cause hardship, and since the amount of money is, comparatively, so small, it is avoidable hardship, and the Government ought not to be responsible for imposing it.
The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, was very fair and quite entitled to draw attention to the oversights made in 1968. I hope this Government is never responsible for any oversights; and if we have been responsible for oversights then there is no reason, if they have been recognised, why further oversights should be made now. But the oversight we did not make in 1968 was to deprive schoolchildren aged seven to eleven of school

859
milk. We decided that it was a risk that could not be taken. I am not going to defend the decision to deprive secondary schoolchildren of school milk. I never have defended it, and I do not propose to do so now. But I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, that if he continues to argue in that sort of way he will soon be arguing that we can safely deprive the five to seven-year-olds as well; and I wonder whether the object of the Secretary of State is not at some time to destroy free milk and the school meals service entirely. If we are going to listen to the kind of speeches made in the other place, and one or two of those that have been made here already this evening, a great many people will be inclined to think that the welfare side of education is not at the present time in safe hands.
I do not defend the oversights in 1968, but the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has drawn attention to what the last Government did not do in regard to replacing old and unsatisfactory primary schools. At least he might have said that we did introduce the idea of educational priority areas. The then Secretary of State thought that was a very desirable priority in regard to primary school improvements. But there was a very great need indeed to give attention to the needs of secondary schools. We have had to provide a considerable amount of new building. If we had not, what would have happened? Many of your Lordships will be members of boards of governors and some, like myself, will be chairmen, and
they will know the numbers of over-large classes that we have had in our secondary schools. Something had to be done about them.
We were dealing with an age group which not merely deserved but was entitled to opportunities for specialist education that the old secondary schools did not afford. But the noble Lord might also take note of the fact that the Secretary of State then was under an obligation to provide additional secondary school accommodation to meet the situation arising from the raising of the school-leaving age which is due to take place in 1972. I have already reminded the Committee that the present Administration, in terms of improvements or replacements of secondary schools, is making no provision at all for the years 1972 to 1974.
Attention has been drawn to the defects of this Amendment, and I have little doubt that attention will be drawn to the defects of other Amendments. If your Lordships will carry this Amendment, if the Government want to they can remedy the defects. If they do not desire to remedy the defects, then I give this undertaking: that in so far as my friends are able to assist me I will table Amendments at a later stage that may overcome any such difficulties. Finally, may I remind the Committee that we are talking about one-third of a pint of milk for each child between the age of seven and eleven.
5.58 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 68; Not-Contents, 73.

CONTENTS

Amulree, L.

Energlyn, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs.

Archibald, L.

Foot, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Ardwick, L.

Fulton, L.

London, L.Bp.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Gardiner, L.

McLeavy, L.

Beswick, L.

Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]

Nathan, L.

Blyton, L.

Geddes of Epsom, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Boothby, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Phillips, Bs. [Teller.]

Bristol, L.Bp.

Hawke, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Brockway, L.

Hayter, L.

Reay, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Henderson, L.

Redcliffe-Maud, L.

Byers, L.

Hilton of Upton, L.

Rusholme, L.

Champion, L.

Hoy, L.

St. Davids, V.

Chorley, L.

Hunt, L.

Seear, Bs.

Clwyd, L.

Hylton-Foster, Bs.

Shackleton, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Jacques, L.

Slater, L.

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Janner, L.

Snow, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Leatherland, L.

Somers, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Lee of Asheridge, Bs.

Sorensen, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Lindgren, L.

Stonham, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Swaythling, L.

White, Bs.

Strang, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Wells-Pestell, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Merrivale, L.

Alport, L.

Eccles, V.

Milverton, L.

Atholl, D.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Monck, V.

Balerno, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Balfour, E.

Fortescue, E.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Barnby, L.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Northchurch, Bs.

Belstead, L.

Grenfell, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Gridley, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Bessborough, E.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Hacking, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Hailes, L.

St. Helens, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

St. Oswald, L.

Carrington, L.

Sandford, L.

Colgrain, L.

Harding of Petherton, L.

Selkirk, E.

Conesford, L.

Hood, V.

Selsdon, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Ilford, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Craigavon, V.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Strathcarron, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Jessel, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Crathorne, L.

Kilmany, L.

Sudeley, L.

Daventry, V.

Latymer, L.

Tenby, V.

de Clifford, L.

Lothian, M.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Lyell, L.

Vivian, L.

Derwent, L.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Windlesham, L.

Digby, L.

Mancroft, L.

Wolverton, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

6.5 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS BARONESS PHILLIPS moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 17, after (" and ") insert (" either ").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move this Amendment standing in the names of my noble friends and myself. With the permission of the Committee, I will speak to Amendment No. 4 as No. 2 is a paving Amendment to Amendment No. 4. Here we are concerned with the preventive value of milk. As was discussed in the previous Amendment, we are trying to make the point that it is better to prevent rather than to attempt to cure. We know that areas of poverty exist in our society to a degree which is a challenge to us. It is useful to remind ourselves of some of the situations to be seen in Wales, the Midlands and the North, particularly in view of some of the comments made by noble Lords on the last Amendment. Some of the figures I shall give have been quoted in another place and can easily be substantiated.
In the North there are a quarter of a million men over the age of 21 earning less than £24 gross per week—I am sorry that the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, is not in his
862
place. That involves 39 per cent. of the men employed. This sum of £24 is what they receive before national insurance or any other deductions have been made, and it is inclusive of overtime. This total includes 21,000 men with gross earnings under £15 per week. Those with gross earnings of between £15 and £20 number another 116,000. I know that again I shall be told by the Minister that we have the family income supplement. Although the figures vary on the lack of take up, I quote the one printed in a Sunday newspaper yesterday which alleged that only 13 per cent. of those entitled had taken up this supplement. The Minister may disagree with this, but at least he cannot tell me that 50 per cent. of those entitled have already taken up their entitlement.
No one will question that the people in these areas can easily be identified. None of your Lordships will question the view that it is infinitely preferable to prevent the occurrence of medical need rather than to try to cure the condition. Surely it is better to avoid damage rather than to wait to see if it occurs, as my noble friend has previously explained. I call in aid of this Amendment the fact that a certain Mrs. Simey, a councillor, reported that a study had taken place in an area in Liverpool where they were more concerned about the social milk

863
than the medical milk. I am not sure whether all your Lordships have appreciated that the Bill does not accept the idea of poverty at all; it deals merely with the social effect. She states that a remarkable study was undertaken in Liverpool of social malaise in children. The people looked into the various factors which led to this malaise. They found that broken homes were involved, that mental backwardness was the result of mental and physical fatigue, and that in certain areas there was great poverty.
It is not difficult to identify the areas to which this Amendment refer. The Bill already excepts the principle of special categories. Milk cannot be supplied except to these special categories. We see that free school meals are given in very high proportion in certain areas. That gives an indication of the areas with which this Amendment is concerned. In the North-East, in Gateshead, 44 per cent. of school meals provided are free. In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 47 per cent. of the meals are free. In South Shields the figure is 49 per cent. In some counties in Wales 36 per cent. are free.
We are not asking that every area should necessarily be included. We are asking that it should be possible to identify large areas. This can easily be done; we all know the areas of poverty; we know the areas which have already been decreed as areas of development. This is a simple Amendment, and I appeal to the humanity of your Lordships—something which I have seen in relation to other matters that we have discussed—to make it possible to incorporate these Amendments in the Bill.
6.10 p.m.
LORD BELSTEAD: I certainly acknowledge the motive which lies behind the Amendments. The"logic of positive discrimination ", the phrase the Plowden Committee coined, is the practical method which those of us interested and involved in education know for giving special attention where it is most needed. In this respect my heart warms to the Amendments. The noble Baroness perhaps will not be surprised if I say that the Amendments as drafted certainly present special problems and I would put it to your Lordships that I think that the Bill renders them in some ways unnecessary.
864
In introducing these Amendments the noble Baroness was quite specific in regard to details of income in certain parts of the country, and the Committee I think followed her with the greatest interest. I only wish that the Amendments were equally specific. They are open to the objection that they are vague. For instance, what is"a significant number "? What is"area or part of an area "? I am not saying this in any hair-splitting frame of mind. If your Lordships look carefully at the text of the Bill it will be seen that these Amendments would lay a duty on the authorities for the provision of free school milk in these areas. It has been the principle, anyway in educational priority areas, that such have never been designated. The Department of Education has criteria and indeed there are criteria for the urban programme, and by this method decisions are reached on where and how special assistance shall be given—a different concept, if I may say so, to a duty that pupils in vaguely defined circumstances should receive free school milk.
The certificate imposing that duty would fall to the medical officer. This is in the text of the Amendments. I should have thought that there would be drawbacks on ethical grounds for a medical officer to give a blanket certificate to children in certain areas without having even examined those concerned. I look round for noble Lords in the medical profession in the House; perhaps the noble Baroness will be speaking again in a moment. It is not a debating point, I should have thought there were severe drawbacks on ethical grounds to this. Clause 1(1)(b) already covers the position of older pupils with a health requirement. If the medical officer thinks that a pupil or a number of pupils need milk on health grounds it is open to the medical officer to certify to this effect, but of course on an individual basis. It has always been the aim of central Government, local government and members of the teaching profession to see that those who receive free school meals should not be identified. This is a matter to which the Department of Education referred quite recently in Circular 3/71 on February 9 of this year. As we know, sometimes schools are not entirely successful in this most difficult of tasks. Sometimes the teachers are wonderfully

865
successful, and if they are they have achieved an objective which I am sure is common ground to both sides of this Committee. I realise that milk on medical grounds will probably breach this objective—the objective that children should not be identified when they are receiving not a benefit but a right. My right honourable friend gave this matter very careful thought and we were certain in the end that, on balance, the advantage lay in making milk available on these grounds.
Consider the alternative offered by these Amendments. The Amendments are totally unselective. If a medical officer gives a certificate for an area or part of an area it is for every pupil regardless of need. In another place an Amendment was moved in the Standing Committee to equate free meals with free milk, once again, something with which one has the greatest sympathy; but in having to resist it the Government were able to say in reply that it was calculated that the cost would be about £1.2 million. I am not in that happy circumstance this afternoon. The cost of these Amendments is unlimited and it is to avoid spreading help indiscriminately that in framing this Bill we have had regard to the increased and new social security rights which are being instituted this year (and I referred to them at great length on the previous Amendment), which will go to those who need them, and which can be costed.
Before finishing may I just say that I meant it sincerely when I said to the noble Baroness that I had every sympathy with these Amendments. But on the last Amendment the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, referred in his closing remarks to monitoring, and drew attention to the danger that monitoring might be shutting the door after the horse had bolted; that malnutrition might have occurred and would not be discovered until monitoring had occurred. I would, for the Record, make it absolutely clear that monitoring (and the details which I gave to the House on a previous Amendment) is not something that is going to happen; it is already happening. Earlier I mentioned Kent and Birmingham, and although I know that this is not the whole answer I would like to make it clear that the steps which the Government are taking, and which, of course, were left over
866
from the previous Government, are genuine steps to see that a running check is kept on the nutritional standards of the nation.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I wonder if the noble Lord would explain how monitoring is going to determine the point at which the doctor will decide that milk ought to be supplied because of its preventive value.
LORD BELSTEAD: The point at which milk should be supplied will be entirely at the discretion of the medical officer; it will be at his discretion for how long the milk shall be supplied. It will be at the discretion of the school medical officer, in the light of a great deal of other information given him by people in different services, on what grounds exactly milk shall be supplied. If monitoring returns—I know that my noble friend Lord Ilford is concerned with this side of the Bill—in the future show that nationally or regionally there is real cause for concern, then that is the moment when medical officers may be concerned, and the Government of the day will be concerned, to see that they act on the monitoring results.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: It is the preventive aspect of the matter that I should like the noble Lord to devote his attention to. It is placing an enormous responsibility on the medical officer to decide in advance of anybody having noticed that malnutrition has begun or is likely to begin, and I beg the Government to appreciate that the preventive aspect is very, very important. We are dealing with an age group where risks are not warranted.
LORD BELSTEAD: Perhaps we could return to the preventive aspect from the point of view of the medical officers on the next Amendment. On the preventive aspect from the point of view of central Government, I put to the Committee on the last Amendment that already there have been informal contacts between those who are undertaking monitoring exercises at the moment, and I said it was our impression at the Department of Education that the view we have from the School Medical I Service, as a result of surveys, is that the nutrition of the children of this country is not declining but improving.

867
May I ask noble Lords a question? I should be interested to know how far noble Lords opposite have thought through the practicalities of these Amendments. Has the noble Lord, I wonder, discussed them with the local authority associations, or the Association of Education Committees. Has the noble Baroness considered the undesirability of openly drawing attention to certain areas within a local authority area when the objective can be, and we on this side of the Committee believe it will be, achieved through social security rather than through an allocation specifically for milk? This is the reason why the Bill makes provision for medical entitlement, which will be at the discretion of medical officers, who will obviously consider all the different aspects in a particular case. These are the reasons why there is the power to sell milk. By no means all those who need milk will necessarily be unable to pay. The social security rights which I have outlined before are relevant to these Amendments; and although I support the spirit behind the Amendments, they are, I believe, on practical grounds misconceived.
6.22 p.m.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: The Minister says that we have not thought through the practical effects of these Amendments. I believe that the Government have not thought through the practical difficulties and practical effects of their measures. I do not think noble Lords opposite realise what we find so objectionable about the whole of what we consider to be the not very substantial economies which will result from their measures. I call the measures they are indulging in at the moment a sort of"dunce's cap"measures. We have the dunce's cap; we have the poverty cap; we have the medical cap—all this categorising of children, which obviously is not a good thing at all. As to what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said about selling milk, I am always rather amused at this proposition, because we have been told that free milk has been thrown down the drain. However, when the Government are going to sell milk, then parents are going to pay for it and children are going to drink it. There seems to me something very odd about this contention.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I want to answer a question the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, put to me. I think the whole House realises that he is speaking from a very weak brief, which the last Division proved. I was astonished when he descended to a most curious argument in asking me whether the medical profession would not disapprove of what he called a blanket certificate. Does he realise that when nutritional policy was introduced many years ago the medical profession did not insist that before every child was given milk at school the child should be examined? The medical profession believes in preventive medicine. During the war we distributed food according to needs. The noble Lord, by the way, tried to answer the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, by saying that what he said was due to the fact that a war was on. The war came into the matter only because the Government were then in a strong position to say,"Now we will feed people according to their needs and they will not be able to demand food according to the amount of money in their pockets." We distributed food to certain sections; we gave more of a certain kind because it was necessary.
The medical profession would not disapprove of this. The medical profession in this century knows that prevention is infinitely better than cure. That is the essence of modern medicine. If the medical profession was told that some area where the average income was low was where children were going to be given milk or meals, the noble Lord need not worry that there would be an outcry from the British Medical Association. They would say,"Thank Heavens we have a humane Government! "
LORD BELSTEAD: I would suggest to your Lordships that there is not so much between the two sides of the Committee on this Amendment. I asked Lady Summerskill a question and she has given me the answer. I entirely take from the noble Baroness that the medical profession would approve of a certificate of this kind. Under the Amendment, this would be done in blanket form: under the Bill, it would be done in individual form. If the movers of the Amendment are correct in their assumption, as they may very well be, that there are areas or parts of areas which need this special help, then it will be given through

869
the Bill. The only point is that it will be dealt with on an individual basis by doctors seeing the children concerned individually. That is the difference between the two sides of the Committee, and I suggest it is not as great as perhaps noble Lords at the beginning of the debate on this Amendment may have thought.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: I thank the Minister for his reply. I do not know whether he unconsciously missed the point. Knowing him, I feel sure he was not trying to mislead us. But there is a vast difference between deciding an area where there should be a blanket certificate and examining specific and individual children. May I remind the noble Lord of what was said in another place—I am not sure whether it was said by the Minister or a Junior Minister—when asked about the method of determining whether a child was entitled to have milk. The reply was that every child is medically examined on the first entry to school, and any who at this stage show signs that the continuation of milk might be necessary will be noted for further examination. That is very specific; and if we are trying to avoid embarrassment, I would say that that could be extraordinarily embarrassing, if a child is set aside and it is said,"You are obviously in need of further examination and we will give you milk ". Unless things have changed considerably, a child can miss a medical examination. So far as I recall, the Act says that a child has to be medically examined three times throughout the whole of his school life. Many children do not have more examinations than just that. A terrible extra burden is going to be placed on the already overworked medical officers, whichever way the Government try to deal with this issue. But I feel it would be easy specifically to note an area.
The noble Lord made the point that the phrase"significant number"is very vague and that"area or part of an area"is very vague. I think he will find that both these phrases have been used in Acts of Parliament. This may or may not be an argument in their defence; there may be vague phrases in Acts of Parliament, but we are not introducing words which are not already used in legislation. The noble Lord also said that there was the opportunity to sell
870
milk. Again, the Bill is curiously contradictory on this point. It seems to give milk free to all children attending special schools. Children who attend special schools are not necessarily all in need of free milk, so there is a curious anomaly here. And since the noble Lord is speaking about procedures and difficulties, I would refer him to the procedure the parent has to go through if he or she thinks a child needs milk. These were the suggestions given by the Minister in another place. She can approach the headmaster, she can approach the child's teacher, she can approach the educational welfare officer for the district (always supposing that she can find him and ask for the child to be seen by the school doctor, or she can ask the family doctor to make representations to the school doctor in order that the child may be seen. Surely nothing could be more complicated than that. As I said last week when we were talking about social security, my experience is that the less literate people are the more difficulty they have in understanding the ways in which they can obtain their rights.
The blanket exception of an area will eliminate all these problems. There will not be a great number of areas, please God!, because we hope that things will be better eventually, but in the meantime it will give an opportunity to those areas that I have named specifically. There are quite easy ways of identifying them, which the Minister will recognise, and I ask again that he will take the opportunity to take this Amendment back and reconsider it. Perhaps the Government will bring forward a better Amendment because we know that we shall be told that they are all badly drafted. As I said last week, this puzzles me. I have drafted resolutions and amendments all my life, but when it comes to Parliamentary draftsmanship it seems that simple words do not have any meaning at all. However, I know from my own small excursion into Government that if the Government really want an Amendment the drafting is a small matter.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: I should like to add one sentence to the arguments which have been put forward. One of the most outstanding features about the Plowden Report was that it gave extra

871
help to certain areas, and it seems to me that there would be no objection to defining areas which were also defined by the Plowden Report.
6.40 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 1, line 20, after (" by ") insert (" a qualified medical practitioner or ").
The noble Lord said: I rise again to move this Amendment which I have tabled jointly with my noble friends Lady Phillips and Lady Summerskill. During the Second Reading debate there was some discussion about bringing in the family doctor to help in regard to the issuing of medical certificates, to the effect
6.32 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 46; Not-Contents, 75.

CONTENTS

Archibald, L.

Henderson, L.

St. Davids, V.

Ardwick, L.

Hilton of Upton, L.

Seear, Bs.

Beswick, L.

Hoy, L.

Segal, L.

Blyton, L.

Hunt, L.

Shackleton, L.

Brockway, L.

Jacques, L.

Slater, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Janner, L.

Snow, L.

Champion, L.

Leatherland, L.

Somers, L.

Chorley, L.

Lindgren, L.

Stonham, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Davies of Leek, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Strang, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Foot, L.

Phillips, Bs.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Plummer, Bs.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Gardiner, L.

Reay, L.

White, Bs.

Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]

Rusholme, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Eccles, V.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Atholl, D.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Monck, V.

Balerno, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Balfour, E.

Fortescue, E.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Barnby, L.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Northchurch, Bs.

Belstead, L.

Gowrie, E. [Teller.]

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Gray, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Bessborough, E.

Grenfell, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Bethell, L.

Gridley, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Bridgeman, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

St. Helens, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Hacking, L.

St. Just, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Hailes, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Sandford, L.

Colgrain, L.

Selkirk, E.

Conesford, L.

Harding of Petherton, L.

Selsdon, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Hood, V.

Sempill, Ly.

Craigavon, V.

Ilford, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Strathclyde, L.

Crathorne, L.

Jessel, L.

Sudeley, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Kilmany, L.

Swaythling, L.

Daventry, V.

Latymer, L.

Tenby, V.

de Clifford, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Denham, L.

Lyell, L.

Vivian, L.

Derwent, L.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Windlesham, L.

Digby, L.

Mancroft, L.

Wolverton, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

that a pupil's health required that he should be provided with milk at school, and of course the discussion was concerned with free milk. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, spoke most sympathetically, and in reply to a question which he himself posed, asking why the family doctor should not have a hand in any recommendation for free milk, I understood him to say that he cordially agreed, and that if we gave the Bill a Second Reading it was a matter we might like to look at more closely.
This Amendment provides just that opportunity for that closer look, and for

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a real and practical demonstration, if I may say so with respect, not only of sympathy on the noble Lord's part, but of what is more important, understanding. I fancy it is the sort of gesture we have reason to anticipate we might expect to see from him, not on his performance on this Bill but on his general performance in the House in the past. He recognises, as he said at Second Reading, that the family doctor knows his patients, and by accepting this Amendment he will show his faith in the medical practitioner as the responsible and trustworthy person we know him or her to be.
One of the most remarkable features of this Bill is that nowhere does it recognise that family income may be too low to permit the purchase of school milk. The only grounds on which free milk may be obtained for the seven to eleven year olds is by way of medical certificates certifying medical need. It does not matter how poor the family. For once the Government apply no means test, only a medical needs test. I think many members of the Committee feel, with me, that an impossible load is being placed on the school medical officer. I do hope the Minister will not repeat the arguments and suggestions that were advanced in another place. I trust he will go further than he did on Second Reading, when he spoke of the child's doctor having a hand in recommending the bringing to the notice of the school medical officer any need in the child, as I understood him then to put it.
Surely if a qualified general practitioner certifies need that ought to be enough. What more can be required? If a general practitioner recommends that milk ought to be supplied for medical reasons, then I suggest to the Committee it ought to be available without further difficulty. If it is not to be automatic approval of the recommendation of the general practitioner, what is going to happen if the school medical officer disagrees? I do suggest that if it is seriously put forward that the general practitioner ought properly to be brought in, and then when he has made a recommendation the school medical officer is in a position not to approve it, a very difficult situation indeed will have been created.
I think it would be helpful, accepting so much that is wrong in the Bill, if this Amendment could be made; at least, it would ease the position very considerably. I hope the view will be taken, not only by the Committee but by the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, that this is a constructive Amendment, that it meets points raised on Second Reading by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, and I hope it will commend itself to the Committee. I beg to move.
LORD AUCKLAND: Having listened throughout the Committee stage of this Bill, and having read fairly thoroughly the proceedings in another place, I am bound to say that taking the Bill as a whole it is very much a"curate's egg"of a Bill. There is a good deal of logic behind a number of the recommendations, but I am bound to say that some of the arguments that have been put forward have been taken in a somewhat cavalier fashion, if I may say so, by our Front Bench on this side.
If I may turn to this Amendment, it is a slightly different Amendment from what I proposed during the course of my Second Reading speech, because I proposed then, in a somewhat hurried speech at a very late hour on a Friday afternoon, that there should be consultation with the family doctor, rather than his recommendations a an alternative. In column 1373 at the Second Reading my noble friend Lord Belstead, in a very thoughtful and reasoned reply, did say—and I paraphrase what he said in the interests of time—that he cordially agreed with what I recommended, and went on to say that there were certain difficulties, as instanced in another place.
As I said earlier, I have read the proceedings of another place in Standing Committee, and of course there are two difficulties which can immediately be raised, and it would be fair to recognise them. The first is that it is an imposition on the family doctor's time. One recognises this. Bat at the same time, as has been pointed out, it is an imposition on the school medical officer's time as well. Secondly, it can be argued that a child moving with its parents into a new area may not have registered with a family doctor, or the family doctor may not be familiar with the child. At the same

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time, presumably, if necessary the family doctor can liaise with the doctor in the area whence the child originally came.
I do think this is a case where the family doctor ought to have an important say. After all, the conditions under which the exemptions will be made to the Bill are basically conditions in which the child needs milk through malnutrition or something of that kind, and it is the family doctor who is the best judge of this, the doctor who knows the child. The school medical officer deals with a great many children, possibly from different areas if it is a school covering a large area. The family doctor nowadays may admittedly have a large patient roll, but he or she is the person closest to the child and to the child's parents. Although I do not think the Amendment as drafted would completely meet the case, I do hope that my noble friend will give very careful consideration to it, and make consultation with the family doctor a much easier job than it is now.
6.50 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I feel the mistake that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has made throughout the debates on this Bill is to over-simplify matters. He has been in a difficult position. Sometimes, even quite passionately, he has explained to the Committee that the whole thing is quite simple: here is a child suffering from malnutrition; that child will be identified by one of the medical officers; the medical officer will give a certificate; and immediately the child will be given more food. The mistake he makes is to identify the physiological condition of malnutrition with the pathological condition. He almost suggests, as I have said before, that malnutrition might be accompanied by a rash so that a doctor could come along and say,"This is malnutrition ". In order to show how difficult this problem is, let me just read to the Committee what the journal The Teacher wrote:
" The medical officers of health of London decided it was impossible to find a satisfactory medical definition of which children will qualify. Doctor A. B. Stewart, medical adviser to the Inner London Education Authority, said that the problem was to identify those children who were undernourished. But there was no ready-made way of doing this. If half-a-dozen doctors were asked to pick out the undernourished children from a group,
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they would come up with half a dozen different answers."
This is the problem we are faced with.
I regard this Amendment, which of course I shall speak to, as an Amendment which is trying to improve a very bad Bill. The only answer is to feed the children. To introduce a small army of doctors, whether they are medical officers or general practitioners, to try to diagnose malnutrition is bound to fail. The Chief Medical Officer was quite right when he said this. At the moment we have a number of medical officers, and we know they are in very short supply. These medical officers, we are told to-day, perhaps manage to examine each child once a year. If the child is examined in August, what happens to it during all the cold months in the Northern counties? It is not going to be examined at all unless we have a number of ancillary workers—and I presume the teachers are going to be asked to do this—who will, in a kind of a non-professional way (I mean non-medical way) think,"Well, that child looks rather pale and worn out. We must do something about it." We have not been told who the ancillary workers are going to be. All we know is that the medical officers are in very short supply, and they will not be able to examine every child in the country regularly and thoroughly.
Therefore, this Amendment is introduced really to augment the number of doctors. It is suggested that the general practitioner should be invited also to report and certify a child. Now let us picture what is going to happen. Again, I wish that the Cabinet could see into the crowded waiting room of a general practitioner in the industrial areas, where patients sometimes have to wait for an hour or two: where they are often standing; where the harassed doctor—whose expectation of life, if you look in the obituaries of the British Medical Journal, is one of the shortest in the country—knows that the sanction exists that if he makes a wrong diagnosis the coroner could walk in. These are all the pressures upon him.
We are now coming along in this cool, quiet Parliament of ours and saying that this is an excellent idea;"We will add the general practitioner, who knows the family ". Of course he knows many families. In many cases he has attended

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the child at confinement. He knows the habits of the father. He knows whether the father drinks too much, smokes too much, or indulges in all the little habits which noble Lords on the other side say that he should not do, but he should feed his children. I would like to say, in parenthesis, that this is a 19th-century argument that we heard to-day, and I could scarcely believe my ears when I heard that if men drank and smoked, and did not feed their children, then of course the child should suffer. What an argument! We should punish the child for the drawbacks of his parents!
I was hoping, of course, that Parliament to-day would say that, if the child's parents are feckless, the child must not be punished for this; let the milk go straight into its stomach, and then we shall know that it is being fed. We are suggesting in this Amendment that the doctor who knows the family should come in. Let us have the whole picture. In a feckless family the woman is probably having to work outside, because the husband may well drink his money. She works in a soul-destroying factory all day, comes home to her little terraced home, cleans it, provides a meal, and gets into bed absolutely exhausted. The child is not looking too well, but she knows what this would mean if she went to the doctor. She would have to go in the evening, sit in that crowded waiting room, wait for attention.
In most cases these women know more or less what are the symptoms of pathological conditions from which children would suffer, and if they suffer that kind of symptom: yes, she is a devoted mother, struggling against all kinds of odds, but she will then certainly go along to the surgery. However, she will not go there if the child is fit enough to get about, to go out and play in the street, and to get along to school. So this kind of provision you are making now will only be partial. She will go when the child is suffering, or has a high temperature, and the doctor will not say,"Look here, this child wants better feeding ", because so many mothers would regard that as an affront. What is it suggested he would do? In a nice way, he would say,"I think the child wants more milk at school."
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Let us impress again that what we are asking for is a third of a pint of milk—that is all—per day. He will say,"I think he wants perhaps extra milk ", but he has to go very gently because, when the certificate is given, the street will soon know about it and the mother is then marked because she is a woman"who has not properly fed her children ". The doctor has given a certificate because he thinks it is suffering from under-nourishment. Here are the complications. Here we are introducing the poor, overworked, harassed general practitioner. We are introducing the mothers of the neighbourhood into a waiting room for this purpose. Most of them will not go. Most of the children with the condition that we are thinking about, malnourished children, will continue to be mal-nourished.
Although I am absolutely supporting this suggestion, nevertheless I know the picture perfectly well and what will happen. This is only trying to patch up a nasty, cruel little Bill. There is only one way of ensuring that these children will be properly nourished, and that is to ensure that the milk is taken at school. I agree with what has been said before: giving the child the money to spend on its way to school is asking for it to go to the sweet shop. The only way to protect this child, and to ensure it is properly cared for, is to see that it is fed at school, and then you can dispense with all these schemes, good as they may appear on paper but which in practice I am afraid will be not very effective.
7.0 p.m.
LORD ILFORD: I intervene to-night only for a moment, because the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, was good enough to make an observation about something I said during the Second Reading debate. I think she did not quite follow the point that I was endeavouring to put—
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I allowed the noble Lord to remain anonymous. I did not mention him to-day.
LORD ILFORD: I thought the noble Baroness's indication sufficiently accurate for me to undertake to reply. All that I did on Second Reading was this. I pointed out that the withdrawal of milk from the eleven to fourteen age group

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had apparently not been followed by malnutrition, or by any undesirable results. This debate has proceeded for quite a long time and a great many speeches have been made, but nobody has ever contested that. No one has ever argued that we ought to be warned by what happened when milk for that age group was withdrawn. If there had been any evidence that the withdrawal of milk then was followed by malnutrition or by harmful results, then I am quite sure that we should have heard about it and that this Committee would have regarded that as sufficient evidence to justify our not going on with this Bill. But that has not been said, and we must assume that the withdrawal of milk from the older group has not been followed by any of the disastrous consequences which have been predicted.
The other point that I desire to make is this. Throughout this debate we seem to have assumed that if the mothers had to pay for their milk they would not buy it; that is to say, when the school milk ceased the mothers would not replace it with milk which they had bought themselves. I do not think we should assume that that is going to be the case. I imagine that when school milk ceased a good many mothers said,"Very well, as we do not get the advantage of milk from school we may as well buy it from our own milkman." I should think a great many mothers have purchased the milk from their own milkman. I do not think we should assume that mothers are so neglectful, and that because school milk ceases there will be no milk at all for the children. I am going to support this Bill for I believe that it will do no harm and will in fact do good.
LORD SLATER: I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, saying that the parents ought to be responsible and should provide the milk by buying it from their own milkman. I do not know where the noble Lord lives, but there are some people in this country who cannot even leave a bottle of milk outside someone's door. They either break it or take it away, with the result that many people find that their milk bill goes up week after week. That is simply because of the vandals who go around breaking bottles. The evidence is there to see and it happens in my own area. I should like to take
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the noble Lords back to the last world war. My wife and I had the unfortunate experience of having our eldest daughter seriously ill. She had almost reached eleven years of age, and a friend said to my wife,"If I were you, I should have another opinion about your daughter ". So they carried that kiddie in blankets along to the school, because the county medical officer of health was in attendance. He wanted to know the name of the medical practitioner who had been attending to the child and he said to my wife,"Are you aware that that child ought to have been receiving extensive treatment?"She was put into the R.V.I. up in Newcastle and she received treatment, followed by a period of convalescence. But it was too late and, after a while, she passed on into a new state of existence and left us. That was during the war and there was no milk in those days.
There is a lot in what my noble friend Lady Summerskill said about the local practitioners. I sometimes meet the local practitioners in my own area and they are overworked because there are not enough of them, although they receive a capitation fee for every patient under their control. There will be extra work if this Amendment is carried, but this is a means of safeguarding the unfortunate child who is not receiving the care and succour which it ought to receive from the parents. It may be in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, that we could reach a position where we are too ready to remove parental responsibility, but there may be many cases where unfortunate children are neglected because of the action of their own parents. There is something to be said for having a qualified medical practitioner—and I made some reference to this point on the Industrial Relations Bill—because local authorities, rural authorities and even county authorities have people who can be called upon if required. I sincerely hope that the Minister will say that he is prepared to accept this Amendment, which goes some way to assisting these unfortunate children.
7.9 p.m.
LORD BELSTEAD: The effect of these Amendments would be to oblige a local education authority to provide free milk on a certificate from a doctor. The Bill requires the certificate to be given by a

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medical officer of the authority. It is perfectly true that at the previous stage of the Bill I promised your Lordships, and in particular my noble friend Lord Auckland, that this matter would be looked at with the greatest care before the present stage of the Bill. I am entirely in agreement with my noble friend who said, in effect, that there is a case for the family doctor to have an important say in this matter. I certainly agree that where it is desirable a pupil's doctor should contact the medical officer, and it can be assumed that the medical officer would give weight to any such advice. I followed the noble Lord, Lord Slater, carefully in his speech, and I think it would be right for me to say to the noble Lord that it is the intention of the Department of Education and Science to issue a circular in the event of the passing of this Bill. The sort of points to which the noble Lord was drawing attention, and those to which many of your Lordships have drawn attention in this debate, about the necessity for consultation, the necessity for people other than the medical officer to have a say in a particular case, will be borne in mind in the drafting of that circular.
However, although the medical officer is, at the moment, in the Bill as the certificating authority, the health of pupils obviously often involves other people. First, there is the family doctor, who would, where necessary, we hope notify a school about a child's health. Then there are the education welfare officers, who I think it is fair to say spend the major part of their time liaising between home and school. Then there are the child care officers and their colleagues in the probation and other local authority services, all and any of whom, along with the parents, can bring to the notice of the medical officer the necessity to issue a certificate under this Bill. Therefore, in some circumstances people other than the medical officer will play a part in the procedure laid down in Clause 1 (1)(b), and evidence other than that of the school medical officer's own eyes and expertise will influence a particular decision.
The intention of these Amendments may be to relieve medical officers of an extra burden. Although the work of the school medical services is ever expanding I really do not believe that a substantial
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extra burden will ensue from these provisions, partly because, of course, schoolchildren are under surveillance now. I must be honest with your Lordships and say that this is a decision which, after further advice, I have reached since the previous stage of the Bill. I am advised, however, that if eventually any local authority feels impelled to appoint more staff to fulfil their duty under the Bill, then the fact that there is no Money Resolution in this Bill would not make their action something which is unlawful. Although there is no difference of opinion on the value of advice from family doctors in this matter, we still believe that certificates should actually be issued by the medical officers of the authority; and in case the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, thinks I am simply being hard-headed, may I give two reasons? First, local education authorities will be responsible for the carrying out of the regulations which fall to be drafted under this Bill, including the expenditure for milk on health grounds, and it seems only right that the authority's own medical officer should be the person who issues the certificates which will exist by virtue of the Bill.
Secondly, it will be more probable that uniformity of practice will be achieved by standing by this stipulation. As your Lordships may know, and as I have said, the Department of Education intends to issue a circular. A good deal has been made in another place of the intention which has been enunciated by Ministers that there will not be specific instructions to medical officers. But their professional judgment will be, as I indicated, amplified by advice. Medical officers have long experience of identifying children who need special consideration. It will be for medical officers to judge, and to indicate on the certificate the period for which school milk is required. The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, mentioned what happens in the case of disagreement. I tried to make clear on Second Reading—and it was also made clear in another place—that ultimately the decision will be that of the medical officer. Frankly, we think that this is the fairest way in which this matter could be implemented and that more than by any other method this is the way in which uniformity of practice is likely to be effected.

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If I may add just one more remark, I seriously wonder, along with my noble friend Lord Auckland, whether general practitioners would really welcome this duty, which obviously may involve liaising with welfare services and other doctors in regard to children who, in this context, are the responsibility of the medical officer. I hope that the Committee will understand that, although I am entirely in sympathy with the idea of these Amendments, and with a great deal of what has already been said in this debate, on purely practical grounds I cannot accept the Amendments. I hope that the noble Lord, in concluding the debate on this Amendment, will not take this as an indication, which it certainly is not supposed to be, that the family doctors, and indeed the other advisory services which are available to school children, should not have the closest consultation with the medical officers in certificating under this Bill.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: Before the noble Lord sits down, can he answer one small point? He referred to school welfare officers. Is there a school welfare officer in every primary school throughout Great Britain?
LORD BELSTEAD: No; that is too fast a ball, I am afraid. I am sorry, but I cannot help on that matter.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: The more I listen to the noble Lord opposite the more I am reaching the conclusion that this Bill is a lame duck which had better never been hatched. I think it a very great pity that the noble Lord has spoken as he has, endeavouring to give the impression that he is saying something new. Certainly what he said on Second Reading led us to expect that there really would be some further thinking and something new; whereas the noble Lord knows as well as I do—he probably knows better—that what he has said has been said in another place and that he has added nothing. If this Amendment created difficulties, then I wonder why it is that the Government themselves have not tabled Amendments. They are not incapable of drafting Amendments. They are in a better position to do it than any of us on this side.
If the noble Lord alleges that medical officers would be in difficulty if this
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Amendment were carried, I want to put to him squarely that the Government will have brought this position about. The Government could have tabled an Amendment to meet the position. They have not done so. We are told in point of fact that they are going to issue a circular. I have very little confidence in circulars which are issued from the Department of Education and Science since the noble Lord's right honourable friend has been Secretary of State. She has issued too many circulars without consulting appropriate organisations. The noble Lord will know better than I do what they are, but there are two of very great importance. I think we need to make it perfectly clear that we have reason to doubt the present Secretary of State for Education and Science when it comes to issuing circulars. I should like to know with whom she is going to consult. Did the Government consult local authority associations before they decided to draft this Bill? Did they at any point consult with the professional associations? I rather think the answer is in the negative. One wonders exactly what they have in mind by way of consultation before they issue the circular, and whether they will in fact consult the medical officers of London, who were quoted by my noble friend Lady Summerskill.
It is no use the Government pretending that the difficulties to which we are drawing attention can be easily overcome by administrative action. The noble Lord knows perfectly well that throughout the country there is resentment at what is being done. I repeat what I said on an earlier Amendment: people are not proud of poverty. Have the Government stopped to think what is to happen to the little child to whom some social worker draws attention as needing free milk? Is that little child to be taken from the classroom for a special examination by the school medical officer? Because what we are really arriving at is this situation, that the medical test is going to take the place of the means test. If it is not that, the medical test is going to be a criticism of parental inadequacy.
I do not think that the Government have seriously thought out the situation they are going to create. We are, it is true, taking a good deal of time. I had not thought that so many members of the

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Committee would have been as interested as they are, but I am delighted. But what we are discussing is a matter of vital importance. We are discussing the lives of little children, and the noble Lord is suggesting that the school medical officer can cope with all the administrative work that is involved in issuing certificates. I think it is time that the Government realised that the school medical officers already have too much to do; that we are not able to create in considerable numbers the men and women of the calibre we should like to have. We ought to bring in the general practitioners as partners in this business. If a general practitioner certifies that a child is in need of milk—and preventive milk, at that—in many cases I should have thought that his word was quite sufficient. If there are difficulties in the Bill, they are of the Government's own making and they merely indicate that this is a thoroughly badly thought out Bill.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 1, line 25, leave out from (" them ") to end of line 3 on page 2.
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is designed to give local authorities what so many of them have asked for. The Association of Education Committees, at their annual general meeting, by an over-whelming majority passed the following resolution:
" That this annual general meeting of the Association of Education Committees instructs the Executive Committee to pursue vigorously with Her Majesty's Government the terms of the Education (Milk) Bill with a view to such amendment as will enable local education authorities to make appropriate provision of free milk after considering the needs of their school children of junior school age."
I would ask the Committee to consider what Sir William Alexander wrote on May 21 in the Journal of the Association of Education Committees:
" There is quite a major reaction against the policy of no free milk for primary school children over the age of seven. Indeed, this reaction is so strong that several local authorities have threatened to go on providing milk and bearing the charge on the rates."
Sir William Alexander also said:
" There are undoubtedly areas at the present time where there is a fairly high level of unemployment and where it may well be
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that children go to school without having had anything like an adequate breakfast. There are many therefore who feel that the provision of milk for these children is a major factor in maintaining their health and indeed in enabling them to carry the load of school work successfully. It seems reasonable to argue therefore that if the Government are adamant in not being prepared to pay they should at least leave a local education authority free to make such a decision at its own expense."
Sir William Alexander followed up that statement on June 18 by saying that, while agreeing that the Government might have a right to decide that they were not prepared to provide monies for any given purpose,
" surely it is no less right for the ratepayers in the area of the local education authority, through their elected representatives on that authority, to be able to decide that they will spend their money on such a provision if they think it desirable to do so."
In Hounslow, where a penny rate produces £178,000, the cost of providing free milk for junior schoolchildren has been estimated at £27,000 a year—less than 15 per cent. of a penny rate. This is not a large sum.
Then there is the Association of Municipal Corporations. I would remind the Committee of the powerful plea made by the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, on Second Reading. He expressed the hope that the Government would be willing to consider some sort of Amendment to give local authorities the power which this Amendment seeks to confer. The noble Lord, Lord Milverton, expressed the view of the Association of Municipal Corporations which can be summarised as follows. Where a local education authority wishes to continue the supply of free milk for all pupils in primary schools and is prepared itself to pay for the milk without Government aid, it ought to have the power to do so. And why not?
I raised a further point on Second Reading when I referred to difficulties which may arise when, because of reductions in the amount of milk consumed, suppliers will be discouraged. Dr. Lincoln Ralphs, Chief Education Officer of Norfolk, pointed out that in rural areas the Bill might not produce an economy because some school units were so small that suppliers would not contract to supply milk unless everyone was provided with it. I was also interested, and I trust the Committee will be interested,

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in the following extracts from correspondence from the Deputy Clerk of Perthshire to Perthshire Members of Parliament. He wrote:
" We are still in the process of taking in tenders for the supply of milk in the next session but already the Press coverage given to the Bill seems to have persuaded more suppliers than even before that it is simply not worth their while to take milk to some outlying schools. For example, the comparatively large firm which has supplied all the schools in the central districts of the county during the past session have indicated that they will not be tendering for the next session on the ground that it is not worth their while financially if the milk is to be restricted only to pupils up to the age of seven."
I could go on quoting, but when we were discussing the last Amendment the noble Lord asked whether we had consulted the various associations and what backing we had. I hope that he will be satisfied in this connection by the quotations that I have given, that so far as the Association of Education Committees is concerned and so far as the Association of Municipal Corporations is concerned, I have fairly represented to the Committee what their views are. With regard to the point that I raised on Second Reading, I think that the noble Lord then said that it was a new point. He will take it from the two quotations that I have given that it is a valid point and one that the Government ought to face. I shall be interested to hear what he has to say on the matter. I beg to move.
7.28 p.m.
LORD BELSTEAD: May I answer the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, in two parts? The first is the discretion that would be given by these Amendments, which would be to provide more milk for those already receiving it free, and to provide supplies of free milk for all primary schools and for all secondary schools. This wide discretion is a reversal not only of this Government's policy—hence these Amendments—but also of the previous Government's policy, which withdrew milk specifically from secondary schools. The first point I want to put to the noble Lord is that there are many noble Lords—and my noble friend Lord Milverton, was one of them—who on Second Reading aked why the expense of providing milk at the discretion of the local authority could not be totally rate-borne. Why could this not
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be done? Why was this not self-evidently just?
The factor which makes for an almost insurmountable difficulty here is the equalisation factor in the resources element of rate support grant. This is the part of the rate support grant policy of positive discrimination. What I am asking your Lordships clearly to understand is that if some authorities decided to avail themselves of the power in these Amendments to give free school milk to a wide range of pupils some authorities would become eligible for a larger share of the resources element grant at the expense of other authorities, and there would thus be no question of milk expenditure under these Amendments being totally rate borne. I want to make quite sure that I am not on record as saying that I totally disapprove of the policy of positive discrimination—the equalisation factor in the resources element of rate support grant. This is something which brings help to hard pressed areas. I am saying that because of this factor it would not be possible to do what so many noble Lords think would be a good thing and seems so self-evidently right until one looks at it more closely, namely, to allow local authorities to provide free milk totally on the rates.
May I turn to the second part of my reply to the noble Lord, which is the question of the penny rate to which he devoted most of his remarks. This Bill makes no alteration whatever to the powers a local authority has to devote the product of a penny rate to the benefit of people within the area of the authority. After the 1968 Milk Act withdrawing milk from secondary schools, authorities could have considered the financing of free milk in secondary schools from the product of a penny rate in just the same way as they could decide so to do now if this Bill passes into law. Your Lordships will be familiar with the power by which local authorities may devote the product of a penny rate to objectives for which they do not have a statutory duty. This of course excludes authorities which are local education authorities from devoting a penny rate to school milk.
The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, posed the question, why could we not change the law completely so that local

889
education authorities could do this, or, if we do not change the law, that local authorities which are not local education authorities finance free milk from the product of a penny rate? To this I would say first that any authority wishing to do so must decide with legal advice as to whether in principle under the penny rate provisions of Section 6 of the Local Government Act 1963 and its Scottish counterpart, Section 339 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947, this can be done. Having decided the principle with its legal advisers, the local authority would then have to decide whether it would be practicable. For instance, a local authority which is not a local education authority and uses these penny rate powers in respect of school milk would have no access as of right to the schools except at the invitation of the local authority concerned. An authority which is not an education authority would need to consider to what extent it would be necessary to ensure that the milk which the authority was financing actually went down the throats of the pupils within its area. When you think of children going across the boundaries of different areas of local authorities, this would not be hairsplitting but would be an important and relevant point. At the same time, the local education authority concerned would need to consider whether this process financed by another authority in fact involved the local education authority in any expense, and if it did whether such expense would be ultra vires under this Bill.
Finally, it goes without saying that the district auditor would have to be satisfied that such expenditure had been lawfully incurred. I am putting these points forward in a helpful spirit. I know that it is a destructive spirit, but I am trying to be helpful. These considerations have come to us at the Department and I thought it might be useful to your Lordships if I passed them on to the House. The factors which I have put before your Lordships would need to be considered by local authorities concerned with the financing of school milk from the product of a penny rate. But this consideration would not be anything new. As I have said, the Bill in no way alters the power of authorities to spend a penny rate—a twopenny rate in Scotland—and in no way changes the consideration which
890
local authorities have to give to their powers to do this.
However, your Lordships, and particularly my noble friend Lord Milverton, expressed the view on Second Reading that local authorities should have the power without question to provide free milk on the rates. I must point out that, quite apart from the technical difficulty I referred to at the start of my speech, the Government have responsibility for overall public expenditure. Local authority expenditure is just as much public spending as is central Government expenditure, and while the Government subscribe entirely to the principle of local autonomy we made it clear, as I pointed out on Second Reading, in the Department of the Environment Circular 2/70 that increased local authority autonomy cannot be looked at apart from the Government's responsibility for the total level and main trends of expenditure. I think it fair to repeat the questions which I put to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, on Second Reading. Why did the previous Government not do something about devoting the product of a penny rate for a subsidy for secondary school milk? Why did the previous Government not do something about this when the price of school meals began to rise? It might have been a good thing to subsidise them. I am not going to criticise the noble Lord. The answer is that there was then a similar overall responsibility for the level of public spending. For exactly the same reason we have to resist these Amendments.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: Let me answer the noble Lord straight away. The previous Government did not propose depriving children aged between seven and eleven of milk, a point which apparently has not yet sunk in. That is why they did not do anything on the lines the noble Lord has suggested and they did not have official opposition to the withdrawing of free milk from secondary schools. I wish that the then official Opposition had challenged the position. They might then have been seen doing their duty more effectively, we might have been saved the embarrassment and they might have been saved the embarrassment of this Bill. The noble Lord cannot have it both ways and the Government cannot have it both ways. They cannot claim that they are giving local authorities

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greater autonomy when they do not do anything that the authorities want them to do. If they are going to give the authorities greater freedom they have to give them power to do something which is different from their neighbours if they so want.
LORD BELSTEAD: May I ask a question of the noble Lord? Is he suggesting that we are in some way changing the rules about the product of a penny rate and in some way withdrawing local authorities' freedom in that respect?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I was coming to that point because I think it important, but I want to underline what I have been saying. The Government should not talk about giving local authorities greater freedom when they are not giving them greater freedom. They are denying the freedom for which they ask. The local authorities are asking for freedom to spend their ratepayers' money, ratepayers to whom they are responsible. All they are asking for is that if they ore education authorities they should have exactly the same right as district authorities which are not educa-
Resolved in the, negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
tion authorities. I hope that what is being asked for is clear. It is the associations that are asking for this. I cannot understand why the Government are so blind as not to see that this is a genuine request for parity in deciding how the product of a penny rate should be spent if they think that it conforms with the wishes of the people they represent. I do not think that is asking very much. I am surprised that the Government are being so adamant in their attitude to any suggestion that this Bill should be improved, because the more we discuss this Bill the more it becomes clear that it is a thoroughly bad Bill. It is alleged by us and by many outside the Labour movement that this Bill will do damage to children. At the very least, that risk is being run. Why run risks when it is unnecessary for such a paltry amount, which would not be missed by people in receipt of over £80 per week?
7.40 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 5) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 34; Not-Contents, 59.

CONTENTS

Beswick, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Rusholme, L.

Blyton, L.

Hanworth, V.

St. Davids, V.

Brockway, L.

Henderson, L.

Seear, Bs.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Hoy, L.

Shackleton, L.

Champion, L.

Hylton, L.

Slater, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Jacques, L.

Somers, L.

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Janner, L.

Stonham, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Lindgren, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Foot, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Nunburnholme, L.

Wade, L.

Gardiner, L.

Phillips, Bs.[Teller.]

White, Bs.

Garnsworthy, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Monck, V.

Auckland, L.

Eccles, V.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Balerno, L.

Ferrers, E.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Balfour, E.

Fortescue, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Barnby, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Belstead, L.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Penrhyn, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Gowrie, E.

St. Helens, L.

Bethell, L.

Gray, L.

St. Just, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Grenfell, L.

Sandys, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Gridley, L.

Selkirk, E.

Carrington, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Selsdon, L.

Colgrain, L.

Hailes, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Conesford, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Strathclyde, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Sudeley, L.

Craigavon, V.

Hawke, L.

Tenby, V.

Cranbrook, E.

Ilford, L.

Terrington, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Latymer, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Daventry, V.

Lyell, L.

Vivian, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Windlesham, L.

Digby, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Wolverton, L.

7.48 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 2, line 17, leave out (" 1971 ") and insert (" 1975 ").
The noble Lord said: I shall be quite brief. I appreciate that a number of noble Lords are waiting to take part in the resumed Committee stage on the Immigration Bill. If we do not know how to look after our own children, I do not know how we can expect other people to look after theirs. This Amendment gives the Committee an opportunity to point out to the Government that they have no mandate for this Bill and that it would be a very good thing to postpone its operation until after the next General Election, when there would be a good chance that it would never come into being. That would be welcomed by a great many people. I beg to move.
LORD BELSTEAD: In company with the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, I realise that your Lordships would like to pass on to the next Committee stage. I think that we have a mandate for this Bill, a mandate to this extent: that the Conservative Party for years in Opposition drew attention to the need to concentrate on priorities in education. This was the general philosophy of the White Paper New Policies for Public Spending. May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, that I am extremely surprised that there should be anything between us on this point. Possibly when Parties change from Government to Opposition, the language of priorities ceases to be the language of his Party; I do not know. There is this difference between us, and I must say that I am surprised.
LORD HOY: I am bound to say that the noble Lord's reasoning is somewhat faulty when he says that he was returned on a Party political policy which said to the electors of this country:"If you return us, we will take the milk from the school children ". I do not believe that to be true.
LORD BELSTEAD: The noble Lord has it slightly wrong. We do not produce our policy to the country just at General Elections; we do it over a period of years. What I said to the Committee was that for many years in Opposition the Conservative Party made their position perfectly clear on this matter.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I do not think any of us on this side, and few on that side, need instructing about an order of priorities. As I understand it, Nye Bevan put it—and I accepted it when he said it—that"socialism is the religion of priorities ". It is a strange priority that takes one-third of a pint of milk from children who may be placed at risk. I shall not press this Amendment to a Division, but certainly I will give my noble friends on this side an opportunity at least to express with their voices how they feel.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Provision of milk in Scotland]:
7.52 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 2, line 25, leave out (" seven ") and insert (" eleven ").
The noble Lord said: I shall be brief on this Amendment, too. Clause 2 deals with the position in Scotland, and the same general arguments apply as to England and Wales. I do not wish to repeat them all, but I want to make it clear that, even though the Government would not accept the Amendment to increase the age to eleven under Clause 1(1), I would give them another chance to treat the children of Scotland a little more liberally than they seem disposed to treat children of England and Wales. Certainly their action would not be resented in Scotland. If my crystal glass is giving me the right message, I shall be interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, has to say why children in Scotland should not be treated more liberally than the children of England, particularly having regard to the fact that local authorities there can spend the product of a 2p rate, compared with only 1p in England and Wales.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: I have not joined in the debates on this Bill before because I have always felt that one must declare a vested interest, and here I have to declare a vested interest from several points of view. First of all, I am a farmer, and naturally one of the things a farmer tries to do is to sell milk. But I am also a county councillor of a county in Scotland, and a ratepayer, and I should

895
like to say a few words from these angles. I can assure the Committee that when the last Government reduced to eleven the age of children receiving milk I spoke to over 100 people about this, and only five of them objected. I think that decision of the last Government was absolutely correct. I want to go a little further on behalf of the many ratepayers in Scotland. Under our rates arrangements a local authority has no capital; it has to borrow money for capital expenditure, sometimes at high rates of interest. I have never known anybody object to money being spent on education, because this is something that some parents of children cannot afford. But people do feel that it is up to the parents to look after their own children and nay for their food and clothing. I have met many people in Scotland who are quite happy to pay for education, but are not willing to pay for food, and feel that it should be charged at a reasonably economic rate.
The important thing in the case of milk is that it is only eligible from a rate support grant from the Government; it is not 100 per cent. free. Nothing is free in this world, anyway. I feel that it is the parent's responsibility. But we are providing for children up to the age of seven. These small children probably would not be able to handle money anyway, and there would be complications. I do not want to lengthen this debate, but I feel that the Government's decision is absolutely correct. After that age, if the children want the milk, they can buy it. This, I can honestly say, is very much the opinion of the average ratepayer in Scotland.
More and more money out of the rates is going towards the cost of education, but this nobody minds. Nobody minds paying towards the cost of clothes for children whose parents cannot afford them. A district council may often arrange for shoes, clothes, and the lot, for children of big families. But I feel that the extra family allowance that the present Government have made is doing a lot of good. If only we could educate people to take a little more interest in their children and not so much in bingo, I think we should be going a long way in the right direction.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: As a Scottish ratepayer, and the father
896
of a child who until quite recently was at a Scottish village school, and who is at present sitting below the Bar in your Lordships' House, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to accept this Amendment. I am sorry that he did not accept the other Amendment. As a supporter of Her Majesty's Government, I think that this is a very mean and pettifogging Bill. It might go quite a way to make the Government's case a little better if they accepted this Amendment relating to Scotland, which has a higher rate of unemployment than there is in England; and it has a lot of poverty, or near poverty, which some of us who live in Scotland have seen in Glasgow, in the Clydeside area and in Lanarkshire. It is no good saying that you are going to give these children money with which to buy milk, because they will not buy milk, but will buy sweets in the local sweetie shop. As I have said, I hope that my noble friend will accept this Amendment.
7.59 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Balfour for his words of support for the Government. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, and noble Lords opposite that what my noble friend Lord Belstead said applies completely to Scotland. We consider that the benefits we are giving will more than offset any possible extra expenditure of 2p per school day which might be necessary. I refuse to believe that if Scottish parents think their children need milk they will begrudge them this 2p per day. And there is no need, as my noble friend Lord Belhaven seems to think, to give little Willie his two new pennies for him to"blow"on sweets. It is quite possible for the bill to be paid at school by the parents, weekly or monthly as the local authority may decide. That is quite a possible thing and is allowed for in this Bill. There is one small point: if we had passed Amendment No. 1 earlier to-day it would have completely nullified this Bill and put the clock back to where it was in the past. If, however, we were to accept this Amendment—I do not know whether noble Lords are aware of this—it would not have that effect, because the education system in Scotland, at the noble Lord knows, is slightly different from the English system. Scottish pupils in their last year of primary

897
education get free milk. If this Amendment were passed, it would have the effect that they would not get it; so this would be putting the clock further back than the noble Lord intended. However, as the evening is getting on and the arguments are exactly the same, it would be churlish of me to go on speaking.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: No, the argument is not exactly the same. It changes, and not for the better. The noble Lord says that so far as Scotland is concerned we can put it on the bill once a week or once a month. We could put it in this Bill and ensure that children got milk. If there is any defect in the Amendment the Government have draftsmen at their disposal and they could have put down an Amendment to the Amendment or they could have put down an Amendment themselves. I appreciate that throughout most of the Second Reading and during this afternoon the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, has been in attendance and I have personally appreciated the interest he has obviously taken in our arguments. However, I feel that his remarks were completely answered by what his noble friend Lord Belhaven had to say. He called it a pettifogging Bill. It is a pettifogging Bill. As regards what the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, said, about not having found anyone in Scotland who was criticising this Bill may I say that in a later Amendment there will be an opportunity to look at that point a little more closely. Again I wish to say that I shall not press this matter to a Division, but I should like to have the opinion of my noble friends recorded.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
8.4 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 2, line 28, at end insert (" a qualified medical practitioner or ").
The noble Lord said: The argument here is exactly as for Clause 1. I beg to move this Amendment formally and shall not speak further on the matter.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: We on this side of the Committee have lost all our Amendments, sometimes by a small amount and sometimes by a large amount. I do not think there is much point in pressing this point much further but I should like to reiterate my remarks
898
to the effect that local school medical officers of health should certify that the whole class of children between seven and eleven should receive free milk.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: I do not think I ought to go on too long on this point. The arguments are the same. The Scottish authorities would not want to issue milk, which would be a financial obligation on them, on a private doctor's recommendation. The private doctor can draw the attention of school medical officers to cases, where he thinks it necessary that milk should he provided, and any parent could have this done if he thought it was needed. The arguments are exactly the same, and I think that there the case must rest.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I should like to make one or two points on this Amendment, and I hope I shall redeem the promise I gave just now to touch upon the situation in Scotland. In Scotland there are 49,000 male workers aged 21 who earn less than £15 gross a week. In Glasgow there is a very, very special position. I think I am right in saying that in Glasgow no fewer than one in ten of the male workers are unemployed; and the prospect is no brighter—indeed, it is a great deal bleaker—as a result of the Government's decision with regard to the Upper Clyde shipyards.
On Second Reading I referred to some correspondence and Press reports about the position in Glasgow, when it was reported that a deputation had waited on the then Under-Secretary for Health and Education at the Scottish Office. I do not know whether the resignation of the right honourable gentleman lets the Government off the hook on this matter. Since, in his letter of resignation, there was no reference to education, and since there has been no allegation that he misbehaved himself, I would appreciate it if the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, can clear up what appears to have been the impression received by the deputation when they waited upon the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Education at the Scottish Office. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, knows the point, because I raised it on Second Reading.
Newspaper reports made it clear that the deputation left the meeting satisfied that the medical officer had discretion to

899
issue certificates on preventive grounds. I think this cannot be too clearly spelt out. The Leader of the deputation, Dr. Docherty, said on leaving the meeting with the Under-Secretary that it would mean that in complete districts in Glasgow most children would be able to receive milk. This being the case—and I am asking for confirmation—it would seem that the Amendment before the Committee would be of great administrative help. It would save the examination of every child, save a lot of book work and avoid undesirable discrimination. Also, we should do well again to remember, as I said earlier, that it is only one-third of a pint of milk a day.
LORD BELSTEAD: I will just reply to the noble Lord on his last point. I replied to it on Second Reading, and I was looking for a reference, but I am afraid that I cannot find it immediately. The burden of my reply to him now on behalf of my noble friend and myself is that the school medical officer's decision will be final. There will be no question of Government or anybody else stepping in and rescinding decisions of school medical officers.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: May I say that I raised the point because there is still misunderstanding in Glasgow? I was in fact asked to raise it this afternoon, because what the noble Lord said on Second Reading was not sufficient.
LORD BELSTEAD: I hope that what I have said now is sufficient.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 3, line 13, leave out (" 1971 ") and insert (" 1975 ").
The noble Lord said: I think it is quite appropriate that in regard to this Amendment I should say that we think the operation of this Bill so far as Scotland is concerned, as well as England and Wales, should be held back until 1975, when we shall have had another General Election which one hopes will sweep this Government from office and we shall have a more humane and understanding Government in office.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: I do not think that noble Lords opposite
900
will expect the Government to accept this Amendment. As my noble friend Lord Belstead has made amply clear, our intention is that by restructuring the general outlook many people at the bottom will be better off. This is small in itself, but it will bear fruits in the long run. With regard to the point about August 1, 1971, we had anticipated that the Bill would have been law by now, and I am advised that the effect in Scotland will be just the same as in England. It will be operated in Scotland, of course, whether there are children to drink milk or not. Therefore it cannot do any harm having it as it is. It is not retrospective legislation in any way. With those words I will leave that.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

IMMIGRATION BILL
8.12 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Windlesham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ST. HELENS in the Chair.]
Clause 14 [Appeals against conditions]:
LORD GARDINER LORD GARDINER moved Amendment No. 79:
Page 15, line 44, leave out (" or for other reasons of a political nature ").
The noble and learned Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment. The Committee is perhaps in some difficulty—I do not refer to the hour—due to the fact that there are a number of cases in which the Government have said."There is a point here; we should like an opportunity to think about it before Report stage." In those cases we have naturally not pressed the matter to a Division, but we do not

901
yet know what the Government are going to do. There is also the difficulty that there are later Amendments on the Marshalled List which may or may not be carried.
The situation in which I move this Amendment is as follows: The position with regard to some right of appeal other than the ordinary right of appeal on a deportation order stands at the moment in this way: If the Government's Amendment No. 91 is carried, there will be a right of appeal in family cases. There will not be a right of appeal in the non-conducive cases. The non-conducive cases will be (a) of national security, (b) international relations, (c) for reasons of a political nature, and (d) non-conducive grounds which are not so limited. Of those non-conducive grounds which are not so limited the only examples given concern people of whom the Government have private information, which they cannot disclose, that they are drug traffickers or members of the Mafia. I concede that there ought to be some special procedure of appeal in cases of national security; in cases of international relations where the Government may not be able to explain the delicate position about the international relations, and in the general class which includes the Mafia, drug takers, et cetera. Whether that special class should be subject to appeal to a non-statutory body, and be purely administrative, like the"Three Wise Men ", or whether there should be a special form of statutory tribunal, we have later to consider. The only one I am questioning is:
" or for other reasons of a political nature ".
I do that on two grounds: first, this phrase is so wide that it is difficult to understand what it means. The words"reasons of a political nature"must obviously include"Party political nature ".
Anybody who has experience of this situation knows that Home Secretaries and M.I.5 have always treated rather differently those on the extreme Left from those on the extreme Right, and the right honourable gentleman, the Home Secretary, was pressed in the other place to explain the type of person this phrase covered. On being pressed from both sides of the House the only case he was
902
able to give was that of someone who it was thought had come here to stir up bad relations between different sections of our community. I must accept from him that' that is the case which is here covered; it was the only one that he mentioned. So let me take an extreme case, one about which we should have every sympathy with the Home Secretary: if somebody from West Pakistan comes here to make inflammatory speeches at public meetings against Pakistanis in East Pakistan, or vice versa. This does not seem to be proper for this special procedure but ought to be dealt with by the ordinary procedure for these reasons: First, as the Bill stands, this is not a man who has no right to come in here, and we are saying,"You cannot come in ". This subsection deals only with people who are already here, who have leave to stay here for a certain period and are suddenly told,"You must go at once ". The special procedure at the moment contemplated is that now applicable to civil servants.
But the Home Secretary says,"This ' Three Wise Men ' procedure with no right of legal representation is suitable in this type of case ". A civil servant is quite able to speak for himself—he is an educated man. If he wants to be represented by somebody else he can, although he has no right of legal representation. He could be represented by a representative of his Civil Service organisation, or by his Permanent Secretary. This may be a man who has come from Pakistan to see his son, whom he has not seen for some time. He has come for only three weeks, and speaks very little English indeed. He is suddenly told, when he has been here only three days, that he must leave at once. I cannot see why the ordinary right with representation should not be available to him as an ordinary appeal, when all he wants to say is,"I wrote and told my son before I came that I was not going to take any part in any public affairs between West Pakistan and East Pakistan, and that I should refuse to do this. You can ask my son, who has the letter. In the three days that I have been here, apart from my son and his family, I have not contacted anybody from West Pakistan or East Pakistan. The Government's fear that I am going to stir up trouble is completely unfounded."
The words referred to in my Amendment should be omitted from this subsection because of their wide meaning, which could include almost anything. Also, if we are to accept what the Home Secretary says, that all it is designed for is to cover this type of case, then in relation to this type of case there are not the characteristics which naturally obtain if one is dealing with national security, or international relations, as well as this wider class, which, as I understand it, is outside these words, of the person who is believed to be a drug trafficker or one of the Mafia and could perfectly well be dealt with, if at all, by the ordinary procedure.
I hope it will not be said that the Wilson Committee or the late Government agreed about this. I have read carefully what the Wilson Committee said. They were dealing with another point and the Appeals Order of 1970 to which the Government of which I was a member was a party, simply said this:
" Special procedure in cases involving national security et cetera or forgery of documents. Where a person appeals against any decision or action to an adjudicator, or by virtue of Article 4(1)(b) of this Order to the tribunal, and it appears to the Secretary of State that the decision or action was taken only or mainly in the interests of national security or of the relations between the United Kingdom and any other country or otherwise on the grounds of a political nature, the Secretary of State may direct that that appeal (a) if it would otherwise be heard by an adjudicator should be referred to and heard by the tribunal as constituted for the purpose of hearing appeals."
That is an entirely separate point, whether the appeal should go first to an adjudicator or straight to the appeal tribunal—but that is quite another matter. I would have thought that these words ought to be moved out of this subsection, for the reasons I have given. I beg to move.
8.22 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Under the Bill as it was amended in another place on Report stage there is a right of appeal to the immigration appeal authorities where a decision to curtail the stay or a refusal to extend or remove the limit on a limited leave to enter is based on a personal decision by the Secretary of State that the person's departure would be conducive to the public good. This would not apply where the grounds were
904
national security or reasons of a political nature. Similarly, there is a right of appeal under Clause 15 of the Bill where a deportation order is made on conducive grounds except where the decision, again taken personally by the Secretary of State, was in the interests of national security or of the relations between the United Kingdom and any other country, or for other reasons of a political nature.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, has said, the purpose of this Amendment is to delete the last phrase so that there would be normal rights of appeal to the immigration appeal authorities where the decision to curtail the stay in this country or to deport was based on reasons of a political nature. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, referred to the Report of the Committee on Immigration Appeals under the chairmanship of Sir Roy Wilson (Cmnd. 3387) and said he had studied it carefully, as indeed I have. Perhaps I may quote the whole of paragraph 143 so that it cannot be said that this is a selective quotation. The heading is"Special Cases ", and paragraph 143 reads as follows:
" Cases arise from time to time in which the Home Secretary feels justified in excluding a person from this country, or requiring him to leave, on grounds that are essentially of a political nature—for example, that his presence here is or would be harmful to international relations, or offensive to public opinion. We doubt whether the system of appeals which we are proposing would provide apt machinery for dealing with such cases. We would not therefore think it wrong in principle, or destructive of the general value of the proposed appeal system, to remove such cases from the scope of that system and leave them entirely to the Home Secretary's discretion subject to his responsibility to Parliament."
That is the whole of paragraph 143.
The present position is that Article 8 of the Aliens (Appeal) Order 1970 makes special provision for an advisory procedure instead of the normal right of appeal. I quote the words from the Order:
" Where it appears to the Secretary of State that the decision or action was taken wholly or mainly in the interests of national security or of the relations between the United Kingdom and any other country or otherwise on grounds of a political nature."
That is the position under the Aliens (Appeal) Order at the moment; so the Bill not only follows closely the precedent set by the previous Administration, but

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is modelled on the actual words used in the Order in effect to-day. The Aliens (Appeal) Order was laid before Parliament in draft when the Immigration Appeals Bill was introduced in 1969, and the fact that the special advisory procedure referred to in the Order would extend to political cases was drawn to the attention of your Lordships at the Committee stage of this Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor.
The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, defended the reference to political cases, The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, was asked what kind of cases the Government had in mind when including this reference to political cases, and he replied:
" The kind of case the Wilson Committee had in mind as an example of one decided on political grounds, not connected with international relations, was that of a person whose presence here would be an offence to public opinion. They gave, for example, a prominent neo-Nazi. Another example might be the case of an alien seeking to work covertly in this country, in the interest of a foreign Power, in a way that was contrary to our national interest, although it could not be said to threaten national security."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6/5/69; col. 1066–7.]
Since the immigration appeal system was introduced the only case which has fallen within the words which the Amendment seeks to exclude was that of Mr. Dutschke. This case also involved grounds of national security, so the Government are not able to add to the experience which my predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, gave from this Box in 1969. But it does seem to us right that cases which might fall within these words should remain matters for the Home Secretary's decision, exercised in the light of the advice he will receive from the Three Advisers and subject to his answerability to Parliament.
This is one of those Amendments—we have others later to-day—that at face value attract a good deal of sympathy. One tends to feel that this type of Amendment deserves support, but when one comes to look into it I do not think there is a great deal between us. The previous Administration set up an advisory procedure. It operated within the immigration appeal system but it was a special advisory procedure. In all other cases the Home Secretary is bound by the findings of the Tribunal or of the adjudicator, and appeals are made against
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his own decision; but this is not so in the case of security or political appeals.
Noble Lords who have followed this matter will find that in about 1967 or 1968 when he was Home Secretary Mr. Roy Jenkins discussed in another place, on a debate on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill the recommendation by the Wilson Committee. He said that he saw the force of what they said but that he wanted to have the benefit of some advice. He wanted to retain this as a discretionary decision but he wanted some advice. He thought the way to do it was to have the Tribunal argumented by special members who would sit for the purpose and be able to give the Home Secretary advice in security or political cases. There has been only one instance of this special procedure and we know—Mr. Callaghan said this frankly—that it did not work out as he had hoped. He was the Minister responsible when the 1969 Act was introduced. The special procedure did not work out in the manner he hoped it would. It took on the character of a trial, and a trial in which aspects of the evidence were brought out which could not be rebutted by the person who was appealing before the Tribunal.
That being so, it seems to the Government that the right thing to do in these circumstances is to return the matter to the Home Secretary's discretion and in this instance for him to have the benefit of the special advisory procedure—the"Three Wise Men "—which he described at some length in another place, and not to continue with what was (and we must accept this) an unsuccessful experiment. These are the reasons why we think that what is in the Bill is right. Although we have sympathy with what the noble Lord has said, and have given it a good deal of thought, we are inclined to think that in this respect the Bill is better than the Amendment.
8.31 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: I very much hope that the Minister, in accordance with the way he has met other Amendments, will consider this matter before Report stage. The words in the Bill are extraordinarily wide. I am disturbed again and again in reading clauses in this Bill by the power that is given to the Secretary of State. I do not want

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this country to become in any way a totalitarian nation. But these powers, which include the suggestion that one should not have the right to appeal for reasons of a political nature, go very far indeed to making this country in this respect totalitarian.
The Minister has referred to the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, which limited the right to particular circumstances. I acknowledge that I am not much concerned about what previous Governments have done in this respect. I am concerned about the whole principle of the issue. The broad terms of"reasons of a political nature"seem to me to be going much further than any measure of this kind should go if we believe in libertarian policies at all. I hope the Minister will look at this matter again to see whether he can before Report stage obtain a form of words which will not leave this very broad exemption free from the right of appeal.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: It is sometimes helpful in a case of this kind to reduce it to a reductio ad absurdum. I would ask whether the case I am going to quote is a case to which this would apply. If it is assumed that we had a strong anti-Common Market Government, and a strong Opposition which was pro-Market, and the Opposition arranged for Willy Brandt to come to this country and address a large meeting at the Albert Hall, it seems to me that under the terms of this provision the Home Secretary would have the right, on political terms, to forbid him to come. I do not object to this. What I object to is the part of the clause which says there should be no appeal against it. Does not this rather absurd instance show the dangers?
LORD WINDLESHAM: I do not think it does show the dangers. With respect, what it does is show the inappropriateness of judicial proceedings. What happened in the Dutschke case? The immigration appeal system had been set up; there were adjudicators hearing thousands of cases every year, and the Tribunal acting as an appellate division, with fixed rules of guidance. They had the Statutes concerning immigration law and the immigration Rules. We have some relevant Amendments to deal with later on
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when we come to discuss the role of the adjudicators and the Tribunal. They can ensure that the rules are adhered to, that the law is properly kept and observed by immigration officers and others; and in certain cases they can review the way in which discretion is used. Therefore they can build up a body of case law and know where they stand.
However, when there are—and there always will be—political decisions, there is no way in which a Tribunal, which has a quasi-judicial character, can assess the merits of those decisions. We heard a powerful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Garner, on this exact point on Thursday night. He and the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, sat as members of the Tribunal on the Dutschke case. He said he accepted the Government's case, that these are political decisions for which the Home Secretary must be answerable to Parliament. That may be a part of the equation to which the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, did not give adequate weight in the example he gave.
My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has given a great deal of thought to this matter, and he did not in fact go as far as that. He did not say,"These are to be entirely discretionary decisions. I will take the decision without consulting anyone." He said that where a man is already in this country, in the security and political cases the Home Secretary should take advice. He was really saying exactly what Mr. Jenkins said previously, that he would not ask the Tribunal, who were there in the role of judges, to review what is essentially a political decision.
LORD FOOT: The Minister will know from what I said the other evening that I am in general sympathy and agreement with him upon the general issue that a decision taken upon political grounds is a decision which ought to be taken by the Home Secretary, which he ought to be prepared to defend in Parliament, and it is inappropriate to refer that decision by way of appeal to any kind of appellate tribunal. I am with the noble Lord on that, but a narrower point arises on this business which I should like to take up with him. As I understand it, the argument is that the person who is in this country and appeals against conditions is in a rather better position under Clause

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14(3) than is the person who is excluded from the United Kingdom and appeals under Clause 13(5).
In other words, if under Clause 13(5) the Secretary of State certifies that a person's exclusion is conducive to the public good, that is the end of the matter; but when we come to the person who is in this country and who appeals against a variation of conditions under Clause 14(3), then he is said to be, as I understand it, in a more favourable position because the words"conducive to the public good"are qualified by the words which follow after them; that is to say, first,"as being in the interests of national security "; secondly,"or of the relations between the United Kingdom and any other country "; and thirdly,"or for other reasons of a political nature ".
What I question is whether those words, if they mean anything at all, which I am inclined to doubt, are anything less than"conducive to the public good ". It all depends upon the meaning of the word"political ". I looked up that word in the dictionary and found that it means:
" Of or relating to the State; or of or relating to government; or of or relating to public affairs."
If one reads the word in that sense, then one finds that the provision reads like this:
" for other reasons relating to public affairs ".
I should have thought that would include the case of the Mafia, and the example which somebody gave of the American student who comes over here to disrupt a university, or something of that kind. It seems to me that those words, read in that sense, are as wide as the words"conducive to the public good ". So my difficulty is whether Clause 14(3) in fact varies from Clause 13(5) in any material way and whether we have not been given here a sop with the suggestion that there is a difference when in fact, as I think, there is no distinction.
LORD GARDINER: Perhaps if the Minister is going to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Foot, he will also cover a point which I made and to which I do not think he has yet replied; namely whether it is right for the Government to say that the"Three Wise Men"procedure has worked all right for civil servants without any right of representation and therefore it is good enough for
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these people. But civil servants are educated Englishmen, who are quite capable of speaking for themselves and who, in any case, can get their Civil Service representative or Permanent Secretary to speak for them. We are now dealing, however, with foreigners who are already here and who are suddenly told they must go; they may have been here for only two or three weeks and able to speak only a little English. Therefore can a procedure be right if it affords them no legal representation at all? I have an Amendment down about legal representation, but that would not apply to this case.
LORD BALERNO: I was brought up to believe that when one visited a foreign country one should respect the hospitality of that country, and therefore, whatever views one had personally or in conversation with one's friends about the politics of that country, one should not take any overt action in the matter. I think this is a fundamental point of good relations between countries. In regard to the question now before us, it seems to me that it is a case where somebody has abused the hospitality of the country and has taken overt action. In such a case I am inclined to think that the Home Secretary would be entitled to take what one might call direct action, knowing that any action that he took would always be subject to review in Parliament. Therefore I am inclined to support my noble friend on the Front Bench in this matter.
May I add a postscript about the cliché which is going the rounds so much at the moment about the"Wise Men "? It is being so much over-used at the present moment that one does not know who are the"Wise Men"concerned, or how many there may be. In another place today there was confusion as to whether it was three"Wise Men"or four, and I returned to this House this evening and discovered another debate about"Three Wise Men ". It is all most confusing, and I think we should do something to make our definitions and our language more clear.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I am grateful to my noble friend for his support, and I think that what he has said really answers the noble Lord, Lord Foot-The proposition from which the Home Secretary started in considering this matter is that there is a prerogative power

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to exclude anyone from this country, and that this is exercised by the Home Secretary in his discretion. Where a person is already in this country—the man covered in Clause 14 of the Bill—the Home Secretary explained in Standing Committee at some length, in a passage to which I referred last week, that he thought we owed the individual rather more. The man will have been admitted into this country; and if the Home Secretary then takes the initiative against him, as it were, by terminating his stay, by refusing to extend it or by curtailing it in some other way, he should be in a better position than somebody who is not here at all—who is outside the country—although the grounds may be similar. It is for that reason that there is an appeal—if one may use that word. In the case of the man who is already here, there is an advisory procedure—this is set out in Clause 14(3)—whereas there is not in the case of a man who would be covered in Clause 15(3).
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, asked me a question to which I think there is no complete reply. My right honourable friend spoke at some length on June 15 on the Report stage about the structure and the working of the advisory panel—the"Three Wise Men ", to use what is undoubtedly a well-worn cliché, though if we start changing our terms now I am afraid that we shall only confuse ourselves. My right honourable friend made the point then that there would be no right to legal representation but that the person concerned could be represented by a friend, or by somebody acting on his behalf.
I agree that there is probably a considerable difference between a civil servant who is familiar with the procedure, who has worked within the Civil Service, and somebody from outside this country who may not have been here for long; who may have language difficulties or whose knowledge of British customs may not be great. None the less, I think we can expect the Home Secretary, who has put it on record that he intends to take advice from a body of people, to make sure that the individual knows what his rights are and is helped in regard to them. As the noble Lord, Lord Foot, knows, this happens within the working of the appeals system at the moment. The Immigration
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Service do not regard themselves as being there to prevent immigrants from exercising their rights; on the contrary, it is their responsibility to tell people what their rights are and to encourage them to exercise them as much as possible. We must have confidence in the common sense of those who would be concerned in this particular procedure. I suppose that a comment one can also make to the noble and learned Lord is that if the"Three Wise Men"themselves felt that they had not been given a fair deal they would make a point of saying so.
LORD GARDINER: I am grateful to the Minister for the consideration he has been good enough to give to this matter. There are, of course, two points of view. I am grateful to know that the Home Secretary is prepared to consider whether this sort of case should be dealt with by the"Three Wise Men"or whether provision might not properly be made for legal representation. I considered what the noble Lord has said, and on that I ask leave to—
LORD WINDLESHAM: Before the noble and learned Lord finishes what he was saying I do not want there to be any misunderstanding. In what I said I did not intend to give the impression that the Home Secretary was considering a formal right of legal representation, but he clearly stated that there would be an opportunity for an appellant to be represented by a friend.
LORD GARDINER: I understood the Minister to say that if the"Three Wise Men"themselves said,"We cannot understand a word this man says; he has brought along a Pakistani friend and we cannot understand what he says, either. Really it would save us a great deal of time if we were to allow him to have legal representation ", the Home Secretary might consider that. On that, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 agreed to.
Clause 15 [Appeals in respect of deportation orders]:
8.50 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM LORD WINDLESHAM moved Amendment No. 80:
Page 16, line 17, at end insert ("; but, in calculating the period of eight weeks limited

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by section 5(3) above for making a deportation order against a person as belonging to the family of another person, there shall be disregarded any period during which there is pending an appeal against the decision to make it.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 80. This is the first of the Amendments which are concerned with family deportation and the right of appeal. As I explained on Second Reading, my right honourable friend in the course of debate in another place about the power to include members of a family in a deportation order, did concede that there should be a full right of appeal on merits for members of families, and Amendments Nos. 80, 81, 84, 91, 94, 96 and 97 give effect to the Home Secretary's undertaking. The principal Amendments in this series are Nos. 84 and 91, the others being in various ways consequential.
The purpose of Amendment No. 80 is as follows: Under Clause 5(3) a deportation order may be made against a member of a family at any time within eight weeks of the departure of the principal deportee. This interval allows time for the rest of the family to be given the option of supervised departure; that is, accompanying the principal deportee but without thmselves being deported, although knowing that if they fail to leave the Home Secretary will feel obliged to make a deportation order against them. The effect of the Amendment is that, if for any reason the proceedings on appeal brought by a member of a family are still pending when the principal deportee leaves the country, the eight weeks' time limit runs only from the conclusion of the appeal proceedings; thus even if the dependant's appeal takes a long time to settle it will still be possible for the Home Secretary to offer supervised departure.
I should add that we do not expect appeal proceedings to be prolonged often in this way, but it is a contingency that should be covered. Normally we would expect appeals brought by the principal deportee or any member of his family to be disposed of before any of them leave the country. There may, however, be cases in which the head of the family does not wish to appeal against his own deportation, and asks to leave as soon as possible so that if the family follow
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he can then prepare for their coming. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD WINDLESHAM LORD WINDLESHAM moved Amenment No. 81:
Page 16, line 18, leave out from beginning to (" a ") in line 22.
The noble Lord said: This is another Amendment in the same series. The words proposed to be deleted—that is the first half of Clause 15(3)—reappear in subsection (8)(a) in the list of four new subsections to this clause which it is proposed should be added after Clause 15(6) at the top of page 17. This is set out in Amendment No. 91. It seems to the Government to be clearer presentation to cover all cases in which an appeal lies direct to the Tribunal, including the family deportation appeals, and this is what the new subsection (8) will contain. This rearrangement is consequential on the first Amendment in the series to which I have just spoken. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD WINDLESHAM LORD WINDLESHAM moved Amendment No. 84:
Page 16, line 28, leave out subsection (4).
The noble Lord said: It will be seen that three Liberal noble Lords have added their names to my own on this Amendment, but lest it should be thought that the Government are seeking to curry favour with the Liberal Party, I should point out that we are joining forces similarly with the Labour Opposition on Amendment No. 94. The reason is the same in both cases, that the Government have, as I have explained, accepted the case for appeal in cases of family deportation, and therefore neither the first half of Clause 15(4) nor Clause 17(6) are required. The second half of Clause 15(4) is reinserted in the new subsection (7) in Amendment No. 91. I beg to move.
BARONESS WHITE: I rise really because if, as one would assume, with the grand alliance between the Government Front Bench and the Liberals, this Amendment is carried, the noble Lord shoots my fox in Amendment No. 85, which will then fall. It seems to me that before one does this one should perhaps have a little more discussion on exactly what the noble Lord was referring to

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when he said that this new procedure on appeal in family deportation cases would be on merit, because all that these Amendments are concerned with is the procedure by which such appeals could be carried out.
The noble Lord will remember that at an earlier stage of our discussions I made the point that I still could not see on what grounds such an appeal could lie. It is all very well having a procedure, but unless there are grounds the best procedure in the world is not much use. The noble Lord was good enough to say that the grounds would be vouchsafed hereafter, under some rules the draft of which we have not yet seen. This is what I would draw to your Lordships' attention, because it does seem to me a far from satisfactory state of affairs. If, as one would hope, by the time we reach some later stage on Report the Government have had second thoughts about the whole question of family deportation, this would be by far the most satisfactory way of dealing with this situation.
I would not expect the noble Lord to say anything at this point, because it would not perhaps be appropriate, but I am making this point at this stage because it seems to me the most appropriate stage at which to make it. One has no objection to improved procedures for appeal, but they can be pretty hollow unless one has grounds, and I am still entirely unclear what those grounds are likely to be.
LORD FOOT: Might I make it perfectly plain, because, after all, we have got our reputation to think of, that the fact that this Amendment stands in the name of the noble Lord and ourselves is purely fortuitous; and in fact, as I do not think he has made quite clear to the Committee, he is proposing to put the second part back again later on, which is the very part we want to get rid of. Therefore, I would like to be able to reserve what comment we have to make upon that second part until we come to Amendment No. 91, where it is reproduced. Perhaps I might explain while I am on my feet that as a result of the passing of this Amendment, if it is passed, certain of the following Amendments standing in the name of my noble friends and myself will fall to the ground, and I shall not of course be moving them.
LORD WINDLESHAM: The noble Baroness, Lady White, said that if this Amendment was accepted the Government would have"shot her fox"in the shape of Amendment No. 85. With all respect, I think that her fox had already been shot by the Government concession on the right of appeal on family deportation, because the grounds that the noble Baroness has advanced are in fact narrower than the grounds of appeal which will exist in future; she has only suggested two grounds whereas there will now be a right of appeal over a much wider range. The noble Baroness asked me on what principles the Tribunal will proceed when considering cases of family deportation. It was exactly for these reasons that I gave her quite a full account of our thinking when we debated this particular provision last week.
As I said, these are not final and concrete proposals, but they represent the way our minds are working. If a wife had been separated from her husband for some time that would probably be regarded as a ground for not treating her as a member of his family. If a child had left home and taken employment and established himself elsewhere, that again would be a ground for not regarding him as a member of the family. In the case of younger children of school age, I think it would be right to take account of the disruptive effect of removal on their education, and the likely effectiveness of plans for their continued care and support in this country if one or both parents were deported. The Immigration Rules on Control after Entry will be amended so that they contain a full statement, on which the Tribunal will base itself when considering the appeals.
As regards the general question of family deportation I do not think I can leave the noble Baroness in any doubt on this. We had a full debate on the subject, and the Committee then divided on the question. In a number of matters I have undertaken that we are going into them very carefully, but in these circumstances I do not think it would be right to mislead her by holding out very many hopes on this question.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD FOOT LORD FOOT had given Notice of an Amendment, No. 90:
Page 17, line 1, leave out subsection (6).
The noble Lord said: When we were discussing Amendment No. 73, which was an Amendment to Clause 13(3), I argued that the persons there dealt with ought not to be required to leave the country before they could initiate an appeal against their refusal of entry. This Amendment raises the same issue, but the clause we are now discussing deals with people who are seeking to appeal against the refusal to revoke a deportation order. I have to recognise, and I do recognise, that the case for requiring these people to get out of the country before they can initiate their appeal is stronger than in the other cases, such as the case of patrials and so on, which I raised before. In those circumstances, I shall not move my Amendment No. 90.
9.6 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM LORD WINDLESHAM moved Amendment No. 91:
Page 17, line 5, at end insert—
(" (7) On an appeal against a decision to make a deportation order against a person as belonging to the family of another person, or an appeal against a refusal to revoke a deportation order so made, the appellant shall not be allowed, for the purpose of showing that he does not or did not belong to another person's family, to dispute any statement made with a view to obtaining leave for the appellant to enter or remain in the United Kingdom (including any statement made to obtain an entry clearance).
(8) An appeal under this section shall be to the Appeal Tribunal in the first instance, instead of to an adjudicator, if—

(a) it is an appeal against a decision to make a deportation order and the ground of the decision was that the deportation of the appellant is conducive to the public good; or

(b) it is an appeal against a decision to make a deportation order against a person as belonging to the family of another person, or an appeal against a refusal to revoke a deportation order so made; or

(c) there is pending a related appeal to which paragraph (b) above applies.

(9) Where an appeal to an adjudicator is pending under this section, and before the adjudicator has begun to hear it a related appeal is brought, the appeal to the adjudicator shall be dealt with instead by the Appeal Tribunal and be treated as an appeal duly made to the Tribunal in the first instance.
(10) In relation to an appeal under this section in respect of a deportation order against any person (whether an appeal against a decision to make or against a refusal to revoke the order), any other appeal under this section is a"related appeal"if it is an appeal in respect of a deportation order against an-
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other person as belonging to the family of the first-mentioned person.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 91 standing in my name on the Order Paper. In order to give effect to the Government's intention of providing a right of appeal direct to the Tribunal whenever the deportation of members of a family is in question, it is necessary to make some alterations in the the structure of Clause 15. Most of these alterations, as noble Lords will see, are contained in Amendment No. 91, which adds four new subsections to the clause. The new subsection (7) reinstates, in a different place in the clause, a provision previously contained in the second half of subsection (4) which was deleted by Amendment No. 84, to which the noble Lord, Lord Foot, referred when we discussed that Amendment.
The effect of this provision is that where a person is appealing against a decision to make a deportation order against him as belonging to the family of another person who is to be deported, the appellant will not be able, for the purpose of showing that he does not belong to that person's family, to dispute any statement made with a view to obtaining the appellant's entry to the United Kingdom. The provision is intended to deal with the case of a person who has been admitted as the dependant of a sponsor in this country, although in fact he has not the relationship with the sponsor, or is not within the age limits laid down. Such a person has, if anything, less claim to stay here when his sponsor is deported than has a genuine dependant. This provision would prevent a person who had gained entry as a dependant, because the facts were misstated, from retracting the full story and disclaiming the status of a dependant when it was to his advantage to do so. It would be anomalous if the genuine dependant were included in the deportation order while the false dependant was not, although the basis of their entry to this country was the same.
The new subsection (8) sets out the cases in which an appeal against deportation is to lie direct to the Tribunal. These will no longer be limited to the cases of deportation on conducive grounds which are now mentioned in subsection (3), and are referred to in the new subsection (8)(a). They will include under

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subsection (8)(b) appeals against deportation as a member of the family, and appeals against a refusal to revoke a deportation order made on that ground. In addition, the effect of subsection (8)(c), combined with subsection (10), will be that where both the principal deportee and one or more members of his family are appealing against deportation, all the appeals will go to the Tribunal, instead of the principal deportee's appeal being dealt with by an adjudicator. This provision ensures that the Tribunal will deal with the family as a whole, and it is proposed in the rules of procedure to provide that all the appeals should be heard jointly.
Subsection (9) deals with the situation where notice of appeal is given by the principal deportee some time before it is given by members of his family. The subsection has the effect of diverting the principal deportee's appeal straight to the Tribunal if the adjudicator has not already begun to hear it. I beg to move.
9.8 p.m.
LORD GARDINER: On behalf of the Opposition, I must first thank the Government for having introduced this provision so that there will be a right of appeal in the case of a family deportation. I think I referred last week to the statement made a couple of years ago by the noble and learned Lord the present Lord Chancellor, when he said that we had established one of the less liberal and one of the most arbitrary systems of immigration law in the world—in the civilised world at any rate. Of course that had nothing whatever to do with the large numbers which have recently come into this country; it had nothing to do with any racial question at all. The first and most obvious way in which our immigration law was one of the less liberal in the world went back between 30 and 40 years: to the absolute bureaucracy of the Home Secretary, and the fact that there was nowhere in our immigration law any right of appeal against anything at all.
I should like to make it clear that, in common, I am sure, with everyone who has been a Minister, I have the highest possible regard for our Civil Service, and in substance the immigration officers are, if I may say so, our old and much valued friends the executive officers, the lowest
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grade of the Executive class. The immigration officer is paid the same and is largely recruited either from the E.O.s or from those below them who are entitled to promotion to be E.O.s, and I am quite sure that they have all the qualities which the Home Office told the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration they should have. They are expected to have knowledge of at least one foreign language and to have the qualities of courtesy, tact and firmness which are needed to operate an effective control with the minimum of inconvenience to the travelling public. They need to be alert and observant and to have the ability to deal fairly and patiently with all passengers. I am sure that these equivalents of E.O.s have all these qualities; but there is always a danger in conferring an overriding power on civil servants if there is no possible right of appeal against them.
We do not allow any judge to have the power of being final so that nobody can ever question what he does. It is not good—we all know this—from the point of view of human nature to put men in a position in which they have great effect on the lives of other people, if they know that whatever they do nobody can question it. This is why many of us have been fighting for a very long time to do away with the extraordinary bureaucracy in this country of the Home Office and its officials, whose word is the last word, and to provide a right of appeal. This is why, particularly in regard to these family cases, we are very grateful to the Government, because the position we now have is that, apart from the non-conducive cases, there is now a right of appeal against all cases of a deportation order.
But, while thanking the Government, I must say that there is one point about which I am very unhappy, and that is the wording of subsection (7), which reads:
" (7) On an appeal against a decision to make a deportation order against a person as belonging to the family of another person, or an appeal against a refusal to revoke a deportation order so made, the appellant shall not be allowed, for the purpose of showing that he does not or did not belong to another person's family, to dispute any statement made with a view to obtaining leave for the appellant to enter or remain in the United Kingdom (including any statement made to obtain an entry clearance)."
It is a very familiar principle of law that if A makes to B a representation

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of an existing fact and B acts on that to his detriment, A ought not afterwards to be allowed to call evidence that what A said was untrue. This is based on a sound moral principle, and to the extent that this is saying that a man who comes here and makes a representation—for example,"This woman I have brought with me is my wife "—ought not in subsequent deportation proceedings to be allowed to say,"What I then said was untrue ", that is absolutely right. It is the familiar principle of estoppel.
But there are two further things in this subsection which seem to me, if I may say so, subject to what the Government have to say, to be completely wrong. First of all, it is related not to whether what the man said was true at the time but to whether it is true now. I cannot see that that is possibly right. The man comes in and he says,"This woman with me is my wife ". Two or three years pass, and there is a divorce. They may both remarry. It cannot be right, surely, that he should be precluded from saying,"What I said was perfectly true at the time, but it is not true now because there has been a divorce and she is no longer my wife." I do not see how that can possibly be right, but as I read the wording of the subsection that is the effect it seems to produce.
The second point is this. The appellant may be the man himself or it may be one of his family who is being threatened with deportation with him. This wording appears to bind third parties as well as the man himself, and I should have thought that could not be right. If a child is brought in by a man who says,"This is my son ", and he is accepted on that footing, and if, it may be years later, the question of this man's deportation arises, it is quite right that he should not be allowed to deny that what he said was true. But, surely, it ought not to bind the boy. The boy may in reality be the son of some other Pakistani who is in the country. How can it possibly be right that the boy, who is not responsible for what the man said, should be bound by what the man himself said? Therefore, while I quite accept the ordinary principle of estoppel, it seems to me that, so far as this clause does not appear to allow for any change of circumstance, and so far as it appears to be binding on
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other members of the family, it cannot be right.
LORD FOOT: May I support the noble and learned Lord in practically everything he has said about this Amendment? Per-Imps I may start by saying that we on these Benches very much appreciate that the Government have given this wider right of appeal to the families of deported persons. We regard this as a very big step forward, and one of the major improvements which, with the assistance of the Government, have been made to the Bill. The second thing I should like to say, in following up what the noble and learned Lord has said, is something about the work of the adjudicators and the Appeal Tribunal, and of the immigration officers. It is perfectly correct, as the noble and learned Lord has said, that the task thrown upon the shoulders of immigration officers at the various ports of entry is one of the most difficult tasks to perform, and from what I have seen of the immigration officers at work at the various ports of entry I am satisfied that we are extraordinarily well served by these people. There is no sort of doubt about that.
But, as the noble and learned Lord said, however admirable such a body of men may be, and however well they may attempt to do their work, it does not relieve us of trying to set up an appeal procedure. With the experience that we have had of the working of the appeal system over the last couple of years, I believe that, generally speaking, throughout the immigration service the institution of the appeal system has been very much welcomed, because it has relieved them of what were very often baseless accusations of prejudice. They are in a position now to say,"We will make our decision, and if you are dissatisfied then you can take it to an independent tribunal ". I believe that this system has been welcomed by them, as it has been by the people who take advantage of it.
But may I turn to subsection (7), and to the point which the noble and learned Lord made about it? I hope we have made it clear from these Benches—if not we shall have failed in our job—that, while we regard the whole of this Bill as a very bad Bill, if I had to pick out any single item in it which I regard as nastier than any of the other provisions, I think I would settle upon this one. The

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noble and learned Lord read out the subsection as it stands, and he made the point that this is an unprecedented extension of the law of estoppel. It is an unprecedented extension of the law of estoppel in one particular regard, and that is that a person is estopped under this particular clause from disputing a statement which was made by somebody else and in which he had no part, in which he did not connive. But he is bound by that, and bound by it at once and for ever more.
The noble and learned Lord drew attention to the sort of shocking possibilities that could occur under this clause. He took the case—and I should like to take the same ease, it I may, and deal with it in a slightly different fashion—of the infant child who comes into this country as the dependant of a Commonwealth citizen who is already settled here. The child comes in under some false assertion of parenthood. The child comes in and many years later the sponsor of the child, the person who perhaps purported to be the father of the child, is convicted of a criminal offence and ordered to be deported. At the discretion of the Secretary of State the order may be made against the child, who is perhaps now 15 or 16 years of age. When that matter comes before the appeals tribunal it is not open to the child to say that this is not right, that this man is not his father, that this man is perhaps his uncle. He is not able to dispute it, he is not allowed to say anything to the contrary.
The wording is"any statement ". It does not say, only a statement made by the boy's sponsor, the uncle or someone like that; it says"any statement ". He is not entiled to dispute any statement that may have been made at any time with a view to obtaining leave for him, the child, to enter the country. It may be a statement made by somebody who is still abroad, perhaps in Pakistan; it may be a statement made by some distant relative or by some official, a district officer. He is not entitled to dispute any of these statements. Not only is this a wickedly unjust decision, or could work out with wicked injustice; but I suggest, as Oscar Wilde would have suggested, that it is even worse than that because it is silly.
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The whole object of Clause 3(5)(c) of the Bill, which is the subsection that provides that the family of a deported person can be deported too, is to ensure that when a person is deported it shall be within the power of the Secretary of State also to send out that person's family. That is the object of it, that you should be able to get rid of the family of that person at the same time as you get rid of him. The result in the example that I have given is not to send away a dependant or a member of that person's family, but to send away somebody else, somebody who is a member of some other family. You get this ludicrous result: a person is deported, and you insist that there shall go away at the same time a person who is not a member of his family and not in any way dependent upon him. That is the outcome of this niece of legislation. This is not a case of the sins of the father being visited upon the children; it is a case of the sins of the father being visited upon somebody else's children.
How can this matter be cured? As the Minister will know, we have put down an Amendment to the earlier clause (now taken out)—a very simple Amendment. If the Minister cannot given us any encouragement on this occasion then I think we shall seek to move a similar Amendment at the next stage. What we sought to do was to insert in this new subsection (in the sixth line) the simple word"he"so that it now reads that it will not be possible
" to dispute any statement he "—
that is, the appellant, the member of the family—
" made with a view to obtaining leave for the appellant to enter or remain "
and so on. While we have not put down that Amendment to the noble Lord's Amendment, I hope that he will be able to give us some encouragement and that the Government will be able to look at this in some favourable way.
LORD JANNER: May I add a word on this matter, in the hope that the Minister will see his way to accept the suggestion that has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, and perhaps even go further in regard to the point made by my noble and learned friend, Lord Gardiner? I do not think for a

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moment that it was intended—I do not see how it possibly could have been intended—that the statement of a person other than the person concerned himself in the question of deportation could be used in evidence against an individual when that person may have known nothing at all about it. He may be in no way connected with that person himself, other than the fact that somebody at some stage said something which cannot be denied, or should not be denied, by him, and this would make that statement one which must not be denied by anyone else. I think it would be an absurd position and I am sure your Lordships will think the same. I appeal to the Minister to consider this position and even to go further. As your Lordships know, we have very strong views in regard to deportation, and certainly the deportation of families. At least we should not place the onus on an individual who himself may have had nothing to do with statements that were made.
9.27 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I am grateful for the general comments in support of the appeal system which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, and the noble Lord, Lord Foot have made. Perhaps there is a point of detail, though of importance, that I should make before going on to the central point. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, implied that there was no right of appeal in conducive cases from the decision of the immigration officer. That is not so, for under paragraph 61B of Cmnd. 4606 an appeal will lie where the immigration officer refuses somebody entrance to the country and leave to land on non-conducive grounds. It is only in the cases which we have been discussing earlier this evening and last week, where the Secretary of State himself takes the decision that there is no right of appeal; it has to be the decision of the Secretary of State. Since that narrowing down is not contained in the Statute, the action of the immigration officer is open to appeal, for it is an action of some importance.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner also asked about change of circumstances. If a woman now divorced came in as a wife, or claimed to be a wife and has since been divorced, she would no longer be regarded as a member
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of the family, as defined in Clause 5(4), because she would no longer be the man's wife. So the governing words would be the first words in the new subsection (7)"against a person as belonging to the family ".
LORD GARDINER: Is not this the issue: that if the man said when he came in,"This woman A is my wife ", B would be precluded from disputing that that statement was true? It is simply that, as the provision is worded, no allowance is made for a change of circumstances since the date when the statement was made.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I think we ought to leave on the Record that the definition of"family"is going to be important. The definition is a long way back in the Bill and there is a part of the Bill, carefully set out, which determines the family group. We have to remember that the children, when they have gone beyond the age of 18 will cease to be members of the family group. So this provision will then no longer bite. What the noble Lord, Lord Foot, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner—
BARONESS WHITE: I am sorry, but may I interrupt on a point of detail which I did not grasp? Suppose the man, when he entered this country, said,"This woman is my wife"when in fact she was not. Presumably on appeal she could surely say,"I never was his wife. Although he said I was, I am not his wife and never have been." What happens to her then?
LORD WINDLESHAM: That is the exact point to which I was about to address myself, and I hope that I shall be able to help the Committee. It is the position of the wife and the children (the noble Lord, Lord Foot gave me warning of this) to which he and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner have addressed our minds. I must say that when I first heard of the noble Lord's concern I shared it entirely; on the face of it, this seems a strange provision. But I have looked into it and, as is often the way in drafting legislation, there is a good reason for it, though one which is not apparent and which needs to be explained. This matter was debated in another place at considerable length. A similar Amendment was put

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down by the Liberal Party and pressed to a Division. The Opposition put down an Amendment, which, after an explanation given by one of my colleagues, was withdrawn.
The problem here is of a man or woman who enters as a dependant under false pretences, whether the false pretence is within his own knowledge or not. We are concerned first and foremost with the status of the dependant in immigration law. As regards the controls, the special power to deport members of families has been taken because wives and children who have entered the country, not in virtue of any right of their own but as dependants, cannot have any claim to stay if the person, as whose dependant they entered, has himself been deported. This is provided in Clause 3(5)(c), and persons regarded as belonging to a family are defined in Clause 5(4).
If a genuine dependant has no claim to stay, we must ask ourselves how the false dependant can have a claim to do so. If a false dependant can have no claim to stay, what would be the purpose of allowing him to establish that he is a false dependant and gained entry only because the immigration authorities were deceived? To allow a false dependant to try to establish that he is a false dependant would not only be contrary to legal principles, in allowing a person to profit from his own wrong or one committed on his behalf, but it would also hold out an incentive for all genuine dependants to claim that they are false as a means of escaping deportation. How could the Home Office prove that they are genuine, if they allege that they obtained entry by means of deception?
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, argued that in some cases the appellant might be a young child, who would not have this within his knowledge because he was too young to know of the deception. Why, it is said, should he then be punished? It is not a question of punishment, but simply of seeing that a person admitted as a false dependant as the result of a false claim is not put in a better position than the person who is admitted as a genuine dependant. A genuine dependant has no claim to be here at all if the head of the family is deported. If, however,
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there are companionate circumstances, based on long residence or the education of children or circumstances of this sort, which we have already debated, the Secretary of State will want to take account of them.
The arguments that I have mentioned seem to us to override the objections to the extension of the estoppel, to which the noble and learned Lord referred, to cover the statements not made by the person himself or his authorised agent. Often statements will have been made by someone with a financial interest in the deception. Whatever the common law ambit of estoppel, it remains true that Parliament can make a special provision in a particular sphere, as is proposed here, where it considers this to be justified. The difficulty here—this is what it all boils down to—is that if the genuine dependant, the actual dependant, of somebody is to be included in the family group, and has to go, surely it would not be consistent for somebody who has been admitted as a dependant although he is not really one to be able to put himself in a better position by denying that he is a dependant. These are the sound reasons which lie underneath what, on the face of it, seems a provision that it is difficult to understand.
9.36 p.m.
LORD GARDINER: Obviously the Committee will wish to accept this Amendment, because the principle is naturally one with which we agree. We did not like to put down an Amendment to an Amendment which we had not yet had explained to us. I think that this particular point will have to be reconsidered on the Report stage, because, if I may say so with great respect, I have never heard so bad a degree of bureaucratic immorality as that to which we have just listened. Nobody but civil servants could have conceived of this. The position is perfectly simple. If a man comes into this country telling a lie, he ought not to be allowed to achieve any advantage from it. Of course, if he says,"This woman is my wife ", and he is let in on the faith of that statement, he ought not to be allowed afterwards, when me deportation order is in question, to say,"I told a lie, and I can now prove that in fact she is not." We are dealing with two cases. First, there is the case of the related family of people, of the woman

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who says:"My husband told you quite truthfully when we came in that I was his wife. Now there has been a divorce. We have both remarried. You have now served me with a deportation order as being my first husband's wife. Well, I am not. I am not his dependant either. I am now the wife and dependant of another man." It is absolutely monstrous, and quite immoral, that she should be sent away to some other country when she has not done anything wrong from start to finish; nor for that matter has her husband, who has told the truth, and all that has happened is that there has been a change of circumstances.
Equally, in the case put by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, of the child who comes here and when the man who brings him in tells a lie about him. The man ought not to be allowed to obtain any advantage from having told that lie. But the child is completely innocent. Supposing the fact is that a different Pakistani in this country is his father. Why should he be deported to a far country with this man who told a lie and not be allowed to stay with his father? For the time being, we must accept this Amendment; but we must return to the point on the Report stage of the Bill.
LORD FOOT: I should like to add just a word or two. I hope that the Minister will consider everything the noble and learned Lord has said, because the argument that the Minister was putting just now seems to me to be this:"We took a monstrous power in this Bill when we decided to take the power to deport members of a person's family when that person himself was deported, and having taken that wicked power we are not now going to put the non-dependant in a better position than the real dependant. We are going to carry on the injustice, and throw it over first upon the real dependant, and secondly upon the person who is not a dependant." I hope that the Minister will consider this matter again.
The trouble with the Government on this particular clause, as it seems to me, is that they have set their feet upon the slippery slope of punishing by deportation a person who is a member of the family of a person who is being deported, and having got themselves into that hopeless situation, they are now forced into
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these absurd solutions that the noble Lord has presented to us. It is quite incredible to suggest that when you deport a person because he is not fit to be in this country, and you decide at the same time that you must get rid of the people who are members of his family, you should then go on arbitrarily to send out of the country with him somebody that he has nothing to do with, to whom he is not related, who is not dependent upon him, because that person made a false statement about him when he originally came in. I hope the Government will look at this again.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: Before this Amendment is agreed to, might I say just a word regarding the last speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner. As regards the second class of case which he mentioned—the child who was passed in as a real child but who turns out not to be—having listened to the debate, I am inclined to think that it is the Opposition who are arguing for an act of injustice and that justice lies on the Government's side. But I quite agree that one cannot fully take in all the pros and cons in a short debate like this. It would be well worth while for all of us to read the debate afterwards and reconsider it.
As regards the former case, I hope that on further consideration the noble and learned Lord will accept what my noble friend has said, because I cannot see how deportation proceedings can be taken against a woman as the wife of a deportee if she establishes that she is not the wife. Subsection (4) of Clause 5 seems to state quite clearly that it is only a man's wife and not any alleged wives of his who can be deported: nor can any divorced wives of his be deported. If a woman, seeking to defend herself against deportation, proves that she has been divorced from a man who is to be deported, she can surely establish that proof without coming within the rebuttal of this new subsection (7). She is not concerned to prove that she was not his wife at some previous date when he entered the country, but she is surely concerned to show that because of divorce she is not his wife at the present time; and if she proves that she cannot be liable for deportation because subsection (4) of Clause 5 shows quite clearly that

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it is only the man's wife who can be deported.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: As a last word on this, this is not the crucial case. The crucial case concerns a man who brings somebody in and says that she is his wife when she is not, and she goes off and lives happily for twenty years with somebody else. He then commits a crime and is deported, and she goes with him.
LORD CRAIGMYLE: It may be that in addition to all these problems there is a problem of semantics arising. Some of our immigrants come from Bengal, and the Bengalis have a curious set of relations which they call"cousin brothers ". I have never been able to unravel just what that relationship is, but it appears to me that there is a possibility of an immigrant arriving, making a statement which from his sparse knowledge of the English language he might consider to be true, but at some time later when he knows English better he may realise that he has made a false declaration.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 15, as amended, agreed to.
9.45 p.m.
LORD GARDINER LORD GARDINER moved Amendment No. 92:
After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:
Provision for inquiry in cases where no appeal lies against deportation order
".—(1) Where the Secretary of State has decided to make a deportation order and no appeal lies by virtue of the provisions of this Act against such decision, any person aggrieved by such decision may within a period of twenty-eight days (or such longer period as the Secretary of State may allow) of service upon him of notice of the said decision make representations to the Secretary of State against the making of a deportation order.
(2) In any case where such representations are made then unless the Secretary of State certifies that he is satisfied that there are no prima facie grounds for holding an inquiry he shall appoint one or more persons to hold an inquiry and to report to him anti pending such report he shall not make the deportation order.
(3) The Secretary of State shall direct whether the inquiry or any part thereof is to be held in private or in the absence of any persons specified by name or description and the person appointed shall comply with such directions.
(4) The person appointed shall report to the Secretary of State and such report shall not
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be published in whole or in part without the authority of the Secretary of State.
(5) The provisions of paragraph 2 of Schedule 3 to this Act shall apply to a person to whom notice has been given under this section as they apply to a person to whom notice has been given under section 18 of this Act.
(6) A notice given under this section shall inform the person to whom it is given of his rights under this section.".
The noble and learned Lord said: The object of this important Amendment is to consider what should happen when there is a question of deportation by the Home Secretary on non-conducive grounds. At the moment the Bill contains no right of appeal at all. The Home Secretary has intimated that he proposes in these cases to have an administrative non-statutory appeal to the"Three Wise Men"in accordance with the procedure adopted in the case of civil servants and security cases. He has said that this has been satisfactory in those cases and therefore this ought to be regarded as satisfactory. One of the difficulties about leaving something to be purely administrative is that nobody has any legal rights at all, and you never quite know where you are. I understand that in relation to all statutory appeals the Government will probably be prepared to accept the proposition that there ought to be a right of legal representation. In anything that is administrative and completely non-statutory there can be no right to that because there is no right to anything at all. At the moment the Government do not propose that in those cases there should be any right of legal representation.
The object of this Amendment is to cover those cases of deportation orders for which no appeal is at present provided and to provide a statutory right of appeal which, I hope, safeguards all the provisions which the Home Secretary could want. If I may read it, the new clause says:
" (1) Where the Secretary of State has decided to make a deportation order and no appeal lies by virtue of the provisions of this Act against such decision, any person aggrieved by such decision may within a perod of twenty-eight days (or such longer period as the Secretary of State may allow) of service upon him of notice of the said decision make representations to the Secretary of State against the making of a deportation order.
(2) In any case where such representations are made then unless the Secretary of State certifies that he is satisfied that there are no

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prima facie grounds for holding an inquiry he shall appoint one or more persons to hold an inquiry and to report to him and pending such report he shall not make the deportation order."
In the first place this enables the Secretary of State to hold an inquiry of one or more persons—the"Three Wise Men "—but provides that he need not do so if he thinks that there is no prima facie case. The new clause continues:
" (3) The Secretary of State shall direct whether the inquiry or any part thereof is to be held in private or in the absence of any persons specified by name or description and the person appointed shall comply with such directions."
Here the Secretary of State is given full power to decide whether the"Three Wise Men"are to sit in private; whether other people, and if so who, are to be present or absent. The clause continues:
" (4) The person appointed shall report to the Secretary of State and such report shall not be published in whole or in part without the authority of the Secretary of State.
(5) The provisions of paragraph 2 of Schedule 3 to this Act shall apply to a person to whom notice has been given under this section as they apply to a person to whom notice has been given under section 18 of this Act.
(6) A notice given under this section shall inform the person to whom it is given of his rights under this section."
It appears to us that this is a statutory form of the"Three Wise Men"procedure giving the Home Secretary all the powers and rights that he could possibly want. All it provides for is that there shall be an appeal unless the Secretary of State thinks there is no prima facie ground; there will be an inquiry. It is for the Home Secretary to appoint the"Three Wise Men ", and to decide whether or not it is to be held in private or in the absence of certain persons. Their Report will not be published unless the Secretary of State agrees that it should be published. It seems to safeguard all the matters to which the Home Secretary referred in the other place. What he said about what he was going to do administratively was extremely short and without any real precision. We feel it would be much more satisfactory that this should be statutory, provided that it gives the Government every safeguard for which they could reasonably ask, and it is submitted that this new clause does so. I beg to move.
LORD WINDLESHAM: This Amendment, as the noble and learned Lord has explained to the Committee, seeks to make provision for the holding of art inquiry, unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that there are no prima facie grounds for one, whenever the Home Secretary has decided to make a deportation order and no appeal lies under the Bill. A similar Amendment was moved by the noble and learned Lord's Party at Report stage in another place and was discussed with the Government Amendments which provide a right of appeal against a decision to deport someone on not conducive grounds except in security and political cases. As I explained on the last Amendment, these are personal decisions of the Secretary of State and not of officials acting on his behalf. Under Clause 15 as it was amended on Report stage in another place there is a right of appeal against the making of a deportation order save only where the Secretary of State has decided to make the order on the grounds that the person's departure from the United Kingdom would be conducive to the public good as being in the interests of national security or of the relations between the United Kingdom and any other country or for other reasons of a political nature. We debated at some length the meaning of those words on an earlier Amendment this evening. Accordingly this Amendment would cover only the security and the political cases.
I must say that we have had time to study this Amendment—it was tabled in another place, and it has been on the Marshalled List for some weeks now—and it does not seem to us to provide the most satisfactory way of doing this. Although it would make statutory provision for an inquiry in such cases, it would be entirely for the Secretary of State himself to decide whether any inquiry should be held and whether the inquiry or any part of it was to be held in private or in the absence of the person proposed to be deported and his representatives. The report by the person appointed to hold the inquiry would not be published without the authority of the Secretary of State. This would really put the Secretary of State into the position of appointing an inquiry into his own actions. The deportation orders are made by personal decision of the Home Secretary, as I have said, and to put a Minister

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in this sort of position would leave him with some extremely difficult decisions to make.
As I have explained on earlier Amendments, the Home Secretary proposes to set up a non-statutory advisory procedure for political and security cases modelled on the lines of the procedure for security cases in the Civil Service. The noble Lord suggested that what the Home Secretary said was rather short and generalised. I think that comment could perhaps have been applied to the brief description he gave in Standing Committee, but I do not think it could be applied to what he said on Report. The reason why I have not quoted it is that it does occupy the best part of two columns of Hansard, cols. 376/7 of 15th June. What the Home Secretary had in mind he explained in some detail on that occasion. He emphasised the Government's view that decisions of this sort did not involve justiciable issues, and should be subject to Parliament rather than to any statutory advisory procedure.
What the Home Secretary said on that point—I can quote the last passage on the statutory procedure as against the non-statutory one recommended in another place—was:
" I recommend it "—
the"Three Wise Men"procedure—
" to the House as the best possible system we can adopt in what is inevitably a difficult case. We have to reconcile the needs of national security with the proper rights of the individual to protect himself. It is a better procedure than the statutory device of the Amendment put forward by the Opposition. I am not sure that it is wise to put this in statutory form. In effect, it means importing once again into this matter a justiciable issue, whereas the whole basis of my philosophy is that these are decisions of a political and executive character which should be subject to Parliament and not subject to courts, arbitrators, and so on."[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons; 15/6/71, col. 377]
The proposal contained in the Amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, would present no advantage in practice over the arrangements the Government intend to introduce. While purporting to oblige the Secretary of State to subject himself to advisory procedure, it would nullify this by saying that he alone is to decide whether there are grounds for inquiry in a political case. I accept that there is room for differences of opinion,
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but we believe that the procedure that the Home Secretary has outlined is the most appropriate way of dealing with what are, and are always going to be, political decisions; that he should answer for these to Parliament, and that he should take advice before doing so.
LORD GARDINER: This is very unsatisfactory. It is always the administrator's argument,"Leave everything to me in matters of administration ". I hope it is not only lawyers who think it is better if things have a legal framework. In this Amendment we have done everything for the Home Secretary which he would want to do administratively, but, instead of being purely administration, it would have a legal framework. The only right we have provided for the proposed deportee is the right to make representations. We have provided that if the Home Secretary thinks there is no prima facie case he need not have an inquiry; if he thinks there is a prima facie case, then we have provided for the"Three Wise Men ". We have provided that it is a matter for them, and not the deportee, whether they sit in public or in private, who is to be admitted, who is not to be admitted. They are to report to the Home Secretary. The report will not be published without his consent; he retains the last word.
This is exactly the"Three Wise Men"procedure spelled out, except that it is given a legal framework instead of being left as a matter of pure administration, which one Home Secretary can change the day after another Home Secretary has decided it. I hope that the Minister may be prepared to say that, before Report stage, the Government will give this matter further consideration; otherwise, I shall respectfully ask the Committee to consider the matter.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I am sorry but I cannot help the noble and learned Lord any further. As he will know from studying the proceedings in another place, this is a matter which was much discussed and received a great deal of attention. I would question the observation that this provision is convenient for administrative reasons. He will see that the Home Secretary said on a number of occasions that this was a solution of his own, and he was speaking as a Parliamentarian. He feels strongly that the correct way is to

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give the Minister discretion in cases of national security or these very special political cases: to make a senior Minister responsible, and for Parliament to hold him accountable; and that to try to put outside this some quasi-legal framework which is to review his own discretion will lead to problems of the kind we have seen in the case we debated earlier this evening. So I am afraid it is not possible
Clause 16 agreed to.
Clause 17 [Appeals against removal on objection to destination]:
10.6 p.m.
LORD GARDINER: This is the Amendment to which the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, referred, and it arises out of the Government's acceptance of the right of appeal for family deportations. I beg to move.
Amendment moved.
Page 18, line 42, leave out subsection (6).—(Lord Gardiner.)
LORD WINDLESHAM: As the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, has correctly said, this is a further consequential Amendment relating to the appeals on family
938
for me to add to what I have said in reply to the noble and learned Lord; and if he wishes the Committee to take a decision, so be it.
9.58 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 92) shall by agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 19; Not-Contents, 60.

CONTENTS

Beswick, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Rusholme, L.

Brockway, L.

Hoy, L.

St. Davids, V.

Champion, L.

Janner, L.

Segal, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Listowel, H.

Shackleton, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs. [Teller.]

White, Bs.

Gardiner, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Phillips, Bs. [Teller.]

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Daventry, V.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Auckland, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Monk Bretton, L.

Balerno, L.

Digby, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Balfour, E.

Drumalbyn, L.

Barnby, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Moyne, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Falkland, V.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Belstead, L.

Ferrers, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Fortescue, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Bessborough, E.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Redmayne, L.

Birdwood, L.

Gowrie, E.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Gray, L.

St. Helens, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Grenfell, L.

St. Just, L.

Burton, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Carrington, L.

Hailes, L.

Sandford, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Sandys, L.

Conesford, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Ilford, L.

Terrington, L.

Craigavon, V.

Latymer, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Lothian, M.

Vivian, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Lyell, L.

Windlesham, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

deportations, and I am glad to support it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 17, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 18 [Notice of matters in respect of which there are rights of appeal]:
LORD FOOT LORD FOOT moved Amendment No. 95:
Page 19, line 23, leave out (" conclusive ") and insert (" prima facie evidence ").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 95, and I really want only to raise a query as to the exact effect of subsection (2) of Clause 18. The first subsection of Clause 18 provides that in certain circumstances:
" The Secretary of State may by regulations provide—

(a) for written notice to be given to a person of any such decision or action

939
taken in respect of him as is appealable under this Part of this Act…"

and it goes on to provide what must be set out in the notice. When you come to subsection (2) you find that it says:
" For the purpose of any proceedings under this Part of this Act a statement included in a notice in pursuance of regulations under this section shall be conclusive of the person by whom and of the ground on which any decision or action was taken."
I raise no question about the notice being conclusive of the person by whom the decision was taken, but I do ask what is the exact effect of the words that the notice"shall be conclusive"as to the ground on which it was taken. May I take a simple example? Take a case where a deportation order is made on the ground that a person has been convicted of a criminal offence and has been recommended by the court for deportation. Supposing that that person says,"It was not I who was convicted ", and then a notice is issued under the regulations, saying that the notice is issued by the Secretary of State, and that it is issued on the ground that that person has been convicted of a criminal offence and has been recommended for deportation, does this subsection, saying that the notice shall be conclusive as to the ground on which the decision or the action was taken, preclude the adjudicator, or the Appeal Tribunal, from looking behind the motives as to whether indeed it was this particular person who was so convicted and so recommended for deportation? I am merely asking for information. There is nothing sinister in the question I am asking. I should like the Minister to tell me whether that is a possible interpretation. If it is a possible interpretation, would not the difficulty be overcome by doing what our Amendment proposes, and that is to substitute for the word"conclusive"the words " prima facie " evidence.
10.12 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Under Clauses 13(5) and 15(5) the fact that the Secretary of State personally has decided that the exclusion of a person from the United Kingdom is conducive to the public good is a bar to any appeal. Under Clauses 14(3) and 15(3), the fact that the Secretary of State has personally decided that the departure or deportation of a person is conducive to the public
940
good, as being in the interests of national security, or of the relations between the United Kingdom and any other country, or for any other reasons of a political nature, is likewise a bar to a statutory appeal against the decision. It is therefore necessary that any decision as to exclusion, departure or deportation should be readily identifiable, both by the person affected and by the appellate authorities, as one which either does or does not give rise to a right of appeal.
The purpose of Clause 18(2) (to which the noble Lord's Amendment refers), is accordingly to enable a decision which is not subject to appeal to be identified by the terms of the notice of decision, and to make this identification conclusive. Whether the decision has been taken by the Home Secretary personally, and, if so, for what reasons, are matters peculiarly within the knowledge of the Home Secretary. We are not sure that the Amendment would achieve what the noble Lord, Lord Foot, wants it to achieve. If it were accepted, it would be open to a would-be appellant to challenge the statement in the notice of decision, and to maintain either that the decision had not been taken by the Secretary of State or that the reasons given were not the true ones. He would have to bring forward some evidence of his own to support his challenge, and it is difficult to see what this could be. But it seems undesirable that a would-be appellant should have an opportunity to try to circumvent the restrictions on rights of appeal by disputing the reasons for the decision, or the fact that it was taken by the Secretary of State personally. This is most evident in relation to security cases, where any inquiry by the appellate authorities into the process by which the decision was reached would be inappropriate, and contrary to Parliament's intention in excluding such cases from the appeals system.
As regards the whole range of the conducive cases, so far as they are excluded from the appeal system, the intention is, as I have explained, that the Home Secretary should be answerable for his decisions to Parliament. It would be inconsistent to allow either his statement of personal responsibility, or his reasons, to be called into question before the appellate authorities. Subject to further advice, I do not think that the specific

941
case the noble Lord referred to would arise here. What we are concerned with are those grounds, the non-conducive grounds, which do not carry with them a right of appeal. I speak subject to correction on this. I should like to check the point and come back to the noble Lord on it. But I think that we are discussing here whether or not the Home Secretary had grounds of a political or a security nature, and it is these that would not be open to challenge if the word"conclusive"were left out of the clause.
LORD FOOT: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for that explanation. I am not, I am afraid, entirely satisfied, because as I read Clause 18 it appears to deal with appeals generally. It does not appear to be limited to appeals in conducive cases. It appears to relate to any case where a person has a right of appeal, and subsection (1) states:
942
" The Secretary of State may by regulations provide—

(a) for written notice to be given to a person of any such decision or action taken in respect of him as is appealable under this Part of this Act."

Therefore, I cannot see why subsection (2), which includes the word"conclusive ", should limit this to the two questions of whether the Secretary of State personally made the decision, and whether the decision was on conducive grounds. I shall not detain the Committee any longer, but I shall study carefully what the noble Lord has said and perhaps he, in return, will look at what I have said.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Yes, I will gladly do that. I think that would be the best way of resolving this debate.
LORD FOOT: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY had given Notice of Amendment No. 95A:
Page 19, line 26, leave out (' any ") and insert (" a draft of the ").
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 95A and 95B refer to the issue which has previously been raised, of whether Parliament should have negative annulment or positive approval. Since we shall be referring to this on the Report stage, I ask the leave of the Committee not to move this Amendment.
Clause 18 agreed to.
Clause 19 [Determination of appeals by adjudicators]:
10.18 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 95C:
Page 19, line 40, after (" differently ") insert—
(" or
(iii) in all the circumstances of the case he feels it jug and equitable so to do.")
The noble Lord said: This Amendment refers to a subsection which will permit the adjudicator to allow an appeal if he considers two items, to which I want to add a third. I am proposing this addition because there may be many cases where, technically, there will be a fault but where there are circumstances which make the illegality morally excusable and perhaps even justifiable. These arise from difficulties about language, circumstances and other considerations. This may particularly be the case where a person has been resident in this country for a considerable period, even though illegally; and all this Amendment seeks to do is to give the adjudicator power to consider the other circumstances which are in my Amendment. I beg to move.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I think that the noble Lord's Amendment would go a good deal wider than it would appear, from the speech he has just made, that he intends. Clause 19(1)(a) sets out the circumstances in which an adjudicator is to allow an appeal; that is, where he considers that the decision in question was contrary to law or to the Immigration Rules, or, if the decision involved an exercise of discretion within the Rules, that the discretion should have been exercised differently. The Amendment
944
which the noble Lord has just moved would permit an adjudicator to allow an appeal, even if these conditions were not satisfied, if in all the circumstances of the case he felt it just and equitable to do so.
Clause 19(1)(a) is in the same terms as Section 8(1)(a) of the Immigration Appeals Act 1969, which in its turn was based on the recommendations made by the Wilson Committee in paragraphs 139 to 142 of their Report. The Wilson Committee summed up the effect of their recommendations as to the type of decision that the adjudicators could reach under the review in the following words:
" The scheme we have outlined will leave the Home Secretary with the power (and the corresponding responsibility) to formulate within the limits allowed him by statute the rules governing immigration control and so to determine the policy to be applied in its administration. At the same time the question whether a decision under appeal does or does not conform to the rules in which this policy is expressed will give rise to a justiciable issue appropriate for decision under an appellate process by an impartial tribunal: some degree of discretion will be entrusted to the appellate authorities, but no greater than is normally thought compatible with the exercise of judicial functions."
This Amendment would run counter to the delicate balance of the Wilson Committee's scheme by, in effect, allowing an adjudicator complete discretion to override the application of the Immigration Rules to particular cases whenever he thought it appropriate to do so. This is not a power which should properly be given to an administrative tribunal. It must remain with the Home Secretary, who exercises it, subject to his responsibility to Parliament, for the general effectiveness of immigration control. If the appellate authorities had power to dispense in particular cases from the provisions of any general rule that the Home Secretary might lay down, he could no longer be said to be answerable to Parliament for the effective operation of the control.
It is now, and will continue to be, open to the appellate authorities to bring to the notice of my right honourable friend any instance in which they consider that the operation of the Immigration Rules is producing unjust or oppressive results, and it goes without saying that any such representations would be most carefully considered. But to go

945
further, as the Amendment would, and to allow the appellate authorities to waive the application of a rule in accordance with their views as to the merits of a case would detract from their position of neutrality and impartiality. Moreover, it would be likely to lead to some inconsistency in deciding appeals, and so to uncertainty about what treatment an immigrant could expect to receive under the published immigration Rules.
LORD FOOT: While I can well understand that the Government cannot go as far as the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, would like them to go in inserting this new subparagraph, I should like to ask the Minister about the words of paragraph (a)(ii); namely,
" where the decision or action involved the exercise of a discretion by the Secretary of State or an officer, that the discretion should have been exercised differently;…"
The difficulty I want to draw attention to is that when one comes to look at the Draft Immigration Rules, and particularly at the Rules as they apply to visitors and to students, they are, I think, very largely a reproduction of the existing rules. But when one looks at these Rules one finds recurring over and over again the words"if he (the applicant) satisfies the immigration officer"or"if the immigration officer is satisfied"or"if the immigration officer is not satisfied"and so on.
May I take the first of them? This deals with visitors.
" A person seeking entry as a visitor is to be admitted if he satisfies the immigration officer that he is genuinely seeking entry for the period of his visit as stated by him "
and so on. The question is (and I think it is a question which has not been resolved before the Appeal Tribunal): if an immigration officer examining a visitor is not satisfied that that visitor is genuinely seeking entry, is he, the immigration officer, then exercising a discretion which can be reviewed by the adjudicator, or is the position that when there is an appeal lodged against the refusal he goes to the adjudicator—and says,"I was not satisfied "?
Take the case of a student. The Rule says:
" A passenger seeking admission as a student is to be refused leave to enter if the immigration officer has reason to believe that his
946
true purpose is to seek employment and if the officer is not satisfied that the passenger is able and intends to follow a full-time course of study…"
He must refuse. When he refuses a student in these circumstances, because he is not satisfied with what the student has said to him and the representations the student has made, is he then exercising a discretion which can be reviewed by the adjudicator or not? That is the point which I think remains unresolved as the law stands at the moment. That, I imagine, is the sort of uncertainty with which Lord Brockway is concerned.
Possibly the Minister will say that if I cast my eyes lower down, as far as Clause 19(2), I shall see:
" For the purposes of subsection (1)(a) above the adjudicator may review any determination of a question of fact on which the decision or action was based;…"
I do not know whether the Minister is likely to say that that is the answer. I doubt whether it is; because when the adjudicator examining a student tries to make up his mind whether he is satisfied that this student is genuinely coming into this country to pursue a course of study, he is not resolving a question of fact; he is trying to use his own judgment as to whether this person is genuine or not. If that is all he is doing I do not see what question of fact there is for review by the adjudicator in circumstances of that kind.
LORD GARDINER: I should like to put one short question. We are all in some difficulty in trying to relate the provisions of the Bill to the Rules because we are told that the Rules are in process of being completely re-written. When shall we have the written version of the Rules? Can I take it that we shall have that at least one week before we resume in October?
LORD WINDLESHAM: I do not think it would be right to assume that the Rules are being re-written. There are some additions to make to the Rules. We have been discussing one particular example relating to family deportation, and I mentioned the sort of considerations that were in our minds. There are also some deletions which have been specifically explained. One relates to the dependants of those already established here. Under

947
it, the head of the family will no longer have to show that he has the financial ability to support them. The Home Secretary said that he intends to change this requirement in the Immigration Rules. But I think it would be misleading the Committee to suggest that there is to be any large-scale rewriting of the rules.
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, asked about the meaning of the word"satisfied"in the Immigration Rules. He referred in particular to Rules 15 to 21 of Cmnd. 4606, relating to visitors and students."Satisfaction"on the part of the immigration officer involves the determination of a question of fact within the meaning of Clause 19(2) and so is open to review by the appellate authorities. I know from personal experience that in both the instances the noble Lord gave—that of the visitor seeking entry when the immigration officer believes that his true intention is to settle in this country and that of the student who there may be some reason to think is coming not to follow a course but to stay here for work and settlement—the decisions by the immigration officer would give rise to appeal. Where I think we diverge in debating Lord Brockway's Amendment is on the exercise of discretion within the rules and on the way in which the immigration officer interprets the rules. That exercise of discretion is covered in this clause, but what the Amendment would do would be to say that the appellant authorities would be able, if they thought it"equitable"(that is the word in the Amendment) to set aside the rule itself. But we think this would be going too far.
LORD BROCKWAY: I greatly appreciate the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord Foot. I hope very much that the Rules may be amended before we reach Report stage. In view of the possibility of raising this matter again, I now beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.32 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 95D:
Page 20, line 1, leave out from (" based ") to end of line 7.
The noble Lord said: This Amendment refers to subsection (2) in which the right of the Secretary of State to exercise discretion is restricted. I submit that this restriction may have far-reaching effects. It will prevent an applicant—this may occur in many cases—declaring that the Home Secretary should have exercised his discretion differently. The Home Secretary in such cases may argue that the appellant has merely asked him to depart from the rules and the Home Secretary's refusal will then not be regarded as an exercise of discretion. I hope very much that the Minister will look at this point, because it seems to be a restriction which may go beyond what is intended in this subsection. I hope that he may be able to reconsider the words used. I beg to move.
LORD WINDLESHAM: The words which this Amendment would delete from Clause 19(2) provide that a refusal by the Secretary of State to depart from the Immigration Rules is not to be treated for the purpose of Clause 19(1)(b) as an exercise of discretion by the Secretary of State so as to enable an adjudicator to decide in appeal proceedings that the discretion should have been exercised differently. The effect of deleting the words which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway has proposed would be to enable the adjudicator to do this, because this provision in the Bill is based on an express recommendation by the Wilson Committee, which spent a long time considering the most appropriate form of an immigration appeal system and how it should operate once it was set up. In paragraph 140, the Committee had this to say:
" We therefore recommend that where the general rules leave scope for the exercise of discretion by the Home Office the same discretion should be open to the appellate authorities. Where however a rule leaves no room for discretion, the appellate authorities should have no power to waive its application in a particular case."
A similar provision is contained at present in Section 8(2) of the Immigration Appeals Act 1969 and in Article 7(2) of the Aliens (Appeals) Order 1970. The effect is that, where the Immigration Rules leave the Secretary of State or one of his officers with a discretion in a particular type of case, the exercise of that

949
discretion is open to review by the appellate authorities on the merits. Whenever the Rules for Control on Entry provide for admission in certain cases on compassionate grounds or on grounds of hardship, an exercise of discretion is involved. These are cases in which discretion is exercised within the Rules.
There are also cases from time to time in which a person seeks to be admitted or to be allowed to stay in this country although he has no entitlement to do so under any provision of the immigration Rules. In a case of this sort, his request can be granted only if the Secretary of State is prepared to depart from the Rules exceptionally. It is right that the Secretary of State, as the Minister responsible to Parliament for the enforcement of immigration control, should have power to make exceptions to the Rules when he considers this to be justified by the exceptional circumstances of a particular case. But to give a similar dispensing power to the appellate authorities would be inconsistent with their status as judicial bodies, and would result in the power being exercisable without accountability to Parliament. We believe that it is better to adhere, as the Bill does, to the carefully considered recommendations of the Wilson Committee on this matter.
LORD BROCKWAY: I appreciate deeply the reply which the Minister has given. I would like to consider it, and meanwhile beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD WINDLESHAM LORD WINDLESHAM moved Amendment No. 96:
Page 20, line 16, leave out (" (3)").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is consequential on Amendment 80 and others in the series concerning appeals in cases of family deportation. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 19, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 20 agreed to.
Clause 21 [References of cases for further consideration]:
LORD WINDLESHAM LORD WINDLESHAM moved Amendment No. 97:
Page 20, line 44, leave out (" (3) ").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is also consequential on Amendment No. 80 and the others in the series. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 21, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 22 [Procedure]:
10.40 p.m.
LORD FOOT LORD FOOT moved Amendment No. 98:
Page 21, line 18, leave out from (" thereunder ") to (" and ") in line 20.
The noble Lord said: My noble friends and I put down this Amendment with the object of questioning the provision that the burden of proof and admissibility of evidence can be altered by rule by the Secretary of State, because Clause 22 provides that the Secretary of State may make rules, among other things,
" for prescribing the practice and procedure to be followed on or in connection with appeals thereunder, including the mode and burden of proof and admissibility of evidence on such an appeal."
We were concerned whether it was really proper that the laws of this land about burden of proof, evidence, and so on, should be the bagatelle of the Secretary of State when he is writing rules. But since this Amendment was put down I have studied the Immigration Appeal Procedure Rules 1970, and I can see that there is some argument for giving the Secretary of State this power, because in some respects, and particularly in relation to the law of evidence, he has provided that under the rules certain kinds of evidence that would not ordinarily be admissible in a court of law shall be admissible in an appeal of this kind. I think that is desirable.
When it comes to the burden of proof, I can see that there are grounds for that. I do not know whether the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, might care to say that he thinks this is in order. If so, then I will willingly withdraw the Amendment. I beg to move.
LORD GARDINER: I think this goes somewhat far, because you can change the effect of any legislation if you change the whole of the burden of proof. On the other hand, as this is a Bill put

951
forward by a Ministry, they have already taken the precaution of putting the burden of proof on everybody but themselves, so I do not think it would have much effect.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I think perhaps this is the occasion for me to spare the Committee a long speech. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, has satisfied himself. For some reason or other, it has had a lukewarm welcome from the noble and learned Lord on the Front Bench opposite. I think we might leave it at that.
LORD FOOT: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD GARDENER LORD GARDENER moved Amendment No. 99B:
Page 22, line 34, leave out (" subject to annulment in pursuance of ") and insert (" approved by ").
The noble and learned Lord said: I suggested on Second Reading of the Bill that one of the deficiencies of the Bill was that it did not provide for any right of legal representation on appeal. I then said that I could never see what harm the right to legal representation does. Any county court judge, who is used to many cases with legal representation and many without legal representation, knows how much time is saved when there is legal representation, because those who appear know the points involved and they get on with the case. I said then that I hoped that that fact might meet with some support from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I rather gather that that may be so, and in this anticipated hope, I beg leave to move the Amendment.
LORD WINDLESHAM: When the Amendment originally appeared on the Marshalled List it was numbered 100, and I had hoped that we might be able to celebrate our century by accepting it. It has now turned into Amendment No. 98B, because the noble and learned Lord has suggested inserting it a little earlier part of subsection (3) of Clause 22. But that has not put us off. Indeed, we think from the drafting point of view that it is better put in as part of subsection (3); accordingly I would advise your Lordships to accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 98A:
Page 21, line 37, leave out subsection (3).
The noble Lord said: I hope that the Committee will give serious consideration to this Amendment. It proposes that we should omit subsection (3) of Clause 22. This Amendment raises the question of the very wide powers given to the Secretary of State to make regulations; and I have previously indicated my anxiety about these powers. Subsection (3) is especially objectionable because it maintains one of the most disturbing features of the Immigration Appeals Act in preventing an appellant or his representative from attending the hearing of a case when evidence is given against him.
This applies in two instances: first, where forgery of a document is alleged and, secondly, where the disclosure of methods of detection would be contrary to the public interest. In the first instance there is only an allegation, and I suggest to the Committee that there should not be a refusal to be present when only an allegation is made. That is contrary to the spirit of our justice. In the second instance, where disclosure of the method of detection may be contrary to public interest, in fact it is very rare indeed for the Home Office to give oral evidence at the hearing. Surely, if there is a forgery that fact can be proved without revealing the method of detection. If a forgery has been made clear in a number of documents concerning entrance to this country, for instance, and these documents are all registered, it seems to me completely unnecessary to suggest that the method of detection must be disclosed. It is so contrary to our whole method of justice that evidence should be heard in the absence of the alleged offender or of his representative, that I should like to ask the Minister whether there is any previous enactment which provides these restrictions, except the Act to which I have referred. It seems to me to be a breach of the rules of natural justice that a person may be penalised by evidence which he or his representative has not heard. Because this seems to me to be a fundamental right, I beg to move this Amendment.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: Before the noble Lord replies, may I just say that I am a little puzzled

953
by my noble friend's points. I want to be sure that I have them right. If somebody has a forged permit or passport he cannot have been"sold a pup "—he has no business to buy it at all; therefore he must be a party to the forgery. There cannot be any doubt about this: you get permits and passports from official quarters and not from people round the corner. I do not see why the people who say it is forged should show how they found out. I am tremendously on the side of my noble friend, generally speaking. I am anxious to support him, but I find it difficult. I do not know whether he can amplify the matter?
LORD BROCKWAY: My noble friend has supported me. It is exactly the point that I am making; there is sufficient evidence and documents in the case to make it absolutely unnecessary for the method of detection to be revealed. That is a strong element in the case.
10.51 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Clause 22(3) relates only to forgeries of passports or other travel documents. The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, asked whether there were any precedents in law. I can tell him that in substance, the clause is the same as Section 9(3)(b) of the Immigration Appeals Act 1969, but I am not aware of any precedents before that date.
LORD BROCKWAY: I mentioned that Act, and asked whether there were any previous precedents, and the Minister has now answered that there are not.
LORD WINDLESHAM: That is so, because the problem did not exist before the 'sixties. This is a problem associated with evasion of immigration control. The noble Lord knows well that since the 1962 Act there have been fairly large-scale attempts to evade the immigration controls. It is hardly surprising that the law in this matter is comparatively recent.
LORD BROCKWAY: That is hardly the point. I am asking whether there is any indication in any Act that someone can be sentenced when evidence is given in court in his absence, or in the absence of a representative. That seems entirely new, except for the instance which the Minister has given.
LORD WINDLESHAM: As I say, I am not aware of any precedents, but there may be some. I should like to explain the reasons why this has been thought to be necessary, why the previous Government in 1969 thought that it was necessary, and why we are convinced that it is now necessary. The reason why it may be in the public interest (and I stress these words, for they are contained in the last lines of subsection (3) of the clause) to conceal from an appellant the method by which it is alleged that a forgery has been detected is that the provision of false documents for immigrants is a highly organised and lucrative trade in some countries, and our success in combating forgeries bears largely in keeping the forgers in ignorance of the defects in their own methods. If these defects had to be specified in evidence given in the absence of the appellants, the information would soon be passed back to the organisers of the trade, thus enabling them to improve their methods of forgery.
It would not be sufficient, as this Amendment proposes, to exclude the Press and public from the hearings since the appellant himself, or his sponsor, who might be his representative, might well be an agent of the racketeers. I thought that the point of the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, was one on my side rather than on Lord Brockway's side, although he turned it neatly to his own advantage in his reply.
I think that by definition there is bound to be an element of guilty knowledge, in that either the person concerned has obtained his passport on payment or through an agent, or he has obtained it from some official source. In some instances, the deduction of a false document or of a false entry in a genuine document, is based on the absence of certain safeguards in the form of recognition signals that have been deliberately incorporated into the design of the authentic document. If the nature of these safeguards had to be disclosed they would then become valueless. There are also ways of detecting that passports have been altered that could be countered if they were known to the forgers.
As the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, very fairly said, this is not the first time that concern has been expressed about

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this matter. The problems that would arise if methods of detecting forgeries had to be disclosed were first brought to notice in another place on the Second Reading of the Immigration Appeals Bill in January, 1969. The then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the previous Administration, Mr. Merlyn Rees, promised to consider the matter; but after he had done so the conclusion of the previous Government was that the only solution was to enable evidence of this kind to be given to the adjudicator or to the tribunal in the absence of the appellant or his representative. To be quite fair, the previous Government made it clear that they put this idea forward with reluctance, and in the belief that there was no other way of dealing with this acknowledged and difficult problem; and this is our own attitude. We do not like this particular provision, but there is a real practical difficulty which I have explained to your Lordships. The previous Government overcame it and we think it right to continue with the law as it is.
LORD FOOT: I have the next Amendment down which relates to this point so perhaps I may shorten the proceedings if I speak on this Amendment. I do not think the noble Lord is quite right in saying that there are no precedents for legislation of this kind because there have never been any reasons for it until now. We are dealing with a question of forgery, and the noble Lord says,"Oh, well, it would be very dangerous to allow the party concerned, or his representative, to learn how we discovered the forgery, as that would then be relayed back to the country of origin and the people engaged in this business of forging documents would be able to amend their methods." But this state of affairs has existed for a very long time. I imagine that when anybody is charged at the Old Bailey with forging bank notes it is important not to disclose to the person charged or to his representatives how the forgery was discovered. It may be a matter of considerable national importance that that should not be disclosed. But we do not turn the accused person out of court; we do not refuse him the opportunity of challenging the evidence against him. It is a serious step to do it in the case of immigration when we do not apply it in the case of forgery involving money.
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Or take a case involving national security, where a person is charged under the Official Secrets Act. Often it may be highly desirable in the public interest that not only should the proceedings be held in camera but that, if possible, the accused person and his representatives should be excluded from the court while certain evidence is being given—for instance, touching closely on national security and the revelation of which might be infinitely damaging to the national cause. But even in those cases we do not say to the accused:"No, you must be removed from the court; you shall have no opportunity of challenging this evidence in cross-examination." We take these risks in these cases. Why? Because we realise that there is here a question of balance between the public interest and the private right; and it is indeed a matter of public interest as well as private right that justice should be done and should be seen to be done. Why the balance should be tipped against the private right in favour of the so-called public interest when dealing with the forgery of passports as opposed to the forgery of bank notes I do not know. The noble Lord will see that in our Amendment we have not gone as far as the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. I sometimes think that I am more concerned with the art of the possible in politics and the noble Lord is more concerned with the art of the imaginable or the conceivable. But, as I say, we do not go anything like so far in our Amendment as he does in his. All we are asking is that where this issue about how a forgery was detected arises, those proceedings should be held in camera.
I well realise that that leaves open the possibility that the party concerned, or his representative, hearing the evidence given, may relay the information back to the country from which he came and it may be made use of there. But I should have thought that that is a risk we ought to be prepared to take in the interests of justice being seen to be done; a risk we do take in the case of ordinary forgery, and ought to be prepared to take in such a case as this. I should not have thought it was beyond the administrative capacity of the people who are issuing entry certificates, passports, and so on in other countries to use devices to thwart methods of forgery which have become well-known and may have become public knowledge.

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It is a serious issue that we should depart in this particular case from all the ways with which we deal with the administration of the criminal law in the ordinary way. Therefore, while I do not go so far as to support the noble Lord's Amendment, I should like to say these things in support of my own, and it will therefore not be necessary for me to speak to that Amendment in due course.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I have little to add to what I said, except this. Nobody has mentioned, perhaps for the first time this evening, the consequences of immigration policy on community relations. On previous days, sometimes on quite a number of Amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Wade, and the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, have several times raised considerations of community relations. I can assure noble Lords that one of the factors that has the worst possible effect on community relations in this country is the belief that large-scale illegal immigration is taking place and that very little is being done to stop it. Members of the previous Administration will not accept that very little is done to stop it, and nor will we. Special measures are taken in the Part of the Bill to which we are just coming and which concerns criminal proceedings and contains the new offence created by the Bill. But there is no doubt that this belief that illegal immigration takes place, and that we are willing to sit back, has a disastrous effect on race relations. We must do everything we can to ensure that the immigration laws laid down and approved by Parliament are observed. This is a very special provision and a special statutory procedure has been written into the Bill to explain the cases to which it applies.
The only other point which perhaps I should raise is that this is a power of the adjudicator. He is not bound to exclude the appellant or his representative; he will do so only to ensure that these matters can be presented to the adjudicator or Tribunal without any disclosure being directly or indirectly made contrary to the public interest. He will do it only if he believes that the public interest makes it necessary.
LORD BROCKWAY: I am entirely unconvinced, but in view of the circumstances of the Committee, I beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 22, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 23 [Financial support for organisations helping persons with rights of appeal]:
11.5 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 101:
Page 22, line 40, at end insert—
(" (2) The Secretary of State shall, at intervals not less frequently than anually, lay before Parliament a statement of grants made to any or each such organisation as is referred to in subsection (1) above, during the last calendar year preceding such statement.")
The noble Baroness said: This is quite a straight forward Amendment, in the sense that we feel that Parliament, and through Parliament the public, should be informed about the organisations to which the Secretary of State may wish to grant aid. We have no objection at all to this procedure of grants being made to voluntary organisations; we just think the public has a right to know which organisations they are and how much they may have received. We are not really particular as to the method of doing this. If the noble Lord wishes to say that he thinks this is perhaps too onerous or expensive a method, to lay a statement annually before Parliament but that the information can be included in some annual report, if there is an appropriate one, that will be quite satisfactory; but we do think this information should be made available. I beg to move.
LORD DENHAM: The requirement proposed in the Amendment moved by the noble Baroness would be exceptional, and in the time available it has not been possible to trace a precedent for it: there is certainly none in the Home Office field. The normal means of keeping Parliament informed about the expenditure of public money is through the annual Estimates and, at a later stage, the annual Appropriation Account. In the Estimates for the current financial year (1971–72) provision for grants under Section 15 of the Immigration Appeals Act 1969 is made in sub-head E(3) of the Home Office Vote, and this sub-head states that the money sought will be paid as a grant-in-aid to the United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service. The grant paid will in due course be recorded in the Appropriation Account for this financial year; and the

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same will happen in subsequent years. No change in practice is foreseen when Clause 23 replaces Section 15 of the 1969 Act. Thus the information sought is already available to Parliament, and the Amendment would seem to involve unnecessary duplication of work.
In view of that explanation I hope that the noble Baroness will not press the Amendment.
BARONESS WHITE: In view of what the noble Lord has said I will not press this Amendment. I am not quite sure that in an area as sensitive as this, where there is so much room for suspicion—much of it not justified, but nevertheless it is there—the method, satisfactory as it may be to Parliamentarians, is likely to be effective where the public are concerned. After all, the public generally do not understand our methods of dealing with departmental votes and sub-heads, and all the rest of it, and I would like to think about this a little more. But in the light of what the noble Lord has said I do not wish to press it at the moment and I beg leave with withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 23 agreed to.
Clause 24 [Illegal entry and similar offences]:
11.9 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 101C:
Page 23, line 5, leave out from (" £200 ") to (" in ") in line 6.)
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Amendment is to delete the reference to imprisonment. I will just put this point quite simply to the Minister. If there is to be the power to impose a fine of £200, and if this is to be followed by deportation, the inclusion of some period of imprisonment is unnecessary. I beg to move.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: I should like to support my noble friend, this time I think without qualifications. If the law is to introduce reasons for sending somebody to prison they must be justified, and the reasons for sending somebody to prison who commits this kind of crime seem to me to
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fade away as we examine them. There is no question of protecting the public; prison does not do that; you cannot illegally enter when you are already here, so the question of protection of the public does not arise. The question of rehabilitation is extremely remote; the idea that you make a man sorry he entered illegally and therefore he will never do it again if you send him away rather fantastic.
You are reduced to the question of straight punishment. We have fairly modern views about straight punishment. There are cases which are so heinous that society requires pain of some kind to be inflicted. There are different views as to whether it is desirable. This is clearly not such a case. I can see no justification whatever, in ethics or any other form of philosophy, for inflicting imprisonment on people who commit this kind of breach of the law, and I think unless the Government can produce some reasons we should support my noble friend's Amendment.
LORD WINDLESHAM: As the Bill stands, offences under Clause 24(1) are punishable by a fine of up to £200 or by imprisonment for up to six months or both. The Amendment would remove the power to impose a sentence of imprisonment. Where an offence under Clause 24(1) has been committed it will often be a sufficient vindication of the law if the offender is sent out of the country, either as a result of a recommendation for deportation by the court or of other powers available under the Bill for removing people who are here illegally.
But this would not always be so. For example, if a person who has been deported for a serious criminal offence returns here in breach of the deportation order, and escapes detection on entry, the court might consider that the offence he has committed in returning merits a sentence of imprisonment. I might just add on that to the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, who has expressed an interest in this, that this would be particularly so in regard to Irish offenders; there being no control over movement between the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom, the sanction of imprisonment is a very real deterrent, to an Irish deportee who is tempted to come back again to this country while a deportation order is in force against him.

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A further objection is that the power of a court to recommend an offender for deportation under Clause 3(6) depends on his offence being one which is punishable with imprisonment. If the Amendment were carried, offences under Clause 24(1) would no longer be punishable with imprisonment and so could not lead to a recommendation for deportation.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: Is the noble Lord really serious in this argument? It does seem to me absolutely fantastic that in order to deport somebody you have got to be able to send him to prison, irrespective of whether there is good reason or not. Really this is an administrative"fiddle"which is not acceptable.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I do not think it is. The reason why deportation depends on offences punishable with imprisonment is to ensure that the court does not recommend people for deportation for very trivial offences. We had a longish debate on this, on the petty offender, and the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, moved an Amendment on the subject of offences punishable with imprisonment. This is exactly what we are talking about, that people should not be recommended for deportation the first time they fall foul of the law in some trivial way.
The answer to it might be that the Bill could be amended in some way in Clause 3(6); but even if the power to recommend for deportation were retained there might be instances of offences under Clause 24(1) which in the opinion of the court did not warrant a recommendation for deportation but merited a punishment heavier than a fine, or where a fine would for other reasons be inappropriate. The effect of the Amendment would be to constrain the court to recommend deportation for want of a power of imprisonment. Similar offences are already punishable with imprisonment both under Sections 4 and 11 of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 and Article 26 of the Aliens Order 1953. It seems right, therefore, to leave the courts with their present powers, which they have had for at least nine years in the case of Commonwealth citizens and since 1953 in the case of aliens, to pass sentences for imprisonment where they believe it is necessary to do so.
11.16 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: The noble Lord has mentioned the Irish in this connection. Supposing an Irishman is subjected to the order to be deported and he returns to Ireland. Under our law he has every right to enter this country. If he does enter the country is he contravening the original order for deportation?
LORD WINDLESHAM: Yes, he is. He has no right to enter if he is subject to a deportation order.
LORD BROCKWAY: I mean permanently, when ordinarily he has the right to come to this country?
LORD WINDLESHAM: Yes. This applies to everyone under a deportation order. It is until such time that the deportation order is revoked, and there is a procedure for that in the Bill.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: As a high proportion of the Irish are already in our prisons I think it is a mistake to add to them in this way. The argument I cannot get round at all is this argument that you have to commit a crime worthy of imprisonment before you can be deported; and then you give a list of sins connected with illegal entry, and then say you have to send these people to prison because, if you did not, you could not deport them. Have I got it wrong?
LORD WINDLESHAM: I think you have, because you seem to be saying that you have to send people to prison. This is not the case. It is an offence punishable with imprisonment which, in practice, is very seldom punished with imprisonment at all. At the present time very often in these immigration offences the court may recommend for deportation and nothing more, or it may recommend—and very often does—one day's imprisonment and a recommendation for deportation. It is a residual power which, as I say, the courts have had since 1962 in the case of Commonwealth citizens and earlier in the case of aliens. It is used sparingly and at the discretion of the courts.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: I do not want to go on with it, because it could he endless. I have not been satisfied that there is any single

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reason for sending any person who breaches any of the provisions in Clause 24(1)(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)(f) or (g) to prison. It seems to me that doing so in every case would be negative, a useless filling of our prisons with people we do not want there, and better not done. Having said that, I leave it to my noble friend to carry on.
LORD GARDINER: I would hope that the Government might give this some consideration. It may be that the right consideration ought to be on Clause 6 rather than here. I think there is some force in what my noble friend Lord Donaldson says. When he asks if it is really necessary to send people to prison for these things, he is told it is necessary because you could not have a deportation order unless the person could be sent to prison. Then when it comes to Clause 6, we take every possible device to ensure that a deportation order is not to be made unless the offence is one for which there may be a sentence of imprisonment, but then we include here all sorts of cases in which ordinarily under our law there is no possibility of imprisonment.
We provide that the question whether an offence is punishable with imprisonment shall be determined without regard to any enactment restricting the imprisonment of a young offender or a first offender. Then further we provide that, notwithstanding that the court does not proceed to conviction, it is still to be regarded as if the person had been convicted. There is a good deal of force in what my noble friend Lord Donaldson said. We really are going around in circles, because a court does not grant an absolute discharge. This is providing an absolute discharge in the case of a conviction, but a court does not give an absolute discharge unless it is a very small matter and the probability is that a prosecution ought not to have been brought.
LORD BROCKWAY: I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Donaldson for his support, and for what has been said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner. I hope very much that the Minister will give some further thought to this and perhaps we can return to it at Report stage. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.22 p.m.
LORD FOOT LORD FOOT moved Amendment No. 102:
Page 23, line 16, after (" he ") insert (" knowingly ").
The noble Lord said: Paragraph (c) of subsection (1), to which this Amendment relates, deals with seamen and aircraft crews, coming into this country under Clause 8(1). This paragraph provides that if any such seaman or member of the crew of an aircraft lawfully enters the United Kingdom without leave—that is, temporarily, until his ship or aircraft goes out in the ordinary way—and then remains without leave beyond the short period of time allowed under Clause 8(1), he commits an offence. The only question we are asking through this Amendment is why, when the word"knowingly"is in other parts of this clause, and when the phrase"without reasonable excuse"is in paragraph (d), there are no saving words in paragraph (c) providing that it is only if a person knowingly remains without leave, or without reasonable excuse remains without leave, that he commits an offence. I do not understand why"knowingly"should be regarded as important in one paragraph, and why"without reasonable excuse"should appear in another paragraph, yet neither of those terms appears in paragraph (c). I beg to move.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM OF ST. MARYLEBONE): This point was rather exhaustively discussed in another place. There were a number of Amendments put forward by the honourable friends of the noble Lord seeking to insert the word"knowingly"into this clause. I think the majority of them were accepted by the Government. This one was not accepted and was negatived. It relates to a crew member who, for one reason or another, jumps his ship, a situation dealt with in Clause 8(1). It was thought that"knowingly"was inappropriate to that case, and I am bound to say that I think it is difficult to see any situation where a lack of knowledge of the facts would cause an injustice. We are dealing here with a summary offence. Summary offences, theoretically punishable by imprisonment for short periods of time, are very frequent on our Statute Book—careless driving is one of them—and some do and some do not involve a degree

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of guilty knowledge. Usually there is some degree of guilty knowledge, but careless driving is an example of where there is none, and there are many others where there is none.
It was thought that this particular case was one where, although of course the crew member who jumps his ship normally does have the guilty knowledge, it was not desirable to make it an essential ingredient of the offence. The case which was cited by the Solicitor General, or perhaps by others in the debate in another place, was the case where the sailor concerned said that his watch was slow. A more obvious case, of course, is where he is too drunk to know that his ship has gone. I personally agree with the Government, and on the whole, without feeling passionately about this matter, I would submit that the Government are right.
LORD FOOT: May I say that I do not feel very passionately about it, either. Nevertheless, I think it is important that we try to get these things right. I ask the noble and learned Lord whether the arguments which he has addressed to us under paragraph (c) do not apply to subsection (1)(a), where the words are:
" if contrary to this Act he knowingly enters the United Kingdom in breach of a deportation order or without leave;…"?
Would it not be difficult, on the analogy that the noble and learned Lord has drawn, to imagine circumstances in which a person could enter the United Kingdom in breach of a deportation order unconsciously, or could come in without leave, without being aware of the fact? I should have thought that all the arguments which the noble and learned Lord has so persuasively addressed to us about paragraph (c) apply equally to paragraph (a).
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That only goes to show how reasonable the Government were in accepting the word"knowingly"in paragraph (a).
LORD FOOT: In spite of being wholly unpersuaded by the noble and learned Lord, I beg leave, at this hour of the night, to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 102A:
Page 23, line 23, leave out paragraph (e).
The noble Lord said: I do not want to press this point at any length because the issue has been discussed on previous Amendments. I should just like to ask the Minister whether this paragraph is necessary, because it repeats what is said effectively in Clause 24(1)(b). I beg to move.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is thought that this is necessary. The Amendment would delete paragraph (e), which for ease of reference I will read out. It says that the offence is committed
" if, without reasonable excuse ",
the person accused
" fails to observe any restriction imposed on him under Schedule 2 or 3 to this Act as to residence or as to reporting to the police…"
The Amendment appears to be based on the view that paragraph (e) relates to the arrangements for police registration provided for in Clauses 3(1)(c) and 4(3). But that is not so. Failure to register under those arrangements is, as the noble Lord I think suggested, an offence against Clause 24(1)(b)(ii); failure to comply in any other respect with regulations under Clause 4 (3) is an offence against Clause 26(1)(e). But as the references to Schedules 2 and 3 make clear, paragraph (e) really relates to failure to comply with restrictions imposed under paragraph 20(2) of Schedule 2 on persons temporarily admitted pending a final decision on whether leave to enter is to be given or refused, or pending removal after refusal of leave to enter; and failure to comply with restrictions imposed under paragraph 2(5) of Schedule 3 on a person released from custody while awaiting deportation. It is right that disregard of such restrictions by a person who has obtained temporary release from custody should be a criminal offence.
The power to admit a person temporarily pending a decision on whether or not to give him leave to enter is a new power which the Government seek under this Bill to avoid the need to keep passengers in custody in the small proportion of cases in which prompt decisions cannot be taken. But in some of these cases release will have to be coupled with restrictions about place of residence, et cetera. The alternative would be not unrestricted freedom but continued detention, so this Amendment would not be in the best interests of those whom Lord

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Brockway has in mind. With this explanation, he might be invited to withdraw this Amendment. It may be that the noble Lord will not press his Amendment. It is really a fundamental drafting point. The noble Lord thought perhaps that we were duplicating. The fact is that we are not.
LORD BROCKWAY: In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.31 p.m.
LORD DENHAM LORD DENHAM moved Amendment No. 103:
Page 23, line 25, at end insert (" or to an immigration officer ").
The noble Lord said: With permission I should like to speak also to Amendment No. 130.
Paragraph 20 of Schedule 2 to the Bill provides that a person liable to detention or detained pending his examination on entry into the country, and pending a decision whether or not to admit him, may be temporarily admitted without prejudice to a later exercise of the power to detain him and, further, that while such a person is at large he shall be subject to such restrictions as to residence and as to reporting to the police as may from time to time be notified to him in writing by an immigration officer.
These Amendments seek to provide that a person so at large may be subject to a restriction as to reporting to an immigration officer, instead of to the police. These Amendments are intended to deal with the not uncommon case where a person so set at large remains near the port while the Immigration Service attempt to resolve his case by further inquiry. He may, for example, be permitted to stay at a hotel. To meet the circumstances of such a case, it would be adequate, and convenient, if he were required to report to an immigration officer rather than to the police. This would save involving the police in a case in which they do not need to be concerned.
The Amendment to Clause 24 is an ancillary one, making it a criminal offence if the person al large fails to observe the requirement to report to the immigration officer. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DENHAM LORD DENHAM moved Amendment No. 104:
Page 23, line 33, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is consequential upon one accepted by the Government at the Commons Report stage which inserted the word"knowingly"into Clause 24(1)(a). Subsection (2) of the clause provides that a person who has not had notice of a deportation order made against him is not guilty of an offence under subsection (1)(a) if he returns while the order is in force. Now that subsection (1)(a) is qualified with the word"knowingly ", subsection (2) is unnecessary and this Amendment deletes it. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD FOOT LORD FOOT moved Amendment No. 105:
Page 23, line 38, leave out (" A constable or immigration officer ") and insert (" An immigration officer on duty and at a point of embarkation and disembarkation or a constable ")
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is to insert certain words and to delete others. This subsection is concerned with the right of a constable or an immigration officer to arrest somebody without warrant. We propose that, while that right should remain with a constable, it should be limited and qualified so that an immigration officer should be able to arrest without warrant only at the port of embarkation or disembarkation.
The short point here is that we think it inappropriate to extend the right to arrest without a warrant any further than we need. We do not like the idea of an immigration officer going off into the country to call in somebody and perhaps arrest him without a warrant. We think this power of arrest without a warrant should be limited if possible to the police, although we recognise that at a port of embarkation or disembarkation there may be a case for giving the immigration officer power to arrest without a warrant where the circumstances require it in the apprehension of a person who otherwise might get away. It is only to try to introduce a safeguard that this is proposed. It does not seem that it would make the administration of power of arrest any

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more difficult, and it would be an improvement in the Bill as drafted. I beg to move.
LORD GARDINER: I feel some difficulty about this because it pre-empts two Amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, which object to such a right of arrest without warrant in any case. Here we are in what has always been the most illiberal part of our law. There has been very little law about it in the past because it has been nearly all administration. Whether we are right in giving these civilians, for whom I have the highest regard, executive officers or men promoted to be executive officers—these somewhat junior civil servants—a right to arrest seems to me very questionable. The police, I should have thought, are the proper officers to arrest people. Later we go on to find even more extensive powers given to immigration officers.
I hope that the Government may at least be prepared to consider the Amendment which has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, which would place some limitation on the right of arrest which is being given to these admirable civil servants. Perhaps whichever Minister is to reply would be good enough to remind the Committee exactly how many civil servants to whom we are giving the right of arrest there are.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My noble friend Lord Denham will reply to the substance of the debate on this Amendment, hut, since I am somewhat closer to this subject I should say that the total strength of the immigration service is just over 2,000 people. I do not think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, should give the impression that they are junior civil servants, for these very great powers cannot be exercised by people who are not very experienced. I can assure the noble and learned Lord from first-hand experience that the system is such that any decision at the ports, including any refusal to give leave to land, has under the regulations to be referred to a chief immigration officer. These are very experienced people, and there are several of them permanently on duty night and day at the main ports of entry. At London Airport, for example, there is one of Her Majesty's Inspectors
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who is based on London, and difficult cases can be referred to him; and likewise at Dover and the Channel ports.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: Before the noble Lord replies, I should like to support my noble and learned friend. Is there any other class of civil servant who has the power of arrest? I find this a rather curious extension to throw into the Bill like this. I do not like it and I do not think that we should pass this without further discussion. We should have some good reason for extending this power.
LORD DENHAM: If I may reply, I will come on to the point the noble Iord has just made. It is true that on the rare occasions when immigration officers may have to exercise their power of arrest, they are most likely to be on duty examining passengers. An immigration officer might then observe an attempt at illegal entry, contrary to Clause 24(1)(a) or (f), or at illegal embarkation, contrary to Clause 24(1)(g), which could be prevented only by an immediate exercise of his power of arrest, there being no police officer at hand to intervene. But there may also be occasions when an immigration officer observes an attempt at illegal entry or embarkation when not actually on duty at a point of embarkation or disembarkation. This may happen as an officer is on his way to or from the point of duty.
I can give your Lordships an assurance that there is no question of an immigration officer being employed primarily for the purpose of tracking down offenders against Clause 24, or any other provision of the Bill, and arresting them. But there may well be occasions on which, in the course of their ordinary duties, immigration officers come across such offenders when no police officer is available. These need not be occasions when the immigration officer is at a point of embarkation or disembarkation. It would be undesirable therefore to limit the scope of their power in the way proposed in the Amendment. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, that similar powers of arrest without warrant were conferred on immigration officers by the existing law, in the Aliens Order, 1953, Article 28(1), and in the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, Section 14(1). They have not been exercised frequently or in a way which has given rise

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to complaint. Immigration officers are officers of the Home Office, and the Home Secretary is answerable to Parliament for their conduct in this as in other respects.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: I am not happy about this. In the first place, if they already have the power, why give it to them in the Bill? In the second place, the idea of immigration officers exercising this power off duty is to me repugnant. If we are to accept that immigration officers should have these powers, we should support the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Foot, because it limits the power to its exercise while on duty. This business of meeting a chap in a pub, finding that he is an illegal immigrant and arresting him is unattractive. It does not happen elsewhere in life. An officer can exercise the right of a private citizen, but I do not think he should have any further right than that. I do not know whether my noble and learned friend feels as uncomfortable about this as I do.
11.44 p.m.
LORD GARDINER: I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Denham, really answered the question about whether other civil servants have been given the power of arrest. It is always possible to find administratively convenient reasons for giving all civil servants more power to arrest people; but might this not be confined to chief immigration officers? To give 2,000 civil servants, who are gentlemen of the highest character and ability but who are the lowest grade of the executive class, a power of arrest is going a bit far. It is not a useful thing at quarter to twelve at night to discuss an important point like this, but I hope that the Government may give this matter further consideration.
LORD DENHAM: May I correct a mistake that my noble friend made? He said that there were 2,000 immigration officers, but I understand that the number is 1,000. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, who said he thought that it was wrong that an immigration officer could arrest somebody whom he had met casually in a pub. I think the assurance that I gave, that immigration officers were not going to be used to track down people like this, should be of some comfort to the noble Lord.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: None.
LORD DENHAM: The intention is that an immigration officer while on his way to or from duty should be able to do what he considers to be his duty. The noble and learned Lord asked again whether there were other civil servants with powers of arrest. I cannot answer that question without notice, but we think that there are others. We think that possibly customs officers have that power; but, if I may, I will let the noble and learned Lord know.
The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, also said that if under existing legislation immigration officers already had the power to arrest, why should we give it to them again? The reason is that this Bill is intended to replace the other two Acts, which will be repealed by this Bill; and if you do not give them back the power, they will no longer have it.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: That is the most satisfactory part of the noble Lord's answer.
LORD FOOT: I feel that this is not the sort of matter which we ought to be discussing at quarter to twelve at night. I think that the Government are treating this too lightly. They are proposing a substantial extension of the power of arrest without warrant, and that is a most important thing for them to be doing. If the Government would only give some indication that they are prepared to consider this matter again. I should be quite happy to withdraw the Amendment. It seems rather futile to divide the Committee at this hour of night, and I would ask the Government whether they will not throw out some small crumb of hope that the matter will be looked at again, because this is of considerable public importance.
LORD DENHAM: I do not think I can give the noble Lord that crumb of hope. I would point out to him that we are not discussing some new idea at this time of night. What we are discussing is a provision already in the Acts 'which this Bill is going to replace; and the noble Lord is suggesting that this provision, which is already there, should be removed. We are defending the status quo, and it is the noble Lord who is asking for change.
LORD FOOT: If your Lordships will forgive me for speaking again, I am not proposing that this power which now exists should be taken away. I am asking that' it should be circumscribed, and should only be exercisable (a) when the immigration officer is on duty, and (b) when he is at the point of embarkation or disembarkation.
LORD BROCKWAY: The noble Lord has given the assurance that immigration officers will not exercise this right of arrest except at their place of duty.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: He has not, with respect.
LORD BROCKWAY: I understand that the noble Lord had given that assurance.
LORD DENHAM: The assurance that I gave your Lordships was that immigration officers would not be used to track down illegal immigrants. But if they happen to come across them on their way to or from their work they should not be prevented from carrying out what they consider to be their duty, and what I must say I would consider to be their duty.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: We hope to stop it from being their duty. That is the point of this Amendment.
BARONESS WHITE: Perhaps I can make this point. I was somewhat reassured by what the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, said; namely, that in practice reference would be made to a chief immigration officer. That is fine, provided the immigration officer is on duty at his post; but if he should be off duty—and he must be either on or off—he may be well away from the point of embarkation or disembarkation and therefore unable to consult with the chief immigration officer. So that particular reassurance, where a particular immigration officer is off duty, is not convincing. It is really very worrying to us that a person off duty who is not a member of the police force should have the power to arrest without warrant.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: May I make two points? First of all, the position which the Opposition is attacking has been the law of the land for many years—for nine years in the case of Com-
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monwealth immigrants and for much longer than that in the case of aliens. In my experience, no complaint has ever been levelled against the behaviour of immigration officers in this respect or in the exercise of their powers. No suggestion has been made by the Government that they are to be given wider instructions than they have had hitherto. No case has been brought forward by the Opposition of any suggestion that these powers have been misused in the past. I entirely understand that the Committee should be on its guard about all such matters but I must say I should be far more convinced by what has been said in support of the Amendment if the Opposition had produced a single case of the unsuitable exercise of these powers—which are of value in themselves, of course, because they lead to the apprehension of offenders who might otherwise escape.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: This is, after all, a Bill which is intended to tidy the matter up, and if we find something which is wrong I do not see why we should not try to put it right. As for not being able to produce a single case of abuse, we have not looked for one—I do not suppose there has been one. But really this has nothing to do with the matter. If the Bill allows something which is unsatisfactory, let us alter it. I cannot follow the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, at all.
LORD FOOT: May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, whether he can tell us how many cases there have been of off duty immigration officers arresting without warrant? If he says that this has not been the subject matter of complaint, and if it has never been exercised by anybody off duty, of course there would be no occasion for complaint. Since the noble Lord asks us for statistics, perhaps he can tell us what statistics he has got.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: No, I cannot without notice answer that question, for obvious reasons; but I suggest to your Lordships that when Amendments are moved those who are moving them should furnish themselves beforehand with evidence in support of the Amendment and not say that they have not had time to collect that evidence.
LORD DENHAM: We have discussed this Amendment very fully and I hope that noble Lords opposite will not press it. As my noble friend Lord Brooke has said, the point is in the existing law already and there have not, so far as we know, been any complaints about it. As I have said, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is answerable to Parliament for the conduct of immigration officers. I know that assurance was not acceptable to the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, but I hope that your Lordships may be prepared to leave matters there.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 105C:
Page 24, line 16, leave out (" or facilitating ").
The noble Lord said: I should like to say just a word or two about this Amendment. The word"facilitating"seems to be very ill-defined, and other powers in this Bill are sufficient to deal with the problem of illegal entry without introducing this vague concept. It is not already covered in the words in the first line of Clause 25:
" Any person knowingly concerned…"
Surely that covers"facilitating ". Therefore, I beg to move that it be left out.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Clause 25(1) creates the new offence of being
" knowingly concerned in making or carrying out arrangements for securing or facilitating "
illegal entry. This Amendment would delete the words"or facilitating ". The Government have thought it desirable to take the opportunity provided by the Bill to make specific statutory provision for the punishment of those who engage in the smuggling of immigrants. At present they are usually prosecuted for conspiring to contravene the Commonwealth Immigrants Acts. By introducing a specific statutory offence the Bill is defining more clearly than the present law the circumstances in which such conduct is punishable.
In the Government's view it is right that the sanctions of the criminal law should be directed not only at those who take an active and leading part in organising illegal entry, but also at those who deliberately, and usually for motives of profit, connive at and assist in this traffic, including someone who merely
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allows others to have the use of his ship, aircraft, vehicle or premises. Such a person cannot be said to secure the illegal entry of anyone, but he facilitates it. The range of acts which might be done for the purpose of furthering or assisting illegal entry is so wide that the only way of giving the offence its proper scope is to use the general words"securing or facilitating"which are to be found in Clause 25(1).
As the Bill stands, an offence under Clause 25(1) is committed only by a person who is knowingly concerned in making or carrying out arrangements for securing or facilitating illegal entry, and then only if he knows that the persons whose entry is in question are illegal entrants, or if he has reasonable cause to believe this to be so. There is therefore no risk of innocent participants in a scheme for illegal entry being punished.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: May I rise on a point of order? We are unwittingly out of order here. Owing to a failure in the printing of the Marshalled List we have unwittingly strayed on to Clause 25, whereas the Marshalled List does not show that we have left Clause 24. The result is that we are discussing Clause 25 without having discussed the Question, That Clause 24 stand part. Perhaps if the Lord Chairman would put the Question we ought to postpone the discussion until we have discussed Clause 24 stand part.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD ST. HELENS): I beg your Lordships' pardon, the noble and learned Lord is perfectly correct. Clause 24 ends on the Marshalled List with Amendment 105B, and not as printed. Therefore, with your Lordships' permission, I will now put the Question, That Clause 24, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Clause 24, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 25 [Assisting illegal entry, and harbouring]:
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: Amendment 105C resumed.
LORD BROCKWAY: I assume that all that remains for me to do is to ask leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY had given notice of Amendment No. 105D:
Page 24, line 20, leave out (" £400 ") and insert (" £200 ")
The noble Lord said: In the case of Amendments 105D, 105E and 105F, I will not move them but will raise the matter as one of principle on a later Amendment.
12 midnight.
LORD WADE LORD WADE moved Amendment No. 106:
Page 24, line 25, leave out (" or has reasonable cause for believing to be ")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 106 which stands in the name of my noble friends and myself. We are now discussing assisting illegal entry, Clause 25. The Amendment refers to subsection (2) which reads:
" Without prejudice to subsection (1) above a person knowingly harbouring anyone whom he knows or has reasonable cause for believing to be either an illegal entrant or a person who has committed an offence under section 24(1)(b) or (c) above, shall be guilty of an offence, punishable on summary conviction with a fine of not more than £400 or with imprisonment for not more than six months, or with both."
Before referring briefly to the Amendment, I think it would be appropriate to make it quite clear, although I hope it is unnecessary to do so, that my noble friends and I have no desire whatever to assist illegal entry, and no doubt this is the view of everyone here. Whatever one's views may be about the necessity for immigration laws, once they are passed they should be obeyed. Furthermore, I entirely agree with the view that illegal entry and the rackets sometimes associated with it and the publicity given to the rackets are harmful to community relations, and it had been my intention to make this point in moving this Amendment. I therefore agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, said earlier on that particular aspect of the matter.
I think we are all agreed that illegal entry should be stopped so far as that is practicable, but in considering any law relating to this matter we also have to consider whether any new injustice is being introduced or, furthermore, whether there are any unforeseen consequences of the law which is being passed. I do not think it is necessary to pursue this matter of possible injustice except to say that
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there may be cases of somebody who is providing accommodation for an illegal entrant and may find difficulty in proving that he has not reasonable cause for believing this person to be an illegal entrant. Apart from that, there are sonic consequences that may not have been foreseen when this was drafted.
Take the case of a hotel proprietor or the proprietor of a boarding house who does not wish to have any coloured persons in his establishment. All he has to do is to say that he dare not risk being found guilty of an offence under this clause, and therefore the only safe thing to do is to say"No"to any coloured person who asks for accommodation. If any accusation is brought against him under the Race Relations Act he will say,"I was only acting reasonably in my own interests because I did not want to commit an offence under Clause 25 ". That is not a far fetched case. It is quite possible that the legislation may be abused in this way, and it arises out of these words going so wide. A person may be guilty of an offence because it is alleged that he has reasonable cause for believing that a person may be an illegal entrant. It is mainly to press that particular aspect of the subsection—
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but I feel that if this particular hotelier were going to do what the noble Lord has just suggested, he would have to refuse accommodation to any person who was not a United Kingdom citizen; he would be in very serious trouble otherwise. The Race Relations Board could certainly take up the case if he chose just coloured immigrants for this treatment.
LORD WADE: That may be, but the point I have been making is sound. I do not think this situation can have been intended when this particular clause was drafted. I should certainly like to hear the Minister's answer to this point. It is a point which deserves serious consideration, and I beg to move.
BARONESS WHITE: I want to say in only one sentence that we support the noble Lord, Lord Wade, on this issue because we have had representations from community relations officers on this point. They think that where people do not wish to take a coloured immigrant—I say this with great respect to Lord

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Balfour—an excuse is likely to be used; they will use the excuse,"We thought he might be illegal and therefore we cannot take him." The noble and learned Lord may think that this is far fetched, but we have had representations on this point from people who are directly concerned with community relations, and they say this provision can be used as an excuse by persons who do not want to take coloured immigrants anyway.
12.7 a.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: With great respect, I think this danger is a fanciful one. The noble Lord, Lord Wade, began by disclaiming any desire to encourage illegal entry. He need not have done so. Anyone less like a person who encourages illegal entry than the noble Lord, Lord Wade, it would be difficult to imagine. So that at any rate is among the fears we can discount wholly. The other fear is that somebody who was ill-intentioned could say of a person, either because he had a foreign accent or because he had a coloured face,"I won't take him in ", and when he was asked why, instead of admitting the truth that he was discriminating, he would say,"Well, I was so afraid of a prosecution under Clause 25 of the Immigration Bill ". I think that that wholly underestimates the intelligence of the county court in a race relations case, and wholly discounts the meaning of the words"reasonable grounds ".
With I forget how many aliens and how many Commonwealth immigrants in the country—they run into millions, anyhow—the fact that somebody happens to be of external origin is not reasonable grounds for thinking that he entered illegally, and I do not think that any court in its right mind could possibly come to the conclusion that it was. Therefore, however many representations there may have been, I think a little reflection would dispose of that fear as being a pure nightmare fantasy.
The purpose of the phrase"has reasonable grounds"is surely a simple one. Clause 25 has a slightly more serious range of offences than those contained in Clause 24, and for that reason they are what are called hybrid offences. They can be dealt with, as the great majority of them will be dealt with, summarily before petty sessions. All the
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more serious cases or the cases in which a defendant wants to raise a question of principle or a substantial defence can be taken before a jury on indictment; in other words, they cover a wide range of different types of activity. To insist in every case on a prosecution establishing, actual knowledge would make the clause—not completely impossible, but in a large number of cases impossible to police at all. We all know of the situation where somebody deliberately shuts his eyes to facts in order to be able to say that he did not know them, and this is, I suppose, designed by the draftsman to cover that set of circumstances.
The movers of the Amendment may say that it is wrong to penalise somebody who is merely careless in failing to realise that the person he is harbouring has come here illegally, but they must surely recognise that to allow harbourers to escape conviction when all the facts point to illegal entry and they were deliberately shutting their eyes to the truth in order to be able to say,"We did not actually know because we did not see them come in ", is really to try to drive the proverbial coach and horses through the clause. It is the case that these words have a certain pedigree behind them. They have been the law, I think, for something like ten years because they are to be found in Section 4(2), I think it is, of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962—and I suspect they may even be in the Aliens Order, but I have not looked that one up.
I sympathise with the noble Lord's fears, but if the strength of the case is that it would encourage discrimination I simply do not believe it; and if the strength of the case is that one does not want to convict under this clause somebody who deliberately shuts his eyes to the truth in order to say that he did not have actual knowledge, I do not think there is any merit in it. With that explanation, I hope that there is very little difference between us, and I hope I have reassured the noble Lord, both as to his own bona fides, which are universally accepted in this House, and as to the dangers which he apprehends.
LORD FOOT: May I say respectfully to the noble and learned Lord that on the first matter I raised I do not think that he has seen the point. He said that

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he does not think this will lead to an excuse for increased discrimination. He went on to point to the possibility of somebody using this excuse and having an action brought against him under the race relations law and being brought into the county court. He said that if that was put forward as a reason why he had taken the action he had, no county court judge would be persuaded that that was discrimination. But I do not think that that is what we are talking about: what we are talking about is that if this clause is written into the Bill it will necessarily be brought to the attention of all hotels, guest houses, lodging houses, and so on, throughout the land, because they want to know about this. These are the people who harbour people and who want to know what the law is. What we are concerned about, and what I understand the noble Baroness is concerned about, and rightly so, is that in fact this will be used by hotel proprietors and lodging house proprietors as a means of harassing the coloured population. It may be that only a small proportion, or perhaps none of them, will ever complain about it, but in fact it may be used in that way; and if it is so used it will be very harmful to community relations.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Lord is not fair in saying I have not seen the point. I think I have seen it very well. It so happens that in my previous incarnation I did a number of these cases before the courts. Sometimes when they got before the Divisional Court the cases were sufficiently important to take in leading counsel, and I did them. We are not talking in the main about hoteliers. I hope they do see the terms of this clause; it is intended that they should. But the reality of the sort of case which happens is that an illegal entrant is put into a house which is not a hotel and not a boarding house, but very often an unoccupied cottage owned by somebody who is the sort of person who in previous days would have been a smuggler and said:
" Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!"
if I may quote from Rudyard Kipling. I remember a case of some people walking along a road who told a very long story, but the fact was that their trousers were full of salt water and their shoes covered with sand from the seashore. No one
982
who saw them would have known that they were illegal entrants, but I dare say they would have reasonable grounds for thinking so if they harboured them. That is the sort of case. It is possible that I may have missed the point. It is also possible that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, does not know the facts of life.
LORD WADE: With great respect to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, this is certainly not a nightmare fantasy, although it may be the time of night at which nightmare fantasies sometimes occur. I think this is a serious point and the representations which have been made are justified; there are very real fears about this. I am not proposing to press this to-night. I will give further thought to the observations of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
12.17 a.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 106A:
Page 24, line 29, leave out (" £400 ") and insert (" £100 ")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 106A and may I take with it No. 106B? The point is very simple. I suggest that the penalties imposed are too high. I accept the view that in the case of an importer of illegal immigrants for gain a high sentence is justified, but in most of these cases it will be a member of a family protecting another member of the family rather than that of a deliberate criminal. I would urge in those circumstances that the penalties are too high. I beg to move.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: I should like to support my noble friend. This is really a rather important item. I shall be as quick as I can, but I do not think we should skimp the discussion. We are introducing legislation half of which is perfectly reasonable and the other half of which is not. By that rather cryptic sentence I mean that half of the people to whom it applies are people who are deliberately making money out of breaking the law, and none of us particularly minds if they are fairly heavily fined. But the other half will be people who are doing what, if we were in their position, we should do.

983
This is a very difficult thing to legislate against. Let me put this case. If you came from St. Lucia and had settled in this country and somebody turned up and said."I am on the run from the police; I have come in illegally, and I am from your island ", you would put him up—we all would. Whether we would be right to do so I do not know, but I do not think a single person would behave in any other way. This legislation applies to those people, and also to people who thoroughly deserve to be caught. That is the dilemma. The only way one can express one's disquiet is to support my noble friend Lord Brockway's Amendment, which reduces the penalties very considerably.
There is no question that this is in the minds of people who have come into this country and who have settled down. I have talked to them and found it. I think it is a real problem when you start legislating against other people in a way which would not be acceptable to yourselves if you were in their position. I think this is a very serious point indeed, and I feel it very strongly. I do not know what we ought to do about it, but at any rate I have aired my feelings. The best way I can express my view is by supporting the lower penalties which, in my opinion, are far too high anyway.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: Surely we are talking about a maximum fine and a maximum sentence of imprisonment. I feel that to a great extent we have to consider not only the person who may be importing illegal immigrants but also the person who may be an accomplice hiding them in a cellar or somewhere like that. We need to clobber both those characters as hard as we possibly can. There have been appalling cases of people coming in as illegal immigrants (not only to this country, but to other countries), where they have been through the most frightful conditions. They have paid enormous sums of money—often before they have come here, or when they have arrived—and they have no redress if anything goes wrong, because they have been carrying out an illegal action.
May I take the example of another country for a moment? The illegal immigrants to Israel just after the war suffered—my God! they suffered. I feel
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that for any sort of illegal immigration, or the trafficking of that sort of person, or the harbouring of them once they arrive, the maximum penalty should be the highest possible. If, on the other hand, this illegal immigrant comes in and is accommodated with a relation or a friend of his own kind, then I am quite certain the courts would look upon this from an entirely different light. You do not always get the maximum sentence when you are convicted of a crime. I feel that the maximum must be kept very high.
LORD DENHAM: I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, did not move the first three Amendments in this set, Nos. 105D, E and F, which I feel rather went together with the Amendment which he is now moving, and I think he is also speaking to 106B.
Despite the efforts of the police and the other services concerned, the smuggling of illegal immigrants has continued in recent years and has caused the Government much concern. As the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said, it is a trade which leads to misery and hardship for the immigrants themselves, and unless it is stamped out it is bound to have a continuing adverse effect on community relations in this country. For this reason, the Government have taken the opportunity presented by this Bill to invite Parliament to create the new offence of assisting illegal entry, with penalties including the forfeiture of the ship, aircraft, or vehicle, which should prove to be a deterrent in the future. The Bill also seeks to increase the monetary penalties for existing offences against immigration control. As a further sign of the Government's concern, Clause 35(2) provides that Clause 25, creating the new offence of assisting illegal entry, shall come into force one month after Royal Assent.
The Government see no case for reducing from £400 to £200 the maximum fine on summary conviction for assisting illegal entry and harbouring. As the Bill was introduced, the maximum fine for harbouring was £200, but this was increased in another place to £400. We cannot see any reason, in spite of what has been said, for reducing the clause to its original form, still less for reducing

985
it to £100. I hope that the noble Lord will not press this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
12.25 a.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 106E:
Page 24, line 32, at end insert (" the proof whereof shall lie on him ").
The noble Lord said: The intention behind this Amendment is that the prosecution should clearly be made responsible for proving the ingredients of the offence. It ought not to be for the defendant to be under any liability to prove that he came into the country illegally. This would be the issue in most cases and the onus of proof should be on the prosecution. I beg to move.
LORD DENHAM: I think I can set the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, at rest over this. He has argued that it is for the prosecution to prove its case, but this is irrelevant. The question whether the constable or immigration officer had reasonable cause to make the arrest will not be an issue at the criminal trial, when the prosecution will have to establish the ingredients of the alleged offence in the normal way. The question whether the constable or immigration officer had reasonable cause will come up, if at all, not at the trial but in subsequent proceedings for damage for false arrest. If such Proceedings were brought it would be for the constable or immigration officer to establish that he did have reasonable cause. In other words, the Amendment is unnecessary because where in any proceedings a constable or immigration officer had to establish that he had reasonable cause to arrest a person, the proof would necessarily lie on him. The Amendment is not only unnecessary but is positively objectionable, because the insertion of these additional words would cast doubt on the effect of the many other statutory provisions which authorise arrest for reasonable cause but say nothing about the burden of proof. I hope that those assurances will satisfy the noble Lord.
LORD BROCKWAY: I am not sure that I have followed all that the noble Lord has said, but I will take it for granted. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
12. 28 a.m.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER moved Amendment No. 107:
Page 25, line 32, at end insert—
(" (8) Notwithstanding subsections (6) and (7) above, a ship of five hundred or more gross tons register or a public transport aircraft shall not be liable to forfeiture under or by virtue of this section, unless the offence in respect of or in connection with which the forfeiture may be ordered was substantially the object of the voyage during or in connection with which the offence was committed.")
The noble Lord said: This Amendment stands in the name of my noble friend Lord Lauderdale who, unfortunately, is unable to be here this evening. I should also like to apologise for the absence of my noble friend Lord Geddes who, with his expert knowledge, had intended to speak to this Amendment. Unfortunately, he, too, is unable to be present this evening. I should like to thank the Committee for staying up so late to allow me this opportunity of moving this Amendment, which is quite an important one. Briefly, it is to limit the powers of forfeiture under subsections (6) and (7) of Clause 25 to smaller vessels. My noble friends and myself contend that the provisions in this Bill for forfeiture of ships and aircraft used for the appalling trade of smuggling immigrants are unnecessarily oppressive and could establish a very dangerous precedent. The scope of the provisions of this Bill is unnecessarily severe. As the Minister has declared in another place, it is aimed at the small vessels directly taking part in the trade of smuggling, and not at large ocean-going vessels engaged in international commerce.
There are two main points to which I wish to draw the Minister's attention. First, I appreciate that the enactment under this Bill will take place only after a decision by one of the higher courts. But when a ship such as the"Queen Elizabeth"or one of these vast tankers costing millions of pounds is involved, there is a possibility of delay while proceedings are taking their normal course. Even if proceedings were rapidly concluded, with the current pressure on courts there could be delay in getting these matters resolved. It should be borne in mind that the cost of delaying a large tanker is somewhere in the order

987
of £7 per minute, which, of course, when this is worked out over hours, can prove a very expensive business.
Secondly, the power of forfeiture in the Bill is, I believe, already being viewed with suspicion in some quarters abroad, and our action may be followed by foreign countries which normally follow our lead in these matters. There is a very serious danger that other States whose Executive or Judiciary is less scrupulous than those of the United Kingdom will note the example set by a major maritime country such as ourselves and may well insert into their laws similar provisions, but relating to other offences. British ships trade to all corners of the world, and it is frightening to contemplate a situation in which any State may have a law allowing the forfeiture of a ship because of some criminal offence by the master. Noble Lords who have asked me to speak on their behalf, and I am sure everyone in this Committee, agree with the seriousness of and the principle behind this clause. But as it stands now we really are taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The Chamber of Shipping, the major airlines and the principal shipowners are naturally most perturbed about the effect of and the repercussions caused by the threat of forfeiture, and I hope that the Minister will be prepared to accept this Amendment. I beg to move.
12.32 a.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: This part of the Bill provides that if a person convicted on indictment of assisting illegal entry is the owner, charterer or captain of a ship or aircraft, or the owner or hirer of a land vehicle which is used in connection with the offence, the court may order the forfeiture of the ship, aircraft or vehicle. Subsection (7) requires the court first to give anyone claiming to be the owner of the ship, or to have any other interest in it, an opportunity to show cause why it should not be forfeited. The Amendment would add to the clause a subsection providing that no order is to be made for the forfeiture of a ship of not less than 500 tons gross, or of a public transport aircraft, unless the offence was"substantially the object"of the voyage in connection
988
with which it was committed. The Amendment, so I am advised, is modelled on Section 278(1) of the Customs and Excise Act 1952, which makes a similar provision in regard to ships of not less than 250 tons net, but not in regard to aircraft; and the Amendment arises from the concern which has been expressed to us not only by the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, to whom Lord Macpherson of Drumochter referred, but also by the Chamber of Shipping and B.O.A.C.
In the light of these representations, it is necessary to explain for a few moments the background to Clause 25 in some detail. The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, ended his speech with the phrase that this power is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It is certainly a very grave power, but I do not think we can refer to illegal immigration in terms of a nut, as something of no great consequence. This is, as we discussed on an earlier Amendment, a matter of very considerable importance, with far-reaching repercussions for the future of community relations in this country.
Apart from the desirability that the immigration laws, like any others, should be enforced and should be observed, the Government attach great importance to the provision for forfeiture made in Clause 25(6). Despite a number of successful prosecutions for conspiracy to contravene the Commonwealth Immigrants Acts, the problem of illegal entry persists and causes widespread concern. A power to order forfeiture will be a substantial extra deterrent to owners of ships, aircraft and vehicles who might be tempted to make them available for conveying illegal immigrants: the risk of losing a particular piece of valuable property is likely to weigh much more with a potential offender than liability to a fine of unlimited but uncertain amount. The power to order forfeiture, even where the owner is not himself convicted of an offence, is needed to cover cases in which he cannot be found or is outside the jurisdiction; it is also needed as an incentive to owners of ships, et cetera, to keep an eye on the use to which they are put.
Under the Customs and Excise Act 1952 (which consolidated legislation dating back to a much earlier era) the seizure of a ship or aircraft as liable to forfeiture is an administrative act of the

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Commissioners of Customs and Excise: an aggrieved owner may contest in the courts the question of liability to forfeiture but, once that question is settled, the court has no power to overrule the Commissioners in the exercise of their discretion. Under Clause 25, on the other hand, the power of forfeiture is exercisable only by the higher courts, and they are bound to give the owner or any other interested party a hearing before an order for forfeiture is made. The Government are sure that there will in practice be no question of the courts using the power indiscriminately.
The criterion used in the Amendment—whether the offence was"substantially the object"of the voyage—is not one that would always produce a clear result, or a result that seems right on the merits. If, for example, a pleasure steamer were to take 60 British passengers across the Channel on a day trip, and on the return voyage were to bring over 40 immigrants with a view to their illegal entry, could it be said that the conveyance of the illegal entrants was"substantially the object"of the return voyage? In such a case forfeiture might be well justified on the merits.
Having said that, we recognise that this is a matter of legitimate concern to the shipping interests. When the Bill was before another place, the President of the Chamber of Shipping made representations to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. The Home Secretary took the view that because of drafting and other technical complexities, it was advisable for the matter to be thoroughly discussed between Home Office officials and the Chamber. I understand that a meeting has taken place and that, although agreement was not reached, we became better seized of the Chamber's difficulties; and we believe that representatives of the Chamber were helped to understand the position of the Government. I have taken careful note of what the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Drumochter, said in moving this Amendment on behalf of the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale. I have pointed out some of the difficulties in the way of accepting the Amendment as it stands, but I give the assurance that we shall be very ready to consider further representations from the shipping industry during the Recess
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with a view to considering whether any Amendment to the Bill can be agreed upon, and we shall be inviting representatives of the Chamber of Shipping to come to the Home Office for a further meeting before the Report stage of the Bill.
12.40 a.m.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: I am very glad to hear what my noble friend Lord Windlesham said in his closing sentences. I would support any practical action to suppress this illegal trade provided it was just, but, having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Drumochter, I am doubtful whether this clause as at present drafted would always do justice. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, will not mind my reminding him that on Amendment No. 101C he said that it was important to include a safeguard in the law so that courts should not recommend deportation for trivial offences. I think in this case also it will be necessary to include something in the law to ensure that forfeiture is not ordered by a court in a case where that would cause injustice.
I am specially concerned about the case of the man who is a charterer but who is classified under subsection (6) as an owner. Subsection (7) says that the owner shall have a right to be heard, but he is not the charterer, and in the case of a long-term charter he might not even hear that a case was coming on in court until it had done so and his opportunity had been lost. I was also impressed by Lord Macpherson of Drumochter's point that all countries watch the shipping laws of this country with considerable care. If our legislation creates a precedent which other countries can take as a pattern for their law, we may easily find other countries, to the disadvantage of our shipowners, introducing legislation of a related kind which would make it easier for them to impose forfeiture on British ships, pointing to this as a precedent. I am quite sure that this matter can be got right in the interval between now and the Report stage of the Bill, but so far that has not happened. I myself am not sufficiently enamoured of the Amendment we are discussing, but I am greatly reassured to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, that the Government are prepared to work further on this

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matter in conjunction with those concerned and to try to find an Amendment which will do justice.
LORD CONESFORD: I should like to support what my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor has just said. I agree completely with the Minister in thinking that this Amendment will not do. I thought he provided good reasons for that view, but I have also received representations from the Chamber of Shipping which I find impressive. The concluding words of the Minister filled me with hope. I only add that this is a very difficult matter. I believe the Government have most legitimate desires which they are attempting to meet by these subsections, but I do not think they have succeeded yet. I think that in addition to any efforts of the Chamber of Shipping the utmost ingenuity of Parliamentary draftsmen may be required.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: I wonder whether I may add one further word on this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has certainly covered the important point here, but I should add to what he said that although in the wording of this measure the owner or manager or director of a company might be involved in illegal immigration, the problem I imagined was that where the crew, off their own bat and possibly unknown to the captain of the ship, aircraft or whatever it may be, might be attempting as a sideline to bring in illegal immigrants which, with a big cargo ship, would be a comparatively easy thing to do if the captain or the officer of the ship were not watching it. Very seldom in my experience at sea did we sail for a port without finding one illegal stowaway. Noble Lords would be amazed at the places they find. In eleven years at sea I suppose we managed to discover only one in a hundred stowaways trying to get from one place to another. So, if a crew were doing this, they could make a good traffic out of it, possibly for a long time, before the captain of the ship knew anything about it.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: It was said in another place that the provisions of this Bill were not directed against the owners of large passengers ships. It was intended
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to deal with the smaller vessels. I am most obliged to the Minister for his reply. I was not really meaning to be frivolous in my remark about using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Previously we had been talking about a penalty of £400 for some of these offences and as I was talking about ships worth £10 or £20 million, I think there is a certain justification for my remark. In view of the fact that the Minister has said that he will think about this point, I should be very glad if he could draft an Amendment which would meet the points that have been made this evening and also the Government's case.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I think that would be going a little farther than what I said. My right honourable friend's view on this, having received representations, is that the representatives of the shipping interests and the officials concerned should meet to try to reach agreement. If they reach agreement, I think we need have no fear that the Government draftsmen's services will not be called upon to express that agreement in a form that can be put in an Act of Parliament. But this is a more technical matter than meets the eye at first sight and I think most noble Lords who have spoken would agree that those concerned should meet with representatives of my Department to see what form can be agreed.
In doing so, I should like to take careful note of the points made in the course of the debate. Although it is true to say that small aircraft and ships are those mainly used for the purpose of illegal immigration, we cannot rule out large cargo ships or passenger vessels. Some noble Lords may remember the case of immigration from Israel in the late 'forties—admittedly an extreme case—when substantial ships were used for this purpose. There are examples where large ships could be used in present day conditions.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, asked about provisions in our legislation being copied elsewhere. As I mentioned in my previous speech, ships which are engaged in smuggling goods become liable for forfeiture under the Customs and Excise Act 1952, and if any country is looking round for a precedent, it would find one there. But I should like to take note of the various points

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that have been expressed and see whether, after further consideration, we can find some way of meeting the concern of shipowners and of noble Lords who have spoken in this debate.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: May I inject a sour note into the discussion? Where people are concerned, even miserable people, everybody is entitled to be satisfied. If there is a £1 million ship with three immigrants on board, we should leave it to the court to decide what to do with it.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: In view of the very helpful remarks of the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 25 agreed to.
LORD WINDLESHAM: This may be a convenient moment to move that the House do now resume.
House resumed.

ALDRIDGE-BROWNHILLS URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL CHICHESTER HARBOUR CONSERVANCY BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.