Lords Sitting of 3 May 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 Blackburn.

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN
LORD COBBOLD: My Lords, I have the honour to present to your Lordships a Message from Her Majesty The Queen signed by her own hand. The Message is as follows:
"I have received your Address praying that the Ministry of Aviation Supply (Dissolution) Order, 1971, be made in the form of the draft laid before your House.
"I will comply with your request."

CIGARETTE VENDING MACHINES
LORD PLATT: 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 there are any cigarette vending machines exclusively available to children as suggested by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (H.C. Deb. 23rd April, col. 1589); and
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what stands in the way of banning all cigarette vending machines which are available to children and young persons.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): My Lords, Section 7(2) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 empowers a magistrates' court to order the removal of a cigarette machine if the court is satisfied that the machine is being extensively used by persons under the age of 16. Enforcement does, however, present considerable difficulties. The question of vending machines is one of the matters which the Government will consider following the inter-departmental discussions on all the implications of the Report of the Royal College of Physicians.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply to my Question. In view of certain matters which have been published since I tabled the Question, may I ask why the question of vending machines was not included in the secret discussions that went on with the tobacco manufacturers? Further, may I ask whether Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that secret discussions of this kind, without reference to Parliament, published eight weeks later and ending with practically an assurance that the Government will not trouble the manufacturers again until the end of 1972, are a satisfactory way of campaigning against cancer?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, on the first point, the manufacturers are not the appropriate people with whom to discuss

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the question of vending machines. The vending machines are owned by various other people, who sell the cigarettes from them. On the second point, the Government firmly believe that to proceed as they are proposing to proceed, by means of voluntary agreement with the manufacturers, is a quicker and more effective way of achieving what we all want than legislation at this stage.
LORD REIGATE: My Lords, can my noble friend say how much action has taken place under the Act of Parliament to which he referred? Can he also say why, in view of the very large number of retail outlets which exist for the sale of cigarettes, there is any reason at all for cigarettes to be sold from vending machines?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, on the first point, I am afraid that the figures of proceedings are not available, although I suspect that they are pretty low, owing to the difficulty of enforcing this particular provision. On the second point, the whole question is being discussed and we are awaiting the outcome of the interdepartmental discussions.
BARONESS SEROTA: My Lords, can the noble Lord give us any indication as to when we can expect the outcome? He will recall that at the end of our recent debate on smoking and health he himself gave an undertaking that this specific question would be considered.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I cannot give an answer as to when the result will be available, but I can say, as the noble Baroness will know if she has been following the debate on the Health Hazards Bill in another place, that my right honourable friend has paid great heed to what was said in this House about vending machines.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, in view of the fact that the first Report on this subject from the Royal College of Physicians—a Report which was made by a Committee of which the noble Lord, Lord Platt, was chairman—was made some years ago, and that a second, most authoritative Report, with Lord Rosenheim as the chairman of the Committee, has recently been made, can the Government explain why they are
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dragging their feet and not taking immediate action in order to prevent children acquiring this pernicious habit?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I do not think that the Government are dragging their feet. I think they took action extremely quickly after the last Report, in announcing a voluntary agreement with the manufacturers. So far as the question of vending machines is concerned, this is a matter which requires legislation and we cannot go rushing bullheaded into it.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: But is it rushing, my Lords? Has the noble Lord read the first Report, which was made years ago? Can it be regarded as rushing in view of the fact that he has had two Reports covering the last six or seven years?
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: It is a Tory rush!
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, we discussed this when we had the debate, and I believe that we are going ahead as quickly as we can on the last Report.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, in view of the noble Lord's statement that the voluntary method of procedure in these negotiations is quicker and more efficient than other methods of procedure, will he advise his right honourable friend to apply that to the Industrial Relations Bill?
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the legislation which was intended to keep cigarettes out of the hands of children is the worst enforced and least enforceable legislation on our Statute Book, and will he please understand that it cannot be left there and must either go backwards or a great deal forwards?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I think that is what I said in my original Answer.

TRADE MISSIONS: REDUCTION IN GOVERNMENT AID
2.41 p.m.
LORD BROWN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will reconsider the curtailment of financial support given to overseas trade export missions which has already led to the postponement of 61 such missions.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALBYN): My Lords, the Government have considered this matter very carefully. We have concluded that we should keep expenditure within the proposed financial provision for 1971–72, and accept that this means a curtailment of financial support for outward missions after June 1.
LORD BROWN: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask two supplementary questions? Is the noble Lord aware that hundreds of companies, which had assumed that there was little market for their products in certain overseas countries, were attracted in the first place to investigate by the generous terms made available by the old Board of Trade via the B.N.E.C.?
Is the noble Lord acquainted with the fact that these initial visits lead in many cases to the establishment of substantial exports which would not otherwise have come about?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, the answer to both supplementary questions is, Yes.
LORD BROWN: My Lords, would the Minister not agree that, simply because the Government inherited a balance of payments surplus from the last Government of nearly £600 million, it is very dangerous to whittle away the procedures which helped industry achieve such results?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, we are not whittling away the support which is given to missions. What we are doing, and what we have always done, is to exercise a certain amount of selectivity in missions. The fact is that the amount available this year is about £100,000 less than was available last year.
LORD HOY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Government decision over this has been greeted in Scotland as absolutely intolerable? Will he not look at this question again to permit the Glasgow deputation to China at least to
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meet their planned needs in the near future?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I do not think it will be possible to go into the merits of individual applications in the form of question and answer. Undoubtedly, some missions planned or being planned for this year may have to be postponed to next year.
LORD HOY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that this Glasgow one had been planned, many businesses in Glasgow have already been put to considerable expenditure, and only the decision of the Government has prevented it from taking place? In these circumstances would he not ask the Government to look at this question once more?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I think I am right in saying that those missions which were to go out in the following year have already been told so. I do not think it would be justifiable, because of one particular mission, to exceed the expenditure which is being put forward.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, is it not extremely short-sighted for the sake of £100,000 to postpone something which will have an important effect on our balance of payments? Does the noble Lord consider this to be the right perspective?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, it is inevitable with missions arising from different parts of the country, whether industrial or chamber of commerce missions, that there has to be a certain amount of selectivity exercised in the choice of those to be assisted in any year.
LORD BYERS: The noble Lord has not said that it was a question of selectivity alone; he said that the money had run out. Why not offer another £100,000 and get these people on to the road?
LORD BROWN: Is the noble Lord implying that all these 61 missions which have been postponed have been postponed on the grounds of selectivity which, as the noble Lord knows, means that the B.N.E.C. does not think them worthwhile? Is that the inference of the noble Lord's answer?
LORD DRUMALBYN: No, my Lords. There are two factors: the general factor

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of selectivity, which simply means that every mission which makes an application will not necessarily get support; and there is the factor of the estimate for this year.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, if we put down a Question for Written Answer, will the noble Lord undertake to give the names of the proposed missions and of those missions which have been turned down? Will the noble Lord, if he can, give an estimate of what has been the sort of average export results of previous missions?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, with regard to the second part of the supplementary question, I think that this would be extremely difficult to do because one cannot tell what has been the exact effect of a mission. With regard to the first part, I shall look at it; but I should prefer not to give an undertaking. The names of the missions that are going forward are usually published but I do not want to give rise to false hopes in this matter.

GROUP EXPORT REPRESENTATION SERVICE
LORD BROWN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many country export groups have now been formed by the Group Export Representative Unit of the Department of Trade and Industry.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Since the formation of the Group Export Representation service it has negotiated some 60 groups. There have been carried out 29 market surveys (12 by firms in one group) and 4 groups have now established overseas offices and warehouses.
LORD BROWN: My Lords, I am grateful for that information—and encouraged. In view of the known difficulty that British firms in pursuit of their export markets have in finding suitable agents and distributors overseas, will the noble Lord discuss with the Minister of Trade and Industry the idea of increasing
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the number of people who are available to negotiate these group export agreements; for this would add a considerable boost to the number of groups being formed.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I think that I should pay tribute to the noble Lord for the intiative that he has shown in having this group set up; and valuable experience has been gained from it. But I think that he will recognise from the figures that this is not something that works in every case. We have to look at the cost effectiveness of this kind of expenditure, and my right honourable friend has come to the conclusion that it is a proper function of industry itself to establish warehouses abroad and that it is proper for Her Majesty's Government to help with the financing of market research.
LORD HOY: My Lords, will the noble Lord pay attention to the remarkable record of the British Agriculture Exports Council in this connection, and will he do all he can to ensure that the work of this Council is strengthened and not weakened?
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes, my Lords, so far as getting the group concerned together—and I am aware, too, of the part the noble Lord played in this—and also assisting with the market research in the countries concerned.
LORD BROWN: My Lords, would the noble Lord state the number of senior personnel engaged in the Ministry of Trade and Industry on helping form these groups?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I think I am right in saying there is a section doing this in particular, with one senior officer assisted by the usual staff in his section.
LORD BROWN: Does the noble Lord really believe that a scheme as valuable as this does not warrant, say, three or four additional personnel to speed up the formation of these highly valuable groups?
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes, I think the noble Lord will realise when he studies the answer I have already given that this is not universally acceptable. Perhaps I could just tell him that out

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of the 60 groups formed, 17 groups have carried out a total of 29 market surveys, and four groups in addition are offering financial assistance with overseas offices and warehouses, while four are in negotiation for the provision of overseas offices arid warehouses. This is a comparatively small proportion of a very small proportion of total industry.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, in welcoming the Government's reply, may I ask whether they will consider the extreme value of encouraging British businessmen to go out and actually work the market? Will they also consider that while the British balance of payments is extremely favourable at the moment a good deal of it is due to capital inflow, and capital has a way of going away if exports are not maintained in a healthy state? It would therefore seem very important for the Government to encourage British businessmen to go and work the market, using the machinery that has been referred to.
LORD DRUMALBYN: In general terms, I would agree with the noble Lord, but we are on the fairly narrow issue here of persuading groups of manufacturers with what might be regarded as complementary products to work together with a view to stimulating sales in particular markets.

CHINA AND THE UNITED NATIONS
2.53 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 the admission of Communist China as a Member of the United Nations will qualify her for a permanent seat on the Security Council.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, China is an original member of the United Nations and under the Charter has the right to a permanent seat on the Security Council. The discussions in the United Nations over the years have been about which authorities are entitled to represent China in the United Nations. Her Majesty's
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Government believe that the Government of the Chinese People's Republic should represent China in all organs of the United Nations, including the Security Council.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that reply. Since a change in the permanent membership of the Security Council is without precedent in the history of the United Nations, can she say what procedure would be followed for the admission of Communist China and whether it would be automatic or whether any change in the constitution is needed?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BSELHELVIE: No, my Lords, it would not be automatic because, as the noble Lord will know, the question is at present before the General Assembly and until that is decided the Security Council is not going to take it up.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, am I to understand that membership of the Communist Republic of China would mean that representation by Taiwan would cease? Is it not therefore desirable that consideration should be given to the future representation of Taiwan? Further, have Her Majesty's Government yet considered the proposal I made that there should be a period after which a referendum might be held in Taiwan as to whether it wishes to be an independent member of the United Nations?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I am sure that my right honourable friend will take note of the noble Lord's Question. Since 1961 we have voted consistently for the admission of the Chinese People's Republic of China, and that would automatically mean the expulsion of the National representatives. That is what we have voted for: but at the moment the question is only before the General Assembly.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, can the noble Baroness say whether the admission of Communist China is likely to strengthen rather than weaken the power of the Security Council to take any effective action?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I do not think I could comment upon that, but I think that most people agree on the necessity

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for so large a country having representation at the United Nations.
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness and the Government, whatever arrangements are made on the possible changeover in the Chinese representation, never to forget the outstanding work and help given to this country by Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek and his forces, and the indication we gave to them that they would have to continue their work until we had finished with the Germans, when we would come immediately to their assistance?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I am sure that that Question will be borne in mind by my right honourable friend, but the question of the sovereignty of Taiwan is an undetermined question.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, can the Minister say whether the Peking Government has at any time expressed approval of the purposes of the United Nations?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: Not to my knowledge, my Lords.

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS BILL
2.58 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: 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 Drumalbyn.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[THE EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 3 [Approval by Parliament of code of practice and revisions of code]:
LORD DIAMOND: I beg to move Amendment No. 16 standing on the Order Paper in the name of Lord Champion and myself:
Page 2, line 36, after ("Parliament") insert ("proposals for a draft code of practice in
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order to debate and amend the principles to be embodied in").
It is a happy occasion that we should be starting this week's Business on this Bill with this particular Amendment, because we are now dealing with a clause which proposes the setting up of a code of practice. This is something which, in principle we all seem to desire. We are dealing with a matter of detail arising out of that clause which I think is desired by all sides of this Committee, certainly by all sides of the House in another place, and one to which expression has been given by the Government.
Perhaps it would be convenient to start by referring your Lordships to what the Solicitor General said in considering this point on January 27. He said (referring to the Secretary of State in charge of the Bill for the Government):
"My right honourable friend has made clear, and asks me again to make clear, that consultation about the code will be wide-ranging and thorough, and that ample time will be allowed for that consultation to take account of the views expressed by honourable Members of the House and of the other place."
We could not ask for a clearer expression of an acceptable viewpoint by the Solicitor General, speaking on behalf of the most responsible Minister of the Government so far as this Bill is concerned. I am sure your Lordships will recognise that not the slighest discourtesy is intended to anybody at all if we take the view that so excellent is that expression of opinion that it should be embodied in the Statute, and therefore the Amendment proposes that there should be the opportunity—and I quote the words of the Solicitor General again:
"For that consultation to take account of the views expressed by honourable Members of the House and of the other place."
Your Lordships will be more fully aware than I am of the limitations of the present method of consultation as proposed in the Bill; a method under which a detailed code, which may run into many paragraphs and will undoubtedly touch on a number of issues of great importance dealing with human relationships and industrial relations, will be put before your Lordships' House and explained in full detail. No doubt your Lordships will have views on each paragraph. but under the Bill as it stands you will be entitled to vote for or against the whole code, and nothing, but the whole code.

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I am suggesting that that is a totally inappropriate and inadequate method of expressing your Lordships' views and of taking advantage of the great experience available from both sides of the Committee. The only way to give an opportunity for thorough consultation and for carrying out the desires of the Secretary of State and the Solicitor General is for there to be ample opportunity for consideration, a full debate, in which opposing views may be expressed so that the truth may thereby emerge. That is the purpose of the Amendment.
May I read subsection (1) as it is proposed to amend it?
"The Secretary of State shall, before the end of a period of one year"
et cetera,
"lay before both Houses of Parliament proposals for a draft code of practice in order to debate and amend the principles to be embodied in a draft of the code of practice prepared by him under section 2(1) …".
What the Secretary of State has to prepare is called a draft code of practice. If I wish to suggest, as indeed I do, that there should be a document in advance of that, so that it may be debated in detail, I have to refer to something other than a draft code of practice. Therefore the Amendment refers to proposals that should be put before your Lordships' House so that there may be full consultation and a debate. This, I repeat, is the best way we have been able to think of to achieve the desire expressed by the Solicitor General and the Secretary of State. I hope it will meet with the approval of the Government and the Committee.
LORD SHINWELL: At this stage I venture to pose a question, and the nature of the subsequent debate will depend on the answer given by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. I wish to ascertain whether the submission of a draft code of practice to the other place will be in the form of "Take it or leave it ", without any prospect of amendment? No doubt there will be an opportunity for debate; but, as I understand it, the draft code cannot be amended in the other place. The prerequisite feature of the full implementation of the Government's policy depends, in my submission, on co-operation which should begin in both Houses, or at any rate in the other place to start with, to obtain the views of honourable Members.
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I understand that this is merely a draft code; it is not intended to be the ultimate word on the subject. In my submission it should take the form—as is the customary procedure, adopted by several Governments in past years and accepted by the present Government—of submitting a White Paper to both Houses in order to ascertain the general point of view, to "collect the voices". This is a desirable method of injecting co-operation. The purpose of my question is to ascertain the view of the noble Lord on this matter, and on his answer will depend the nature of the subsequent debate.
LORD DRUMALBYN: What the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, has suggested seems eminently reasonable; but I think we should carefully consider what the procedure is to be, so that there may be no misunderstanding. First, the consultative draft will be published. At that point there is publication and there can be representations about it and consultations. Anyone may make representations; it will be open to any Member of your Lordships' House or the other place, or any group of Members to make representations. Once that has been done, my right honourable friend will seek to achieve the greatest consensus; and as the Bill is now drafted he will put the draft before Parliament, which would be a perfectly normal thing to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, asks whether this could not be put forward in the first place as a White Paper, before the draft is actually made. I take it that he means a Paper which would have a brief introduction followed by the code. No doubt the code would have been amended already in the light of representations made. Or, at any rate, there would be an opportunity to amend it. It might be so perfect that it would need no amendment; but perhaps that is asking too much—even of this Government. The noble Lord, asks, will this be done? I am not in a position to commit another place about what it will ask to be done in respect of the draft code, or indeed of the consultative document. They may want to have a debate on it; they may then want to make representations.
LORD SHINWELL: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but when he speaks' about "representations" what does that mean? Does it mean that when

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the draft code is submitted in another place, and perhaps in your Lordships' House, it will be subject to any amendment, and possibly a vote taken on any of the items?
3.10 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: No, my Lords. I understand that what the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, is suggesting is a White Paper before the draft is actually submitted to Parliament for approval. I am saying that it will be open to the House, at an earlier stage on the consultative document, to debate it then. We have had this rather unusual proposal. I am sure the noble Lord recognises that for many years it has been unusual to amend draft Orders in either House—I believe that there is one noteworthy exception. But what the noble Lord is now asking for, as I understand it, is that the principles of the code, and only the principles, should be amendable when proposals embodying what the Secretary of State hopes to put into the draft are laid before Parliament. It would be extremely unusual to take a White Paper or anything of that kind—because that is what the proposals would be; the noble Lord can call it a White Paper—and go through it line by line, or even those parts which relate to the principles, and amend them. The ordinary course surely is to take proposals of that kind as a whole and debate them.
What I am saying is that I am not authorised to commit this House or another House to debating the draft proposals before they are laid before your Lordships and another place. Even if that were done, it would not be appropriate to go through the draft proposals line by line and amend them. The right course is in debate to indicate what you find to object to; and then, certainly where you have a draft, if the feeling is strong enough the House can say that it considers that the noble Lord, or the right honourable gentleman, as the case may be, should take the Order back and re-draft it and bring it forward again; and there can, of course, be a vote on that. That is what happens when the draft comes forward. All I am saying is that in the light of what will have taken place before it comes forward—there will have been representations,
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there will have been consultation, there will have been full consideration by the Secretary of State of all this, in order to achieve the greatest consensus—it would be unreasonable, I think, at that stage, to depart from the usual procedure with a draft. I cannot, as I say, commit my noble friend or my right honourable friend to have a debate on the draft before it is laid, or on a White Paper. But what the noble Lord is here seeking to put into the Bill—namely, that proposals should be laid before Parliament for debating and amending—would be a most unusual procedure, and in the light of the consultation that is going to take place I am suggesting that that would not be justified.
LORD BURNTWOOD: I stand subject to correction, but in the matter put before the Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, could we not get over the difficulty by using the device known as a Green Paper, which was used reasonably successfully only half a year ago in connection with the reform of the National Health Service?
LORD DRUMALBYN: Quite plainly, there are two features to this debate: first, that this House is asking for an opportunity to debate the proposals which are to be put into the draft before the Secretary of State actually lays them in the form of a draft. That is a common request, but it would be most unusual, and I think inappropriate, to put it in a Bill. Secondly, I am saying that it would be really unusual, to the point of being completely inappropriate, to provide new machinery by which such proposals should be actually amended by the House. That is really going too far in all the circumstances.
LORD SHINWELL: The noble Lord appears to misunderstand me. I did not suggest that the Government should present a White Paper. I used that as an illustration. It has been customary to choose a White Paper for the purpose of collecting the voices, and subsequently the Government have made up their mind on the items of legislation about which they were concerned. What I suggest is that when the draft code of practice is submitted it should take the form of a White Paper, and it should be subject not only to discussion but to possible amendment. As I understood the noble Lord—

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he will correct me if I am wrong, but I think I am within the recollection of noble Lords—he said that subsequently, when the actual code of practice is submitted to the House (that is, following the draft code having been submitted), it could be subject to a Vote. Those were the words he used.
LORD DRUMALBYN: When the draft is put before Parliament for approval, it is quite possible for the House to withhold approval.
LORD SHINWELL: In other words, what he is saying is precisely what I suggested when I ventured to pose the question. What the Government are proposing is: "Take it or leave it. You can vote against it lout you cannot amend a single line, a single principle, embodied in the code of practice." There must be general agreement in your Lordships' House, whatever views are held about the proposed legislation, that the code of practice is of fundamental and vital importance, because the code of practice will govern the practice associated with the legislation, not the theory of legislation. It governs what is to happen on the shop floor, the relations between the trade union movement and the employers' associations, and the relations between both these organisations and the Government? I am surprised at the attitude of the noble Lord, because he ventured to say, almost apologetically, that he could not answer for what was actually going to happen; he merely had some idea, some notion, some suspicion about it, but as to any actual knowledge he had which would enable him to inform your Lordships' House on this very important matter, he was somewhat doubtful. There was something dubious in what he said.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Would the noble Lord forgive me? I think I may not have made myself quite clear on this, but the point on which I could not answer was whether there would be a debate on the consultative document when it came forward. When the consultative document comes forward it will be published, and I take it that if the House wants that debated and insists on its being debated, it can be debated. That is the point I was making. Then the consultative document will be fully examined and discussed all over the country
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and any of your Lordships can make representations about it. All we are now discussing is whether between that consultative document and the draft there should be a further opportunity, in the form of proposals or a White Paper or whatever else you may call it, for the House to consider before the draft code of practice is laid before the House for approval.
LORD SHINWELL: Obviously I recognise that the noble Lord is anxious to inform the House about what is in his mind, but may I take the matter in chronological order? A draft code of practice is to be submitted in the other place. If it is submitted, it is expected, presumably, that honourable Members and right honourable gentlemen will wish to have something to say about it. The Government will hear what they have to say and will promise to take note of what has been said. But no honourable Member or right honourable gentleman can move an amendment: he can make suggestions, but that is all. The Government can ignore those. The next point is that they submit what is called the draft code. That can be debated and a vote taken on it, but no amendment may be moved and accepted. The noble Lord takes refuge in the normal practice of both Houses of an Affirmative Resolution. Such a Resolution can be submitted to both Houses of Parliament but is not subject to Amendment. Sometimes this has given rise to a great deal of misunderstanding and difficulty; it has been regarded as a device by a Government to obstruct, and usually they have succeeded in their efforts of obstruction.
The next point, in chronological order, is that the draft code is to be submitted to the Commission. Perhaps the noble Lord has not read the Bill. The subsequent subsection says that the Secretary of State
"shall submit a copy of the draft to the Commission for their consideration and advice."
This is the next step. It is to be submitted to this somewhat amorphous body, about whose functions we have no clear idea. Why not submit it to honourable Members of another place for their consideration and advice, and allow them to express their views about it, and let the Government promise to take note and act accordingly?

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Finally, unless we are satisfied about this, then I shall have grave doubts about the Government's intentions. I say that in all sincerity. I do not attribute any malice to the Government in this legislation. They believe that they are doing the right thing. But may I paraphrase a statement made many years ago by a notable politician, Lord Milner—not the present noble Lord, Lord Milner of Leeds, but the Lord Milner who was associated with the Boer War and the Liberal Governments of 1906 and 1910? He said, "If a Government produces legislation which in the opinion of the Opposition is bad, it is the duty of the Opposition to prevent it and we are going to prevent it, and damn the consequences". That is not what I am saying; that is what Lord Milner said. I think that we are entitled to protest, because protest is the only remedy we have to try to bring some kind of—not pressure, but persuasion, upon the Government to do the right thing. Unless we can be assured that here is an opportunity for co-operation and perhaps conciliation, which can pave the way, if the Government like, to the implementation of this legislation—though some of it is very disagreeable to the trade union movement and even to some of the employers organisations; unless the Government seize this opportunity to take a path to co-operation, then in my opinion this is a path to further industrial turbulence.
LORD BYERS: Without wishing to argue the merits of this Amendment—and I can see grave technical difficulties in accepting it—I feel that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has not done justice to his own case by giving no assurance that this code of practice can be debated. Surely it is inconceivable that if any noble Lord wishes to debate it anybody will stop him. This House runs its own business and I am sure that it is the least of our worries that we shall not be able to debate this.
LORD DRUMALBYN: The only reason why I did not give an assurance is because it is not a matter for me but for my noble friend the Leader of the House, in conjunction with the usual channels, if there is a demand for a debate. I cannot give an assurance on
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this as the question has not really been presented.
LORD BYERS: This is what I mean. The noble Lord is not helping his case. We could put down a Motion on the Liberal day, or the Opposition could put down a Motion. There is no difficulty about that. I think that the noble Lord is creating the difficulty.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am being asked to provide a day without any further action at all. We are now being asked: "Will there be a debate?" and I am saying that this is a matter for the noble Lord and other noble Lords and the House.
May I just clear up one or two points which the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, has made? It is not in the Bill, but my right honourable friend has given an assurance that this code in draft form will be published first as a consultative document. When that is done there will be the greatest possible opportunity for discussion, consultation and the like, with the object of getting the maximum agreement. In the course of that, it will be possible for Members of your Lordships' House and of another place to make representations and get the maximum agreement. What noble Lords are now asking is that another process shall be interposed at which that maximum agreement can be amended, in principle at any rate. Of all things I should have thought that this was just what is undesirable. There will be the maximum consultation and agreement. We hope very much that we shall get considerable agreement on this. Now noble Lords are asking that that agreement should be open to amendment by another place and by this House.
May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that if he looks carefully at subsection (3), he will see that it is only on the revision of the code that there is a duty to submit a copy to the Commission for their consideration and advice. When the original consultative document—the code in draft, or the consultative code—is produced, the Commission will obviously be asked, together with many other bodies, including the industrial society, for their comments. I really think it is quite unnecessary to have an entirely extraneous and additional procedure, which is at variance with the normal procedure of your Lordships' House.
LORD BERNSTEIN: Perhaps the noble Lord can help me. From my reading of the Bill, I understand that an infringement of the code of practice could lead to the courts. It is said that anybody can make representation on this code. If I throw my mind back to Lord Milner, I remember that Lord Milner, a great man, made representations to the Tsar of Russia—and with what result! How can we expect people in all equity to agree unseen to a code of practice which leads to the courts, without knowing what is in it? That seems to me unreasonable and slightly improper.
3.29 p.m.
LORD PLATT: I did not intend to say anything on this Amendment but I am really alarmed about this discussion. On Thursday, when I spoke, it seemed to me that the whole of the Bill applied to the trade unions, but in many places I doubted its relevance to the professions. Surely it is precisely in the terms of the code of practice that these differences, if they have any substance—which I believe they have—will come out and become important. The idea of giving an assenting or negative vote to the whole code, without a full opportunity to say why, is one with which I disagree. I am in favour of this Amendment, I think that this is a splendid idea and I wholeheartedly support it, because I think that certain clauses should not apply to my particular profession, which is an important profession, because this is precisely the position I shall be put into, as I understand the Minister's replies to the questions which have been raised. I admit that my knowledge of Parliamentary procedure is not profound, and my fears may be unfounded; but to me it has an alarming phase.
LORD LEATHERLAND: Those of us who have earned our living by writing words sometimes find great difficulty in trying to interpret them when we see them on paper. There is an expression in this clause, "draft code of practice". I want to establish that the draft code of practice is really the final definitive code of practice. We cannot amend it; we have to take it or leave it. I move back to the original stage which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, mentioned, the stage of the consultative document. That consultative document, he said, will be widely
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circulated. It will go to the C.B.I., the T.U.C., the Ballet Dancers' Association, the National Association of Dolls' Eyes Manufacturers, to the plumbers trade union. Whom will it not go to? It will not go to one of the Houses of this Legislature, a vital part of the constitution, the House of Commons, and it will not go to the other vital part of the Constitution, your Lordships' House. I know it can be said that individual noble Lords may privately, in the course of a furtive letter, make suggestions about whether they think this or that particular clause in the code of practice is good or bad. That is quite different from the Houses of Parliament. They must have this opportunity of considering the proposals of the code. The procedure here seems to savour far too much of Signor Mussolini's corporate state, and not that of the constitutional Parliamentary democracy of Britain.
LORD COOPER OF STOCKTON HEATH: This procedure, as explained, is a very disturbing one. Memories are short. The greatest complaint the T.U.C. had against the Government's original proposals was the manner in which they were put out, in a so-called consultative paper, and the T.U.C. were given about six weeks in which to submit comments. Their first complaint was that this period of time for such an important Bill was completely inadequate, and many of us are more and more becoming convinced, as has been said, that words are taking on a new meaning. The concept of consultation is taking upon itself a new meaning, and although I am putting a trade union view, I too, feel that this is a most serious situation. First of all you put out a draft of what you are thinking of doing, then you gather evidence and get a consensus, but neither House of Parliament has the opportunity of consultation—they can make their submission, but they cannot amend or vary any of the many proposals, I think about 20, in this new code of fair practice. As has been said, the trade unions are aware that the violation of these codes, especially if a trade union is not registered, can be a most serious matter for them, and I hope Parliament will have the chance of looking at the proposals contained in the practice code and have the opportunity of amending or rejecting some of them.
LORD TAYLOR OF MANSFIELD: Many of the points which have been raised in earlier speeches are very important and very serious, and we should not pass over them lightly or in a hurry. This is the first time—at any rate within my knowledge, and I am open to be corrected—that a legal code of practice in industrial relations has been proposed. Because of that this is a very serious matter.
I have read the debates on this Clause 3 and the Amendments which were made in another place, and they regarded the matter with such seriousness that on both sides of the Committee there were apprehensions and perturbations, and much pressure was applied to the Solicitor General to make this matter as clear and as understandable as possible. In the light of what the Solicitor General said on January 27 in another place—which I will quote in a moment if I am permitted—I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has been quite as clear or as forthcoming as his right honourable friend was. Although this is not what the Clause says, do I understand now that the position is that before a draft code, before an affirmative resolution is laid before both Houses of Parliament, there will be published what the noble Lord refers to as a consultative document? The Clause does not say that at all, and what we are dependent upon is the intention and the good will of pronouncements that there will be this consultative document.
The Solicitor General in another place was very much seized with this, and he was referring, in reply to a question put by one of his honourable friends, to what we now know as the consultative document that will be published before the code of practice, and this is what he said, and I would like to know if the noble Lord agrees with this:
"When the matter is debated here or in the other place, as my honourable and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) pointed out"—
no dubiety, no ambiguity here—
"it can he taken back for reconsideration if any substantial points are put which would justify that action,"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 27/1/71, col. 576.]
All I want to know, and what my noble friends wish to know, is whether we shall be able to debate this document, and be
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able to amend it, in the hope that the Secretary of State will take note of what is in the minds of noble Lords here, and be so impressed that he will take it back and have another look at it before the code of practice is submitted to both Houses—where it cannot be amended but only voted on. Could the noble Lord give us some clarification and guidance on that point, the consultative document as against the draft code which is mentioned in the clause.
BARONESS BACON: The noble Lord is quite right when he says that usually Orders in Council have to be taken as a whole and either approved or disapproved, but surely the difficulty here is that an important part of this Bill is really the code of practice, and had this code of practice been put as a Schedule to this Bill it would have been possible for both Houses to consider it in detail and amend it. The difficulty is that this code of practice is being regarded as an Order, in the way in which the noble Lord has stated. Could not the noble Lord take this back and devise some way of bringing this before both Houses of Parliament, so that it could he debated and, if necessary, amended, even though perhaps it was not in the form of an Order in Council, as is the usual practice. This is an important point, and one on which the whole of the Bill really hangs.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I think my noble friend has made a constructive point. Would it not be possible for the noble Lord to have this included in a Schedule? I remember distinctly the Government saying during the propaganda period about this Bill that there were pillars of wisdom in the Bill which were not negotiable. Is the code of practice one of the mighty pillars of wisdom? All we are asking is for the right of Parliament, as such, including both Houses, to amend and debate the principles. I cannot see why this democratic resolution cannot be accepted. It is part of the principles of the British way of life.
I hope that the noble Lord will get some information on this. I sympathise with the noble Lord—I do not say that in a condescending way—because I know the difficulties that Ministers in this House have. They are provided with briefs, they have a whole range of duties upon them, and often they get a brief and

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there is too little time to consider fundamental questions. I would therefore ask the noble Lord this direct question. Has the noble Lord had an opportunity of discussing this important Amendment with the Government to see what possibility there is of conceding this constructive point. If I spoke any longer I should only be reiterating what has already been said, but I appeal in the name of our democratic system, and I think of common sense, that we should include this Amendment in the Bill.
LORD HENLEY: I wonder if the Opposition know what they are really asking for when they ask to have the code of practice put into the Bill either as a schedule or in any other way. It seems to me that codes of practice, whether they are Highway Codes, Countryside Codes or whatever, are going to be things that we use increasingly. If you have a code of practice like this, it seems to me that it should be something outside the Act of Parliament, and something to be amended according to practice as it develops. If you adopt the idea of putting a code of practice as a Schedule to a Bill, or as part of a Bill, you are going to tie yourself down more rigorously than it seems to me you would be doing if you left the code of practice as something outside the Bill.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My noble friend Lord Davies of Leek asked if the code of practice was going to be a pillar of wisdom, or was a pillar of wisdom. Having listened to the debate this afternoon on the code of practice, for me it has a kind of Alice in Wonderland quality. If noble Lords will think of Alice with the Cheshire Cat, and he way the Cheshire Cat faded out and only the grin was left, your Lordships will appreciate why it seems to me that this is exactly what has happened this afternoon in debate. We seem to see it at one moment, and then it fades out, as in Alice in Wonderland, and now we only have the grin left.
LORD ROBBINS: I am only moved to ask the noble Lord, who suffers many grievous tribulations, whether in addresing his illustrations to the Committee he will put in the centre of his thought an answer to the question which was posed
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by the noble Lord, Lord Byers: will this House have an opportunity of discussing this code before it becomes the subject of a Yes or No vote?
3.44 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: If I can answer that question straight away, I would say that this is in the hands of the House. I think perhaps in the light of past history—the noble Lord, Lord Cooper, has rather brought this home to me—I might have used a different expression from "consultative draft". It is really a preliminary draft. It is common practice for outside bodies to be consulted in the preparation of a draft that is going to be laid before Parliament. This will be done on a very wide scale indeed; and there will be no hurry about it. I should like to quote what my right honourable friend said in another place in response to a question on the code of industrial relations practice. He said
"I assure my honourable friend that there will be months for consultation. The timetable I have in mind is that it should finally be put in the House towards the end of the year. That will give many months for consultation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons; 29/4/70, col. 691.]
Again and again my right honourable friend has gone out of his way to say how anxious he is that all bodies concerned with the code—or, if I may put it for the noble Lord, Lord Platt, in another way, those to whom the preliminary draft gives cause for concern—will be very welcome indeed to make their representations and, if they so wish, to have consultations. Surely very little more could be said than this.
I cannot give way on this particular Amendment, partly because I do not think the Amendment itself, as it stands, is viable, but partly, in any case, because it would represent a departure from our normal practices. I think the Committee should take into consideration what I have said on this: the fullest consultation; the opportunity to debate on the preliminary document; the formation of the document itself; its laying before Parliament, and the fullest possible opportunity for Parliament to debate it. And, of course, if Parliament were able to convince my right honourable friend, or if either House was convinced, that changes ought to be made—and not only

27
in the principle—then I have no doubt that my right honourable friend would withdraw the code and relay it. This is the usual procedure.
Perhaps I should also say that when we come to Clause 4 we shall deal with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bernstein, as to its being a legal code of practice. Of course it is legal in the sense that the Bill provides for it; but when we come to Clause 4 we shall then see that it is not legal in the sense that anybody can be hauled before the Court for having offended against the provisions of the code by themselves.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: This is not good enough.
LORD ROYLE: In relation to the latest speech the noble Lord has made, I am getting more and more encouraged, not discouraged. It seems to me that we are going on talking about this Bill quite up to the Summer Recess, whenever that may be, and then a little later; in due course, after the passing of the Act, we shall have a code of practice within twelve months, and then there will be months of consultation with all kinds of people. It seems to me that we might possibly see the Bill fully effective by the end of 1972. If by that time we are getting anywhere near a General Election, the encouragement for me is that this Bill in full implementation will never see the light of day.
LORD BERNSTEIN: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for his answer. I think that when we get involved in dealing with the code of practice—on either side—it will tax the limits of any good lawyer. In another place, the Solicitor General said that the code of practice:
"is to be laid before each House. It requires debate on an Affirmative Resolution but it is not amendable."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 27/1/71, col. 574.]
I am still in the dark about whether we can amend the code of practice before it becomes law.
LORD ARCHIBALD: May I follow the question asked by my noble friend? I may be stupid, but I am getting more and more confused. It would appear from Lord Drumalbyn's answer that when the preliminary draft is produced it will be discussed with many organisations and
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people outside both Houses of Parliament. Yet, when it is finally agreed with those organisations which are consulted, it will be laid before Parliament in an unamendable form, to which we can say either yea or nay. The T.U.C., the C.B.I. and other people may be consulted and have the opportunity of discussing the code, but the two Houses of Parliament will have no opportunity of discussing it other than saying yea or nay. Is that the position?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM OF ST. MARYLEBONE): My noble friend actually said the opposite. It could not be put more neatly in the reverse sense of what he said. What he said was that when the preliminary draft was laid before outside bodies it would rest with each House of Parliament, and in particular this one, to say whether they should debate it at that stage or not. Presumably if a noble Lord wanted to raise a debate about it that could be done, here or in another place. My noble friend said that the preliminary draft would rest before either House of Parliament, or both.
3.53 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND: We are all most grateful to the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, who normally sits on the Woolsack, for having made clear precisely what we are not talking about. What we are not talking about is the opportunity to debate and say "Yes" or "No" by voting in one Lobby or the other. What we are saying, and what six members on the Government side in another place intervened to say (I am not using their exact words, but am putting it in my words, and I will use very plain words, having regard to what the noble and learned Lord has just said) is that it was an insult to both Houses of Parliament that there should be no regard paid to consultation on a matter of such wide-ranging importance as the code of practice. Everyone has made clear that this code is fundamental to this Bill—and, indeed, it might well be justified without any Bill, if one really intended to improve industrial relations. This has been made clear by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, in a most moving speech, and also in speeches by noble Lords on the Cross-Benches and by many others who sit behind me. What we are concerned about is the fact that

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the Government, in this Bill, have acted in a totally unreasonable way in refusing consultation, or in paying no regard to consultation, and certainly in paying no attention to the arguments that have been put forward.
I do not know the view of noble Lords who sit behind the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn; I know only the view as represented by Conservative Members in another place. They are just as anxious as we are. I am twice as anxious as I was before Lord Drumalbyn spoke, for two reasons. First, because he seems to have gone back somewhat on the undertaking, although he cannot go back on it, by the Solicitor General; and, secondly, because his speech was such a throwing of dust in our eyes as I never expected from anyone not expert in such a Gilbertian activity.
I shall say why I make that claim. Every one of us has come to respect the proceedings of both Houses, because we know that within those proceedings we can do whatever we want and whatever is reasonable and right. There are procedures for doing everything. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said, "We"—the Government—"have picked a certain procedure. That procedure allows only of the answer yes or no. Therefore would it not be unreasonable to go on in that procedure and ask for more than yes or no?" Of course it would, but why pick that procedure when there are so many other procedures open to the Government?
If I may draw on my experience over the Finance Bill, for example, as every noble Lord knows, there are the provisions in the main body of the Bill which are the main provisions. Then there are Schedules galore giving the detail, which gives a good deal of the life to the provisions themselves. Then, outside the Bill, one may have completely detailed administrative arrangements which may be subject to an Affirmative or a Negative Resolution. That is for Parliament to decide.
The Government are suggesting that this is the best procedure for dealing with a very important matter which is incorporated in this Bill, that we are going through Clause by Clause and line by line so as to secure Amendments—the Government should not say that no Amendments are necessary—and that
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finally we can reach a stage in which we can take it yes or no because very shortly—more shortly if Lord Drumalbyn's answer had been in the slightest degree a satisfactory one—we shall be getting on to Clause 5. Then the Government themselves will be introducing the largest Amendment on the Notice Paper. So it is not for the Government to say that they have all the wisdom and that it is ever necessary for a Government to come before Parliament, having considered matters, and to say to Parliament "We would like your views as well as ours".
It is quite intolerable for the noble Lord to take the view that they should know so much about all the views of all the Members of both Houses that it is not necessary to have a debate and a discussion, and the possibility of amendments, when it comes to this most important part of our proceedings, the code of practice. I am saying, as the noble Lord, Lord Platt, said, and as is in everyone's mind, unfortunately we do not know what on earth we are talking about. It may be said that that is something in my normal practice. Maybe that is an appropriate reply, but we do not know what we are talking about because the code of practice is not before us.
One noble Lord has suggested that it will have 20 principles. I should have thought it might have very many more. I do not know, but what we do know is that it is of enormous importance to all engaged in the Houses of Parliament, and that all these matters and opinions do not simply fall Party-wise. For example, there are many provisions in this Bill where the Government are on one side and where on the other side are joined together employers and trade unions, such as several of the closed shop provisions.
I hope that I have said enough to demonstrate that it is absurd to pretend that the code of practice is of such minimal importance, such simplicity, that the Government, after consultation with outside bodies, and listening to what they say, can come before Parliament and put the matter to Parliament on a simple "yes or no" basis. I should have thought that the Government would be the first to say that that is not treating either House of Parliament with the respect which it ought to receive; it is not giving Members, who are responsible for their

31
constituents in one place, and noble Lords, who have vast experience in this field in another place, the opportunity to make their contribution to what should be a much improved code of practice after the Government have had an opportunity of considering it.
I had not thought for one second that this would be an Amendment on which I should be put in the position of seeking to divide your Lordships' House. I had assumed that the noble Lord would say that he recognised the pressure in the other place by his own side as well as by our side; that he recognised the force of what the Secretary of State and the Solicitor General said, and that he recognised that there are many procedures by which this could be both discussed and amended, as my Amendment says. One suggestion is putting it as a Schedule to a Bill; that is a very simple suggestion and is standard practice. There are other ways in which it could be done. What I am suggesting to your Lordships—
LORD HENLEY: May I interrupt the noble Lord?
LORD DIAMOND: May I finish my sentence? What I am suggesting is that it is totally inadequate that it should be done in a way in which important parts of the code of practice should have to be accepted with other parts, irrespective of the fact that we may approve of some part and, as a House, disapprove of some other parts.
LORD HENLEY: I am in this difficulty. If the matter is debated in such a way, not that you accepted or rejected the general principles, but that you amended them, you would be amending something which became part of legislation. Then you would defeat the object of Clause 4, because you make what you have amended something on which a man can be sued. The beauty of the code of practice is that it is a general principle which can be observed and called into question, as is suggested under Clause 4, but it is not something on which a man can be sued.
LORD DIAMOND: The noble Lord, Lord Henley, if he will forgive me for saying so, is neither under a difficulty on the point he has just raised, nor is he under any difficulty on the point he raised
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previously. On the point he just raised no different legal status need necessarily be given to this code because it is a code on which Parliament has a chance to approve it in parts instead of in totality.
As to the other point, no difference in the feasibility of varying the code is in the slightest degree affected by what we are proposing. I recognse that he was put in the odd position of proposing an autocratic procedure which is totally at variance with his Liberal attitudes. He was put in the awkward position of proposing an autocratic procedure because he thought that otherwise we should get a code of practice which could not be amended. I am suggesting that it can be amended precisely as it is proposed to be amended in the Bill, whether either House of Parliament have a capacity to deal with it in detail or in total. There is no earthly reason why Parliament—
LORD HENLEY: I must interrupt the noble Lord. I will read carefully what he has said because I am not quite sure that I agree that he has the point right, or that he has answered it correctly. I hope he will withdraw his most unfair suggestion that I was in no difficulty here at all, but was merely making a debating point. I am in a difficulty here and I think I have a valid point.
LORD DIAMOND: Of course the noble Lord thinks he has a valid point, and I should not dream of suggesting that the noble Lord does not think he has a valid point—
LORD HENLEY: That is just what the noble Lord has suggested.
LORD DIAMOND: All I am saying is I do not think he has a valid point. I am not asking whether the noble Lord really believes what he says—of course I accept that he believes what he says. But he must not force me into the position of saying that I take the view that what he is saying is not accurate, and is not the case. I believe that we can deal with this Bill, as this Amendment suggests; discuss it responsibly and intelligently and amend any part which needs amending, leaving other parts which do not need amending, without causing any difficulty. It is because I feel that anything less than that would be treating

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both Houses with scant respect that I ask the noble Lord whether he will reconsider this matter. If he does not like the exact wording of the Amendment he can suggest which other way it should be dealt with. If he wants to put it in as a schedule we will consider that. There are many methods of doing it. If he is not going to consider it at all, then this is a situation which neither House should accept.
4.7 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: I have no desire to prolong the debate unduly, but I must reply to the noble Lord, Lord Henley. He believes that he has presented a valid point because he made the statement that a man could not be sued in connection with the code of practice. How could he indulge in an assumption of that kind? Because he does not know what is going to be in the code of practice.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is not an assumption, it is in Clause 4 which one day we shall reach.
LORD SHINWELL: The noble and learned Lord need not indulge in these unseemly interruptions. I had a long acquaintance with the noble and learned Lord in the other place. There we had to put up with them sometimes, but there is no reason why we should have it here when we are a little less unseemly than they are in the other place, if I may say that. It does not matter what is in Clause 4. The actual terms of the code of practice are unknown to anybody but members of the Government; and I doubt whether they are fully aware of what is going to be presented when the time comes. Any noble Lord can challenge that. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, or the noble and learned Lord may indulge in another interruption.
LORD BYERS: Would the noble Lord accept another unseemly interruption? Clause 4 is very important from all our points of view. It says specifically—no matter what is in the code of practice—
"A failure on the part of any person to observe any provision of a code of practice which is for the time being in force under this Part of this Act shall not of itself render him liable to any proceedings …"
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: "Of itself".
LORD SHINWELL: They can put in what they like in Clause 4. The consultative
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document is to be presented and the code of practice is to be submitted to both Houses of Parliament. A decision will be taken by Parliament on every item contained in the code of practice. If any noble Lord, either a legal luminary or a layman, is going to tell me that once Parliament have given a decision on a matter of this sort it is not associated with legislation, then this is quite a new experience for me. It is all very well to come along with this Government smarm and say: "We do not intend to sue anybody under the code of practice". They do not tell you what the code of practice contains. We are completely in the dark about that, and my noble friend Lord Diamond was correct when he said that we are talking about something we know nothing about. I hope that not too much notice of that statement, not only that made by myself, but by other noble Lords, is taken by the Press as an illustration of our ignorance.
What is to be embodied in the code of practice? We do not know that, but we know that the code of practice, once the Government have engaged in consultation—and we accept that for what it is worth—becomes the decision of both Houses of Parliament, and it is the law. A man can be sued for contravening any item which is associated, even in a minor fashion, with what is embodied in the legislation.
I am bound to say that the attitude of the Government worries me a great deal. I had hoped all along, because of what was said when the Bill came to your Lordships' House, that the situation would be different. Do your Lordships remember what was said? It was stated in the other place, and illustrated in the Press, that the Bill was coming to your Lordships' House in the hope of improvement. We were to engage in discussion with the sole purpose of improving the Bill. So far there has been no sign of improvement, no evidence of any concession on the part of the Government—none whatever. They are as adamant now as they were when we began our deliberations a week ago. That is the position.
It is obvious that the Government do not want any co-operation. So what is to be the ultimate result of refusal to co-operate or grant some kind of concession? And what is it we are asking

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for? We are making a request in the absence of knowledge about what is to be embodied in the code of practice—nobody here can say he has full knowledge of what is to be contained in the code of practice. We are asking that we should have an assurance (and there is no reason why we should divide on this Amendment if the Government are at all conciliatory) that the Government will consider this item in the clause and come back and tell us before the end of our deliberations whether they can say not only that there will be consultation with outside bodies but that both Houses of Parliament will have an opportunity—and they are entitled to such an opportunity in a matter of this sort—to seek to effect some changes in the code of practice. That is all we are asking for. We are not asking the Government to withdraw their legislation—not at all. We do not expect they will. We are asking for very little. Perhaps the noble Lord opposite would like to take counsel with his noble friends, and particularly with the noble and learned Lord sitting beside him—reclining in a very relaxed position, although he will no doubt awaken in due course if prompted. Perhaps the noble Lord would care to take counsel with him and come back to us later in the day, or before the end of the week, arid say, "On consideration, we will look at this matter again."
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I beg the noble Lord opposite to take note of that appeal. This will not delay, in fact it will expedite, getting this Bill through. I look at the sun shining on that talent opposite: there are skill, generations of culture, good breeding, education, ability and business acumen. I say that if I went to any of those distinguished noble Lords opposite with a "South Sea Bubble" deal like this and said that I wanted noble Lords opposite to put their money and their faith in me and my code of practice, without their board of directors having the ability to add or subtract or amend, but having just a general consensus of feeling, they would usher me away without a penny in my pockets. I know that the Sunday Times, on March 8, 1969, said that the trade unions to-day had more power than the Mediæval Church. They missed the point. The Mediæval Church cooked and
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roasted people who did not agree with it. At least we are not asking to cook and roast the Government. We are asking the Government to look sympathetically at one of the most constructive Amendments that have been put forward so far in this Committee.
LORD JANNER: I think the main point, if one wants an explanation, is the statements which have been made that this code of practice is not going to render a person in breach of it liable for any offence. I do not understand that at all, and I am sure that many other noble Lords will find themselves in the same position. Either it is a code of practice which has to he observed or it is a directive which can be taken up by any individual or otherwise, according to his desire.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If the noble Lord will read Clause 4 again, he will see the answer to the problem which he is posing to the Committee. If he will then, having read it carefully, read Section 74 of the Road Traffic Act he will see the same answer, which has been on the Statute Book for forty years.
LORD JANNER: I am still not happy, in spite of the explanation given. We had Clause 4 read out a few minutes ago. It did not say categorically that this code need not be followed. What it said was that in certain circumstances it does not become an offence if one does not use the code. So far as I can see, either a code of practice is to be enforceable or anyone may use it according to his discretion. I am not sure, and perhaps many other noble Lords will want an explanation of this point.
The other point is that, if the code is enforceable, then surely an opportunity should be given to both Houses of Parliament—at any rate, to this House—to consider what is in the code, and to vary it in some way or another according to our own ideas. It should not be said, "Either you accept the code, which is enforceable in some way or another, or you turn down the whole code, no matter how many good parts there may be in it." It may very well be that the code is like the curate's egg which cannot be put right. That is really what is being said—either it is right or it is wrong. How can anyone be expected to accept something which has not yet been prepared

37
entirely, or to reject it entirely? Some way must be found whereby the code can be varied by Parliament. In all the circumstances, I think the Amendment is correct.
4.18 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 16) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 59; Not-Contents, 135.

CONTENTS

Archibald, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Royle, L.

Bacon, Bs.

Henderson, L.

Rusholme, L.

Balogh, L.

Hilton of Upton, L. [Teller.]

Sainsbury, L.

Bernstein, L.

Hoy, L.

St. Davids, V.

Beswick, L.

Jacques, L.

Samuel, V.

Blackburn, L.Bp.

Janner, L.

Segal, L.

Brockway, L.

Leatherland, L.

Serota, Bs.

Brown, L.

Leathers, V.

Shackleton, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Lee of Asheridge, Bs.

Shepherd, L.

Champion, L.

Lindgren, L.

Shinwell, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs.

Slater, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

McLeavy, L.

Stamp, L.

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Moyle, L.

Stocks, Bs.

Diamond, L.

Noel-Buxton, L.

Stonham, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Pargiter, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Faringdon, L.

Phillips, Bs. [Teller.]

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Fiske, L.

Platt, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Plummer, Bs.

White, Bs.

Gardiner, L.

Popplewell, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Eccles, V.

Lyell, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Effingham, E.

MacAndrew, L.

Albemarle, E.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Mancroft, L.

Allerton, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Margardale, L.

Amherst, E.

Essex, E.

Meston, L.

Amory, V.

Ferrers, E.

Milverton, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Ferrier, L.

Monck, V.

Balerno, L.

Fisher, L.

Monckton of Brenchley, V.

Balfour, E.

Fortescue, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Barnby, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Northchurch, Bs.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Belstead, L.

Glasgow, E.

Penrhyn, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Poltimore, L.

Bessborough, E.

Gowrie, E.

Radnor, E.

Blackford, L.

Grantchester, L.

Ranfurly, E.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Gray, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Greenway, L.

Rathcavan, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Grenfell, L.

Rea, L.

Buchan, E.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Redcliffe-Maud, L.

Burgh, L.

Hacking, L.

Reigate, L.

Byers, L.

Hailes, L.

Rennell, L.

Caccia, L.

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

Rockley, L.

Chesham, L.

Rothes, E.

Clwyd, L.

Hankey, L.

Sackville, L.

Coleridge, L.

Hanworth, V.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Colgrain, L.

Hayter, L.

St. Helens, L.

Conesford, L.

Hemphill, L.

St. Just, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Henley, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Courtown, E.

Hives, L.

Sandford, L.

Cowley, E.

Hood, V.

Sandys, L.

Craigavon, V.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Savile, L.

Crathorne, L.

Howe, E.

Selkirk, E.

Crawshaw, L.

Hylton-Foster, Bs.

Shannon, E.

Cromartie, E.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Somers, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Jessel, L.

Stonehaven, V.

Daventry, V.

Kemsley, V.

Strang, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Kilmany, L.

Strange of Knokin, Bs.

Derwent, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Lothian, M.

Swaythling, L.

Dudley, E.

Loudoun, C.

Templemore, L.

Dundee, E.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Terrington, L.

Thomas, L.

Vivian, L.

Wise, L.

Tollemache, L.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Wolverton, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Willingdon, M.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, Bs.

Windlesham, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

4.29 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION LORD CHAMPION moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 3, line 1, after ("shall") insert ("after consultation with the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry.")
The noble Lord said: I moved an Amendment on Thursday last on Clause 2 of the Bill, seeking to ensure that the Secretary of State would agree upon a draft code of practice with the General Council of the T.U.C. and organisations of employers before presenting that draft code to Parliament. I then gave something of the history of the co-operation which had existed between the T.U.C. and the Government of the day over very many years, no matter what the political persuasion of the Government happened to be. I went on to point out that there had been a regrettable failure by this Government to secure that sort of cooperation in relation to the consultative document and this Industrial Relations Bill. That seemed to me to be, and still seems to me to be, a deplorable failure, because this Bill is about the most momentous for industrial relations since the Trade Disputes Act. Indeed, in many ways it is so much more far-reaching than even that Act that my description of it as being momentous is not putting it too high.
Despite the strained relations which exist between the Government and itself, the T.U.C. has committed itself in an authoritative document to admitting that the Government have a part to play in the process of providing information to guide trade unions and employers towards the adoption of good industrial relations procedures. The very fact that the Trades Union Congress has so committed itself seems to me to point clearly to the acceptance by that important body of some sort of code of practice. To the Amendment which I moved at some length I received the reply from the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Tangley, that to put the word "agree" into the Bill at that point might be unconstitutional and that he would have to ask the Committee to reject it.
He also said, using the words of the Secretary of State:
"I can give an unqualified assurance that I shall be taking the initiative in seeking discussions and views about the formulation of this code of practice".
He later added, in his own words, speaking of agreement:
"We hope that it will be obtained, and I am sure it will be substantially obtained, because the Secretary of State would be very unwise to bring a code of practice before Parliament with which there was not substantial agreement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29/4/71; col. 1382.]
On that undertaking, and the fact that I felt that to insert the word "agree" at that point in the Bill might indeed be unconstitutional, I had little hesitation about withdrawing the Amendment. This Amendment is a milder one altogether and relates to consultation at a subsequent revision of the original code of practice. We must be clear about that. It deals with a subsequent revision and not the initial steps leading up to a code of practice which caused so much discussion on the Amendment upon which we have just voted. I regard the revision of the code of practice as being an important stage, possibly the most important stage, because it will take place in the light of the experience that has been gained of the working of the code of practice. The trade unions, the employers, the Government and everyone will be expected to owe obedience to the code of practice. It is inevitable that some time after that certain faults will show themselves, and will have to be amended at that stage. I think there cannot be the slightest objection to the inclusion of the words I am now proposing, either on constitutional grounds or on the grounds of Government intentions. These intentions of the Government in relation to the Trades Union Congress and to consultation have been made clear by the words of the Secretary of State and by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, himself.
It might be asked why we should include these words when such a clear undertaking has been given by Ministers on behalf of the Government of the day. The only answer I can give to such a

41
question is the simple one that only an Act of Parliament can bind Ministers to a course of action. Words that are spoken in this House and in another House by a Minister do not bind Ministers or their successors to a course of action. In honour bound, of course, present-day Ministers 'would be expected to carry out the words given to a House of Parliament, but Ministers do not live for ever; they do not stay in their posts for ever, as I know to my cost.
In the same way as words in an Act, it will be noted that the clause instructs the Secretary of State to transmit a copy of the draft to the Commission for their consideration and advice. I am not quite sure that I have made absolutely clear what I was trying to say. What we are trying to include in this part of the Bill is something similar to what is already in the Bill in relation to the Commission. The clause says that the Secretary of State has to transmit a copy of the draft to the Commission for their consideration and advice. The Commission will be an important body, despite the fact that the Trades Union Congress has threatened to withdraw its members from that body, and indeed, as we know, Mr. George Woodcock has already resigned from the Commission in protest against the Government's action in relation to this Bill. But I agree that the Commission can be, and ought to be, an extremely important body in relation to the legislation which will eventually appear on the Statute Book.
The Commission will be a body that will have had experience of industrial relations. I imagine that before a code comes up for revision there will be some time during which references will have been made to the Commission, so that in fact the Commission will be knowledgeable. If this draft is going to the Commission as a result of an Act of Parliament, why not to the bodies that are concerned even more than the Commission, namely, the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry?
This Amendment is one which the Government can accept. Up to now, this side of the Committee, inevitably and understandably, feels that the Government are sticking too closely to their brief in their replies to the points from this side of the Committee, many of which I would regard as having been
42
made with a great deal of force. I cannot see that there can be the slightest objection to the acceptance of this Amendment. The intentions of the Government are clear. After all, it is going to consult a Commission. It ought, also, to be expected to consult these bodies. This Amendment does not say "agree"; it says "consult". I believe that those are the sort of words that ought to go into a Bill of this kind, and I am moving this Amendment on behalf of my noble friend, hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, will accept it. If he does not, I hope he will make much more conciliatory noises about it than he has on previous Amendments moved from this side of the Committee. I beg to move.
4.40 p.m.
LORD SLATER: I rise to give support to my noble friend in the Amendment he has moved. I have thought of the workings of the Bill as a whole, and the parts, and particularly this clause, and wondered how any Government, even with Parliamentary approval, could impose a code of conduct on the day-to-day business of industrial enterprises in this country, whether they be private or publicly owned. To me it is just absurd, to say the least. And what are the excuses that we are receiving from Government spokesmen in both Houses of Parliament in regard to this for not consulting the T.U.C., on the one side, and the C.B.I., on the other? The reason seems to me to be: why consult with an organisation, particularly the Trades Union Congress, which does not approve of the principal contents of this Bill? If this is to be their attitude, to proceed without consultation, either with the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. or with other organisations, how can we ever expect to get anyone who is working in industry to fall into line with their proposals on industrial conduct? After watching the attitude of the Government up to date, I arrive at the conclusion that what they are seeking to do is to bulldoze this Bill through at any cost, without attempting to have any consultation at all.
Surely it has always been an accepted fact in regard to industrial relations that it is far better to discuss and talk on such issues of importance; in other words, it is better to talk, as it were, than to fight,

43
and that is the secret of getting anything done. But the attitude of this Government seems to be embraced in that phrase, so often used in the past and still being used, "We are the masters now". Let me say to noble Lords that there are no masters in regard to industrial relations, and anyone who thinks there are had better think again. For if industry is to be kept on the move, and if the cycles of operations are to be fulfilled and are to complete their function, it can be achieved only through co-operation, through consultation. I should have thought that the Government would know this. If they say they are aware that such is the case, why do they ignore it?
How can the Government expect either that the functions of industry will be properly exercised, or that people in industry will feel responsible towards the working of the code of conduct on industrial practice when they have not even been consulted (as has been brought out in the previous Amendment) on the details of what is going to be put into it? This is something that has never been explained. We did not receive an explanation in the last debate on the previous Amendment; we did not receive an explanation in the other place during the Committee stage when this point was being debated. It seems as though we are met with nothing more and nothing less than evasion tactics, when we should be more satisfied if we could get direct and more positive replies from the Government.
It may be that the Government, when they embarked on this Bill, thought that the Minister who would be responsible for its being carried through, the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity, would be a man who had had industrial experience. I remember him making a statement to the effect that at one time he was an employee and not an employer; that he had worked on the shop floor, and that that had given him knowledge and experience of industrial practice. If this is so, then the Secretary of State is bound to know from his personal experience that these things must be done in a way which commits people to feeling that they have a reasonable interest in conducting themselves in a certain way.
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On the other hand, when we move on to the question of consultation with the T.U.C., the attitude of the Minister and of the Government seems to be that as the T.U.C. is against the Bill it would be a waste of time to consult it. How do they know it would be a waste of time if they do not try it? Surely the Secretary of State, as an employer of labour in the past, before he took on his present responsibilities, must at some time have had brought to his notice that even his own employees had been very resentful when the management inflicted certain conditions without consultation and that, so far as the employees were concerned, such directives would not be carried out, and if the status quo was not restored it would lead to a stoppage. I am sure that if the Government were faced with this situation, or if the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, were faced with this situation, he would say, "Let us have the official view. Bring in the shop stewards; let us have their reasons for this upset that has come about". I am sure that if they were to accept the Amendment so ably moved by my noble friend it would get them off the hook.
I know that the noble Lord who is responsible for the Bill going through this House understands the working of Parliament just as well as anyone else. There were many things said in the previous debate as to how Parliament works, how statutory orders are presented, the reasons for amendments and such like. But I am beginning to look on the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, and his colleagues on that side of the House as being like "Stonewall" Jackson; they are put in, as it were, at the last wicket, and they will keep this wicket intact because they have received instructions from the captain that they must do so. This is what seems to be the attitude of the Government. After all, when we look at the figures, there must have been a great many people working on the shop floor who were responsible for electing the present Government to power; but no doubt they have had second thoughts and are now beginning to ask themselves; "Are these the people we expected so much from?".
The Government are now seeking to impose types of legislation like that of the Industrial Relations Bill. They are

45
trying to persuade key organisations of employers and trade unions that they have a stake in the national interest. We all have, but what many of us take exception to is imposition. I am old enough to remember the First and the Second World Wars, and there were certain people who, because of their convictions, had to suffer severe penalties through the law of the land as it was at that time. If this Bill goes through and becomes an Act, it will not be interpreted by the courts saying, "The Minister said this or that, which means this or that." When the Bill becomes an Act it will mean what it says, and an interpretation will be put upon it by those responsible within their judiciary capacity.
In view of the way my noble friend moved the Amendment, I hope that the noble Lord will accept it and add it to the Bill. Why does he not, as a Minister take his courage in both hands? He may be Minister Without Portfolio, but he is a member of the Government. I should like to see some Ministers have a little more courage than they have shown; to stand on their own feet and not allow themselves to be pushed around, and be prepared to accept Amendments when their consciences lead them to that conclusion.
The Bill states most definitely that it is the intention of the Minister to transmit a copy of the draft to the Commission. For what purpose? For their consideration and advice. If he is going to do this with the Commission, why cannot he do it with the T.U.C. and the C.B.I.? One body is the employer of labour, and the other represents the employees. I have no doubt that from the Cross-Benches we shall get views presented to us by the noble Lord, Lord Platt, in respect of other types of organisations and association. Why cannot it be passed on? In the Amendment we bring forward two organisations who are those most concerned with codes of conduct in the industrial field. As I see it, they ought to be consulted first, and not the Commission.
I hope that the Minister will not ignore what has been said. I would ask him to stop being a "Stonewall Jackson", and be a Minister who is responsible for presenting this Bill with the object of getting its acceptance. This
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Amendment is minor in effect compared to previous Amendments in regard to the code of conduct and the principles embraced by it. I sincerely hope and trust that, before the debate on this Amendment is concluded, the Minister will be able to put himself into that position. Have a word with the noble Earl the Leader of the House, who is a member of the Cabinet. Surely to goodness he is strong enough to be able to carry his Cabinet colleagues (even against the Secretary of State who is responsible for the Bill) into accepting this Amendment.
4.55 p.m.
LORD PLATT: I trust your Lordships will forgive me if I speak once again. I think I fully understand the principles behind the Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Champion, has proposed, and which the noble Lord, Lord Slater, has spoken to. Surely this highlights what I was trying to say on Thursday. This Bill is about industry; it is about employers and employees, and about shop floors and shop stewards. They are splendid people, but they have nothing whatever to do with the practice of medicine—and why the practice of medicine is in this Bill I cannot conceive. I may say that the noble Lord, Lord Slater, looked my way and added "other organisations" at one period. I do not want to emphasise that I was President of the Royal College of Physicians for five years, but I must say that I never remember consulting either the T.U.C. or the C.B.I. about our codes of practice. I think it will be a bad day when the Royal College of Physicians starts to consult the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. about its codes of practice. I hope, and think, that I am speaking not only for my own profession, but it is my own profession that I know best.
If there were a feeling, as I think there may be, that this Bill does not apply very well to at any rate certain professions, then I think I should probably vote in favour of this Amendment. But, as the Amendment stands at present, I could not possibly do so, because I think it would give a false appearance of respectability and sweet reasonableness to something which I do not really support.
LORD POPPLEWELL: I am very sorry indeed that the Minister has not

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indicated his line of thought in connection with this. When I say that, I think he has indicated quite clearly that he is not going to accept the Amendment, or he would have been on his feet before now. If that be so, and if my assumption is correct, I really am very disappointed. It indicates quite clearly that the charge of "union bashing" which was made against the Government in the past was fully justified. How can you get a satisfactory code of conduct unless discussions take place with both sides of industry? According to this clause, the Government are going to make their mind up on what the practice is to be. It does not indicate at all with whom they are going to discuss these matters. If we take the Bill as being something that the lawyers are going to be actively engaged upon, one can only assume that discussions must be taking place with the Departments of the Secretary of State and the Attorney General to try to build up the law in so far as this code of practice is concerned. One can only assume that.
I must apologise for not being present during the discussion on the first Amendment, because I was in attendance at the Highways Bill Committee, which has just finished. The discussions here have some relationship to what has taken place. Here you get representative bodies of both sides upon whom case law is going to be established, and still the political animals feel that they are the people to decide what this case law should really be. Not a great deal is being asked in this Amendment. Regrettably, we have had to accept that a draft code will be prepared. Now the suggestion is that after that draft code—at least so I understand—has been prepared, the pros and cons should be discussed with the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. before the finalisation of that draft is laid before Parliament. Surely that is not outrageous.
LORD DRUMALBYN: I wonder whether the noble Lord will forgive me for interrupting. I think that perhaps we are getting a little away from the question. The noble Lord was not here this afternoon, but I hope he will not go over the Amendment that we have just discussed. Perhaps the noble Lord would devote himself to the point that this is a question of the revision of the code; it
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is not a question of the making of the code in the first place.
LORD POPPLEWELL: I stand corrected. The noble Lord has given me the word I ought to have used. It is the revision of the draft code, the revising of the draft code. We are saying here that surely both sides of industry should be consulted in that; they will have to work it. Is there anything wrong in that? We all know that if we do not get the co-operation of both sides, if a code is established that is only very reluctantly accepted because it is forced upon any section of the community, that will not be conducive to its working well. To get the best out of industry there must be a very close relationship, with give and take on both sides. How can you expect give and take on both sides if something is simply imposed, without discussion? These are important factors, and I sincerely hope that this is something that the Government will give way about. Later on, no doubt, there will be quite a lot of debate regarding the type of discussions that should take place, but for the time being we are specifying that, as between the responsible bodies of organised labour and the employers, discussion should take place as regards this revised code of practice.
LORD COOPER OF STOCKTON HEATH: I rise to support the Amendment because I hold a basic view—and I think the trade union movement hold the same basic view—which is fundamentally opposed to everything upon which the Bill is based, but it is nevertheless a point of view which I think can be put forward in regard to this code of practice. That view is that we shall never have a satisfactory labour relations situation in this country on a compulsory basis, and it will depend entirely upon the Government and industry, as represented by the trade unions and by the C.B.I., even although that representation might to some extent not be as adequate as one would wish. But this Amendment deals with a clause which is setting out how the code of practice may be regarded, and I can only assume—I hope this is not a wrong assumption—that that means either that the code of practice as contemplated is considered not to be adequate or that it has been tried and has failed. This code of practice

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is part and parcel of the concept of the Bill. It is, of course, to provide a legal framework within which labour relations may operate. If in fact compulsion has failed in regard to certain parts of the code of practice, then the only hope of getting it to work, I presume, will be on a voluntary basis; and if you want it to work on a voluntary basis then you must go to the parties who at the moment are endeavouring—not with as much success as I should like to see; but they are trying—to operate on a voluntary basis.
Throughout this we must always keep in mind that the objective of getting improved industrial relations is important in itself, but it is much more important for this country because of the economic effects that will follow if we fail to get that good relationship. It is because of that, and because I believe we need to have positive, understandable policies among the trade unions, the C.B.I. and the Government, that in my view this Amendment is a reasonable one and I am not going to assume that it will not be accepted. I hope that we can make positive, worthwhile and useful suggestions which will be given the consideration which I think they deserve.
Coming finally to the Commission, the Commission is a new body being set up by law, as was intended, of course, under the previous Bill, which never got very far on its way under the last Government. That contained the same concept of a Commission, and there is nothing wrong in this. I do not think, as Lord Platt seemed to suggest, that it is offensive to suggest that there is more wisdom in the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. in regard to labour relations than there can be in any Commission that is suddenly set up, no matter how well it is manned. In fact, I should think that if the Commission have to find out anything about any proposition in regard to the origin of the code the first places they would go would be to the T.U.C. and the C.B.I., to get their observations.
LORD PLATT: I think there is a misunderstanding here. I was not talking about a Commissison. I was only saying that the way we manage our affairs in the professions is somewhat different from the way in which they are managed
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in industry, and the one does not always relate to the other. If I seemed to be superior about my profession, it was, first, because I have a loyalty to it and, secondly, because the real difference is not superiority or anything else. The real difference, as I said on Thursday, is that we have an overriding loyalty to our patients, as the engineers and people have to their clients; and questions of employers and employees, the Trades Union Congress and the C.B.I., never enter into any of our notions at all. We just work differently; that is all.
LORD COOPER OF STOCKTON HEATH: I appreciate that, and the reason is that the parallel is not there. As the noble Lord says, members of his profession have an over-riding loyalty to their Patients. We have an over-riding degree of patience with our members, (if I may play with words), who rely on us, just as his patients do on him.
But ultimately, as I have suggested, the job of putting practices into operation comes down to the shop floor; and, as I suggested in an earlier debate, we cannot get perfection in this field. What we can do, of course, is to try constantly to push towards an improved situation; and the instrument for carrying this out, of course, is the individual trade union. Therefore it is important to have some regard to the unions. I know we may be told, "You will be consulted at another level", and so on. There is a great problem here, of course. The code may be so offensive that even the trade union movement may say, "We do not want to be consulted. It is so bad that there is nothing we can do about it". This, I appreciate, is a problem. But in the very bad situation which exists, and has existed in this country for some time, someone has to make a move to try to get the three parties—the trade unions, the employers and the Government—together. The sooner we do that the better and it would not be a bad thing if this Amendment made its contribution towards that endeavour.
LORD BROWN: I have no wish to labour the points so ably made by my noble friends in relation to this Amendment. I want to take a rather different point, and it is that this particular Amendment is likely to be regarded by

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a good many people—certainly by myself—as a sort of test case of the Government's ability to accept any Amendment to this Bill; for here is an Amendment which is quite consistent, as I understand it, with the Government's attitude to the whole of this Bill. We all know what happens, if we have been Ministers in one Government or another: the senior Cabinet Minister, who is not in this House, takes up an intransigent attitude, sometimes out of contempt for this House and sometimes through a lack of understanding of just what this House can do by way of improving a Bill. I suspect that the noble Lord on the Government Front Bench is suffering a good deal from this attitude, displayed towards him by Mr. Carr and others in the Cabinet in the present Government.
If this Amendment, innocuous to the Government, but very important to us, is rejected, what hope can we have, in face of the intransigent attitude so far unfortunately adopted, in relation to any Amendment? I have not been whole-heartedly in support of some of the Amendments coming from my own side of the Committee because they would have undermined the Government's attitude to the Bill, much as I dislike it. We recognise that the Government could not accept many of the Amendments, but there have been one or two and this is the latest example—where it would be inconceivable that the Government could object to what is proposed in the Amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, was opposite me when I was in the last Government, and on a number of occasions during the discussions on a Bill he has been zealous in pointing to deficiencies in a clause which makes it obligatory on the Government to consult with trade associations, consumer associations and the like. Consistently—I think on every occasion—I have yielded to his Amendment or have had a similar Amendment put into the Bill to bring it into line with what is known to be necessary: the maximum amount of consultation. Here is a similar example. If I were in his place I should have no hesitation over this.
I am not going to go on any further. I am saying that this is really something of a test case. If the noble Lord is not in a position to accept this Amendment
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I beg him not to say that he is going to reject it, and thereby force us to a Division. I beg him to go back and report what has been said in this Committee about this Amendment to those who have to condition his attitude—otherwise I do not know what the future holds for all the following Amendments.
5.12 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: A number of different points of view have been put and I must say that when the noble Lord, Lord Champion, moved this Amendment and urged me to be more conciliatory than in the previous one I felt that he might have urged his noble friends also to be more conciliatory. This Amendment, as I feel sure the noble Lord knows, has the entire sympathy of the Government; but the question is whether the Amendment should be made to the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Brown, knows, it is not merely a question of whether the Amendment will do any harm or anything of that sort; it is a question of considering whether it is desirable to include it in the Bill having regard to what it actually says. We all know that an Amendment can be, in appearance, extremely innocuous or extremely helpful; the question is whether it could possibly, in any circumstances, have a damaging effect.
We all recognise that the code of practice, if it is to be effective and to fulfil its purpose, must be a practical document giving practical advice to practical people. We shall therefore be looking for such advice, and we hope very much that we shall get it from those whom we invite to give it; but do let us remember what we are talking about here. If noble Lords will look at Clause 2 they will see what the code of practice is going to do. It is going to contain practical guides. Let us be quite clear about this. If you are going to seek practical guidance, you are going to seek it from people who have the practical experience. This would obviously, and must necessarily, include the Trade Union Congress. I must say that I thought it a bit odd that we should be accused of not wanting to consult the T.U.C. On a matter of this kind, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Cooper said, a code of practice can work only with the consent and guidance of both sides. But there are others as well. Is that not so? We shall want to consult with people

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like the Industrial Society and the Institute of Management. I am asked why there is consultation with the C.I.R. but not with the T.U.C. and C.B.I.—
LORD GEORGE-BROWN: Do I understand—
LORD DRUMALBYN: I really should like to develop my argument. I know what the noble Lord is going to say.
LORD GEORGE-BROWN: Until I have said it, even the noble Lord cannot know what I am to say. I thought I heard him say that this can operate only with the advice and the consent of the T.U.C. The Clerks will know whether I heard it aright, but that is what I understood him to say.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes, a system like this can work only with the active consent of all participating. In the long run that is true. It does not moan that the Government should desert their proper role. What it means is that after full consultation, the fullest that can be obtained, there should be general consent that this is the best code that can be contrived and Parliament can take it in that light. I do not think there can be any doubt about that. I am asked why there should be consultation with the C.I.R. and not with the T.U.C. and C.B.I. There is no question of not consulting the T.U.C. and C.B.I.; but the C.I.R. is a corporate body set up to advise the Secretary of State on these matters, and it is therefore right that the Commission should have a statutory right to be consulted. There is no reason or need to extend that to other bodies, because without the broad consent—and, of course, I was talking about broad consent, as the noble Lord will know quite well—of all concerned this kind of thing will not operate.
LORD BROWN: In Bill after Bill it has been customary to put on the Government statutory obligation to consult—and the noble Lord has made this point to me many times across the Floor of the House. Why is he denying now the statutory obligation to consult? It is a common enough practice. Why reverse what is the practice in Bill after Bill?
LORD DRUMALBYN: The reason is simply this. The noble Lord, Lord
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Champion, was talking about committing future Ministers. Consultation is a two-way process. What one has to do here is consider whether it is right to commit future Ministers to have to wait for consultation with the C.B.I. or the T.U.C. It is of no use the noble Lord turning aside; this is a serious point. Has the Minister got to wait in all circumstances?—and we are talking about future Ministers. I am sure that the T.U.C. will want to be consulted and will be consulted. This is bound to be so. We are talking about future Ministers being committed to wait until possibly a reluctant or recalcitrant C.B.I. or T.U.C. consult with the Minister. This is what has to happen.
Noble Lords must look at what the clause will say: "He shall after consulting"—he cannot do it until he has consulted—"with the T.U.C. and the C.B.I.". Whatever noble Lords may have wanted—and I can understand their wanting an obligation to consult the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. put into the Bill—they are doing exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Tangley, pointed out the other night on the Amendment concerning agreement: they are really putting a veto on the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. in future, in the same way.
LORD SHEPHERD: Would the noble Lord not agree with my noble friend that on many occasions Parliament has put this statutory duty into legislation? This is the first time I have ever heard it suggested that by putting in a statutory obligation you are putting in a veto. I think the noble Lord is going much too far. I should have thought that if only he would make a gesture to my noble friends on this side of the House he would be doing not only a service to the Committee but to his own Government.
BARONESS WHITE: Does the noble Lord not recall that the point Lord Tangley made was that the Amendment then under discussion made that particular provision subject to the agreement of the Trades Union Congress, and this was objected to. That has nothing whatever to do with the obligation to consult, which is something entirely different.
LORD DRUMALBYN: This may seem a kind of niggling point to the noble

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Lords opposite, but there are two meanings to the word "consult" and we can be reminded of that in the future. If noble Lords will look up the meaning of "consult" in the dictionary, they will see that it is "to ask information or advice from", and to consult with—which is to take counsel with—means that there are two of you. So we have to be just a little careful with an Amendment of this kind. I am sure the noble Lords moved this Amendment in the utmost good faith. I am sure they were not just seeking to erect a barrier to the revision of the code in the future. However, we have to be careful about the wording of particular Amendments and it is perhaps not right to restrict the obligation to consult to only two bodies. If noble Lords will really consider it I think that they will feel that this is not right. At other points they have put "organisations of employers" in the plural. It is really not right to seek to restrict this consultation to only two bodies in this way.
This does not in any way indicate any sort of union-bashing—of course it does not—any more than it indicates industry bashing or C.B.I. bashing. I must repeat this very solemnly: it shows that it is the intention of my right honourable friend to consult whenever the code is revised. And may I say in passing that experience may well show that the code can be improved and that therefore it is desirable to revise it. What is more, circumstances may change, and it may therefore be desirable also to change the code. I do not think there can be anything between us on that. What I am being asked to do is to accept an Amendment which I indicated to noble Lords there would be some danger in accepting. Moreover it is unusual to put in an obligation to consult only two bodies when there are many more bodies who would have an interest in being consulted.
LORD BLYTON: Would the noble Lord not agree that here, in the Government's own Bill, is a draft to be sent to the Commission for their consideration and advice. This is an organisation that is going to be set up under the Bill, with plenary powers. What do they expect to get from the Commission from the obligation to submit the draft to this Commission? What do they expect to get?
LORD DRUMALBYN: All I have been saying is that it is inconceivable that the Secretary of State would not consult with the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. He will also no doubt wish to consult with other bodies as well before he drafts the code, and again in the course of drafting it. Surely we can agree on this. I think it is really a test of the willingness of the Opposition to have confidence in future Governments—indeed it is. The noble Lord says that we cannot bind future Ministers, but future Ministers must do the common-sense thing, and at the end of the day if there has not been sufficient consultation and if Parliament says, "You ought to have consulted with the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. and you have not done so", then it can throw out the revised code. Surely this is the final answer. I really do not think we need pursue it. The inbuilt safeguard and the common sense of the whole thing is so clear that it is not worth pursuing.
LORD BROWN: Will the noble Lord not undertake to review the question and to consider the introduction into this clause of the normal duties that a Government have accepted in a number of Acts in regard to consultation? If he will do even that, I daresay my noble friends will withdraw this Amendment. When consultation clauses have appeared in Bill after Bill, can the noble Lord really give good reasons why one should not appear in this Bill?
LORD DRUMALBYN: I am perfectly willing to consider what the noble Lord has just said. Obviously I cannot enter into a commitment, but I am willing to consider it.
LORD BLYTON: The Minister must not be under any misunderstanding about consultation. Our experience was that when this Bill was being formulated the consultation with the T.U.C. consisted of saying "You take this, or else!", and the T.U.C. turned it down. Is the T.U.C. in the context of Clause 3 to witness the same fait accompli and be told, "Accept this, or else!"? If that is the form consultation is to take, we want none of it.
LORD DERWENT: May I say a word? There are one or two of us on these Benches who are a little concerned about this Amendment and its

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acceptance or non-acceptance. We are not clear in our own minds. There is a considerable danger in naming two organisations in case it might be argued in future that other organisations were not to be consulted. My honourable friend has said he will look at the matter again, and I should like to say from these Benches, as a supporter of the Government, that I hope he will look at it. It may not be possible to put it into words that will satisfy noble Lords opposite. I do not think the Amendment is right in naming two organisations; but as my noble friend has said he will look at it again, I hope noble Lords opposite will not press this Amendment.
LORD POPPLEWELL: Do I understand the noble Lord to say firmly that he will look at this again? If that is so, I am rather delighted. The looks of concern on the faces of the supporters behind him show that they are not happy with the stand he has taken, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, has emphasised that. If he will look at it again, that will bring us back to what we have known of the noble Lord in the past, as opposed to his stonewalling attitude now.
LORD DRUMALBYN: To make the matter quite clear, I have just said that I will look again at what the noble Lord said. That does not mean that we could accept this Amendment.
5.30 p.m.
LORD GEORGE-BROWN: May I press the noble Lord on this? I think he torpedoed his own case when he said that to revise the code meant that one had to get consent.
LORD DRUMALBYN: With great respect, I was talking about the original code and saying that the whole system of the code could not work without consent.
LORD GEORGE-BROWN: I presume that the whole system of the code means the revised code as well as the original code? Very well: then the noble Lord is saying that a code cannot be operated without consent. You cannot get consent unless you consult. So if you have to consult, you must consult certain bodies in the field. Now there is the T.U.C., without any question; and there
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is the C.B.I., without any question. The noble Lord, Lord Platt, says that there are some other bodies. If the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is really saying, "I will look at the Amendment in order to see that it takes care of the bodies that the noble Lord, Lord Platt, has in mind", I understand what he is saying. If that is what he means, then no doubt we can arrange that someone will put down a suitable Amendment at some stage. So long as that is what he is saying. But I am bound to tell the Committee that I have an uncomfortable feeling that the noble Lord is not saying quite that.
Speaking for myself, I say that "consent" means "consultation". That most certainly means with the T.U.C., which I know best, and it most certainly means with the C.B.I.—which noble Lords on the Government Benches know better than I do; though I am getting to know it a little bit now—and it must mean with the professional bodies. If the Amendment is objectionable only because it is not wide enough, very well; let us wait for the widened version. If it is objectionable because the Government do not want to be tied down to consult and consent, I think we must push the Government, even to a Division. I am not quite sure what the noble Lord is saying. I think he is trying to be a little, to use my old favourite word, "phenebulous". Let me put it the other way round. "Consent" must mean "consultation". But "consultation" does not have to mean "consent ". The noble Lord said that it had to have consent; that must mean consultation, and all we are asking about is which body has to be consulted. That is easy. We can amend the Amendment to make sure we take account of everybody else. If the noble Lord is trying to be a little bit too clever, and because we have not named everybody he is telling us we cannot have even consultation, he should not have used the word "consent"—there will not be any. I trust that we shall push the noble Lord, not merely to say that he will look into it again, but also to say that he will look into it again in order to ensure that all the bodies concerned, whoever they are, shall have the right to be consulted. If we can get that, we can get an appropriate Amendment at some stage and then we shall all be happy.
LORD PLATT: Would the words, "T.U.C. and C.B.I. or other relevant organisations" fill the bill here? I would prefer the word "or" to "and", because I see no particular reason why bodies like the Royal College of Physicians, who have managed their own affairs up to now, should in future be under the supervision of the T.U.C. or the C.B.I. I do not agree that they should, and therefore I would use the word "or" and not the word "and".
LORD ALPORT: My noble friend who is in charge of the Bill for the Government has undertaken, as senior Minister responsible, that he will look again at this problem. The problem is quite clear to us all. My noble friend Lord Derwent said that some of us on this side of the Committee—he spoke for himself; I also feel the same—think that my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn is right to say that he will take another look at this, in view of the arguments which have been put forward. It would be wrong, I think, to try to carry it to the length to which the noble Lord, Lord Brown, is attempting to do, or indeed to take the detailed proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Platt. The circumstances of this important Amendment should be left to be considered by the Government again at the next stage of the Bill, but at the same time without commitments which no Minister in these circumstances could be expected to undertake.
LORD HANKEY: We have had a very satisfactory assurance from the Government. I think we have too many organisations already and I should like the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. to be given more power and have a good deal more influence. I think that would greatly facilitate our industrial relations. But I hope that the Minister will also consider what is to be the next stage After all, after this consultation we have been talking about it has to go to the Commission on Industrial Relations. When I looked at this text I said to myself originally, "Obviously, the C.I.R. will consult the T.U.C. and the C.B.I.". Someone has to do it, and if we are not careful we shall make everybody do the work of the C.I.R. I should like the C.I.R. to be a powerful body, too. If the consultation happened there, I should be equally happy. I agree that consultation ought to
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take place. We do not want matters delayed until consent is obtained by everybody, especially in view of the experiences we have had. But I think it would be a very good thing if the Government looked seriously again at the procedures contained in this clause, including the next bit which we have not yet discussed, and laid another Amendment before the Committee.
LORD DRUMALBYN: Before the noble Lord replies, may I say one thing? I think that the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, took me up a bit sharply. We all know what is meant by "Government by consent". It does not mean that everyone in the whole country has to give consent. The noble Lord knew that that was the sense in which I used the word.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: May I say one other thing? I feel that we should carefully consider what is being said in subsection (3). If I may nut it briefly, it states that any revision of the code of practice by the Secretary of State shall be placed before the Commission for their consideration and advice. That is putting it in simple English. Let us not forget that the code of practice is not legally binding, and in my opinion it should not be. Secondly, any revision of the code of practice is delegated by the Secretary of State to the Commission. It is up to the Commission to decide whom they shall consult. They are limited enough in their duties under this Bill. It would be a pity, I feel, for the Secretary of State, or by the provisions in the Bill, to dictate to the Commission that they must consult the T.U.C. or the C.B.I. The matter might be something that had little to do with the T.U.C. or the C.B.I. It might be something in the code of practice which needed to be introduced to provide particular Amendments, possibly affecting NALGO, or something in respect of the B.M.A., or something else.
LORD COOPER or STOCKTON HEATH: Is not the noble Lord aware that NALGO is part of the T.U.C.?
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: Yes, of course I am; but the matter might specifically concern a particular branch. Many unions cover a very wide field. It could refer to some specific negotiating body, and I think it would be a mistake to limit them.
LORD BROWN: Is the noble Earl aware that everything he is saying could he said about every consultation clause in every measure that this House passes? If he is right, every other consultation clause in every other measure is wrong.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: I do not think that you want to specify whom they shall consult. I think that would be a mistake, and I feel very strongly about it.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: Does the noble Lord realise that when one refers to the T.U.C. one does not mean all the members? From practical knowledge, as a former Minister I know that when one was dealing with an increase in pensions one discussed it with the British Legion, if the pensions concerned were war pensions. The T.U.C. was also called in, but that did not mean that every member of the T.U.C. would be present. There would be three or four members who were knowledgeable about the matter under discussion. That is all we are asking here, we are not asking for the whole gamut. To be fair to the noble Lord, in view of the success achieved, I feel that the sun must shine on him a little, and I will not speak any longer in case I annoy the Committee. I hope we get a little success here.
LORD STONHAM: I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, intends to do about this Amendment, or indeed what my noble friend Lord Champion thinks about it. But in my view the Amendment should be pressed as it is, unless the noble Lord is able to give a firm assurance in explicit terms. If we have to think of a form of words that will satisfy everyone, it means that we have to satisfy a large number of organisations—not the trade unions, because they are already covered by the T.U.C., but the employers' organisations. My noble friend Lord Platt has told us of the position of physicians and surgeons. But the National Farmers' Union are extremely critical of this Bill, in many of its aspects, and very concerned about its effect on their members. I have had a considerable number of documents from the N.F.U. asking me to move Amendments and to support opposition to the Bill.
The noble Lord the Minister said, "Of course the Government is in favour of consultation". When one naturally asked, "Why do you not put it in the Bill?", he attempted another explanation, which I must say I found singularly unconvincing, and therefore the noble Lord has only himself to blame if he finds it difficult to convince us. If we put forward an Amendment which seems utterly reasonable, as indeed it is, we cannot be put off by sophistries and perhaps clever words which would need a good deal of study before we got to the bottom of them. Therefore I say, with my noble friend Lord Champion—and I think this was also Lord George-Brown's view—that we should stick to our Amendment unless the noble Lord is able to tell us convincingly that if we leave it now and come back to it at a later stage we shall have something which will meet with the agreement of all parts of the House.
LORD PARGITER: I wonder whether we could get a little more from the Minister? If the Minister says—and after what he has been saying at the Despatch Box there ought to be no difficulty about this—that he accepts the principle of this Amendment, but would require it to be worded in such a way that it was not necessarily so limiting as it may be as it is now worded, it seems to me that that will be acceptable. But we should like to know that at least the principle is acceptable. The Minister has not said so in so many words: he has merely gone all round it. But if he says that much, I am sure it will be satisfactory.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: The trouble with this Amendment as I see it is that it says one must consult with the T.U.C. and the C.B.I., and I agree with the Minister that it would be inconceivable that a Government should not do so where there was any matter which had any concern of those two. What worries me far more is that the other people concerned, the professional associations, might not be consulted. I do not believe one can hatch up an Amendment which adequately covers this sort of thing without leaving a number of loopholes and leaving out other people. I therefore think it would be the greatest mistake to put forward an Amendment such as

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this, which only tells people to do what they will do anyway, and leave the whole of the rest of the field uncovered. I should have thought the common-sense point of view was to leave it to the Government. We all seem so suspicious that it is hardly true.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: I should like to support the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pargiter. I think there should be a consultation clause in this Bill. I do not think the present Amendment is really satisfactorily worded. If the Minister would give us an assurance on the principle of a consultation clause, I think we ought to leave it and return to it at the Report stage. If he does not, I for one would certainly support the Amendment as it stands.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE: May I just say, speaking as a former industrialist, and in the knowledge of the fact that I am still on the Council of the C.B.I., that I should feel it very unfortunate if, as a result of the debate to-day, a vote were taken against this Amendment, and the impression thereby created that this House was against consultation in this way. I believe that that would not reflect the opinion of the great majority of this House, and I strongly support what my noble friends Lord Derwent and Lord Alport said, in the hope that the Committee may accept the assurance given by the Minister. I might add that I very much hope that that assurance might be extended, on further consideration, to providing for adequate consultation within a reasonable time between the publication of the code and its coming to debate in Parliament. That is something which I think could be very important if the practical considerations which some of us feel are vital are adequately considered.
LORD CHAMPION: I am most grateful to the noble Lord who has just sat down for the good sense which he has injected certainly into this part of the debate; namely, that dealing with the possibility of something happening between now and Report. I am a politician, a strange one, who does not particularly like the sound of his own voice. For that reason I do not propose to attempt to reply to all the points which have been made in this debate. But I am going to
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accept the word of a man with whom I have had honourable dealings when I sat on that side of the House. As the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, has said, Lord Drumalbyn and I have changed sides now. We have in the past sat opposite one another on Bills, and I am absolutely sure that if I gave the assurance which the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has now given us, were he sitting on this side he would accept that assurance and expect something to happen between now and the Report stage. All we are asking is something that has already been stressed a few times: that if we do not press this Amendment, which deals with only two bodies, but rather leave the door wide open to ensure that there shall be a statutory obligation to consult more generally. This is what I understand the noble Lord is prepared to look at and, to some extent, to satisfy the House that he will bring something in on Report. If, as I believe, that is the case, then I certainly will not press the Amendment. If the noble Lord will just nod to me and tell me that that is what his speech was all about, I shall be perfectly happy to withdraw this Amendment, on the understanding that we may consult together and that if that consultation arrives at something which is satisfactory to both of us, an Amendment will be put down at Report stage. I sincerely hope that that will happen, for the good will which can exist across the Committee even on a controversial Bill such as this. Does the noble Lord nod?
LORD DRUMALBYN: Yes; I do nod. I shall be very happy to consult with the noble Lord. I hope that something more than that will happen between now and the Report stage. All I can say is that I cannot absolutely guarantee that it will result in an Amendment being put down.
LORD CHAMPION: I understand the noble Lord's position. Having regard to the fact that he backed up his nod with words, I am happy to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.49 p.m.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK LORD DAVIES OF LEEK moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 3, line 3, after ("Commission") insert ("and Parliament").
The noble Lord said: So that we can be brief as possible, and thereby indicate

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our gratitude for at least the nodding of the Minister on the Front Bench, I will read out subsection (3). There is a reason for my reading, because I want to get the semantics right, and then the meaning. Subsection (3) says:
"Where the Secretary of State proposes to revise the whole or part of the code of practice (in the form in which, whether as originally approved or as previously revised, the code or that part of it has effect for the time being) he shall prepare a draft of the revised code, or of that part of it, as the case may be, and shall transmit a copy of the draft to the Commission"—
my Amendment then wants to say, "and Parliament"—
"for their consideration and advice,"
I do not think there is need for an involved and long discussion on this point. The Secretary of State is defending himself from the charge of autocracy by suggesting that when he proposes a revision of the code—of a revised code, or any kind of revision—he shall put that draft before the Commission for their consideration and advice. The Commission may be working in a mysterious sea that is uncharted, and may not seek advice, though now we are told they will probably do so in other quarters. It seems that as the clause now stands Parliament itself could not have a say in it. I should think it is essential in an Industrial Relations measure of this magnitude for the draft to be brought before Parliament for consideration and advice. The noble Lord may say, "Ah, there are no penal conditions". But we are not sure about this. Do definitions of unfair practices enter into this?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Lord is wrong. If by that he means an unfair industrial practice, that is either in the Bill or not there at all. In the code there cannot be found an unfair industrial practice.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: May I ask the noble and learned Lord, if it cannot be found in the code, can an unfair practice be arrived at as a result of the code?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The short answer is, No. This is contained in Clause 4 very clearly, and perhaps we shall come to that in due course. Let me give a "No" now, because it is clear in Clause 4 what the code will do. If
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the noble Lord wants an easy analogy at this stage, the Highway Code is a good guide.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I accept the noble and learned Lord's advice, out of fairness and leave it at that. Once we get the realm of jurisprudence overlapping with the realm of ethics no one knows where they arc. I think it is essential to get consultations all along the line. In view of the good mood in which the Committee has been, may I ask the noble Lord if he could deal with this Amendment as he dealt with the other and reply right away, and I shall sit down now and enable the Committee to expedite its business. Frankly, I see nothing in the Amendment that need damage the Bill, and I think that it will improve the Bill. I beg to move.
LORD DRUMALBYN: This is an Amendment which I do not think the noble Lord would really wish to press. The Commission is set up as adviser to the Secretary of State; they will give informal or formal advice, and they shall be in a direct relationship with the Secretary of State. But to suggest that a copy of the draft should be submitted to Parliament for its consideration and advice raises an altogether different picture. It means that Parliament must consider this, presumably in a debate, and then in some way or other tender advice either after or during the course of the debate. Surely this is not the right stage for that to happen. Surely the stage is after the C.I.R. have given their advice and the Secretary of State lays the draft before Parliament. At that point Parliament can discuss it and give the Secretary of State advice. I hope that the noble Lord will not press his Amendment.
LORD DIAMOND: I feel that my noble friend was anxious that this worthwhile point should be given an airing and that the view of the Government should be taken, and that we should hear the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, explain their view. The noble Lord will agree that at this point in the Bill there is no reference to the way in which Parliament should have an opportunity to consider a revised code. The Secretary of State has given

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an indication of what course of conduct the Government are likely to take, but there is nothing in the Bill so far indicating what part Parliament will have to play in the revision of the code.
Of course, the preparation of the code in the first place, turning it from a draft into a code, is admittedly the more important part. Once we have a code we can see how it works, and experience on all sides, including the C.B.I. and the T.U.C., and of course doctors and surgeons and for that matter accountants or anybody else, may suggest revisions. I do not think that the revision of the code is likely to require the same care and consideration as the creation of a code in the first place. It could well be that a part of the code becomes due to be revised and requires full consideration at as early a stage as possible before opinions have solidified, and it is from that point of view that it would be helpful to have an Amendment of this kind to secure Parliament's opinion upon it.
I think that I should invite a word or two more from the noble Lord about the way that Parliament would be given an opportunity to be considered in relation to a revision of the code. Then I feel, and I sense that my noble friend might share this view, that if the noble Lord were to make it plain to us that Parliament was to have a proper place in the revising of the code, this is not a matter on which we should wish to delay the House overlong.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My answer to that would be that one of the ways in which the need to revise the code would arise would be from Parliament, because the working of the code would be constantly before Parliament. Obviously anything that goes wrong in industrial relations would eventually come before Parliament and the working of the code will be kept under close watch. I do not see any difficulty about this. Noble Lords should bear in mind that the revision of a part of the code may not be a very serious matter. From what the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has indicated, I think he is aware of this. My own experience of Government is that if we make matters too formal the result is that many things requiring revision will be saved up over a long time and then have to be laid together, before the code
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can actually be revised as it should be, so that I hope we will be able to retain flexibility in this, and not have too much formality.
LORD POPPLEWELL: Could I ask the noble Lord a question? I appreciate the point he is making that ultimately this code will be handed over in effect to the N.I.R.C. or the industrial tribunals, that one of the questions to be asked in Parliament would be, what is the reaction of the Government? Would they be able to answer the question? Would they be able to say, just as they do with nationalised industries, "This is a question of day-to-day management, that comes under the N.I.R.C." and not give any answer. It is purely information that I am seeking at the moment.
VISCOUNT AMORY: If I understood my noble friend aright he appreciated that Parliament might wish to discuss and debate some revision, depending on the importance of it as the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has said. I understood him to reply that should Parliament wish to discuss and debate a revision then it would be able to find an opportunity and a way of doing so. I think that is what the Committee would like to feel.
LORD BERNSTEIN: Perhaps the noble Viscount can help me again. This clause says that the Secretary of State
"shall prepare a draft of the revised code. or of that part of it, … and shall transmit a copy of the draft to the Commission for their consideration and advice".
It does not say whether he will let anybody know what the Commission says about it. Subsection (4) says that he shall take account of any advice, but he then goes on to do more or less what he wishes to do. Will he let Parliament and others know what the advice was from the Commission so that Parliament could consider the Commission's advice as well?
LORD DRUMALBYN: That is the subject of the next Amendment.
LORD PARGITER: The particular problem about consultation is that once the draft order is laid it cannot be amended. This is the problem we are up against—whether a White Paper could be produced which would give Parliament some idea of what was in mind so that representations could be

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made to the Secretary of State by Parliament in some form or other. Once it gets to the draft order stage we have either to accept it or reject it, and sometimes it might be rejected for something that could easily be put right. That is why we want to think of some means of consultation.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My noble friend has asked me to answer one or two of the points made. As I understand it, the position is this. In answer to the noble Lord opposite, the Secretary of State has certain duties under this Act. He is subject fully to interrogation in Parliament. There would be no means of trying to establish a doctrine such as that which exists in relation to nationalised industries, whereby the day-to-day management is left to someone else. This is the Secretary of State's day-to-day responsibility. From that, each House has its own procedures, this House perhaps more than the Commons. The Commons would have full-time at Question Time, Adjournment Debates, Estimates, Supply Days and so on to discuss particular aspects of the code. The simplest form would be to ask the Secretary of State whether he would amend the code in such and such a way, and that would be accepted by the Commons Table, or by the House here, as a question to be put, and the Secretary of State would have to answer it.
LORD PARGITER: I thank the noble and learned Lord for that answer.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: That was an important answer from the noble and learned Lord. The Amendment was exploratory, to ensure that Parliament was maintaining its rights. In view of Clause 4 which follows—though I should be out of order if I started discussing that—I will, with permission, withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.6 p.m.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 3, line 9, at end insert ("any advice given to the Secretary of State by the Commission under this sub-section shall be published by the Secretary of State.")
The noble Lord said: I rise to move the Amendment standing in my name
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and that of my noble friends. The purpose of this Amendment is that any advice given to the Secretary of State by the Commission on Industrial Relations under this subsection shall be published by the Secretary of State. This point, as noble Lords will have noticed, has already been raised when discussing the last Amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, did not rise to reply and I hope he will rise to this one.
The Commission on Industrial Relations is to be a statutory body, a very important one in terms of the making or the revision of this code. It is no way going to he a sectional body which might have secrets which it would not want to be disclosed, whether or not they should be. The responsibility must in the last resort lie with the Government and the Secretary of State for decisions made. But I think, if we are setting up a body as important as this the onus should be very much on the Secretary of State, if he is going to disregard the advice given by this extremely important Commission, to say why he is not following their advice, and for that to happen it is obviously necessary that the advice should be made public. I cannot see any disadvantage in the advice being made public. Presumably all of us are in favour, where possible, of more open government.
This seems to me an elementary point where again confidence in the work of the Secretary of State and of the Commission could be heightened in everybody concerned if they knew exactly what was going on; and it will be part of the effort of building up the Commission on Industrial Relations into being the important body it undoubtedly ought to be if the Commission knows that what is recommends is going to be published, and therefore if it is in any way going to be overruled that will become the subject of serious and open discussion. I do not think there is any need to say any more. I beg to move.
LORD DIAMOND: Perhaps I could be excused for a moment to explain that the number of names which appear on this Amendment are by no means the result of a shot-gun wedding; they are the result of independent minds searching after truth and arriving at the same conclusion. The noble Lords, Lord Byers,

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Lord Henley and Lord Beaumont of Whitley, reached their conclusion and put an Amendment down, and we on our side reached a similar conclusion and put an identical Amendment down, and the joining of the names, which is a matter of privilege and happiness so far as I am concerned, is the result of the work of the authorities of the House. Having explained that, and having endorsed every word which the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, has said, 1 will be interested to hear the reply of the Government.
LORD DRUMALBYN: This is an Amendment which has been very cogently moved by the noble Lord, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. One would have to recognise, and it was inherent in the noble Lord's speech that he recognises, that there might be some circumstances in which it would not be in the public interest to publish the advice. There might be certain circumstances in which the C.I.R. itself might not wish the advice published, and we may be dealing with a wide range of different kinds of revisions. Indeed the device may in some cases be simply, "We agree". We are disposed to accept in principle the noble Lord's Amendment, on the understanding that we can have a look at it and make any changes which we think would commend themselves to the House. But if the noble Lord will leave this with us, we will look at it, and either reintroduce his Amendment or bring it forward in some amended form.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: I know that I speak for other noble Lords in saying that we are most grateful to the Government for this welcome thaw in relations. It is good of them to accept the principle. We recognise that there may be occasions when it is not justifiable for the advice to be published, although that was not actually part of my speech, and I am dubious about it. We look forward to hearing the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, when he comes back either on the Report stage or if we have consultations between now and Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment standing
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in my name and that of my noble friends and of my semi-friend.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Use of code of practice in proceedings under this Act]:
6.11 p.m.
LORD BLYTON LORD BLYTON moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 3, line 21, leave out ("of itself").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name and those of my noble friends on the Opposition Front Bench. Clause 4, as it stands, means that a person or persons could be brought before the court, and the deletion of the words "of itself" would mean that such a person or persons could not then be brought before the court. As I have said before, trade unions do not like the law and lawyers intruding into their affairs, and they have substantial reasons for taking this attitude. This clause deals with the legal status of the code. It is another instance of injecting quasi-communal legislation into our existing industrial tribunals. Here in this clause the courts are enjoined to follow a code which has not yet been seen and no one has had a chance to examine it. It seems to me that a breach of the code will automatically mean a "guilty" verdict for those appearing before the court, just as with the Highway Code in relation to road traffic. Despite the role of the so-called civil tribunal, there is no doubt that powers will exist to fine, attach earnings and imprison if you do not pay for contempt of court. There will be other concepts like inducement, threat to strike, aiding and abetting, together with this code.
I hope the Committee will appreciate that the trade unions' history has been built up on voluntary negotiation and settling problems and difficulties by means of negotiating machinery. Also, our experience over the years of how courts have decided against us, and how we have had to fight to get their decisions reversed, does not lead the trade unions to welcome the procedures under this Bill. What will happen is that trade unionists or trade unions will be dragged before the courts, accused of breaking

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the code of conduct, to which they have never agreed—and by courts weighted against them. Trade unions and persons can be brought before courts and tried by judges and lawyers who are members of the biggest closed shop in this country. We are being asked to pass legislation which will allow a code to be used as evidence before we have a chance to see the code. The Government are asking for a blank cheque.
It is quite evident to anyone who knows about industrial affairs that when you get into a position of legally binding codes you get into real difficulties. It is not possible to foresee, and to base a code on the assumption that all eventualities can be foreseen is something that no negotiator on either side of industry can claim. These generalised rules or guidance rules will apply to all unions, as diverse as those of actors, doctors, miners, nurses, teachers, seamen, civil servants and engineers. If the code of conduct is a generalised one, only chaos will result, since conditions are so different, and the National Industrial Relations Court, with the sanctions in the Bill against individuals and trade unions, will create untold trouble.
There may be arguments for guidelines, but their intrusion into the enforcement agencies, with the implication that a breach of the code is evidence of culpability, is the reason why it is not possible to accept this state of affairs. The Solicitor General himself said that the code, which nobody has seen, will be taken into account in deciding whether or not a complaint of non-compliance with the provisions of the Bill has been established. The complaint can be about an unfair practice by or on behalf of a union, or about an employer not giving recognition or information; and, as I understand it, it will be a complaint before a civil court. It is quite plain that when the code is to be used as terms of reference, when a charge is being brought not because of an offence against the code, but for another reason, such as an alleged unfair practice, the determination of the charge will in part depend on reference to certain parts of the code of conduct.
Surely, in circumstances like this, if the charge is sustained there can be fines, and if the fines are not paid it can mean
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imprisonment under the civil law. If we are dealing in this instance with civil law, it will be supported by civil remedies: and they are as I have stated. Again, the code, whenever it arrives in the House, will, I hope, come in a form in which it can be amended; otherwise, it will put everyone in a very difficult position, because we shall have to take it whether we like it or not. In a matter of great importance such as this, the Committee should have a chance to amend the code, which is to play such an important part in the courts, when men are to be tried for any offence under this Bill. I say that there will be a lot of strife on this issue in the years ahead, especially in the courts, if this legislation is passed and our people are dragged before the courts in the way I have tried to illustrate. Therefore I move this Amendment in order to minimise the injustice which the Bill will inflict on men and women who in their unions endeavour to raise their standard of life, which is the only way they have of achieving their goal, and because of our total opposition to courts and penal sanctions. I beg to move.
6.21 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am bound to say that the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, has misunderstood the whole picture of this clause. I should like to try to explain it to him, and I hope that I may be successful. I start by saying that he is quite wrong about the lawyers operating a closed shop. They do nothing of the kind. As I said at an earlier stage, the Bar Council has about an 80 per cent. membership. One would very much like it to be wider, but it is in fact purely voluntary. I do not know the position about solicitors, but that is the position about the profession of which I was a proud member until I came here.
The noble Lord was also wrong—I say this by way of preliminary observation—in saying that the Government are asking for a blank cheque. It is of course true that the preliminary draft of the code has not been published, but I hope we have been through that sufficiently to show that it will have been discussed very clearly and fully before it becomes effective and will then have to be endorsed by each House of Parliament. I

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say this by way of repetition as we have gone through it in debate which I do not wish to re-open. But to say that it is a blank cheque when there is not a cheque and it will not be blank when it is signed, is a misuse of language of a serious kind.
The noble Lord began by saying that trade unions will be dragged before the courts for a breach of the code and there will be a guilty verdict. Under this Bill one cannot be dragged before any court for a breach of the code of practice. The noble Lord did not say—and I think perhaps he should have said—that the words of which he complains have been on the Statute Book now for 40 years, since 1930, in relation to the Road Traffic Acts. They have given rise to none of the difficulties which the noble Lord anticipates.
If he will look at Section 74 of the present Road Traffic Act, which I think was passed in 1960, he will see that it reproduces the words of an earlier Statute, I think the Act of 1930. He will see exactly the same words as are here in relation to the code of industrial practice in relation to the Highway Code, which I hold in my hand. Nobody is dragged before a court for a breach of the Highway Code, but the Highway Code can be used in evidence by either the prosecution or the defence. It can be used in criminal proceedings but no criminal proceedings are contemplated here; and it can be used in civil actions either for the plaintiff or for the defendant.
Let me give an example. Regulation No. 6 is about pedestrians. It says, "Before you cross stop at the kerb." Another one is, "Keep your vehicle in good condition." That is the sort of thing which goes into codes of this kind. The way it works, if I may give an example, is this. Suppose a motorist is being sued for damages for negligence by a pedestrian and the fact be that the pedestrian ran out without stopping at the kerb. The fact that he ran out without stopping at the kerb and that that is a breach of the code can be used in argument or in evidence to show that the motorist was not to blame. Equally, if a motorist is being sued for negligence or is being prosecuted for some offence
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and it is shown that the accident happened because his vehicle was in a bad condition, that fact can be referred to in argument or in evidence as placing the responsibility for the accident on him.
It is just as likely to be used by a defendant as by a plaintiff. It is just as likely to be used by the defence as by the prosecution and it is very seldom referred to in so many words. It does not hold up proceedings because the contents of the Highway Code are really only the dictates of common sense which every good motorist is supposed to learn before he goes on the road and which counsel and judges throughout the land are perfectly familiar with, so that an actual reference is scarcely ever made to it.
Translating that into this particular Amendment, the noble Lord started with the assumption that it is designed to beat trade unions about the head. I suppose it is no good going on saying to the noble Lord that that really is not the picture. There are of course a number of unfair industrial practices defined in this measure. I see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, on the Cross Benches. He knows how naughty he was on Second Reading to try to put the number at 179. I make it about 25 possible clauses which are concerned. There is Clause 5 which concerns unfair industrial practices by employers. There are Clauses 5, 12, 15, 20, 31, 44, 68, 52, 55, 53, 92, 93 and 94. Those are all concerned with unfair industrial practices by employers. There are about 12 clauses dealing with trade unions some of which are the same. So it is not 26, but something rather fewer than 25.
LORD DONOVAN: One of those clauses contains 40 malpractices. I have the Schedule, but perhaps the noble and learned Lord would like me to send him a copy?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: When we come to those clauses I think we shall have to go into the noble and learned Lord's computation a little more carefully. The fact is that those are the clauses and, unless one calculates in a most extraordinary and unfair way, one does not get anything like the results which the noble and learned Lord seeks to make out. Incidentally, this does not in the main attract a fine. It attracts a claim for compensation and the noble

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and learned Lord knows that that is not a fine. It is not a tort; it is a breach of statutory duty coming before a separate series of tribunals. It does not contain the solatium for injured feelings which damages for tort normally contains. It contains compensation based on actual loss with a ceiling attached. It is ultimately for the House to decide whether the noble and learned Lord was on his usual form when he made those rather wild observations on Second Reading.
LORD DIAMOND: May I interrupt the Lord Chancellor for advice? When he says that there is a ceiling, does he mean that there is a ceiling in the case of only registered unions or a ceiling in all cases?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It means a ceiling in the case of unfair dismissals, a ceiling in the case of registered unions, but not, I think, in all cases. In any case, it is a very different picture from that which the noble and learned Lord painted on Second Reading. It is either in the Bill or not. The code does not attract any new unfair industrial practice, either to the employer or to the employed. It works just as the Highway Code does.
If I may now come to an example, under Clause 54 employers are under a duty to disclose information, and that duty is defined in rather general terms in that clause for the purpose of enabling a union to carry out collective bargaining. If you look on to Clause 98 you will see that the union has certain rights in court if the employer fails to disclose information. The code of practice will presumably spell out a little more definitely the kind of information required, and when the trade union takes the employer to court for failing to disclose information it will refer to the code of practice with regard to the information which is required and say: "I want an order, under Clause 98, to compel you to perform your duty, under Clause 54, because this is what the code provides and you have not gone anywhere near it."
The effect of the noble Lord's Amendment would be to deprive the trade union of that right. If a good practice of collective bargaining is consultation
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about matters likely to affect the workers, and a trade union is accused by an employer of an unfair industrial practice, it will be able to draw attention to the employer's failure to perform his obligations under the code, not that that is itself an unfair industrial practice, but as affording an explanation of why the union has done certain things of which the employer has complained.
The function of the code of industrial practice is to operate exactly as the Highway Code does in highways litigation, and to pass an Amendment of this kind would be to deprive it of its essential function, which is not to lay down legal obligations, but to show exactly what a reasonable employer, a reasonable shop steward, or reasonable union might do in a given set of circumstances, and to give the kind of usually commonsense advice that the Highway Code does to motorists, and has done for forty years.
To try to "scarify" the issue, as the noble Lord has done, by assuming the most impossible motives, and making the most wild statements about what the Bill contains, or what the motives of its sponsors may be, does not stand up in the light of the experience of courts extending over 40 years, that in certain circumstances a code of good practice is an aid to justice when offences or wrongs, or matters of that kind, come before it in order to see in some detail what reasonable people do, without giving it the actual force of law. That is the purpose of the code. It would be deprived of its function if the Amendment were passed.
I hope that, having had that explanation presented to the Committee in good faith, the noble Lord will think it right not to press this Amendment. We are not asking for a blank cheque. We are not creating by the code any new offence. On the contrary, it is a weapon of defence, a shield just as much as it is a spear, and it is applicable to the employer every bit as much as to the trade union. In each case the court will be able to draw the inferences from unreasonable behaviour, whichever side has been guilty of it. It is the very opposite of what the noble Lord thought; the opposite of a legally enforceable code, part of the law. It is, on the contrary, a guide to reasonable conduct of the kind that the Highway Code has already proved such a success in another field.
6.35 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL: Unfortunately I did not hear the whole of my noble friend's argument, but I know what is in his mind. Would the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, not agree with me that he has not really given the whole picture, which my noble friend has in mind, and which causes him the anxiety which he has expressed. The noble and learned Lord drew an analogy from the Highway Code. The Highway Code contains certain directions and recommendations, and specifies certain desirable practices. If proceedings, either in a civil court or in a criminal court, are instituted against a motorist, and it is demonstrated that he has transgressed any of the directions or prohibitions in the Highway Code, supposing there is no obvious explanation as to why he came to transgress that particular requirement in the Code, it is normally the case that the court comes to the conclusion that he was guilty of blame in a civil sense, or that he was guilty of the crinimal offence with which he is charged.
I know that what makes my noble friend anxious is this: we do not know what those prohibitions, recommendations or lines of guidance will be when they ultimately find their way into the code of conduct. There is a controversy between the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, about the number of unfair industrial practices which are created by this Act. My arithmetic was much closer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, than to the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor. But never mind who is right. Supposing one takes an example.
The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, referred to Clauses 92 to 94. Clause 94 contains a wording which creates an unfair industrial practice in the case of any person, that is to say a registered or unregistered trade union, or any person enacting on behalf of either a registered or unregistered trade union, or any person acting on nobody's behalf if, in contemplation or furtherance of an industrial dispute, he takes certain steps involving a person who is an extraneous party in relation to that industrial dispute. Nobody knows so far whether the code of practice will have any impact, either directly or by implication, upon
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the form of that unfair industrial practice.
We are going along, taking the necessary steps to enact the various clauses of this Bill, including this crucial Clause 4, without knowing, for example, in relation to Clause 94 what may be the effect of the code of practice. For all we know when it makes its appearance it may have a direct relevance to Clause 94, and if it is asserted against any person that he took the steps described in Clause 94 reference may be made to some provision in the code of practice, the form of which we have no idea at the moment, and it may produce the result that a person who otherwise would escape from the consequences of Clause 94 (1), and be able to establish that he was not within his toils, because of the application of the code of practice, he may find himself directly involved in liability for a substantial sum of compensation.
It is in those circumstances that my noble friend has drawn the attention of the Committee to this particular wording in Clause 4; and if I may respectfully submit to the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, it really is not an adequate answer to my noble friend's anxieties to say, "Oh, well, this is just like the Highway Code that we know all about, which has its application in an extremely simple context, which everybody can understand; its parlance is simple, and conformity with its practice is something which every motorist has in mind every five minutes of the day that he sits in his motor car."
The context we are discussing is really a hundred miles away from that. We have a highly complex system of new, unfair industrial practices which have hitherto in no comparable form ever made their appearance in any Statute that we have ever had to consider; they are very large in number; we do not know what the code of practice is going to be, and we have not the remotest idea what changes in effect—because that is what it comes to—the wording of that code of practice may bring about in the clauses which we have to administer later, if and when this Bill becomes law.
I submit to the noble and learned Lord that, if we are going to pass Clause 4, we should do so in the full knowledge

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of what is involved. When we see the code of practice we may find that when we have to apply the provisions of these later clauses, of which I have given an example, the result which will emerge on a given state of facts, if we simply look at the wording of Clause 94 by itself, will be quite different from the result which will emerge if we apply in relation to Clause 94 the provisions of this unknown code which have to be taken into account by the court; and which, if there is transgression against the provisions which is unexplained, presumably will produce a liability which the actual wording of Clause 94, without the application of the code of practice, would not produce. I should have thought that that was a very undesirable situation in which the Committee is asked to pass the provisions of Clause 4 as they stand.
I think—and I hope that the noble and learned Lord will agree with me—that what I have ventured to add to his explanation is correct. We are all very grateful for his explanation, which was graphic and vivid and coloured by phrases which we delight to hear from him, over and over again; but, while we are grateful to him for that, I submit with respect that it was rather woefully incomplete, and I hope he will adopt my additions, at any rate as completing an insufficient account of the situation with which we have to deal.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: May I add one or two sentences in this debate? I think it is not only confusing for us here to compare the Highway Code with this prospective code of practice, I think it adds suspicion. It is almost an insult to compare the Highway Code with what is going to be a code of practice in such an area as industrial relations, such a vast area involving so many human attitudes, so many complexities. It not only confuses us, but makes us suspicious of the intentions of the Government. It is no help at all continually to compare what this code of practice is going to be with the Highway Code.
6.44 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND: I was going to suggest that perhaps the noble and learned Lord would wish to reply to some further questions I have to put to him at the same time as he replies to others. If it is convenient to the Committee, perhaps
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I might intervene at this stage and pick up what my noble friend Lord Stow Hill—I was wondering whether he is still a "learned" noble friend, but I gather not—
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Not "learned" in this House.
LORD DIAMOND:—what my noble friend Lord Stow Hill said about the noble and learned Lord's explanation being woefully incomplete. I wanted to add to my sense of woe. But, first of all, it is only right that I should thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor both for the explanation he gave and for the fact, which I think is very material indeed, that he demonstrated by his presence what we are trying to prove throughout the discussions on this Bill: namely, that it is a legal tangle which any ordinary person cannot follow—indeed, most Members of your Lordships' House cannot follow it, judging by the discussion which has already taken place; and that we need, not a Minister in charge of the Bill to reply, but the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor himself. I repeat, it is a great courtesy of him to explain it, but I think it is was perfectly obvious that the kind of explanation he gave could have come only from somebody with the deep legal knowledge and experience of somebody such as the noble and learned Lord himself. That is indeed the first point I want to make about the whole of this legal framework to the Bill, evidenced by this particular Amendment which goes to the heart of it.
Indeed, if I wanted to add to that point, which I do not think I need do, one has only to refer to a problem which is of some little interest to an accountant such as myself; namely, do you add up the figures and arrive at 179, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, said, he being the Chairman of the Royal Commission and being, as I have indicated before, in my view, perhaps the most authoritative of your Lordships present on this particular field; or do we take the view of the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, and say that if you do your sum a different way it adds up to only 26; or do you take the view of my noble friend the ex-Attorney General, as well as being ex-Home Secretary, who has just given us his view, that

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it may well be that the figure is somewhere between the two, but he leans more towards the noble and learned Lord the Chairman of the Donovan Commission, rather than the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor?
I have had to attach my signature with the responsibility that goes whenever a chartered accountant attaches his signature to a sum, but I should not like, for any fee in the world, to give my professional view on what the answer to that particular sum is. We are again in a situation—although I have always previously been perfectly prepared to accept the authority of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan—where it is necessary for the Lord Chancellor himself to explain the meaning of a particular part of a particular clause of this Bill, and where we have a wide difference on what ought to be a perfectly simple matter of addition.
May I now turn to some of the things the noble and learned Lord said, supporting his case—which did not go to the heart of his case but with which he supported his case—because unless I do, and unless I make clear to him the vast difference in approach between what he said and what we feel and believe on this side, he will not be able to direct his mind to the real anxieties which we have. The first thing he said—and my noble friend Lady Gaitskell picked on it with her usual capacity for going to the heart of a difficult and troublesome matter—was that a good analogy (I think that is what the noble and learned Lord said, a good analogy) was the Highway Code. I cannot accept that. We are always in difficulty in arguing by analogy, but I cannot accept that that summons up in our minds a kind of picture which is reliable. The Highway Code, as has already been said, is a matter of simplicity—such simplicity that it is capable of being understood by children, and indeed is being altered in respect of that part which applies to children at this very moment.
Secondly, it is not a formulation of a new pattern of behaviour to which it is hoped both sides of industry will subscribe in the future, and to which no doubt the best on both sides already do subscribe; but it is the description of existing practices which everyone knows,
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and without which nobody can even pass his driving test to start coming on to the road at all. Therefore it is a totally different matter, quite apart from its legal implications. We give ourselves no advantage by attempting to relate the two and saying that the code of practice is just as simple and as easy as the Highway Code; that any school child can understand it. Far from it!
The second thing I want to refer to, on which the noble and learned Lord commented, is the concept of the blank cheque. Again we are in the realm of analogy. I subscribe entirely to the point made by my noble friend Lord Blyton, that Clause 2 of this Bill is giving a blank cheque. We have passed Clause 2, which says that it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to prepare, in draft, a code of practice. We have passed that, and that means that the Secretary of State has to do that. Of course, nobody knows what is going to be in the code of practice. We have authorised the Secretary of State to prepare it. As I understand it, we cannot now go back on that clause and say that if we do not like the contents of the code of practice we shall not have a code of practice at all. We cannot say that. We are committed to a code of practice. So far as I can see, that is the same thing as giving blank authority or, for convenience of description, a blank cheque. That is the situation we are in. I want to move from there to indicate why I do not think the explanation given by the noble and learned Lord was at all adequate. It has not removed our anxieties. I hope that he will reply to the point put by my noble friend Lord Stow Hill, as well as attempting to deal more fully with the debate and with what my noble friend and I are both saying.
The second of the difficulties here is that there are words used which we cannot relate to our experience of the Highway Code, because this Bill is not truly analogous, as I have explained, to the Transport Act to which the noble and learned Lord referred. I am advised that the words "of itself" must mean something. Of course, if the noble and learned Lord says I am wrong, that they mean nothing, then I shall be utterly delighted and invite him immediately to remove superflous words from the clause. But if they mean something, as I am advised they do, they mean that, although a failure of itself cannot render a man liable

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to any proceedings, two failures or three failures or four failures, by implication, would. That is what I am advised. It is not for me to read statutes and offer comment to your Lordships' House as to what they mean. I have taken advice, and that is what I am advised those words mean. If they have any meaning, they can, as my noble friend Lord Blyton suggested, have that effect by implication. Secondly, they have the effect which my noble friend Lord Stow Hill made absolutely clear with regard to a later clause in the Bill. Therefore there is no need for me to add to that.
Although I recognise immediately that the Highivay Code is related to proceedings which could be criminal, and this Bill is related to proceedings which are, I would say, quasi-criminal—that is, not criminal, and therefore civil—nevertheless the clear transgression of the code of practice would be a relevant consideration in proceedings brought under any part of the Bill and, therefore, would affect the amount of damages. The amount of damages in the case of an unregistered union would be unlimited. The damages may be damages on an individual. If an individual does not pay, and if the court is satisfied that he can and should pay the damages, it can send him to prison for contempt of court. So the distinction is not all that great. We are back again in the situation that these words produce a position in which, clearly, an individual may be prejudiced in relation to other proceedings under the Act and may at the end of the day find himself in prison.
The real objection we have is one of principle. The noble and learned Lord said that this weapon is a shield as well as a spear. The noble Lord looked upon it as a weapon in the warfare between the two sides which we seek to eliminate. We want no kind of warfare at all; we want industrial co-operation, and we do not believe that spears or shields are relevant. We are not seeking the protection of this kind of legislation for industrial employees against industrial employers. We would rather have none of it and go by co-operation.
The noble and learned Lord said that the code of practice is an aid to justice. We look upon the code of practice as being an aid to co-operation, not an aid to justice, in the sense of what one gets after going through a variety of courts,
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and finally at the end of the day getting the final answer, wherever that may be. I am bound to say to the noble and learned Lord that we are far from satisfied on this point. There is no need for me to say any more than that, because the noble and learned Lord has indicated that he is about to get up and offer us the benefit of his further advice.
However, before I sit down, I am bound to say, in relation to what one of my noble friends, Lord Stow Hill, very wisely said, that we are dealing with the legal effects of a code which we have not seen. Clause 4 is very material to that point, and I am bound to say to those in charge of our proceedings in this place that it is almost inevitable that when we see the code of practice we may feel bound to ask your Lordships to reconsider this code in the light of that knowledge, not in the light of some supposition of what we think is in it and what they think is in it when nobody knows what is in it. Therefore on Clause 4 we would wish to seek advice on recommittal, and I say no more than that at that point. I should be grateful to the noble and learned Lord if he would help to remove our anxieties.
6.59 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The truth is that if one starts with a proposition that one is going to use emotional language like insult where no insult is intended, or woe where there is no ground for any woe, or suspicion where the obvious intention is as open as it can be, it is rather difficult to conduct a debate at all. The fact is that none of the suspicions which the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, asserted in general terms is justified. There is no insult to anybody in introducing language which has been on the Statute Book for 40 years. I ventured to refer to the Highway Code because I was speaking to the Amendment. We have dealt with the code of practice for nearly a week now. Its genesis is the consultation which will precede it, the opportunities for Parliamentary discussion. I had rather hoped that some of the discussions which we have had during the past week might have sunk in. Therefore I repeated them. I was speaking to the Amendment, and only to the Amendment, which is to leave out "of itself". It was an Amendment of a legal kind and I spoke to it.

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I said, in explanation of why I thought the Amendment was based upon a misunderstanding, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, that the Highway Code in the Road Traffic Act was not a bad analogy. I meant what I said. The fact is that it is not only an analogy, but the very words which are in Clause 4 are in the Road Traffic Act in this context, and it has given rise to none of the anxieties which noble Lords opposite have expressed in relation to this code of practice. When the noble Lord says that he wants the code of practice to be a code of co-operation we should all agree. We do not want it to be used in legal proceedings because we hope that there will be no legal proceedings. We do not want it to be used as a weapon of warfare because we do not want there to be any warfare. But the fact of the matter is that the Bill as it is drafted explains the circumstances in which it can be used as evidence or by way of argument in legal proceedings. It was in that context and in no other that the Amendment was proposed, and it was in that context and in no other that I was referring to it. So much for that point.
The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has hit upon rather an ingenious device. Because the Lord Chancellor gets up to speak on the direct invitation of a noble Lord opposite and is asked to play the kind of role played by the Solicitor General in another place and to give advice on matters of legal proceedings, the noble Lord said "Well, that proves it is a legal Bill". That is the sort of argument which we are faced with in this Committee. If we do not speak then it appears to be the case as the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, last week said, that all the words of a Statute and their meaning are necessarily legal points because it falls to a court to construe them and therefore the Lord Chancellor ought to speak on every clause. But if, after seven days' debate the Lord Chancellor ventures for the first time to reply to an Amendment which has directly to do with the legal effect in a court of law then that is said to prove that the whole Bill is a legal Bill. That is the standard which the Opposition are putting up in our rather protracted discussions; but the fact is that I intervened because this was a legal Amendment and because it
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was introduced with the object of affecting the law. It seems to me that after seven days I am at least justified in saying that the fact I have only spoken once shows that it was not a legal Bill at all, but I will not descend to that level of debate.
Let me now deal with one or two of the last observations of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, before I proceed to the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill. Of course the words "of itself" mean something. They mean exactly what they have meant for 40 years since they appeared in the Road Traffic Act, and if the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, thinks that what they mean in the Road Traffic Act is that if there are three breaches of the Highway Code that constitutes an offence—and he said he was advised that such was the case—it seems to me to be pretty peculiar advice because it is not the case at all. As I tried to explain in my first speech, it means that although not keeping your vehicle in good condition does not of itself render you liable to somebody else, if somebody can show that he has suffered personal injuries as a result of your vehicle being in bad condition—for instance, by not having properly maintained brakes, that in conjunction with the whole context may render you liable. Equally, if a person does not stop at the kerb and look both ways before running out into the road and he brings an action for damages, that fact may be referred to, although not in itself either a ground of liability or defence. It may be referred to by either side as giving some grounds why that person should be debarred from receiving the whole or some part of his compensation.
LORD POPPLEWELL: The noble and learned Lord refers to the question of motoring offences and unfit brakes. That of course would carry an endorsement. Two endorsements are totted up and, on the third endorsement, his driving licence would be taken away. Is there anything in the Bill which is comparable to the analogy being put forward by the noble and learned Lord?
Tim LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Lord is not following the argument. The fact is that there is a certain offence under the Road Traffic Act of having unfit brakes. I think it is under the

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Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations, but, as I said in my opening remarks, there is nothing in the code of practice which by itself can constitute an unfair industrial practice, or anything else, and I hoped that by this time this would be absolutely plain.
The noble Lord also said that at the end of the day these breaches would land a man in gaol. So far as I can see, that simply cannot happen under this Bill. We are abolishing imprisonment for debt, so far as I know, before the Bill is likely to come into force, under the implementation of the Report of the Payne Committee. I am speaking now without having checked the Bill for this purpose and therefore I may be in error, but I think not; no other sentence of imprisonment can be imposed except for a deliberate disobedience of an order of the court, at which stage the code of industrial practice would be neither here nor there.
I do not want to pursue analogies beyond what they will bear, and I have explained exactly the context in which I was using the analogy of the Road Traffic Act. I was using it because exactly the same phrase which the Amendment seeks to omit is used, and has been used for 40 years, in that Act, but the analogy is capable of wider application. It is of course true that a child and a novice motorist are supposed to learn bits of the Highway Code: the child should learn the part referring to pedestrians, and the motorist the use of a motor vehicle on the roads. But the same is true of industrial relations, except of course that children do not usually take part in collective bargaining. The code of industrial practice will have to be studied by people who want to take part in collective bargaining. They will want to know what are the best practices which already exist. I was interested to note that the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, expressly pointed out that in almost every case the code of industrial practice will in fact reflect the best practices of trade union officials and trade unions on the one side and of employers on the other. That is exactly what an employer who is perhaps not quite so experienced, or the union official who has not got the experience of some noble Lords here, will want to study so as to attune his own practice to that of the best.
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I do not want to go back over the analogy of the blank cheque. That was not my analogy. That was the analogy of the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, and it is a bad analogy. We have already explained why. There is no cheque being signed by this Bill in relation to the code of industrial practice. In fact, the Secretary of State is being asked to write a cheque at a future date, and if we sign it it will be signed by Parliament and not by the Secretary of State. So if the analogy were a good one it would prove exactly the opposite of what the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, sought to achieve.
LORD SLATER: Is the noble and learned Lord not getting off the track? This Industrial Relations Bill seeks to take under control the relationship of workpeople and management within this country by drafting a law of the land. At the moment we are free people; we are free within industry; we are free to negotiate wages and conditions. But under this Bill legal sanctions are to be imposed by the Government against people who work in industry. The noble and learned Lord is getting off the track in regard to his own Bill.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I disagree with almost every word of that, but as it has no relevance to the point I was desiring to make, perhaps I may be allowed to pursue the point I was actually making, and I will come, if I may, to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill. The noble Lord, after having complained that my analogy with the Road Traffic Act was a false one—a point with which I think I have dealt adequately—then proceeded to try to draw some comfort for his noble friend Lord Blyton from the terms of Clause 94 of the Bill. Of course we shall discuss Clause 94 when we come to it, but I must say that if I had been trying to select a clause in the Bill which was inappropriate to the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, he could hardly have selected a better one for my purpose. To begin with, the clause is in itself a clause which deals with a situation already against the law of tort as the law stands unamended, without this Bill at all. If he will refer to the recent Torquay case or the Stratford v. Lindley case, he will see that in the main that is what Clause 94 is dealing with, and in fact all he is doing—although we will discuss it in greater

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detail when we get there—is to transfer Stratford v. Lindley and the Torquay v Cousins cases from the ordinary courts of law to the new industrial tribunal under the title of the code of unfair industrial practice.
LORD GARDINER: If I may—
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If the noble and learned Lord will allow me to conclude this point I will gladly give way. The noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, says that he does not know what is in the code of industrial practice, which, within the severe limits which I have pointed out, is true. But what he did not say was that it is quite clear that the extraneous party who is referred to in Clause 94 of the Bill is defined most precisely by subsection (2) of that clause, and, therefore, whatever is in the code of industrial practice, it is plain enough from the clause we are now discussing—and Clause 94, which the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, was discussing—that the code of industrial practice, whatever it contains, cannot override subsection (2) of that clause. I am sorry to have kept the noble and learned Lord waiting, but he will understand that I wanted to conclude that point.
LORD GARDINER: I understand that the noble and learned Lord's point in regard to Clauses 92 to 94 is that to induce a breach of contract is actionable anyhow by our law.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: No; the noble and learned Lord is quite wrong. I was dealing with Clause 94 as the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, was dealing with it, the introduction of extraneous parties in furtherance of a trade dispute, and that is the Stratford v. Lindley and Torquay v. Cousins state. I did not mention Clause 92 at all, because the clause to which Lord Stow Hill was referring was Clause 94. I was dealing with that in isolation. No doubt we can deal with t he other clauses at some stage when we reach them.
LORD GARDINER: With great respect, even that is not so, is it, because our present law in this field is subject to a defence of justification; it is only wrong to induce breach of contract if there is no justification. For some reason that I have never understood, this ordinary defence which everybody has at
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present is not in the Bill at all. The noble and learned Lord may remember that the leading case of justification was Brimlow v. Casson when the defendant, then Mr. Dennis Casson, was appearing for Actors' Equity, and induced chorus girls to break their contracts with the management on the ground that they were being paid so little that they were being driven to prostitution, and his defence of justification succeeded. I think I am right in saying that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, pointed out on Second Reading that this was one of our surprises, that the defence of justification appears to be removed and is not there in the Bill.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think the noble and learned Lord has wholly missed the point. I am not sure whether he was here when the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, spoke. If he will recollect the noble Lord's point, which was the only point I was dealing with and the only point relevant to this Amendment, although much of what the noble and learned Lord says might be germane to those clauses when we come to them, Lord Stow Hill's point was that we were discussing here the code of industrial practice alone, and he sought to give an example from Clause 94 as to why the words "of itself" and the other words should be omitted from that clause. So far as I know, the presence or absence of the defence of justification, across the board, to unfair industrial practices has no relevance that I can see to that particular point. Obviously, if the noble Lord wants to raise the point, it would provide an interesting debate at a later stage of the Bill. But I was solely concerned with answering the questions which the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, and the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, had raised. At the end of the day, I would submit that there really is nothing left for me to answer. This is a method of approach to a code of good ethics which has been tried in one field and found successful and which we are seeking to introduce into another.
I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Load Diamond, that one hopes that it will be followed irrespective of any legal proceedings, because the object is to provide a code of good behaviour in order

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to avoid legal proceedings and not to incur them. But the clause also provides, as the Highway Code does, that if by any mischance, human nature being what it is, legal proceedings result, either by a trade union or by an employer, then the bad behaviour under the code can be referred to if and in so far as it is relevant to the issue which has to be tried. That it seems to me, is something which the Committee ought to adopt and to which we at any rate attach importance. Therefore, although I have done my very best to explain to noble Lords that their suspicions are wholly unfounded, if the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, does not in fact see fit to withdraw his Amendment (which I still hope he will because I have tried to answer the arguments in a reasonable spirit), I shall ask my noble friends to vote against it.
7.20 p.m.
Lotto DAVIES OF LEEK: I am sorry to be persistent about this, but this is a point of relevance and of some moment to democracy. We are being asked—despite the brilliance of the legal argument (I do not pretend to be able to contend with legality, but I want to follow the meaning of words) to agree to something—and we have even gone up to Clause 92 and Clause 94, which I have read, which has torts and offences in it, and wrongs which can result in some cases in imprisonment and fines. What Clause 4 says is:
"any such code of practice shall be admissible in evidence"—
We do not know what the code is, but we are agreeing to-day that it will be admitted in evidence. Secondly, we agree in (b):
"any provision of such a code of practice which appears … relevant"—
I am omitting words to make for clarity,
"to any question … by the Court or tribunal in determining that question."
In determining what question? In determining the question whether proceedings shall be taken. So far as I am concerned, despite listening to all the legal arguments, this Committee is being asked to agree to certain phraseology that implies that we are making it possible for a member of a trade union to have action taken against, him by reason of something in a code of which we know
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nothing. In addition, I consider that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has no right to make legal statements if he, himself, does not know what is in the code.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: As the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor referred to my intervention, may I explain that I did not use the word "insult" in any emotive sense at all. I used it in an intellectual context. To compare the Highway Code with the industrial code of practice seems to me absolutely ridiculous, because they have nothing in common, apart from the word "code". That is what I meant. I did not use the word "insult" in any emotive sense.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I shall try to remember that the next time I use the word myself. I should ask the noble Baroness to remember that Section 74 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, provides in these words:
"A failure on the part of a person to observe a provision of the Highway Code shall not of itself render that person liable to criminal proceedings of any kind, but any such failure may in any proceedings (whether civil or criminal, and including proceedings for an offence under this Act) be relied upon by any party to the proceedings as tending to establish or to negative any liability which is in question in those proceedings."
I was referring to it—whether by way of insult in a non-emotive sense or otherwise—as simply being the answer to the Amendment in question.
7.23 p.m.
LORD POPPLEWELL: The noble and learned Lord draws attention to the Highway Code. We have no knowledge of this code; it has not been debated by Parliament, but is simply brought before Parliament and we are told that we have to accept it, and there is no opportunity of amending it. Looking at society today, and in particular industrial relations, surely that is not the way to do it. Nothing has been attempted on the other side by way of reference to malpractices in industry to justify bringing industrial relations under legal jurisdiction in this fashion.
The noble and learned Lord referred to the Highway Code and "unfit brakes". In the Highway Code there are various offences that carry endorsement of a licence, and ultimately disqualification. The noble and learned

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Lord mentions "of itself" as being in the Highway Code. If someone was prosecuted, or brought before the N.I.R.C. for offences, would it be possible for any penalties awarded to be totalled up, as in the Highway Code? These are important matters which should be fully discussed in Parliament before any question of a code of practice, which we are not able to debate, and not able to amend, is thrust upon us. We are entitled to some kind of information on this aspect.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will try to answer. There is no totting up in this Bill at all, and there cannot be under the code of practice. The second proposition is that there is no totting up in the Highway Code either; it exists solely in offences scheduled to the Road Traffic Act itself. In so far as there is an analogy to that extent—and I think that is exactly the point at which the analogy breaks down—that is paralleled by the fact that the only unfair industrial practices are also in the Bill, and cannot be in the code.
LORD POPPLEWELL: It was your own reference to "unfit brakes".
LORD BERNSTEIN: Can I address myself to the non-legal members of your Lordships' House? The legal arguments were fascinating, especially for those of us who saw in the Bill a new exercise, and perhaps a new revenue for lawyers. I suggested earlier that Clause 3 might lead to the courts. My noble friend, Lord Diamond, made the same point. It seems to me that we are back to square one, where we started last week.
Let us say it is not a legal Bill. Let us say it is a Bill which has legal implications. Let us consider these implications. We have had three eminent lawyers offering views. Which of those views do laymen accept? The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor had a variety of defences to the clause. May I tell you a story?—no insult to the noble and learned Lord. Some of my best friends are lawyers. Vicky told me this after listening to a long speech at a conference. I asked him his view of it. He said that it reminded him of a Hungarian meeting another Hungarian in Budapest. One said to the other. "Can you find me a one-armed lawyer?" His friend replied. "I know international lawyers, criminal
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lawyers, chancery lawyers, but not a one-handed lawyer. Why?" He said, "I have been involved in legal troubles for a long time. I go to lawyers and they say 'On one hand this, and on the other hand, that'." That is how all this argument sounded to me.
LORD DIAMOND: I think that none of your Lordships will envy me my present position of having to recommend to my noble friend Lord Blyton, in the light of this very difficult debate, what would be the most helpful course to take. I have long since learned that when, as a layman, one is dealing with matters which are of considerable legal impact and complexity, one is very ill-advised to jump to a conclusion immediately, especially where there is a conflict of legal advice. Therefore. I am not anxious to invite my noble friend to press this to a Division at this moment, as I would be doing if we were all absolutely certain what the position is.
Secondly, I am bound to say to your Lordships that I think we are making ourselves look simply ridiculous by having all this difficulty (even though we are assisted by the finest legal brains in the country) which centres on a procedural matter; namely, that we are being asked to give views which must have relevance to a particular document which is not before us. I cannot imagine in any other walk of life anybody being prepared in these circumstances to make the responsible statements that should be made—certainly by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, and all those who are engaged in the legal profession—on this issue.
For those two reasons. I think we should be far more sensible to consider very carefully what has been said—I shall certainly need to take further advice—from the legal point of view, and to wait until we have the code of industrial practice, which I am sure we will have by the time we come to the Report stage, and at that point seek to have this clause recommitted so that we can reconsider this Amendment in the light of some established fact, instead of all of us wandering in the dark and making ourselves look less than responsible to the outside world. For those reasons, without asking for any undertaking as to procedure (because I know it is not

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the time to give that undertaking) I am going to ask my noble friend not to press this particular Amendment to a Division at this point in time.
LORD BLYTON: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DIAMOND: It is not for me to say, but I understood it was your Lordships' desire that we should at this point of time move on to other business. I have therefore kept my remarks as short as I can, to be not too long after 7 o'clock.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: I was not absolutely sure whether the noble Lord wished to have a further discussion on the next Amendment.
LORD DIAMOND: I am only too ready to discuss the next Amendment, and whether the clause shall stand part, which is the further Question to follow that; but both will be substantial discussions.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I thought Amendment No. 21 was really part of No. 20. I thought it was part of the same Amendment, and that Amendment No. 20 was paving the way to No. 21.
LORD DIAMOND: No. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, but there is a different point of view and a matter of very considerable substance, and we do not need to be assisted, if I may say so, to the extent we have been assisted so far, in coming to a conclusion on the next Amendment and on the Question, Whether the clause shall stand part.
House resumed.

DANGEROUS LITTER BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
BETTING, GAMING AND LOTTERIES (AMENDMENT) BILL
Returned from the Commons agreed to.
POWERS OF ATTORNEY BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.

UNSOLICITED GOODS AND SERVICES BILL
7.33 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD:My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Baroness Elliot of Harwood.)
Clause 1 [Rights of recipient of unsolicited goods]:
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 12, at end insert—
("(5) Paragraph (a) of subsection (2) of this section shall not apply if the sender can show that within the period therein stated the recipient has been served with a separate notice requesting him at the sender's expense to inform the sender whether or not the recipient ordered the goods and the recipient has not so informed the sender.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the first Amendment standing in my name. Noble Lords who are interested in this Bill may remember that at the last stage of the Bill I spoke in support of an Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. It became evident in the course of that debate that the Amendment as then framed by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, was not quite comprehensive enough, and that certain amendments needed to be made to it to meet quite genuine objections which had been brought forward during the Committee stage. At the same time, I was not at all happy to find myself, on a matter of consumer principle, speaking on a different side of the debate from the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, and other supporters of the consumer cause, because I myself had always until then counted myself—and, indeed, I still do—on that side. But on taking away and reading the debate, and after consulting with various people, I still came to the conclusion that we had not really had a satisfactory answer to the points of substance put forward

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by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and, to a lesser degree, by myself. I therefore put down this Amendment, which is a more complicated and more complex Amendment and which meets some of the points that were raised. I also prepared, and have in reserve, an even more complicated and complex Amendment which I was prepared to put before your Lordships on Third Reading, if necessary, to meet some other points which had been raised with me in private conversation and in various discussions on the Bill.
The argument behind this Amendment and behind the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, at Committee stage is that in fact to a degree unexpected by its proponents this Bill opens the door to an increase in fraud on mail order companies; and I am still convinced that, although the legal machinery is adequate for dealing with cases of fraud, nevertheless an Amendment to this Bill rather along the lines of that I have put forward, to make it quite clear to prospective committers of fraud that the way is not clear for them and that this Bill does not provide them with an open door to fraud, would be a great advantage, or would certainly be an advantage of some kind. I have, through the courtesy of the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, and other Members of your Lordships' House, had a very full discussion of this point with a number of people concerned—those who have been putting forward this Bill over quite a long time, and those who have been concerned to amend it. In the result, although I do not move from my position that I think the Amendment as put forward would be an advantage to the Bill, I must take into account the fact that a great number of people, and not only the proponents themselves, have come to the conclusion that if an Amendment such as I have put down, or the even more complicated one which I have in reserve for Third Reading, were to be added to the Bill, it would in fact detract considerably from the clearness of expression of what the Bill aims to achieve, and which it will to a certain extent achieve (and I certainly take this point) merely by being in existence rather more than by enforcement.
I apologise to your Lordships for detaining the House, but I thought your Lordships were entitled to an explanation of my actions. I also thought it was worthwhile publicly to say to the proponents of this Bill that I hope they will take seriously some of the points put forward when dealing with and thinking about other matters in this field. It is my intention, having made this statement, to ask your Lordships' leave to withdraw this Amendment, and not to move the second Amendment standing in my name. Having moved it, however, it is obviously up to any noble Lord who wishes to comment to do so. I merely say I hope that we may not detain your Lordships any longer, and as soon any anyone who feels they must speak has spoken. I will ask your Lordships' leave to withdraw the Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think we must get ourselves in order. Does the noble Lord beg to move? He has not yet done so.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHTTLEY: I was under the impression, my Lords, that I had done so at the beginning of my speech; but I do beg to move, yes.
LORD BROWN: My Lords, I rise merely to make the point that noble Lords on these Benches find these Amendments repugnant simply because they place in the hands of recipients of goods duties which should not be placed there. It is up to the senders of goods to look after themselves if they are so foolish as to have got themselves into a position where their past practices make it possible for people to perpetrate cheats upon them. I will not delay the House any longer: I merely say that I am gratified to hear that the noble Lord is going to withdraw these Amendments.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: In asking your Lordships' permission to withdraw, I must say that I think the noble Lord. Lord Brown, has greatly over-simplified a tremendously complicated point. But I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clase 3 [Directory entries]:
7.40 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 35, leave out from ("behalf") to ("before") in line 37, and insert ("an order complying with this section or a note complying with this section of his agreement to the charge and, in the case of a note of agreement to the charge").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, during the Second Reading debate noble Lords will recall that the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, moved certain Amendments to Clause 3, which deals with directory entries, the purpose of his Amendments being to ease the stringent demands of that clause in order to meet the needs of legitimate directory publishers who would otherwise be in some difficulties in the way of running their businesses if the clause were left unamended. There were certain deficiencies in the drafting of his Amendments, although everyone supported the spirit of them. I agreed to look at them again and to discuss the matter further. At that point, the noble Lord withdrew his Amendments. With the help of legal advisers I have drafted Clause 3 and with the permission of the House, as all the Amendments refer to the clause in toto, I should like to discuss all four of them.
Clause 3 of this Bill is aimed at putting to an end the activities of bogus directory publishers, who have, so we are told, made millions of pounds by extracting money by subterfuge from mainly small tradesmen for worthless entries in trade directories which do not exist, or are useless. There are many ways in which they operate, and I would not trouble the house with the details. Suffice it to say that the Bill deals with the evil of bogus directories by requiring details about the directory, and the cost of having an entry in it, to be disclosed to a person whose name is to appear in it, in advance, and by requiring that person to sign an order form, before he can be asked to pay anything for having his name in a directory. That is the way this clause works. But it has been pointed out that this gives rise to a difficulty for the publishers of legitimate trade directories, such as Kelly's, the Yellow Pages of the telephone directory, and such like. If they have to get a signed order for every entry in every case, they
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will have to go through the rigmarole laid down in this clause in every case, otherwise it would be illegal to ask for the cost of having an entry in their directory.
In the general run of cases they do not mind about this; that is to say, in those cases where they go to the small trader and ask him whether he would like to have his name in their directory, they perfectly accept the necessity there of going through the requirements laid down in this clause. The cases, however, which these Amendments I have put down are designed to cover are these. Where a man, say a builder, or an electrician, or the proprietor of a restaurant, takes the initiative himself and writes to a directory publisher—off his own bat, so to speak—asking to have his name included, it is suggested that it would be absurd to require that the directory publisher—and here, let me remind the House, we are thinking of the respectable directories, and not the bogus ones—to write back to the man who has already placed an order without being asked, and to require him to fill in a formal order complying with the stringent demands of this clause. In most cases, the builder, the electrician or the restaurateur, or whoever it is, would be very annoyed, having already placed his order for the directory entry, to have to confirm it in this formal way. Many of them will perhaps refuse to sign a complicated looking form in such cases, and would regard it as an annoyance.
These Amendments therefore allow an alternative way of placing a directory order. The essence of this alternative is described in Amendment No. 6, which adds several lines to the beginning of subsection (3) of Clause 3. Your Lordships will observe that what is to be allowed is an order for a directory entry:
"… made by means of an order form or other stationery belonging to the person to whom, or to whose trade or business, the entry is to relate and bearing, in print,"—
these are the important words, my Lords—
"the name and address (or one or more of the addresses) of that person".
So you will see that if the small trader writes a letter on his own printed note-paper and in that letter he places an order for a directory entry, that will suffice. That is the essence of what these Amendments achieve.
Noble Lords may wonder why we require that the order should have to be on printed notepaper. The answer is that we had to draw the line somewhere, and we consider that this is a suitable place to draw it. It will cover the majority of cases of those who place an order for a directory entry on their own accord. It will not cover a case where the small builder writes in on an ordinary piece of notepaper, with no printing on it. And I will not pretend that it will cover every situation or difficulty that the legitimate trade directory publishers may have to face. The Advertising Association, who were responsible for bringing to light the harshness of the provisions of this clause so far as the responsible directory publishers are concerned, and who sought the assistance of the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, at the Committee stage of this Bill to ameliorate the demands of the Bill, are, I am assured, content with this compromise, and those of us who have been involved in promoting this Bill are content also, content in the sense that we do not feel that by easing the stringent demands of this clause we have allowed a loophole to be created, which might be exploited by the bogus directory racketeers. We did, in fact, have some little anxiety at first that the effect of these Amendments might be to make things too easy for those bogus operators this clause is designed to drive out of business. Now, however, we are satisfied that this will not happen. I beg to move.
LORD BROWN: My Lords, we on this side of the House have admired the noble Baroness's continued support of measures which seek to protect the consumer. We believe that the Amendments now proposed will very satisfactorily tidy up the original clause of the Bill and are happy to support them.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 4.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 41, leave out from second ("of") to ("be") in line 42, and insert ("an order or note of agreement to the charge complying with this section").—(Baroness Elliot of Harwood.)
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 5.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 46, after ("that") insert ("the entry to which the charge relates, was ordered in accordance with this section or").—(Baroness Elliot of Harwood.)
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 6.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 1, at beginning insert ("for the purposes of subsection (1) above, an order for an entry in a directory must be made by means of an order form or other stationery belonging to the person to whom, or to whose trade or business, the entry is to relate and bearing, in print, the name and address (or one or more of the addresses) of that person; and").—(Baroness Elliot of Harwood.)

RATING BILL
7.49 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE (DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (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.)
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD JESSEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Extension of definition of "agricultural buildings" and "agricultural land" for purposes of derating in England and Wales]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 11, leave out ("or section") and insert (", (buildings occupied in connection with bee-keeping) or").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this whole Bill is to fulfil a pledge given in our Election Manifesto to exempt from rates those buildings used by farmers in connection with the production of food from their land. Amendments No. 1, 5 and 6, to which with the permission of the Committee I will speak

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at the same time, fulfil a further undertaking given in another place, and by me on Second Reading in this House, to include in that the production of honey.
There are something like 33,000 bee-keepers in England and Wales, and the great majority are amateurs and quite unworried by the effect of rates on their activities. But there are of the order of 330 enterpises in England and Wales, and 30 or 40 enterprises in Scotland, which are on a commercial scale, with over 40 colonies of bees in each enterprise. A unit of this size in a good year will yield a ton or more of honey. Many of these enterprises have buildings ancillary to the beehives which have as good a claim to exemption as those of any of the other kinds of agricultural farm buildings with which the Bill deals.
These bee farmers, in order to get exemption from rates need a separate clause of their own for two reasons. First, the insect world as a whole is not included in the definition of "livestock" in Clause 1(3), and we do not want to include "insects" just for the sake of the bees. Secondly, the buildings in which bees are kept, unlike the places where hens and pigs are kept, are not buildings but chattels. There are no primary beekeeping buildings to which the other buildings are ancillary, but we do want land occupied by buildings ancillary to bee farming, as well as the ancillary buildings themselves, to be exempt from rates, to correspond to land occupied by other buildings in the Bill.
Amendments Nos. 5 and 6, to which No. 1 is a paving Amendment, secure the exemption that is needed for the bee farmers of England, Scotland and Wales, and they do so in a way that leaves the main framework of the Bill in proper shape. If noble Lords in Committee agree, I propose, having moved this Amendment, to move Amendment No. 5 formally, subject to any questions noble Lords may care to raise either now or when that Amendment is reached. If noble Lords have questions relating especially to Scotland, they might care to address them to my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir when Amendment No. 6 is reached. I beg to move.
LORD BESWICK: I could not understand why the noble Lord, Lord Sand-ford, was so reluctant to start his explanation
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of these Amendments. At first I thought he had mislaid his notes, but then I realised that his embarrassment was due to the fact that this Bill was related to promises given at Election time, and I quite understand that the Government are still a little doubtful about the sort of posture which they adopted at that time in the course of getting votes. However, if they are going to give away a certain amount of the ratepayers' money—and that is what it amounts to—I quite agree there should be fairness as between one section of the community affected and another; and in so far as I personally have a great affection for the bee-keepers, I am prepared to support the Amendment.
7.55 p.m.
LORD FERRIER LORD FERRIER moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, leave out lines 23 and 24 and insert ("bird or fish kept for the production of food or wool or for the purpose of its use in the farming of land or the stocking or restocking of rivers, lakes or ponds.")
The noble Lord said: The intention of this Amendment is to introduce a system whereby agricultural exemption from rates shall apply to fish farming. My noble friend Lord Balerno made a reference to this subject in his speech on the Second Reading of the Bill, and if it is suggested that this amounts to a reversal of a decision taken in another place, it is not altogether so, because my Amendment makes no reference to furs and skins. However, in the very meagre references to fish farming during the debate in the other place there was no reference at all to fish for food. The very meagreness of the references in the debate suggest that the matter may have escaped the attention which I believe it deserves. Indeed, the Minister said:
"Generally speaking, fish is produced in buildings only for sporting purposes."
That was on April 7, at column 473 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of another place.
With respect, this is not altogether the case. There is also an implication that game fish—and these are what the Minister was obviously getting at—if caught for sport, do not find their way into the pot. My Amendment in the main is intended to refer to fish for food. Taking salmon, for instance, it is estimated that 80 per cent. of the country's

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whole catch is netted commercially in the estuaries. The actual figures for England and Wales, in terms of numbers of fish, are 81,600 netted and 16,100 taken by rod and line; that is for 1969. For the same year I have only the Scottish percentages, which are 11 per cent. taken by rod and line, and the balance by coastal and other engines, as I think they are called in the industry.
If exemption from rating is granted, then existing and future fish production by farming will be encouraged and many thousands of pounds' worth of development expenditure and know-how could be conserved for growth. To-day more than three-quarters of the nation's consumption of rainbow trout—and one sees them on the menus of a large number of hostelries up and down the country—are imported from various sources, including Denmark, of all places, and also from as far away as Japan. Only the balance is home produced. Perhaps some reference to salt water fish should have been made in my Amendment, because there is the development of breeding plaice in Argyll-shire, and recent work in the hatching and growing of lobsters and other crustacea in Sutherland. Fish farming for food is regarded as part of our economy—or it should be. These are developments which I believe should be encouraged and the present situation, with rating applied, is in a measure discouraging, and I can assure your Lordships that it may tend to stultify the efforts which a number of people interested in this matter are taking.
This brings me again to sport. I have never caught a salmon in my life: the wily trout is my particular quarry. It is well to remember that in the season over half-a-million anglers go fishing every weekend, and a proportion of these fish for game fish—very few for salmon. The most persistent and skilful fishers in Southern Scotland are the miners—or they used to be when there were more mines there. Angling is more than just a blood sport: it is a precious relaxation and anodine. The quarry goes into the pot. The existence of game fish, it is well to remember, is also a contribution to tourism. The Amendment, as your Lordships will appreciate, includes the word "restocking". One of the curses of pollution is the way in which entire stocks of fish in miles of river can be wiped out by detergent or sewage, or destroyed in
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a night by a chemical leak or an overturned oil tanker. Twice in the last four or five years the Upper Clyde has been devastated by washings from gravel pits. Without hatcheries and fish farms the stock could not be replaced for years.
I would make a final point about the stocking of salmon rivers. Thanks to the netting of thousands of tons of salmon in their ocean feeding grounds by the Danes, who have no salmon rivers themselves, the run of fish in all our rivers has fallen catastrophically. Hence the bitterness of my remarks about importing rainbow trout from Denmark. Restocking is urgently necessary. One individual to whom I spoke yesterday pointed out that we are being "penny wise and pound foolish" by rating hatcheries and perhaps driving them out of existence in consequence. A petty sum is involved. It is "pound foolish", because the absence of fish in a river reduces the rates paid by the riparian owners on their fishings. Most of the fish is netted in the estuaries anyway. I await the Minister's reply with great interest, more especially with reference to the main purpose of the Bill, which is:
"… to extend the present exemption from rates of agricultural land and buildings to buildings used for the keeping or breeding of livestock"
and so on. The Explanatory Memorandum contains no reference to extending the exemption to fish farms, and I urge the Government to give this favourable consideration. The Minister who is to reply will be speaking for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: Like my noble friend Lord Ferrier, I shall be interested to hear the Minister's reply about why fish should be excluded from the provisions of this Bill. I say that because for many years now Government agencies, supported by Government money, have been aptly employed in producing fish. The North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board has spent large sums of money on fish hatcheries and the provision of fry to be placed in the head waters of rivers and burns so that they may breed there and increase the stock. Fish farming has been going on, and great efforts have been made

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by the Hydro-Electric Board to ensure that these farms are successful by placing them in positions where they may benefit from the outflow of water from hydro-electric developments in the North of Scotland. My noble friend said something about lobsters. In Shetland and Orkney there are great undertakings producing lobsters which are flown twice a week to the Continent—I understand to Paris, in particular. So I cannot understand why fish should be excluded from this Bill. I shall await with interest the Minister's reply.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: I support this Amendment, and I do so on the grounds of merit and logic. As the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, said, fish farming is a new industry, and it is worthy of support. It is making an increasing contribution to our national food supply, particularly in respect of the rainbow trout farms. I was very sorry to read that in another place the Minister referred to "so-called fish farming". What did he mean by "so-called fish farming"? I call that derisive language in respect of an enterprise which deserves encouragement. It is a new industry and is contributing to the solution of our food problems. It is wrong to say that fish farming is not an industry. The majority of its products go to help to provide food for the nation.
There is an oyster farm in the South of England which covers one and a half acres of land, and it is typical of several which have been started in England and Scotland on similar lines for the production of oysters. I hope that one day we may get hack to the situation which obtained at the turn of the century when, it may interest your Lordships to know, one hundred million oysters were sold in Billingsgate market every year. These new forms of fish farming are being extended to crustacea; prawns, lobsters and crabs. It is a new and adventurous enterprise for Britain and deserves not derisive comment but great encouragement.
The definition of "livestock" in the Bills refers to:
"any mammal or bird kept for the production of food …".
I will not read any more. Poultry and buildings used for the production of poultry would be included. Pheasants can
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be reared under similar circumstances to poultry and some pheasants go direct to market. Others pass through a phase of sportsmanship before they finally reach the market. But you may say that basically pheasants are produced for food. As I read the Bill, a pheasant farm is exempted but a fish farm is not. That seems to me very illogical. I do not know whether my noble friend intends to press the Amendment. I hope that he will not, because I think it would need future legislation to bring in the fish farms. But I ask the Minister to accept the following propositions. First, that fish produced in fish farms are a valuable source of food. Secondly, that a young industry deserves support and not derision. Thirdly, that the present position between fish and bird is illogical, if the proposition I have put forward is correct. Fourthly, and most important, that the Government will consider this fish farming problem anew and possibly in a future legislative programme will consider inserting amending legislation so as to rectify what to-day we consider to be an anomaly.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: One important matter has been omitted by my noble friends. This is a new industry and its extension would help to stabilise the populations of villages in the Highlands and the North-West of Scotland. It is desperately important that the industry should be given every encouragement, because this is one of the few things in which we have a chance to interest young people. Every help should be given for that reason, if for no other.
8.10 p.m.
LORD BALERNO: I rise to support the Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Ferrier. I was the only one at the Committee stage to raise this point, and I did it in continuation of a campaign on behalf of fish and fish farming, which I have attempted to keep going for nearly the last seven years. I strongly support what my noble friend has said in support of the Amendment. From my experience over the years, I would say that it does not matter what Government is in power, there is some gremlin somewhere backstage who, whenever there is anything to do with fish, throws it out of the legislation and puts up all sorts of argument as to why fish should not get the attention they

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deserve. They actually managed to forbid the veterinary profession to attend to fish. It must be more than one gremlin, but there is something very subtle somewhere behind the scenes, and until that is beaten I am afraid that any efforts we make in this House for the benefit of fish farming are doomed to failure.
LORD SANDFORD: I hope that the Committee will not feel that fish have been under-rated in this Committee stage. I think they have had a great deal of consideration, and they certainly deserve it. I should like to assent to the propositions which the noble Earl, Lord Balfour put forward for the Government's agreement: fish is valuable food, those working to increase the production of such food deserve our support, and so on. The distinction in the Bill between fishes and birds does appear to be illogical, but I hope that in what I am going to say I will succeed in persuading the Committee that it is only in appearance. The fact of the matter is that we have a Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and there is a distinction, which is borne out in legislation, between agriculture on the one hand and fisheries on the other. Agriculture and agricultural buildings have been exempted from rates since 1929, and they have remained exempted ever since. What we are doing now in this small Bill is to modify the relevant rating legislation, to take account of modern trends and modern methods of farming. The trend, as noble Lords know, has been to a a larger scale and to more intensive methods. The same trends may well be at work in fresh-water fisheries and shell fish factories, but the circumstances are entirely different, because these enterprises and all the buildings associated with them have not ever, like agriculture and agricultural buildings, been exempt from rates. There is no legislation derating them, no legislation susceptible of the same sort of minor modification that we are making here in respect of agriculture and agricultural buildings.
The noble Lord's Amendment introduces an entirely new and fundamental proposition, that fisheries and various buildings associated with fisheries should
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now and henceforth be exempt from rates. I am not saying for a moment that that is not a proposition well worth debating, and the debate we have had, which has been mounted so ably by so many noble Lords, is an instance of how worth while it is debating it. But I submit to the Committee that it is not something which could be tacked on to a Bill which from the outset and in the Title is concerned with agricultural land and with agricultural buildings only.
LORD FERRIER: I am gratified by the noble Lord's reply. It is clear that the Government accept the importance of the message which my Amendment was trying to impart. If I may criticise his speech at all, he used the word "fisheries" whereas I specifically in my speech talked about fish farming. I think there is a very real difference there which is worth bearing in mind, and it is that which links it with the Department of Agriculture. It is an industry distinct really from fisheries, about which we shall hear more from the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, later.
In view of what the noble Lord has said, I seek your Lordships' permission to withdraw my Amendment, in the hope that as time goes on we may reach some way of going forward with this. Indeed, it even crossed my mind to talk of a Private Member's Bill, but I do not think, as this concerns rating and money, it would be suitable to originate such a Bill in this House. I therefore beg your Lordships' leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Livestock buildings]:
8.18 p.m.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME LORD NUNBURNHOLME moved Amendment No. 4.
Page 2, line 11, leave out ("the operations carried on") and insert ("keeping or breeding of livestock or dairying processes of milk processes of milk produced on the premises").
The noble Lord said: I did not move my first Amendment because Lord Sandford gave me a very full explanation why it was unnecessary, and I did not want to waste your Lordships' time. I

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do not like either of my Amendments, but I wanted to introduce an Amendment to cover the point I made on the Second Reading of the Bill. I could not get any support from the R.D.C. Association, so I put down these two Amendments. What I really want to know is how the rural district councils are going to make up the loss of revenue from these factory farms. In my opinion, some of the factory farms are legitimate; they are run by farmers for farmers, and there are some which are run by big business. But this five acres of land qualifying a factory to become a farmer to me seems absolutely ridiculous. What I should like Lord Sandford to tell us is how the rural district councils throughout England are going to make up their rates. I said in my first speech that the loss of revenue on an average is about 1 per cent., but in certain cases it is far more than that: in the case of somewhere in Lincolnshire there was a loss of revenue of about £30,000. I know that the Government supply 57½ per cent. towards local rates now and that in 1972–73 it will be 58 per cent. The loss of rates to the council will be about £1 million. I should like an assurance that the councils that lose a high proportion of their rates should have their money made up by the Government. I should be interested to hear the noble Lord's answer. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: I thank the noble Lord for setting out his case for an assurance which would help to allay his mind. Most of the authorities affected by the Bill, will be rural districts with rate products per head of population lower than the national average. They will therefore qualify for rate support grant. The loss of rate income which these authorities will suffer as a result of this Bill will consequently be largely made up by an increase in the resources element of the rate support grant. There are a few authorities not receiving a resources element grant. The loss of rate income will have to be made good in these cases by additional levies on ratepayers in their areas. But the loss of income involved varies from area to area, and it is generally very small. I hope that with that assurance the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: Before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask what about the case of Southwall R.D.C. in Nottinghamshire?
LORD SANDFORD: I would not be able to answer about the effect of this Bill on any one rural district authority without notice. If the noble Lord would like to correspond with me about particular cases I will certainly have them looked into.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: It is putting the rate up fourpence.
LORD BESWICK: Can I ask what this has to do with the promises made at Election time? What was said in the Southwall rural area of Nottinghamshire as to the effect of this?
LORD SANDFORD: As the noble Lord knows, I cannot enter into discussion about the effect on individual authorities. But I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
LORD SANDFORD: I beg to move Amendment No. 5.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
Buildings occupied in connection with bee-keeping
". A building, other than a dwelling, is an agricultural building by virtue of this section if—

(a) it is occupied by a person keeping bees and is used solely in connection with the keeping of those bees; and

(b) the same condition is satisfied as has to be satisfied under subsection (4) of section 2 of this Act for a building to be an agricultural building by virtue of that section."—(Lord Sandford.)

Clauses 3 and 4 agreed to.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: I beg to move Amendment No. 6.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 4, insert the following new clause:
Buildings occupied in connection with bee-keeping
". Notwithstanding anything in section 7(2) of the Act of 1956, a building (other than a dwelling-house)—

(a) which is occupied by a person keeping bees and which is used solely in connection with the keeping of those bees, and

(b) in respect of which the same condition is satisfied as has to be satisfied under subsection (5) of section 4 of this Act for a building used as mentioned in subsection (2)(a) or (b) of that section to be a building to which that section applies,

shall be treated as respects the year 1971–72 and subsequent years as agricultural lands and heritages for the purposes of section 7(3) of the Act of 1956."—(Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie.)
LORD BALERNO: May I briefly draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that apiculture is a part of agriculture. There are other forms of culture that are part of agriculture but this is really an historic moment when the bees should be remembered again. I think that the most historic event with the bees was during the last war, when the Prime Minister himself intervened to ensure that beekeepers were provided with sufficient sugar to see their bees through the winter. I think that we should take note of Parliament's continuing concern with bee-keeping at the present time.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Balerno for his remarks. I have to declare an interest, being myself a beekeeper on a small scale. I think that beekeeping is of great interest and of use to agriculture, particularly in pollination. I have not explained the Amendment more fully because its purpose—to derate buildings used for the production of honey—was so well explained by my noble friend, and therefore I moved it formally.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS BILL
8.27 p.m.
House again in Committee.
LORD DIAMOND LORD DIAMOND moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 3, line 22, leave out from first ("proceedings") to end of line 29.
The noble Lord said: Your Lordships will appreciate that the effect of accepting this Amendment would be that there would be no reference in Clause 4 to any of the courts or to the legal framework needed to give effect to legal decisions for enforcement. The clause would simply be left stating that the failure of any person to observe any provision of the code of practice for the time being in force would not of itself render him liable to any proceedings. We have had a full discussion of the impact of this clause, and that is one aspect of this Amendment. We are not satisfied with the clause as it stands. Indeed, there was a clear conflict of advice about whether breaches of the code of practice would be materially relevant in proceedings before the Industrial Court or industrial tribunal—by "materially relevant" I mean likely to affect the conclusion of the proceedings. That is one aspect, the aspect of scrutiny.
The other aspect is a much more fundamental one, which distinguishes the Amendment before us now from the previous Amendment—namely, that we are wholly opposed, in philosophy and in our approach to improving industrial relations, to the legal framework that will enable legal enforcement to take place. Accordingly, we are against proceedings before the Industrial Court or industrial tribunal because they will have reference to unfair industrial practices. Again we are in a position of not knowing precisely what the code of practice will provide. But the words in Clause 4(b) are:
"any provision of such a code of practice which appears to the Court or tribunal to be relevant shall be taken into account by the Court or tribunal in determining that question."
It is not only the question of relevance but also the question of the machinery, and I want to make it clear therefore that we are opposing this part of this clause, not only for the same reasons that we had anxiety under the earlier Amendment but

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also because we are quite clear here that these methods of improving industrial relations are likely to fail, the machinery is likely to be counter-productive, and it would be a great mistake to introduce it into this Part of the Bill. Although we should be in a better position to remove some of the uncertainty, once the code of practice is before us, nevertheless, even with a code of prcatice we shall not be likely to change our view as to whether proceedings before the Industrial Court and so on are the best method of doing what your Lordships' House seeks to do—namely, to find some means of improving industrial relations in this country. It is a major Amendment, but the arguments for it are those two, which are quite simple. I beg to move.
LORD POPPLEWELL: It is most difficult to deploy many more new arguments in opposing the Bill as it now stands, but there are some very important fundamental ones which I think bear some repetition. To establish this new legal procedure to industrial relations within industry the Bill embarks upon, as we all know, an entirely uncharted field. As this clause stands, it says specifically:
"this Act shall not of itself render him liable to any proceedings,"
and then the two paragraphs, (a) and (b), become operative. I questioned the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor in regard to court proceedings in connection with this, and I specifically mentioned the totting-up proceedings under the Road Traffic Act, and I was very pleased to hear him reply that no totting-up was to take place here. But the practice will operate, as in many other offences in a criminal court, that when an adjudicator has decided whether a case is proved or not proved, he will naturally ask if the case is proved, what is known; and although there is not a strict definition as operated under the totting-up procedure it at once comes out if a person has been guilty or otherwise of a previous offence.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: May I dispose of this point straight away?—the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, mentioned it on the last Amendment. So far as I can see, there is no basis in it at all. The analogy with criminal proceedings wholly fails. There cannot be
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any basis for discussing previous disputes in relation to the same party in civil proceedings after verdict arrived at. Nor, so far as I can see (though perhaps one of the lawyers on the other side will point out if I am wrong) can it affect in any way the quantum of damage. The quantum of damage is based on actual loss and not on previous record. The previous record is irrelevant to any other possible issue.
LORD POPPLEWELL: I am very pleased to hear what the noble and learned Lord says, but may I read again paragraph (b) of Clause 4? It says:
"any provision of such a code of practice which appears to the Court or tribunal to be relevant to any question arising in the proceedings shall be taken into account by the Court or tribunal in determining that question."
As I was saying, totting-up proceedings will not operate, but in proceedings in a criminal court, once the case is proved the question will be asked "What is known?", and the record will come out.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Reference to criminal proceedings has no bearing on this matter at all, nor could the analogy conceivably be drawn, so far as I am aware, in any proceedings which can arise under this Bill.
LORD POPPLEWELL: Then will the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor explain the words:
"shall be taken into account by the court or tribunal in determining the question."?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I had not realised that the noble Lord was going to cross-examine me, but the question the court will be determining is not the question of quantum or the question of order but the question of liability. I tried to explain this at very great length on the previous Amendment, but I will, if I have an opportunity of addressing the Committee, try to explain it again if the noble Lord is wholly unsatisfied. The analogy is simply that if you are charging a person, or a union, or an employers' association, or an employer, with an unfair industrial practice, or with failing to disclose some information or with breach of some other duty imposed by the Bill, the fact that he has disregarded the code of industrial practice may or may not but may, if relevant, be of assistance to the court in determining the question of liability. For instance, there is no general

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law to say that you must drive on the left of the road, but if in fact you are driving on the off-side of the road and an accident happens you may have to explain yourself.
LORD POPPLEWELL: Again I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, but I am still looking at the wording that is there. Let me repeat it:
"any provision of such a code of practice which appears to the Court or tribunal to be relevant to any question arising in the proceedings shall be taken into account by the Court or tribunal in determining that question."
The Lord Chancellor's mind appears pretty clear that this will not have any bearing on the case when the court has decided the case is proved. My suspicion on reading that paragraph is that once the case is proved the record may be asked for.
I hope that the Lord Chancellor will have another look at this point. If the clause is creating confusion like this, what is it going to do when it comes to being dealt with by both sides of industry which are not used to legal jargon but are used to the ordinary common sense application? I am certain that this will create a tremendous amount of confusion, therefore I sincerely hope that the Lord Chancellor will have another look at this, and that if he cannot do anything now he will give an assurance that at the Report stage he will make some reference to this. I am certain that this is a matter that needs clearing up considerably. We should hate to think that when a case is proved, when a decision is arrived at, only the bare record of what has happened is recorded. The circumstances that arise in unfair practice may be marginal or they may be great, but in a record that evidently will be produced there is no definition showing the seriousness or its nature, only the bare fact of conviction. This is how I read it. I hope I am wrong. Therefore it seems there is a possibility of inflicting a heavier punishment than would be done if it was just the actual offence. This I think needs clearing up. It is an ambiguity in the Bill which we find objectionable.
8.40 p.m.
LORD WILBERFORCE: I am wondering if the noble Lord the Lord Chancellor can confirm or otherwise my understanding
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of this clause on one point. He has given us by way of analogy the provisions of the Highway Code. The section which he read out says that any failure to comply with the Highway Code may be taken into account. So that if you are in breach of the Highway Code, that may be referred to, and it may be against you, although not conclusively. Am I right in thinking that this clause is much milder? It does not refer to "failure": it simply says that any provisions of the code may be taken into account.
It would seem, to my reading, that this enables the code to be taken into account either way. If you are in breach of the code it may be taken into account against you as in the Highway Code; but if you come along and wave the code and say: "I only did what it says in this code of practice which the Secretary of State has drawn up", that is in your favour, and should be so taken into account by the industrial court or the national tribunal. If that is so, it seems a much milder clause than that relating to the Highway Code, and seems to be something which really cannot be considered very objectionable whatever may be in the code. The code, when drafted, will include either the possibility of inculpation or the possibility of defence. I should be grateful if the noble and learned Lord could say whether my understanding in that sense is right or wrong.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: May I, while his words are fresh in my mind, reply immediately to the question posed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce? I think that his reading of the clause is entirely correct, and that it would be open to either a pursuer or a defender (if I may use the Scottish terms so as not to obscure the issue here) to refer to the performance of the code in due ritual in his favour under the terms of the clause. Perhaps I had overlooked that in my former observations, although it was very much in my mind—and it will be within the recollection of the Committee that it was in my mind—that one can use the code to defend what one had done either in civil proceedings or in criminal proceedings under the Road Traffic Act, or in proceedings under this Bill. I said that.
But I think the point that the noble and learned Lord has made is a valid one, and that there is this distinction

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between the Road Traffic Act and this Bill, in that the Road Traffic Act refers in terms to "failure" as being referable under the Act in legal proceedings, and this clause does not even go as far as that, and would on its wording entitle someone to draw attention to his performance of the obligations of the code. So I think the noble and learned Lord is completely right.
I do not know what I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell. I have done my best to reassure him. As he knows, we have served together in many places, and the last thing I want to do is to make him feel that I am not anxious in every way I can to remove his anxieties. But I think that the person who ought to have another look at the Bill—as he put it—is himself. He has committed himself in my hearing over the past week to one fantastic proposition after another of what the Bill contains, and yet it is always he who is asking the Government to have another look at the Bill. I implore him to have another look himself, because that is what is needed.
I may be wrong—and goodness knows how fallible I am!—but I promise him that, so far as I know, his fears are groundless. They could not be more plainly groundless than in his present attempt to draw far-fetched analogies between procedure on conviction for a criminal offence in assessing a penalty, and looking at a long record of previous offences, with which we are all painfully familiar, and a question of relevance under this clause. So far as I can see at the moment, even when one is considering the far more sophisticated question of quantum of compensation, to which the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, referred, it is either impossible, or at least extremely unlikely, that a breach of the code could be relevant.
The first question that one would have to decide in proceedings likely to arise under this clause is whether either a breach of duty, as in Clause 54, to which I referred earlier, or an unfair industrial practice had been committed by either side—and I did point out that there were more clauses dealing with unfair industrial practices by employers than by employees. The second question is what you are going to do about it? What you are going to do about it—and
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again I am speaking generally, because there are, as I said, quite a number of clauses to be considered—either consists of a declaration of right in an order to disclose information, for instance, or, especially in the case of unfair dismissal, an order for compensation.
When you come to look at Clause 111, the compensation clause, you will come to the conclusion I think—and certainly this is the intention—that compensation is an award of damages without a solatium for injured feelings that is to say, it is an award of damages based on actual loss. If I am wrong about that we will discuss it when we come to Clause 111. But there is no set of circumstances in which somebody will be hauled before a criminal tribunal, and a finger of scorn will be pointed and it will be said: "This is a terrible breach of the code." It does not work like that even in road traffic offences, and it certainly will not work like that in this context.
I now come to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. I must say that of all the points raised in this debate this one disappointed me most. We spent, I do not know how long, but a long time, discussing the deletion of the words "of itself" on the last amendment. All those advising me" All the King's horses and all the King's men"—could not think what the purpose of this Amendment was except as part of the last Amendment. The reason is rather a simple one when you come to think of it, because there would have been no purpose at all in spending all that time on the words "of itself" if what you were going to say at the end of the day was: "We do not care whether 'of itself' is in or out. We are against the whole thing." This is what the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has now said.
In other words, the whole of the last debate has been time wasted by the Committee, because the noble Lord now says in terms: "Whatever you do, whatever you say, Aunt Agatha is going to tell us it is not the way." This is not the way to conduct Parliamentary proceedings. If I had known that the noble Lord was going to say at the end of the day that the words "of itself" did not matter, but that what he was against was a more fundamental thing, namely, "We are wholly opposed to a structure which would enable legal enforcement to take place before the industrial tribunal" and

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the rest, I really would not have taken the time of the Committee in explaining what the words "of itself" mean. Not at all; he kept his cards closely pressed to his chest. Now he tells us that the whole of our time for the last hour and a half has been wasted. I find that very disappointing indeed.
I must say this to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, whose special pleading has been a great feature of this Committee to-day. He says that there has been a conflict of advice about the question as to whether a breach of the code of practice could be materially relevant. He says that that is a point of uncertainty, but we all know that there has been no conflict of advice about this. The noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, knows, the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill knows, the noble Lord, Lord Donovan and the noble Lord, Lord Wilberforce, know that a breach of the code of practice will be materially relevant in proceedings to the extent that the clause says, without any ambiguity at all, and which I have tried to explain about five times. There is no point there but now the cat is out of the bag and whatever we do or say Aunt Agatha will tell us it is not the way. I beg the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, to be more reasonable.
LORD ARCHIBALD: The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has told us that certain things are relevant to the code of practice. As we do not know what the code of practice is, could he define more particularly how these things are relevant to something we do not know?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have tried to explain that about six times, but I shall try again. The code of practice will have to be endorsed by both Houses of Parliament. It will have been exhaustively discussed by every conceivable body that may be interested. What is now proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, is that although it can be discussed before every conceivable body that may be relevant, although it will have been exhaustively debated in Parliament by both Houses, the one place where it cannot be referred to is the place which will enforce it—I mean in the sense which I have described where it is relevant to questions in actual practice;
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that is, the courts. If that is the proposition, I should think we have gone mad.
LORD DIAMOND: "Bonkers" would be more appropriate.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, it would.
8.53 p.m.
LORD DIAMOND: We are always stimulated and entertained by the helpful speeches of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. One would have thought, however, listening to his last speech when he was beginning to work himself up into the same state of mind and fluency we have known on former occasions, and even other places, that he had never taken part in a discussion in Committee on a Bill when in Opposition. One would have thought that he had never had to think about what would happen if a particular Amendment the Opposition put forward was not accepted. I assure your Lordships that it occasionally happens that the Government are not prepared to accept every single Amendment the Opposition put forward. Indeed, on this Bill the Government have not accepted outright any Amendment, although some could have been accepted without difficulty, and the noble Earl the Leader of the House made quite clear that he would have wished to have at least the first Amendment, I think it was, accepted if that could have expedited matters and put the House in a good humour.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): If the Amendment had been acceptable.
LORD DIAMOND: Well we all heard what the noble Earl said when he made his point. It was a very helpful comment, and to my mind I thought he was very wise in thinking of ways in which business could be expedited and made easier. These thoughts, I may say, are not shared by his noble and learned friend, who stimulates all of us into much more frequent and detailed explanatory speeches; but that is his responsibility.
I want to make it quite clear that not one word of the outburst we listened to with pleasure was at all relevant. I am assuming (and if I am wrong I shall be happy to apologise) that if this Amendment is pressed to a Division the noble

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and learned Lord will advise his noble friends to vote for the retention of this part of the clause and for the retention of the whole legal paraphernalia in the enforcement of agreements and so called good industrial relations. Because of that, one has to take into account what possibility of that remaining in the clause when one considers words such as "of itself". I repeat—and I hope that the noble and learned Lord will look at the words "of itself" again in this context—that we shall come back again to this clause and the words "of itself" on the assumption that the rest of this clause stands. One has to make an assumption, if one is in Opposition, of what the Government are likely to do. One would be stupid not to make such an assumption. We have to look at it from that point of view and with the benefit of the code of practice there. So I hope I have enlightened the noble and learned Lord as to why Oppositions sometimes assume that Governments stick to their form and do not accept every Amendment the Opposition puts forward.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Of course I am very familiar with the practice of Opposition. It is simply that one puts a more extreme Amendment first and a more moderate Amendment later, but the noble Lord has kept his bad wine to the last. He has put the more moderate Amendment first and then, finding it rejected, and not pressing it, he puts the more extreme Amendment afterwards.
That I regarded as preposterous in the literal sense of the word.
LORD DIAMOND: That is interesting. The Lord Chancellor has now changed his ground completely. He now objects to what we are doing in that we are moving from the major to the minor, instead of always from the minor to the major. I do not know which great composer he will call in aid to substantiate that point. I repeat, because this is serious and important, the reason I thought it right not to press the earlier Amendment to a Division. There is conflicting legal advice, and one requires to look at it again more carefully. There is lack of clarity. One would not know for certain what one was doing if one invited the House to divide and a certain result ensued because we had differing advice.
As to the second part, as I made absolutely clear we have the clearest possible view as to whether these last few lines from the word "proceedings" onward should remain in a Bill which seeks to improve industrial relations. We are satisfied that they would damage industrial relations, and we are satisfied from what the noble and learned Lord has said that he has no concept yet, in spite of speech after speech, of what we are really trying to achieve. So I can only advise the Committee to divide.
9.0 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 21) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 46; Not-Contents, 107.

CONTENTS

Archibald, L.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Popplewell, L.

Bacon, Bs.

Gardiner, L.

Rusholme, L.

Bernstein, L.

Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]

St. Davids, V.

Beswick, L.

Henderson, L.

Serota, B.

Blyton, L.

Heycock, L.

Shackleton, L.

Brockway, L.

Hoy, L.

Shinwell, L.

Brown, L.

Janner, L.

Slater, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Lindgren, L.

Snow, L.

Burntwood, L.

Llewelyn-Davies, L.

Stocks, Bs.

Champion, L.

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

Stow Hill, L.

Chorley, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Collison, L.

Maelor, L.

Walston, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Delacort-Smith, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

White, Bs.

Diamond, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Fiske, L.

Peddie, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Amory, V.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Balfour, E.

Belstead, L.

Airedale, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Allerton, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Bridgeman, V.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Glendevon, L.

Reading, M.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Reay, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Gowrie, E.

Redesdale, L.

Buchan, E.

Greenway, L.

Redmayne, L.

Burgh, L.

Grenfell, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Byers, L.

Hailes, L.

St. Helens, L.

Chesham, L.

Hailsham of St. Marylebone, L. (Lord Chancellor.)

St. Just, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Sandford, L.

Clwyd, L.

Hankey, L.

Sandys, L.

Colville of Culross, L.

Hanworth, V.

Savile, L.

Conesford, L.

Henley, L.

Selkirk, E.

Cottesloe, L.

Hives, L.

Selsdon, L.

Cowley, E.

Hood, V.

Sempill, Ly.

Craigavon, V.

Inglewood, L.

Sinclair of Cleeve, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Strathcarron, L.

Croft, L.

Kemsley, V.

Strathclyde, L.

Cromartie, E.

Killearn, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Kilmany, L.

De La Warr, E.

Latymer, L.

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Lauderdale, E.

Swaythling, L.

Derwent, L.

Lothian, M.

Tcviot, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Margadale, L.

Thomas, L.

Dudley, E.

Molson, L.

Townshend, M.

Ebbisham, L.

Monck, V.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Effingham, E.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Tweedsmuir of Bellhelvie, Bs.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Nucent of Guildford, L.

Verulam, E.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

O'Neill of the Main, L.

Vivian, L.

Essex, E.

Pender, L.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Falmouth, V.

Platt, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Ferrers, E.

Poole, L.

Westminster, D.

Gage, V.

Radnor, E.

Wigram, L.

Gisborough, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Windlesham, L.

Glasgow, E.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

9.9 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: We have listened carefully to this debate. Some of us may be wrong, and that is why we have asked for further advice. That is why some of us might have thought it worth while to move the Adjournment of the debate on this clause, or recommittal, while advice is obtained. The description of the clause says:
"Use of code of practice in proceedings under this Act."
I do not want a lawyer to tell me what "proceedings" means. It means that legal action can be taken under this Bill, no matter what anybody says. It has been said that the purpose of this Bill is to provide a legal framework for the unions. We know that, by trial and error over 150 years, a certain amount of legal framework has been set up. Nevertheless, what we have been discussing for a number of hours now—and I hope not frivolously, but in a sincere effort to arrive at certainty about the meaning of words in this Bill—are the implications of Clause 4. We have
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been talking about a code, and noble Lords—and noble and learned Lords—have used legal interpretations about a code of which they know nothing.
What is this code supposed to be doing? We have had references to the Highway Code, but, so far as I am concerned—I think I could pick up some of this from the Donovan Report—the object is to whittle down quite a lot the present powers of trade unions. The object is to exclude sympathetic strikes. The object, partly, is to exclude inter-union disputes. I presume—I do not know that the code will try to deal with these things. I consider that Clause 4 is the hinge of the whole Bill.
What worries me in looking at Part III of this Bill—I will not delay the Committee too long; I am trying to be very brief and sincere—on collective bargaining, is this. Presumably—I stand subject to correction—the code of practice will have an effect upon the meaning of collective bargaining—or will it? Will it have any relevance to Part VI, dealing with the National Industrial Relations Court and the industrial tribunals? It obviously will. Will it affect the Commission on Industrial Relations and the Industrial Arbitration Court? Will it have any

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meaning when a workman is considered to have done some wrong? There are powers in this Bill by which he will be fined, and if he cannot meet that fine pretty well everything, except his tools and his bed, can be sold under them. It is no good saying that he could not be imprisoned under this Bill after it becomes an Act. Ultimately he could.
All I want to know—and this whole Committee should know it—is whether this code of practice, referred to in Clause 4—from which deductions are to be made by the Industrial Court, and others who are to make decisions about torts—will be applied to these punitive measures that can be put upon trade unions or members of a trade union? In some cases the fine can be colossal. Will the code of practice make it clear that in Clause 3 we are dealing with registered trade unions and not unregistered trade unions? If it seems that we are being stupid in our understanding of legal phraseology it is because we are in exactly the same position as the learned and trained lawyers who have spoken in this House. They know no more about the code of practice than we do. I believe we had a right to try—because that is our function—to extract as much information as possible.
I will now sit down, so as not to be too wearying to the House, but I hope noble Lords will believe all of us when we say we are trying to get the information as clear as possible. We are now to vote on whether this Clause stand part, and I shall willingly go into the Lobby against it standing part, because it would have helped us if this Clause had for the present been withdrawn and brought forward again when we could have had a deeper explanation, or withdrawn until the code of practice is published.
9.17 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: The most striking feature of Ills debate on Part I of the Industrial Relations Bill is the remarkable silence from the opposite benches, apart from the occasional interjection which appeared to have little relevance to the debate. What was still more remarkable to me, as a comparative newcomer to this august assembly—a fact which certainly could not have escaped notice although, as far as I can ascertain, there has been no reference to it in the newspapers of the country which are
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assumed to inform the general public of what happens in Westminster—was the appearance of hordes of noble Lords who, at the critical moment when a Division was about to take place, suddenly appeared.
I am open to correction, and if any noble Lord cares to interrupt me I shall not regard it as a challenge, but as far as I can gather those noble Lords who deprive us of their presence during the course of the debate but suddenly thrust themselves upon us, as I have already remarked, at a critical moment, appear to have no knowledge whatever of what has been happening. They come in and under instructions—I will not say under pressure, because I would never dare to accuse Her Majesty's Government of exercising any kind of pressure on their supporters—but they come in without any knowledge, indeed it is questionable whether they are familiar with the Bill—at any rate if they are they have not exposed their views—they decide to vote. The question I ask myself, and I shall have to find the answer to the question myself, and perhaps I am more fitted to provide the answer to my own question than to leave it to the noble Lords opposite, even those on the Front Bench—
LORD HENLEY: The noble Lord ought to know the answer to his question. as he has asked himself the question so many times in the last fortnight.
LORD SHINWELL: I have great sympathy with the members of the Liberal Party. I am trying to think of a political expression, but for the moment my language is a bit impoverished and I just say what comes into my mind, but they are a "wash-out." They advertise themselves, no doubt at great expense. Where the expense comes from I am unable to ascertain. Perhaps they would be kind enough to inform me; perhaps they would let me know where their funds come from. Perhaps if we knew where their funds come from we would be better informed about the state of their minds and could understand their speeches.
As I was about to remark when I was interrupted, I ask myself why these noble Lords come in at a certain moment, and whom are they voting against?
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: The noble Lord said that he did not

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mind being interrupted, so I should like to ask him whether he can put his hand on his heart and say that in another place he had not come straight into the Division Lobby before going into the Chamber?
LORD SHINWELL: I regard any reference to the other place, whether it is critical or complimentary, as being irrelevant, and I do not care to discuss it. I am asking myself a question and I cannot get the answer to it because of the interruptions—and now there is another one.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: May I also ask the noble Lord whether he will put his hand on his heart and say that neither he nor his noble friends will come in at an unexpected moment, as he calls it?
LORD SHINWELL: I suggest that our attendance proportionately is much higher than the attendance on the other side of the Committee.
A NOBLE LORD: Rubbish!
LORD SHINWELL: I am really surprised at the noble Earl, who I believe is a person of some intelligence, interrupting quite unnecessarily and gratuitously. Unless there are further interruptions, I must address myself to my own question. Why is it that noble Lords who thrust themselves upon us at a certain moment decide to vote against the Amendments proposed from this side of the Committee? Can the reason be that, having gathered what it is all about, they feel so strongly against the Amendment that they decide to vote against it?
VISCOUNT DAVENTRY: May I interrupt for a moment? I left this Committee at about half-past seven, when the noble Lord was speaking. I returned at twenty minutes past nine, and I find that he is still speaking. Have I missed anything?
LORD SHINWELL: Observe what has happened as a result of my intervention. There have been more speeches—short, it is true—from the other side of the Committee since I rose than we have had during the whole course of our proceedings. It is a tribute to my persuasive powers. I should be delighted if there were more speeches, perhaps a little more prolonged and more to the point and related to the Bill, with which I presume
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the noble Viscount is familiar. I presume that the members of the Government read the newspapers and the comments about the turbulence which is a characteristic of all trade unionists in the country, the comments on wildcat strikers and official strikes, and so on, and therefore they dislike them intensely. Indeed, there are some noble Lords—and again if I am corrected I shall be glad to accept it—who just hate the trade union movement. It is still more remarkable that, despite their dislike of the trade union movement, they are so anxious to strengthen it. It is what some turkey farmers do some weeks before Christmas; they fatten the turkeys to kill them. It is a very interesting exercise, but that is not the sort of thing we would expect from noble Lords in this Assembly.
Well, what is to be done about it? Already we have had several debates on Amendments, every one of them rejected. As my noble friend who is leading for us (and if I may say so, leading with great skill; and as one who is an admirer of oratory and political skill I say that with great pleasure) said, we have had all these debates and so on; and not a single Amendment has been acceptable. It is true that one or two items have been gathered to the Front Bench opposite for consideration. My suspicion is that there will be precious little consideration. I know people in the Government much better than some of those who have not been associated with Governments in the past. I am familiar with their tricks and their evasions and their subterfuges, and all the rest. I suspect that we are going to get no consideration at all.
I am speaking personally, not for my Party. It does not seem to matter two hoots—I would venture on an expression I used many years ago that got me into a heap of trouble; it would not matter a tinker's cuss whether this legislation passed or not. You can have all the law relating to trade unionism you can devise; you can have all the legislation. But at the end of the day, legislation, and more, will not prevent turbulence among the workers of this country unless the legitimate claims of the workers are understood and fully met.
At the end of the day what is going to happen? Take, for example, this code of practice—and here I must say, almost

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in parenthesis, although it is clearly related to the question that the clause stand part, that I have never, in all my association with Westminster, which I think goes back much further than that of anybody on the Front Bench opposite, or indeed in the other place, experienced an occasion when legislation was introduced and when one of the principal topics of debate was an item about which even the Government had to admit in the course of the debate they knew little or nothing—namely, the code of practice. They have debated it in a vacuum. We asked: what is this code of practice; what will it embody; how will it be relevant to the proposed legislation? And there is no answer, no answer at all.
All we are asked to do is to wait and see. We are told that in due course the code of practice will be presented to both Houses of Parliament. There may be consultation with bodies outside, consultation with Parliament; but at the present, when we ought to be discussing, and indeed are discussing, the vital principles associated with this legislation (and that is admitted by the other side) we are told that the Government are unable to say a word—or perhaps unwilling to say a word—about the content, the embodiment of the code of practice. This is what we have been debating, and yet there is not a word. I do not think it matters very much if the Government push their legislation through. They will; they have the body of the Press behind them, and they have noble Lords, who are unfamiliar with the subject but are ready to vote in favour of the legislation. They carry all the big guns, and they are going to use them with all their might and strength—I was about to say with all their soul, but I do not think that they have a soul. At the end of the day they will believe that they have gained a victory. I assure them they will have gained no victory. The only victory that is relevant to industrial relations of the kind that every right-thinking person desires is co-operation. That is precisely what the Government have failed to achieve. Indeed, they have not only failed to achieve it, but failed to attempt it. I notice that the noble and learned Lord indulged in an interjection, which was inaudible to me.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I only said that the noble Lord has invented the
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nearest thing to perpetual motion I have ever heard of.
LORD SHINWELL: I have watched the noble and learned Lord very often in the other place. He perpetrates what he believes is a jocular remark and laughs uproariously at it. Indeed, he infects others around him. They are a bit reluctant to be infected, but they cannot help themselves; being what he is, they have to follow. I advise him not to try that sort of thing on me. He knows me better than that. So I come to the conclusion—no, I did not mean I was coming to my conclusion. I can assure your Lordships I can go on like this for hours. Do not be surprised if some night I do go on for hours. I used to do it in the other place frequently. The noble and learned Lord agrees with me. It is a kind of refresher course.
It must not be thought that what I am saying is irrelevant to the subject, or that I am indulging in a few jocular observations. I am very serious about this, and I shall tell your Lordships why. I recognise, and have recognised for many years, that there are defects in the trade union movement of this country. I was associated with the trade unions for a long time, and I recognise that there are defects and there is need for reform. But the reform we require is not the kind of reform that is likely to develop as a result of this legislation. I believe that every responsible trade union leader—even some who indulge in observations which seem to be disagreeable to noble Lords, or employers' organisations—recognises that some reform is necessary; amalgamation of unions, and, perhaps what is more important than anything else, to restrain malcontents, the intransigents, the people who fly off the handle, the people who become bored on the shop floor. I do not know whether noble Lords have read an article which appears, strangely enough, in the new Daily Mail. I am not going to charge them for that advertisement, but there is an article by somebody in to-day's Daily Mail which I advise noble. Lords to read. It is by somebody who managed to obtain employment, as a result of which he worked on the shop floor for several weeks or months. He writes of the boredom, of the attitude of foremen and under-managers, and those

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"drest with a little brief authority". He writes about men anxious to work, and because they cannot obtain components are unable to work. He writes about the effect of productivity resulting in redundancy on a large scale. Trade union leaders arc aware of this, and noble Lords ought to make themselves aware of it.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: May I remind the noble Lord that the writer also writes of a chargehand who refused to allow bad work to be rectified?
LORD SHINWELL: I can understand that happening. I did not require to be informed about that. I do not think that was a necessary intervention. We take that for granted. Of course that sort of thing happens on the shop floor. But I direct attention to this very interesting article in a newspaper from which one would not have expected it, certainly not in the first issue of the new Daily Mail. These are the things that are happening, and trade union leaders are anxious to correct these defects. So are we all: but they are not going to be corrected as a result of this legislation.
My conclusion is this—and I think it is a logical conclusion: what is going to be the use of such legislation unless, at the end of the day, we are going to develop a better understanding between those who work on the shop floor and, through their representatives in the trade unions, the employers and their organisations? In other words, and I admit this is repetition, we have to ensure effective cooperation and (to use the term which has appeared more often than not in the legislation and in the speeches of noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite) an understanding of what is desirable in the national interest.
One of the strange things about some of the speeches I have heard, and some of the articles I have read, in relation to this subject is the assumption that those on the trade union side are not concerned about the national interest. All I have to say is: anybody at all, whether in a trade union or an employers' organisation, or whether in the other place or in your Lordships' House, who is not primarily concerned with the national interest ought to be ashamed of himself.
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We are bound to be concerned about the national interest, because if we discard considerations affecting the national interest then all else is just a thing of shreds and patches. That is the position. These are the assumptions which I think are guiding noble Lords on the other side, and which make them vote against quite logical and reasonable Amendments.
After all, what is it that my noble friend Lord Diamond is seeking to achieve, along with his colleagues on this side of the Committee, particularly those who come from the trade unions and who not long ago came from the mines and from the benches and the rest of it in industry? What is it they are trying to achieve? They are trying to reach some kind of arrangement so as to satisfy the general order of trade unionists in the country, and to give to the general public some assurance that, one of these days, there will be conciliation based on cooperation and on justice. That is all they are trying to achieve—and I am speaking not with any desire to orate or anything of that sort, because I feel this sort of thing keenly.
Here I venture on a really personal note. In all these discussions that have taken place, in all the wildcat strikes that have been troubling us for many years now, in all the dangers of an industrial and economic recession and all the rest of it, the one thing that concerns me is: what is going to happen to our country? There is too much of the defeatist attitude; too much of the "Stinking fish!" cry. I do not like it at all. I believe—and here I indulge in a few clichés which can be understood, even if the rest of my speech is misunderstood—that there is much character and quality, skill and talent residing in the people of this country that can be harnessed in co-operation and with good will to preserve the best interests of the country. This is what is wanted. This legislation will not achieve it, of that I am assured. All right: let the Government go on and defeat our Amendments.
In other words, I say to noble Lords—and I say it in no spirit of malice—enjoy yourselves at our expense. Bring in the backwoodsmen. Bring them in and vote us down. Go on doing it. That sort of thing has happened before. I have seen it happening during much of my political life. But the trade unions of the country

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will survive in spite of it, and the spirit of trade unionism will survive in spite of it. I say to noble Lords: "Vote us down! Go on doing it! In the long run you will gain very little as a result—and perhaps you will lose a great deal." I ventured to remark the other day that the Government in your Lordships' House have won many of the battles and have not yet won the war but that one consideration and should be uppermost in their minds as a result of this legislation is that they are unlikely to win the peace. I believe that we are right on this side of the House and are justified in voting against this clause.
LORD HANKEY: The noble Lord who has just sat clown is absolutely right. We are going to vote them down on this. This is one of the best clauses in the Bill, and I am impressed with the assurances that the Government have given on it. I believe that with the help of many trade unionists and people all over the country we shall succeed in putting into the code of industrial practice everything which is good for both sides of industry in this country. I believe that for the first time we shall have a really forward look in our trade union legislation and I hope that we shall vote it to success.
LORD BLYTON: I have never heard a more reactionary speech than that from the noble Lord on this side of the House, a noble Lord who has never had any experience in industrial affairs. One can expect that from one who has lived in the academic world. I happened to read his pedigree and I know what I am talking about. I would say this about Clause 4. I listened to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor very carefully to-day when I moved my Amendment, and he did not deny that in the civil law under this particular clause it is possible for men who refuse to pay the fines—or the "compensation", as he called it—to find themselves in gaol. This is the awful effect of the civil remedies in the civil courts. I have been five times in court for breach of contract, and I remember when they used to fine us thirty shillings a day damages and the attachment order was made by the county court judge to take two shillings a day off your wages. The horrible thing was that to have this deducted from your wages by an employer with whom you had been in dispute created the worst possible industrial
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relations after the court had settled the case. This clause will take away from the worker the right to dispute with their employers in court. This right is to be conferred on them as a privilege if they register as a trade union.
I want to say to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that, with all his fine words, this clause must penalise the trade union movement for taking action that has been normal practice in all the 52 years that I have been connected with the trade unions. I shall support my friends to-night in voting against this clause.
9.44 p.m.
LORD GARDINER: We are now at the end of Part I of this Bill, and I think your Lordships will agree that, while I have listened a great deal, I have said virtually nothing. I should like in three or four minutes to make a few observations about Part I of the Bill. My noble friends have expressed their political objections to the Bill, which naturally I share; but I should have thought that any lawyer would agree that the Bill suffers from three grave defects. It is far too long, far too complicated, and it is trying to do much too much. There are some well-drafted Bills and I am not suggesting that this is not well-drafted-and there are many ordinary Bills, which one can discuss perfectly well clause by clause. If they are logically set out, one is not necessarily dealing with one clause in order to deal with a later clause. But as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, stressed on the Second Reading of the Bill, one of the great difficulties is the way it hops about: in one Part some tribunal is appointed and in other Parts you learn what its jurisdiction is and then what course it can take and what order it can make. For this you may have to go to some remote Schedule. That is why it is quite impossible to discuss Part I of the Bill, for example, without referring to any other Part.
One of our difficulties has been that although we have asked questions (I think it was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, who first raised the question in relation to inducement to break a contract) as to why the ordinary common law defence of justification had been left out, we did not get any answer. When you

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are dealing, as in Part I, with its effect on Sections 92 and 94 and you have again raised the question, you are told "That is a later clause in the Bill." It is a very confusing Bill to discuss from that point of view, because it is so spread about and each Part is related to every other Part. We had, inevitably, a particularly difficult time over Part I, because I do not recollect any other legislation which has ever been before Parliament where so much depends on what I gather will be itself a very lengthy and complex document which nobody has yet seen but which is constantly referred to in the Bill—the code of practice. One understands the Government's desire to get the legislation through as quickly as possible, and I should have thought the most sensible course would have been to postpone consideration of the Bill until September, or until such time as we have seen the code of practice; because until then none of us can possibly know what we are talking about.
The only other observation I would venture to make, and I do so, in particular, seeing that the noble Earl the Leader of the House is here, is this. I am personally very disappointed with the course this Bill has so far taken. I understood—I am not sure that the Government have not said this publicly elsewhere—that the Government were going to take seriously any Amendments to this Bill made by the House of Lords. Now if that was the intention, that could not possibly have meant if, but only if, the Conservative Whips slipped up in some way by not providing at least three times as many hereditary Peers as are necessary to oppose every Amendment. So far we have moved 21 Amendments, of which none has been accepted. This is simple, of course, but it is not what I understood to be intended. I must frankly say that I did not share the strong view expressed by some of my noble friends about the words, "of itself". It is difficult to see that any court would construe that clause in a different way, whether or not the words "of itself" were there. Why on earth, in a case like that, the Government cannot accept the Amendment, I do not know. Of course, if they are determined to resist every Amendment, then of course there will be no House of Lords Amendments; we all know that. However, I understood that the Government's intention
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was to reject some Amendments and accept others. All I can say is if their conduct continues as it has done through Part I, we are really going through a charade.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: I feel there is one thing which is very important in this connection and that is that the code is a two-edged sword. It affects both employers and trade unions. But in particular I feel it is important that the Industrial Court should be able to use the code of practice (a) as evidence, particularly in the case where the employer has failed to observe the code of practice, and (b) where it appears to be relevant to any question, in setting out that question. In my opinion this question is much more likely to concern an employer than a trade union. Also, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said, the code of practice could be used in the defence of any claim, which I feel would be much more likely to help the trade unions than to hinder them. As the whole structure of the code of practice was stated in Clause 2(2), which places the responsibility for the code on management, and not on unions, I feel that this clause is bound to be to the benefit of the unions. To weaken it would be much more likely to do harm to an efficiently run union. The one thing I hope that it will do is "clobber" bad management, and that is exactly what the code of practice will achieve.
LORD GARDINER: Before he sits down, would the noble Earl tell us how he knows that, when he does not know what is going to be in the code of practice?
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: I have read Part I very carefully. To me it makes absolute, straightforward common sense.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not want to take up the time of the Committee, but there have been a series of Second Reading speeches—indeed, that of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, could hardly have been less than a "Queen's Speech speech". It had nothing to do with the Bill at all. The rest of the speeches were all Second Reading speeches, except that of my noble friend Lord Balfour, who spoke to the Motion that the clause stand part of the Bill, and I think I agree with every word he

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said. But, out of courtesy to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, I should like—
LORD BESWICK: What do you mean, "courtesy"?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: What do I mean by what? The noble Lord asked me a question.
LORD BESWICK: Yes. I simply thought the way in which the phrase was used was a little offensive.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, thought that. I thought that it would have been discourteous not to reply to his elaborate "Second Reading speech". If the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, does not feel it is worth a reply, he may very well be right. But I certainly do not mean any discourtesy to the noble and learned Lord. I simply wanted to say this. He complained that the Bill was too long. He complained that it was too complicated. He complained that it attempted too much. Those were the three criticisms—all Second Reading criticisms; none of them relating to the Motion, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
To the charge that the Bill is too long, I would say that the Bill of the Government of which the noble and learned Lord was a Member, had no teeth at all and contained 100 clauses and eight Schedules. Ours has only 161, and it has teeth and nine Schedules. So that is not bad. The Bill is much less long than the Companies Act; it is much less complicated than the Companies Act and it attempts much less than the Companies Act. It attempts to provide, in the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan (who spoke from the Cross-Benches) on Second Reading. a more appropriate occasion, what has been wanted for very many years—a comprehensive, legal code for industrial relations. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, thought that we need that; and so do I. Apparently, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, differs and in that respect I differ from him.
As regards his slighting reference to hereditary Peers, I would only say, as one who now has no interest in the matter, that I very much resent this
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reference to my noble friends. My noble friend, Lord Carrington, who is an hereditary Peer, did his very best to reform the House of Lords in the former Parliament, and his efforts were very much appreciated by many. But they were defeated, very largely by the efforts of the extreme wing of the Party of which the noble and learned Lord is a member, and which tries to conceal its divisions by attacking the Conservative Party. But, if I may say so respectfully, in the meantime we have our constitutional duty to perform. It is true, of course, that they have not listened to all the speeches of Lord Shinwell and Lord Davies of Leek as I have. I am not sure how much they have missed, but what I would say to them both is this. I expressed the hope that we should manage at some stage in the Committee stage of this Bill to discuss those parts of the Bill which had not been formally discussed in the other place, but in fact all we have done is to spend a week reiterating the Amendments which were exhaustively discussed in the other place; and not even discussing those with any degree of rationality, but discussing them in the context of misrepresentation of what the rest of the Bill contains, and in the context of Second Reading speeches on mere generalities which are hardly worthy of reply.
LORD DIAMOND: I sense that your Lordships would wish to come very shortly to a conclusion on this clause, as to which we are not going to reach agreement and as to which the noble and learned Lord has made the differences between the two sides greater than before—as I am bound to say he mostly does in the interventions which he has made to us. May I make one procedural point, as we have the pleasure of the company of the noble and learned Earl the Leader of the House? I make this point clearly out of ignorance and not out of knowledge. I have some experience of another House, where the Solicitor General and the Attorney General regard themselves as law officers, able and open to advise the House, another place.
I had, but I was obviously wrong, the impression that we were to be similarly assisted here. Obviously I was wrong. I have checked and I find that there is no such clearly established tradition here.

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Therefore your Lordships will not be surprised when I say that, as to the two questions about the law on which I was going to ask the benefit of the advice of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor I shall not trouble him, because obviously what we are being supplied with are very skilful debating points, irrespective of whether they fit in with an accurate and objective view of the law or not. It is beyond the capacity of anyone both to be a very active political debater, concerned with making skilful debating points, and at the same time to be an objective cool-headed legal adviser on matters of difficult and deep controversiality. I therefore do not think it would be right for me to delay your Lordships by questions on the law iteself. I am bound to say however that on the clause which is before us, which gives legal effect to the code of practice, the more I think about it the more I think we were wise at an earlier stage on this side of the House to withhold discussion until we have a code of practice in front of us. I say this the more so because we have had speeches, including the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Platt, about the effect of this clause on non-industrial employees.
One only has to refer to the most recent statement by the right honourable gentleman, the Secretary of State, to realise in what an absurd position we are being placed. He said as recently as April 29:
"The code will be universal. We want trade union membership to increase and believe that it will. But this is a code of practice for industrial relations and for every company in every centre of employment in the economy and therefore it must be universal and apply to non-trade unionists as well as to trade unionists."
That is to say, the number which is affected is not of the order of 12 million but of 25 or 26 million persons in the
land. We are being seriously asked to define the position in the legal framework of a code designed to affect the conduct of some 26 million people and have not been given any idea of what is to be in the code.
Coming back to the suggestion made earlier, it would be stupid for us to attempt to reach a sensible conclusion on this when we have not the code in front of us. I think we would be wiser to recommit this clause until the code is before us, so that we can see to what extent the code affects the provisions; but in so far as this clause contains provisions referring to the industrial court and other machinery in which the code of practice will be taken into account, we are wholly opposed to it, because we are satisfied that this is the wrong way of going about improving industrial relations. This has been well said by many of my noble friends in this debate and therefore I will leave it at that.
The way to influence public attitudes and public opinion to better and more understanding of industrial relations is by persuasion and by an agreed code of conduct, which represents the past experience of employers and employees throughout the country. The way to put the clock back and to destroy such co-operation as has been effected is to have at the end of the day the enforcement of legal provisions such as we have discussed. Just think what a mockery they would make of industrial relations. I hope, therefore, that noble Lords, both those who have heard the debate and those who have heard only a part of it, will support us in the Division Lobby.
10.4 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 116; Not-Contents, 41.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Belstead, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Berkeley, Bs.

Clwyd, L.

Allerton, L.

Blackburn, Bp.

Colville of Culross, V.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Conesford, L.

Amory, V.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Arran, E.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Cowley, E.

Balerno, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Craigavon, V.

Balfour, E.

Buchan, E.

Craigmyle, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Burgh, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Beauchamp, E.

Carrington, L.

Croft, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Chesham, L.

Cromartie, E.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Inglewood, F.

St. Helens, F.

Daventry, V.

Jellicoe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

St. Just, F.

Denham, F. [Teller.]

Kemsley, V.

St. Oswald, F.

Derwent, L.

Killearn, L.

Sandford, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Kilmany, L.

Sandys, L.

Dudley, E.

Kilmarnock, L.

Savile, L.

Eccles, V.

Lansdowne, M.

Selkirk, E.

Effingham, E.

Latymer, L.

Selsdon, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Lauderdale, E.

Sempill, Ly.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Lothian, M.

Sinclair of Cleeve, L.

Essex, E.

Lyell, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Exeter, M.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Falmouth, V.

Ferrers, E.

Margadale, L.

Ferrier, L.

Merthyr, L.

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Gage, V.

Molson, L.

Swaythling, L.

Gisborough, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Templemore, L.

Glendevon, L.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Teviot, L.

Goschen, V. [Teller.]

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Thomas, L.

Gowrie, E.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Townshend, M.

Gray, L.

Pender, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Greenway, L.

Platt, L.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, Bs.

Grenfell, L.

Radnor, E.

Verulam, E.

Hailes, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Vivian, L.

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

Reading, M.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Redesdale, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Henley, L.

Redmayne, L.

Westminster, D.

Hives, L.

Rothermere, V,

Wigram, L.

Hood, V.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Windlesham, L.

NOT-CONTENFS

Archibald, L.

Fiske, L.

Popplewell, L.

Bacon, Bs.

Gaitskell, Bs.

Rusholme, L.

Balogh, L.

Gardiner, L.

St. Davids, V.

Bernstein, L.

Garnsworthy, F. [Teller.]

Serota, Bs.

Beswick, L.

Heycock, L.

Shackleton, L.

Birk, Bs.

Hoy, L.

Shinwell, L.

Blyton, L

Janner, L.

Slater, L.

Brockway, L.

Lindgren, L.

Snow, L.

Burntwood, L.

Llewelyn-Davies, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Champion, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Collison, L.

Maelor, L.

Walston, L.

Davies of Feek, L.

Milner of Feeds, L. [Teller.]

White, Bs.

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Diamond, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Clause 4 agreed to accordingly.
House resumed.

HIGHWAYS BILL
Reported from the Committee with Amendments and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House: Bill to be printed as amended.